Freelance with an Abundance Mindset with Content Marketer- Carina Wytiaz

This is Creative Counsel Episode 72: From Corporate to Freelance with an Abundance Mindset with content marketer Karina Wattayas. Welcome to Creative Counsel with Brittany Rettell. I'm your host, Brittany, an attorney for creatives who believes in solid contracts and cute office supplies and who wants to empower you to be a more confident business owner. Whether you're a creative, influencer, maker, artist, shop owner, or content creator, you are not just a blank. You are a real bona fide business owner. So let's help you own your business and get you legally legit with Brit. Hi, this is your host Brittany Rettell hopping in here real quick before the episode. Um, just want to give an apology and a disclaimer out. This episode was recorded quite a while ago, and it's not because it wasn't an awesome conversation. I didn't appreciate Karina's time. I did, and I still do, and I'm so excited that's finally coming out now and you get to hear it. But we had a couple of setbacks between COVID nonsense, and then also, uh, we had a hard drive failure, and this is one of the interviews unfortunately that was lost on it for quite some time until we could recover all of that. So, um, but that's neither here nor there, and we're— I'm taking valuable time away from instead of getting to the goodness that is our conversation with this amazing, uh, Karina, who's gone from working in corporate to freelancing and back to corporate, um, all the while upleveling her skills as a product manager, as a copywriter, and now as a full-on content manager. Um, and so grateful for her insight just because she has seen the industry and the rise of content marketing, and now more than just the words on a page and, you know, the, the feelings that you're giving to customers, but how does that fit into your overall strategy, um, and what's important. And I love hearing her perspective on that, and as well as just being a freelancer and how to make that a successful and profitable, um, and sane part of your life and business if that's the season and chapter that you're in right now, especially as a mama, as someone who's trying to have a healthy marriage and healthy life and whatnot and all that work-life balance. So I'm excited to share this conversation with you and make sure you check out the links in the show notes if you're interested in connecting with Karina anymore, or if you're interested in some of our other freelancer resources, if that's where you're at and want more support and how can you start setting up and creating some of those business boundaries to protecting your time and energy so that you can show up, do what you do best, share your skills with others, and also make sure there's enough of you left in the tank. So without further ado, let's get to the episode. Hello everybody and welcome back. I'm so excited to introduce our guest today is Karina Wattayas, and she is a marketing director, content strategist, and brand editor for technology companies. Her experience includes time at Franklin Covey, Marchex, Orange Soda, Workfront, and her own content consulting agency. She has a passion for killer writing and making sure women are included and empowered. Karina lives in Utah with her educator husband and 3 genius children, and in her spare time she loves designing, painting, baking, traveling, trivia contests, and making grand plans. Karina graduated from BYU with a degree in history and international relations, and we are so honored to have her on the podcast today.

Hi, Brittany. Hi, everybody.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here and just being willing to talk. Karina and I had the great chance to run into each other in Susan Peterson's front yard a couple of weeks ago, early Saturday morning that we thought was early, apparently not as early because there were some early worms that were there. Way before us who had cleaned Susan out of a lot of her beautiful things for her yard sale. But we had such a great conversation and just enjoyed talking and playing the who knows who game. And I thought, you know what, I really need to have Karina on here because she has had such an interesting journey of what she's done in her business and who she's worked with and what she's learned that I think you're going to have a lot of value from hearing our conversation today. So thanks so much for being on here. Tell us a little bit about where you got started business- twice.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. As we talked about, I went to BYU, and while I was at BYU, I'm one of those people, I had to pay my own way through school, and a lot of you probably know what that's like. So I was working all the time that I was at BYU in careers, and I actually was working at Barnes Noble when this woman came into the store who wanted a book, and found her what she was looking for. I was really passionate about the book that she was trying to buy, and she just took me aside and held my arm a little bit and said, what are you doing in a bookstore? And I'm like, I'm in school. I love it. She's like, no, you have, you've got something. And I work for a company called Covey Leadership Center. You need to reach out to me and let me give you my card. I think you really should consider being in business, if not sales or marketing or something. Let me find you a spot here. So give me a contact. So that, like, headhunted from a bookstore.

I don't think I've ever heard of that before.

No, I had never considered it. Considered a business career, to tell you the very honest truth. My parents are both professors, my grandparents were professors, my grandparents were in business, but that was several generations ago. But I took her up on that, and I sent her an email, I gave her a phone call, and I said, hey, it's the girl from the bookstore. And she said, absolutely, let me put you in touch with HR and you can kind of see what's open right now, and you have my recommendation. I think you're a really interesting, vibrant, passionate person, and I think you would do really well here. So I had not considered that. So I was 19 years old when I started at Covey Leadership Center, and I went through the merger with Franklin Covey and saw that whole side of things. I had started in the client services department, so where I was working with an account executive on the sales side, and then I was their custom customer success person that was helping order things for the customer and taking care of them and sending out invoices and answering those like personal customer care situations. Once I got out of school, I was able to leverage that position into a management position right out of BYU. So I had done my entry level really at— during school and then went into a technology company. And I hadn't anticipated going into technology company. I was really— I loved computers. I found the internet. I've been online, um, since 1994, so quite a while.

Like, gee, like bragging rights there. No kidding.

Yeah, green screens, like the whole thing before there was a www in front of anything, way before MySpace. Yeah. Way before MySpace, but really had a passion for technology. But right out of school, I was trying to decide if I wanted to go to grad school in which I had had an undergrad in, or if I wanted to go to law school. And law school had always been my plan, like since I was a young teenager. I really wanted to go to law school. And Brittany, you're probably laughing so hard at that. You're like, who dreams of going to law school? But I did. I wanted to be a lawyer.

Hey, you know what? But yeah, there's— there, there are many paths that lead to Oz.

Yeah, I took a year off to try to decide if I was start studying for else at and go down that pathway or apply to grad schools to become a professor, because that's really the life that I knew and the life that I understood and that life that made sense to me. And it was— it's a great life. But I went to work for this technology company managing their, um, customer experience, heading up their customer experience department, and I loved it. It was at a small startup. There were like 20, 25 of us at the company, so we had to be really scrappy. Everybody was young. The CEO of the company was 40, who seemed so old to to me then and it's not so old to me now. But one of those companies where because you're moving really quickly, you get to try a lot of stuff and wear a lot of different hats. And it was so much fun. And at that company, I had started blogging in my part-time, as so many of us did, 18 years ago and just writing. And I was writing at the company and every time somebody had something to write in marketing or what marketing team, there were like 3 people in the marketing department. We all had the same kind of boss, they kept giving things to me to write. And so I was just— they're like, you're a good writer, will you just write this for us? Will you do it?

You're just so good at it, can you do this please? Yeah. And you're like, okay, yeah, flattery doesn't charge these batteries, but like, also you're correct. Okay, I'll write it.

Yeah. You know, and I just figured out that, um, in business, what, really good writers are a dime a dozen in grad school. And in even in law circles, you have to be a good writer even to even get into law school. Or at least somebody who has cracked that. But in the business world, good writers, good editors are harder to find. And landing inside the business and figuring out that I was really good at writing and at editing and about clarifying messages and figuring out how to message products, how to talk to the marketplace, ad copy, copywriting, all of that stuff was nothing that I went to school for technically. Like, I didn't graduate with a communications degree, right? I didn't go to the Ad Lab at BYU, although maybe I should have. But my history degree is a writing degree. It is a research degree, and you have to read a great deal of information and produce really well-written material, really well-written essays and positions, and synthesize a great deal of information and come to a point. And it really, truly— that background in history prepared me to take a job inside marketing, inside of a business company, taking all of those editorial skills and like producing the right documents. And I started doing stuff that now we call content marketing, but there wasn't even a name for it back then. Yeah, it was just, you write this, will you write that? And it looks like we need something, maybe like a 9-page document that kind of explains a little bit more about what our company does.

A white page, or yeah.

Exactly. And like something that later we would call a white paper or an ebook or all of that. None of that existed back then 20 years ago. And so really coming into it organically and what the business needed to be successful and where my talents and my skills were able to help the business be successful.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I love that you— I love that the shout out to that. It's— you don't always have to study that in school. School to get— it's about the acquisition of skills. And so I think that's a really good lesson for all of us, is that don't be hung up by what your degree is necessarily, whether even you have a benefit degree or what it says on their certificate. It's all about are those skills going to be marketable, and are you able to have the introspection enough to see and notice what am I good at, what do people keep on asking me to do, and maybe there's something here that I should make sure I'm developing and putting forward. Yeah.

That CEO that I landed with, that job, he— I remember interviewing with him and he looked at my resume and I had a little bit of insecurity. I didn't have a business degree. I don't have that background. But he looked at my resume and he goes, oh, thank goodness, not another business major. What CEO says that? But he was like, you humanities and social science people, you really know how to think. You are critical thinkers and you think outside of the box and you have the capacity to not just solve something because somebody give you a formula. You have a way of looking at things and trying to really figure out how to solve a problem. You have problem-solving skills, which I thought was such a great thing to hear and that not a lot of people hear when you graduate with a degree that is not a business degree, but yet you're interested in going into business.

Yeah, no, I— amen. I think that's really smart. So that's awesome. So after your time in tech company, let me know because I want to weave in here what was happening in terms of your career journey and having a family and bringing kids involved, because we are— this is part of our life for many of us and trying to weave that in. So how did things look like in terms of staying in corporate and then some of the other paths that you've gone to?

I kept working after my first child was born. I think I was 28 when my first child was born, a son, and my husband was— wasn't in school then. So we really had to figure out a balance of who was taking care of the child and when. I am lucky to have family in the area that I live in, and this this child was the first grandchild, so there were no shortage of arms, of loving arms. Yes, who really wanted to. And so we didn't end up needing at the beginning to find either a daycare or a nanny. We did a little bit later on, we had to explore some of those options, but right at the beginning we didn't have that. I was able to pay my sister for a while, to pay my cousin for a while. So being around family definitely had some really great options that presented it for us. But I was working full-time with my first child and up until my second child was born. So I, the company that I had worked for had grown. They'd been acquired by another company and I had grown as well. So I'd gone from customer services, customer experience into the operations side of the business. So really looking at who, what, where, when, why, all of that stuff and kind of optimizing the operations inside the company, both like how many people are in departments, what do we need to accomplish, and really thinking about how all of the moving pieces of a business fit together to make it more efficient. I wasn't as good as that, I'm going to tell you the honest truth. But it's one of those things like I kept trying things and sometimes I was good at them and sometimes I wasn't. But what was— but what I did have was a really supportive work environment with people who were open to giving me those kind of responsibilities. And if that didn't work, then moving into another spot. And that's something you can do if you're in a startup or something smaller where you're able to move around to where the business needs and try things out and see if you're good at them. I moved from that into product management, which now we know what a product manager is, but back then nobody knew what a product manager was. But a product manager really looks at what product does the business— what, how does that product need to grow in order to meet the needs in the market? They talk to customers and understand what their customers' needs are and they understand, and then they talk to the engineering side of things. The development side of things, and you figure out what is capable, what are we capable of building, and is it both what customers need and what we think they're going to need? Because a lot of times people come to you and say, I need a product that does LMNOP, and you look at them, you're like, okay, that's interesting. They're asking for it to do X, you know, LMNOP, but what they really want is XYZ. Um, they want your— you have to think as a product manager several steps of the customer because they're trying to buy you your product to do a specific thing. And so you're not— and And you're trying to make sure that fills the need, that product fills the need, but also trying to think ahead of what is it that they're really trying to solve instead of what they're telling you they're trying to solve. So it was a really interesting place to be in the business. Product managers have to talk to a lot of people. They have to be able to speak the business side. They have to be able to speak to the engineering side. In my case, I was doing things as much as like writing functional specs for the engineers to actually build the code off of. That was really a great education. That product management side where I was there for about a couple of years doing product manager. And again, to tell you the truth, I wasn't a great product manager. I was a mediocre product manager.

I w—

I was, I had the capability of doing the raw elements of the job, but I, but I wasn't a great product manager. It was really hard work for me, which I don't think that things should come easy all the time, but it is a hard slog for you and it's not something you enjoy. It's something to maybe take a look at and see if like there's a better way.

If there's a better fit. Yeah. The fit's not, just not quite right.

Yeah. Yeah. I was able to do that. And I was at a new company then called Orange Soda that did internet marketing. That's where I was, did the bulk of my product management work. But we really, I had the ability right then. I had this point where right before I went to Orange Soda, I had, was having my second child. The job that I was in was moving to Seattle with the acquisition of the company. And I had to decide, do I want to move with this company? To Seattle where I didn't have a network, where I didn't have family to help me. And I had a 3-year-old and, and my husband was finishing his last like 2 months of school and doing his student teaching. And I had to make that decision in March. And if you know anything about school years, of course, like his work wasn't going to be finished until April, maybe June, maybe like in that timeframe. And we had to decide if I wanted to move with the company or if I wanted to stay and find something else. And I decided to stay and find something else. I figured with a toddler and a newborn, the opportunity that they were offering me was just not that interesting, and I didn't think it was worth moving 1,000 miles away from where I was, right, for that particular opportunity. I probably would have been interested if it was a different opportunity, but I wasn't that excited about the work that they were asking me to do. And so I had to take a real hard look, and there I was with a newborn, 2 months old, I didn't have a job. My husband had finished his student teaching and he didn't have a job either. We had like just a tiny bit of savings and I had two job offers in front of me, one from the people that I had worked with before who started a new company called Orangina, and then with a company called Omniture that would go on later to be acquired by Adobe. That was— I had two offers in front of me. One was at Omniture to be a product manager for them. It was a product manager position and it came with the big price tag. Like the big salary. It came with almost no stock options, but that big salary. But it was full-time, definitely in the office. And then Orange Soda was there, people who I'd worked with before, a high-trust situation, work that I understood, and I knew what I would be doing. It was product management, but they were willing to cut me. They wanted— they offered me part-time in the office and part-time at home, but literally half the salary of what Omniture was offering. But a ton of stock. So I had to look at this on the table way.

I mean, it really— apples and oranges, because they're just different deals for sure.

Yeah, different deals. One is guaranteed money, but it is 40 to 50 hours in the office. The second, in a high-pressure environment. The second, and people that I didn't know. And then the second was a similar position but literally half the salary, but a ton of stock and the ability to work part-time and also design more of like more of a balance for what I was looking at. 3-year-old and my newborn, and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna take the gamble. I'm going to take the gamble on the stock and half the salary and that flexibility to work from home. Yeah. And that is for sure, you have to look back on things and see where there's fulcrum parts of your life where things like swing off of. And that was a huge decision to make, and I still don't know if I totally made the right one, but it was the right one for me.

Then it probably was. I think it's like Jodi Moore says, it's the one that you made, so it was the right one because it's You did, you know, and my husband's a math guy.

Yeah. So he's like, you made the best decision you had with the variables that were in front of you. Exactly. 100% true. And I had a great experience at Owner Center for a long time. I was able to move from product management there after a year into product marketing and then into marketing. And that's where I wrote my first white paper. That's where I wrote my first ebook. And I was writing ad copy for the first time and designing campaigns. And all of those things that traditionally come from marketing. We were able to— we did a brand rebrand and a brand refresh. And so really thinking through the architecture of what goes behind a brand, how do you want people to feel when they're interacting with you? What's the plan for 5 years out? What's the plan in the next 6 months? And really thinking about both your brand, the editorial part of the team, deciding the brand voice and tone for a company, and then having people adhere to it. All of that were things that I learned at Orangetoto, which were incredibly valuable.

That's awesome. And it sounds like you were able to hit your stride and be able to be settled in that pocket, which is really where you had your zone of genius and skills. You were, as you said, you did good. And I'm sure that you're being a little modest there because, yeah, you can tell that you're a sharp person and you're able to probably excel well in a lot of different things. But, but it sounds— and I can tell just from your voice and looking at you that like this is where you were meant to be in terms of doing your marketing wizardry.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Blogging was really hot at that time, the first wave of blogging. And I was a regular blogger. And that's what happened at my company is that one of the guys that I worked with on the leadership team, I was on the leadership team for a while there and then changed different responsibilities, but he read my blog and got other people inside the company to read my blog. And there's nothing more embarrassing than writing a blog and having your coworkers find it and then have them regularly reference things that they read on your blog.

In terms of Seinfeld worlds colliding, exhibit A would be that right there.

Yeah. What ended up being something thing where they were like, Karina, you can really write. Why aren't you really writing for us? Like, why are you in product management? Why are you doing that side of the business when it's clear that you have a talent for marketing, for writing and for marketing in particular? And I had never thought about marketing, like, even a million years.

In fact, I made fun of marketing all the time until you were in that hot seat.

Yeah. And it was like, Oh, you're good at it. Oh, you have a talent for it. Oh, you can think strategically in this one discipline in a way that you've always wanted to and always been trying to and couldn't quite find the right fit. I mean, people see the value that I could bring and encourage me to develop my career in that direction was really helpful. So I was able to do that for a while. I think it was owner-owned soda for 3 or 4 years. Yeah. It was a really great experience and I learned a lot. But then we, the company had a layoff and I was again at a point where I was trying to figure out what to do next with my life. And I went to work at a smaller company for a little while, for a few months afterwards that was doing, I was doing a lot of content for them and a lot of brand and editorial work. They had a bunch of smaller brands that they were holding and they were helping. And so it was my responsibility to support all of the different brands that they had inside there. It was interesting, but they came to the point again where they came to me and they said, we want you to do— can you do account management? Now I had done some account management at a previous company and I can do it, but I don't love doing it. And I think I'm okay at it. Like I'm good at it, but I don't love it. I don't think that's where my talents lay. And I knew I had more to offer a company than that. And so they were like, we're a small company. And I said, I totally understand that. And what I have been doing for you isn't what you— your company needs to be successful. And it's not a personal statement. And they were more than willing to say, we don't need that right now. We have this other opportunity. Are you willing to do that? But I wasn't willing to do it. And at that point, it was super scary because I was pregnant with my third child at that point. And I was like 6 weeks along, 8 weeks along. I'm so sick. And I just had this really time of reckoning when I had to say to myself, what's important to you? What do you really want? And the idea of being in an office full-time again, sick as a dog, sitting at my desk trying to pretend like I'm not sick— I, I had done that already.

Yeah, yeah, you'd see— you'd already seen that movie and you knew how it ended.

Yeah, so I knew how it ended. Like, I was— one of my best friends I worked with at this previous company, she had also been pregnant, and I remember our our desks were right next to each other. And there was one day where I could hear her start, and I just pulled out my wastebasket and handed it over to her so that she could go— like, we've been there, totally. Nothing more amazing than being so morning sick at your desk and trying to pretend not to be. And I had to have a real reckoning with myself about what I really wanted. And I realized that people kept asking me to write for them. And I kept turning them down because I had a job and I didn't— I was concentrating on my job and my career. But I was— had to be really honest with myself and go, I don't want to go back full-time in an office. I'm at the beginning of another pregnancy. If this is a difficult pregnancy like my second pregnancy was, where I'm throwing up every day and I am so sick, and a lot of you out there have been through that.

Yeah, the hyperemesis gravidarum, HG, is no joke. Joke.

Yeah, it's a joke. And thank goodness mine never rose to quite that level, but certainly sick every single day. Not a day goes by where I wasn't losing in a parking lot. Um, and looking at it and realizing what people keep asking you to do something and you keep saying no, but they're willing to pay you. They recognize that what you have, what your talents are, delivers value for them. And if you're at this point where people keep wanting to pay you and get— throw you money and you keep turning them down, like, that seems to be backwards. Why aren't you looking at what people are willing— what people want you to do and keep asking you to do, right? And I looked at my husband, who at that point was a teacher, and now he held this— he has this in the insurance and he has the steady income. And I said, you know what, I think we can do I'm pretty sure that I can make a decent enough living off of going freelance contract and helping other people that in your network fulfill their needs that you don't necessarily have to go back into an office full-time and pretend you're not sick when you really are. And so I put some feelers out there and I said, you know what, I'm going to start saying yes. And it was a really scary time because when you're pregnant and you've got 3 little ones and your husband's a teacher, that's not a lot of money. There's that.

Those are slim margins.

Yeah. It is a scary place to step, but we really felt— I really felt like it was either gonna be now or never, and I needed to see if I could do it. And I put it out there, and immediately people who I'd worked with over the years started contacting me and said, we're so glad. This is what we need to do. Can you help us? Yes, I can. We need XYZ. Can you help us do that? Absolutely, I can do that. And I just started to build this base of customers who kept coming to me who kept referring to me, who kept referring me. And I was able to build a business where I was making more than my husband was working part-time from my house than he was full-time as a teacher, which was extraordinary. I couldn't even believe that, like, I had that kind of flexibility and I had that kind of network. And to me, it was such a testament to investing in those relationships for the 10 years that I worked previously, building a network, proving value, and being a really good advocate and getting really good at what I was able to deliver for people so that people started reaching out to me. I was able to say yes and to start writing for people, writing messaging, writing websites, writing collateral, writing ad copy, thinking through all of that stuff that you do as a marketer and as a freelancer. I was able to start doing that for people and so well that I never had to market myself. I was never in a position where I had to go and ask people and start and pitch, and I didn't have to do that. Occasionally somebody would come in and say, I want you for this and I need you to come in and pitch yourself to my boss. But that's totally different than—

that's a conversation of, hey, we're interested, I just need to have some help with the other stakeholders, the other decision makers. Yeah.

So yeah, exactly. It was, it was an incredible experience and it was so right when I— it was exactly what I needed. And I was able to have exposure to so many different kinds of businesses, most of them technology, but some retail, working with some traditional advertising agencies and marketing agencies coming in under their umbrella and being a freelancer for them. So meeting, you know, new clients, new customers, and every single one of those opportunities was a way— it was and not just an opportunity for me to work and to earn money, but it was a way to build a network and to find new people that were able to spread, you know, the message of this is who we go to when we need this done, or we know that Karina can handle this, we're gonna give it to her and it's gonna come back exactly what we need at a price that it makes sense for both.

Right, it was gonna give you that social proof that you needed in terms of this skill set as a freelancer freelancer, as a consultant, that you could hold your own.

Yeah, absolutely. Had such great opportunities there. Got to do— meet incredible people, do work that I'm really proud of. But there did get to be a point where I was really tired of doing freelance and contract because now you have 100 bosses instead of one, and you're chasing invoices and you're running up your credit card bill. You're gonna get paid, you have a contract, it can take 60 days, 90 days sometimes for a company to pay you. That can be really stressful. And like balancing that with, is my work-life balance such that it's worth it to me to do that balancing act and wait for those invoices to come in and know that I'm going to pay off the credit card that's paying for our groceries and for our electricity as soon as that bill comes. It is awesome, but it is a little bit of that trade-off, right? You're trading the security of a monthly paycheck for betting on yourself and betting that you can and actually grow your skills, grow your network, and put food on the table. And I did it for a long time. I did it for almost 6 years. I was doing freelance and contract work, and it was fantastic. I learned so much, and it was exactly what we— what I needed at the time. But I got to a point where I got really tired, and I remember being in the parking lot one December. I get seasonal affective disorder, and December is always the worst for me. I'm a wreck usually in December, but back then I didn't even know that I had seasonal affective disorder. I was just sitting in there in the parking lot of my main customer, of my main client, and I was trying to psych myself up to go into the building. I'm like, you can do this, you can do this. I was literally in that parking lot for 30 minutes trying to make myself go inside that building to work for the client and deliver. Like, and they were actually my longest-term client at that point. I've been working with them for 3 and a half years. And then I just have this moment of clarity come over me in that parking lot that was like, you don't have to do this. You don't have to do this if you don't like it and it's not working for you. And in fact, it's a thing that you have to talk yourself into. You don't have to do this. You have options. And immediately I was like, oh, I don't have to do this. And I sent out a message to my network, to people that I knew and trusted and I'd done work for over the years and had worked for during at companies. I'd done contract work, I'd done freelance, and I said, hey, by the way, I am now looking to go in-house. I want a full-time position again at a company, and if anybody knows of a fit, I would love to talk to them. And if you know of some, of it, will you introduce me? And I— that's what I did.

Was that email scary for you? Did you feel like it was like, oh, I failed at this? Or yeah, what was there any mental work that you had to do to process that?

Yeah, it was a relief, and that's how I knew it was the right thing. It was a little scary because my youngest at that point was about to go into kindergarten, but not yet, and so I had to think about what that would mean for my child care and who would be, you know, able to handle kids coming home early from school or early out Fridays or whatever, all that stuff. And my husband being an educator— teaching is such a fantastic profession and education is so important but he has zero flexibility in his job. There's just— he's not— he can't come late to work because he had a child thing. He can't leave early because it's early out if his school schedule doesn't match up with that. We're in different districts. And so I realized that I really had to think about completely about how I was going to balance that going in full-time and how to balance the childcare aspect of it. And it was something that I really thought of, but, but I said a prayer and I looked around and I had a really good feeling about going full-time. And as soon as I sent out an email and I'm telling you within 24 hours, I had 3 people back in my inbox going, yeah, yes, we're interested. Let me— I had one friend who I'd worked with before at Workfront. He reached out to me and said, yes, absolutely. I'm interested. You write your job description. What do you want your job to be? I just have so much faith in you. I love working with you. I love how you're able to deliver. I know the value you can bring to a company. I know how the strategic mindset you bring, the writing capabilities that you bring, the energy that you can bring to a role, and we want you here. So awesome. What is your— what are your salary requirements? Write your job description. And that is how I ended up at Workfront, which, I mean, come on, how can you turn that down?

Like, how can it— can it get better on a silver platter?

No, probably it. It can't. And I— and that same person, her name is Carolyn, actually taught me a really important lesson a couple months ago, which is when it's easy, that's when it's right. If it comes to you and it's easy, you need to do it. You need to take it. And it's advice that I have ignored at certain points in my life, looking for the complexity or like just grinding it out and going, I'm just gonna just push a little harder and I'm going to work harder and I'm going to make this happen through force of will. But if something comes along and it's easy and it's just handed to you, it's probably the right thing and you should pursue it.

Not talk yourself out of it or not feel like there's maybe some inherent nobility in the struggle.

I am a hustler and a grader. Like, I will work myself to—

you don't get to that kind of real— you don't get to that kind of relationship or reputation without it, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really— there's a difference between grinding it and hustling and realizing that you are working into a place that isn't healthy for you and isn't healthy for your family. You are so stressed out, you are worried about either bills or your next role or whatever it is, and that if something easy comes along, look at it. That's how I knew that contracting freelance and having my own content agency was the right thing to do because it was easy I was turning down work already. That was a way to go. And now it took a leap of faith, especially for me when I'm risk-averse, to actually do that. But it was easy to do, and Workfront was easy to do, and it made such a difference realizing that I had so much value to bring to someplace that they were willing to move a mountain to make sure that I would get inside of the company.

Yeah, well, that's awesome. I just, I love hearing the perspective and the context that comes outside of these choices and the twists and turns. And just again, I think that you're one of those gifts that you have certainly is being thoughtful about looking at yourself and saying, what am I good at? What have I learned about myself for the situation of what nuggets can I pick up through the experience that I've had and seeing that there's always something to learn from something if you have an eye for that and you're being thoughtful and intentional about it.

I remember my first job out of high school was I was a waitress in like a diner. And immediately they were like, oh, she's such a hard worker that they wanted to advance me inside the company. And I had no idea that work ethic is really can set you apart from other people like that, that not just the capacity, but the willingness to apply yourself to work really hard, to be there first thing in the morning, not necessarily be the last one to leave at night, but be there 100% and work as hard as you possibly can. To deliver the most amount that you can to your teammates is something that is not common. I think I've heard that. Have you heard that Will Smith quote before where he's like, I may not be the smartest in the room. I may not be whatever it is in the room. You can make sure that I'm going to be the first one there and I might be the last one to leave and I will work harder than anyone else in the room. I'm not necessarily a big proponent of working 16-hour days. I think that's unsustainable and it's not a great idea. You can't do it for very long, I'm a huge proponent of working hard when you're—

when you are being really present there.

Yeah, super present and delivering what you need to and taking the opportunity that's in front of you and making the most out of it.

No, I think that's really good. How have you found in working for corporate, which not a ton of my listeners may be as familiar with that, but as they're growing their companies, they're finding these growing pains of what it's like to have a larger team and those dynamics. Where— wherever you find the balance in terms of, uh, trying to do what you can and be confident and advocate for your own skills, but also deal with politics and office politics in terms of people maybe putting their own interests or maybe self-aggrandizing. Like, how do you, how have you navigated some of those things that happen when you start to have more and more players on a team?

Yeah, sure. When I joined Workfront, I think there were like 600, maybe 700 people, which is a decently sized company, especially since some of my previous companies have been maxed out at 200 people, with the exception of of Franklin Covey. And you, it, the harder, the larger the company gets and the more hierarchy there is and the more complexity there is in the business, it does slow people down, right? Because there's just more on the line and there's more people that need to be involved in decisions. That's always been a struggle point for me because I like to move fast and that's why I like technology. That's why I love software companies is because you do move quickly. That whole Silicon Valley thing of move fast, break things, keep going. It's an ethos that I have really identified with over the years, although my views on that are changing. But that, so to me, going back to work at a traditional company was a non-starter. I was not interested in going to work at a traditional corporate company where they didn't understand work-life balance, where they didn't understand that if I want to leave at 2 o'clock because I want to leave at 2 o'clock or because I need to pick up a child from school, that is not an option.

You have to be butt in the chair. And that's the value of measuring a good worker versus is what's the actual product look like?

Yeah, I'm a bad employee if you need that. If you expect me to be someplace at 8 AM, it's not gonna happen. I will be there between 9 and 9:30 and take it or leave it. Yeah, you can leave it like— but my work will always be done and it'll always be done at a level of excellence. Like, I just can't abide things that are not done super well. So if you're a company that needs a body in a chair and that is what is important, I'm not position working for your company. That is a bit of a statement that you can make after 20 years of working, of working, right? Like, sometimes you do have to work at those kind of companies, and that's a decision that you have to make. If that's what you— if you're willing to do that in order to get the experience and in order to build a network that you want to, if that's what you need to do at that time, that's great. I realized after a number of years that, like, that's not going to work for me, and I look for companies companies that offer me that kind of flexibility and value your results over your face time, right? Um, I like that. Yeah, that is. And so you can look for that in companies, and you can ask about that in companies. Sometimes companies will pull a switch on you and they're like, oh yeah, absolutely, results are what matter. And you get there and it's, wow, Karina didn't show up until 8:15 today, or 9:00.

But do you think there's any— you know how there's like realtor tricks? Like they'll know that, oh, it's a charming cottage, that means like it's a tiny house. Like you learn those tricks of the trade. Is there anything like that that you could probably see where you're like, that company is probably more old school and they're not going to be open to that?

Is there— are they— we have a strict dress code and you have 2 sick days a year and 5 days of vacation. You're like, oh, okay.

So I see what kind of ship you're running.

Not interested. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. No, I'm not like talking about like— no, do you know what I mean? But there's certain companies that are so traditional and you can ask, what do you— how do you feel about remote work? And if it's, oh, we don't hire remote, we really want everybody in the office. Okay. What does that look like? Is there something where, you know, I, if I have to leave at 3 o'clock, is that okay? Or if something comes up and I need to work from home that day, do you have the technology inside your company to support something like that?

But frankly, after 2020, who doesn't? Like, you don't have to be living under a freaking rock not to see that's where it's going.

Surprised. You, maybe you wouldn't be, but there's a lot of legacy companies out there who just don't have that kind of muscle memory or capacity to be able to offer that to their employees. But I understand my value now, and I'm unwilling to work someplace that doesn't offer me the kind of flexibility and the kind of investment in me and in growing my career that I need out of a company. Because at this point, I can always find a job, right? Finding a job is not necessarily difficult, but is it the right job? Is it a job that is interesting and challenging to me? Are not just like the work-life thing, but growing my career? Is it what I need? Is it the next step? Is it— is, is your company at a point where they need somebody like me? A smaller company doesn't need somebody like me. They don't need that— can offer that kind of value. They need, you know, a different skill set. And that also means being, you know, cognizant of if they don't need me, are they able to pay me my salary requirement?

And yeah, recognize, is that value built into, to where— yeah, to the kind system. And yeah, you may be now overqualified for some systems, and that's okay. That's not a knock on you, that's just the way they're set up.

Yeah, totally fine. And like, I've had people reach out to me and they're like, we're interested in you, and I'm like, okay, that's great, but I don't know if I'm interested.

Not to be like rude here, but I don't know if the feeling's mutual.

Yeah, like, I totally understand that you see value in what I bring to the table, but what am I getting out of it? Is it an ownership opportunity, or do I Am I going to have equity? Am I going to have stock? Are you able to pay me my salary requirements? Are you big enough that this is enough of a challenge for me to go in and build something on your team? And if it's not, let's have a conversation. I'm always willing to have a conversation with somebody, but like, maybe it's not a great fit. I tend to need companies that are challenging, that offer me interesting— and if the work isn't interesting and it's not a challenge and it's not something where I know that like I have to surmount count 4 different things today. I'm maybe not— I'm not that interested.

You're basically like the Daniel Day-Lewis of tech product management. Like, he only takes movies where, like, he has to go live in a cabin for 2 months to get, like, in character.

That's basically you. Yeah, please refer to me in character the whole time. I am Mr. Lincoln.

Exactly. I wanted to circle back a little bit on your consulting, just because I know some of my listeners are in that freelancer realm, whether they're doing consulting or even some other content management services, whatnot, on a freelance basis. What did you learn about doing that experience? What was hard about that? Or when— maybe are there any ways that you overcame some of those challenges, especially in transitioning? Is it hard to get what you wanted to be paid? You mentioned sometimes that billing's an issue. Was it hard managing scope creep? I know that's something that sometimes happens to a lot of freelancers.

Yeah, I got the best piece of advice once from You guys, your listeners might know Alma Loveland. Love Alma, yeah. And she told me once, 'cause she had gone freelance about a year or two before I had, and she was like, "It's nobody's business how long it takes you to do something." Amen, oh my gosh, that's so good, seriously, yeah.

Which is something I need to hear as well, as someone who also still does some billing by the hour and some flat fee project, yeah, so.

Approaching things with flat fees and then being really descriptive about what that contains. That will, you know, contain 2 rounds with the customer, or it'll have 1 round of feedback with the customer and 1 round of revisions. It is really hard sometimes to talk to customers, to have clients who come to you and know they need help, but they don't know what they need. What ends up taking so much time because they come to you again and say, I need LMNOP, and what they really need is XYZ.

They came to you to do a website and they don't need a website, they need a free freaking brand because they have no idea who they are.

You need a messaging architecture. If you don't have a messaging architecture and you don't have a positioning statement and you don't know your marketplace and you don't know your customers, that makes building website content really hard. And you will go through so many rounds of revisions trying to get to this thing that the customer— because they haven't done the background framework structural stuff that they need to deliver you the right materials for you to build content off. So really understanding what, how mature is their business? Do they need help on that structural framework side before you even engage with them on the content side and start delivering pieces? Is this a case of where they're like, you know what, we know our customer and we just need a bunch of blogs that we can put in a hopper and just get up when we need to fill blog content and kind of raise our SEO or whatever, you know? Yeah, exactly. It really comes asking a lot of questions up front. To your clients. And I'm trying to understand with your expertise what it is that they really need. Critically important to be able to build a package because you'll get a sense after a while of how much work it's gonna take to fulfill what they're asking you to do and what that is worth to you to do. And you've heard, probably you people have heard the old adage before where you're like, they came to me and they want me to do this thing and they want me to build a website for them and write some blogs and write emails and write this stuff. And I don't even know if I wanna do it. So I'm gonna give them this package like super high number and then they come back and give you—

They say yes and you're like, oh crap, I thought I was writing them off and now I'm working for them.

And now I have to do it. Well, you know what, you're the one that wrote it. Believe in your own value and what you're able to deliver for people. And then crucially, keep a copy of your work, especially if it's work that's going up on a client's web. Keep a copy of everything that you are writing. Put it inside your Google document. Documents inside a Dropbox. Organize that work so that you don't have to go back and find it later. I was— I've been recently looking at new positions and going back and looking through my Dropbox and all my Google documents, seeing of all the work, all the samples that I would be able to pull to deliver for a client.

Keeping that a record of your work. And FYI, make sure that's in your contract, guys, that you can share with things with third parties. You make sure most people if it's public work going on a website, the client's not gonna care. But it should be there, just like in photographers, you make sure it should be part of your client service agreement that says, hey, I can use things for my portfolio for marketing purposes.

And if that's something you can negotiate with them, if they push back on you, obviously Brady can help.

That's when you can call me and we can go there if we have to go there.

But keeping a record of it, I went back to look because I knew I'd written some, some blog posts that I thought might be really great for a a potential employer, and I went back and I found out that their website, this particular client, they had erased their blog. All of my work was gone.

Wayback Machine, maybe, fingers crossed, but it depends on freaking how, when the last time it got crawled.

Yeah. And thank goodness I was, I had copies inside my Google Docs of what I had sent to them and had an electronic trail of the work. Work because you can't guarantee that your work— it's so weird because the internet is both forever and completely temporary. So just keeping track of your work and keeping your own files. The next would be, be your own best advocate. It is— no one's going to advocate for you like, like you can. Every once in a while you will find a really good advocate at a company who can position you, who can make sure that you're up for things things that you're challenged, that you have opportunities to be more highly visible inside of a company. But really, truly, when you're— especially when you're a freelancer and a contractor, you have to know, you have to be your own best advocate and get really clear and granular about what you're able to offer people. Like, I— you know what, I'm not good at, let's say, building website content, but if you need an email nurture stream, I'm your girl. I can— I'm your girl. I'm really good I'm not as good as that, but I know somebody who's really good at that and I can put you in touch with them.

I love, especially those not statements, which people I think tend to shy away from because you're like, no, I need the work. I can't say I'm not something, but actually what it's doing is now people trust you that you actually know what you're talking about. And yeah, you'd be surprised.

Yeah. And there's such a rich community out there of people who are content, who are content marketers. And you, once you are in a position where you're like, you know what, this isn't for me, but I know somebody who might be great at this, you pass along the referral, you make those connections. I don't, I'm not as familiar with other industries, but I know with content marketing, a lot of it is referral-based. You know what, I'm really, I'm up to here, so I'm gonna throw it, I'm gonna recommend somebody that I've worked with before who I think is really great, who might be a really good fit for, you know, this client and make that introduction. And it's much less about losing that income yourself than that goodwill that you put out into the universe that usually comes back at you. Both to the client who's, oh wow, you solved the problem for me. That's great. Problem for me. Maybe I can come back to you and get more recommendations or, oh wow, you introduced me to a new contract writer. I would love to be able to throw them work. I have work for you as well. Just really being abundant and expansive with your network and sharing those opportunities across the board. And that's a great way also of not putting yourself in that position where you have bid something really super high and because you don't want to do it, right?

Pass it along to someone else who's the better fit. And then it's win-win-win, guys. No, I really like that, Karina. And just, yeah, that idea. And I think that comes when you are— when you've reached and done the work to be confident in your skills and not come at it with that scarcity mindset. Set to not have the mean girl— that, that's what I was— I was in— I'm in Susan's masterminds right now, so I'm having her voice in my head. She talks about that mean girl who's, yeah, so cruel to us in her head. That you've quieted those voices enough and you know who you are and what you're about and what you offer. And so you can confidently go to someone and offer that and be like, you know what, from this project it seems like I'm actually not a great fit, but this is who is. And you're fine with that, letting it go.

And let's build trust. And then not only that, there's— you— there's more work out than usually you can handle. And building up that network is more important than you will ever know. Putting a dollar into your network comes back at you sometimes 5 times, whether that is introducing a brand new content marketer to giving them a shot and subcontracting out to somebody else and having them write a blog or them write an email and taking your cut of it and then passing all of that, mentoring people and having that abundant mindset because you never know when you're going to need somebody out there to either be a reference or to help you with a job or to recommend you for a position or recommend you for work that is coming up. And you know, my husband always laughed. He always laughed because he's like, you have so many friends, so many people, but I can't tell you every job that I've ever gotten is because of somebody that I knew. It is because I invested in that network and I proved my value over and over again. And I was abundant about it. Of it, passing work along, finding the right fit for people, making sure that clients were taken care of, and that really great writers out there were also being mentored and being taken care of and handed off.

And yeah, that, that rising tide lifting all boats and not being feeling like you have to be precious or stingy with the referrals, with the work, with any of it that, that you were concerned about.

Yeah. It's scary sometimes, right? When you're a contractor freelancer, because you don't always know if you have a client in the hopper coming up. You don't always know in 3 or 4 months about whether or not you're going to be able to pay your bills, but that kind of abundance mindset, it just comes back at you. And I don't know if you want to call it karma, I don't know if you want to call it a spirit, have a spiritual framework to it, but it's a universal law that what you put out comes back. And if you put out generosity and abundance and that sharing across the board, and you help people, they turn around and they help you. They share, they boost you. It's one of the most important lessons that I've learned.

That's wonderful. So many, among so many great gems that you've dropped today, Karina. I just, to wrap in closing, as I'm thinking about if someone is in a position, say they have either tech-based business or maybe even product, they're in retail, and they know they need someone who's in content marketing, they need someone who's more of in this skill set, is there any any advice that you would be giving to them of here, here's what you should be looking for, or here are some red flags of what to look out for, other than obviously looking at someone's writing helps, or asking for references, or other than that? But anything else that you maybe could help people as they're— maybe once they get to this part of their journey?

Yeah, you want a content marketer who understands how different pieces of content apply to the audience that you need to reach. So for example, A bad content marketer will look at your stuff and go, okay, you need a 9-page white paper, an ebook, and 4 ebooks and an infographic. You're like, okay, those are things. Those are deliverables. Those are deliverables. What is it that we're trying to accomplish? And see if you can level up that conversation and have them— if you are talking to a content marketer and they're not asking you, tell me about your customer. Tell me about what makes your product unique.

Tell me about your why. If they're not going like full Simon Sinek on you.

Absolutely. Like that why, the jobs that you do, why your product, what your product does for the market that nobody else is doing. If they're not asking those kind of questions, either you're not in a place where you need that kind of strategic work, which is totally fine. Sometimes you just need blog posts. Sometimes you just need some social media.

And you just need a freelance writer.

Writer to write some things. But if you're at a stage of growth where you're like, I really need to move my business forward, you need to be dealing with somebody who can look at and understand, has the capacity to understand who your customer is and what resonates with them and what will work. Because a 9-page white paper is not what Susan Peterson's customer is looking for.

They're like, give me the cute babies and the 4th of July box.

That's what the people want. 9-page white paper on children footwear and lifestyles for mothers these days. Oh, weird. Like, I can't tell you how many times people are like, they just told me I need 2 ebooks and an infographic.

That's why we maybe— do you think that maybe has something to do with the fact that they write ebooks and white papers? And so that's, yeah, maybe the solution they offer to everyone.

Yeah. I like to say that I'm the only person who reads a 9-page white paper because I totally— if you give me one, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. It'll take me 2 minutes to read and then I've got it, which is great. But like very few customers need that kind of, that kind of strategic, really important content work. Enterprise customers, people who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on deals need that kind of work. They need to be assured that you are an expert in the product, that in the marketplace that you're providing, really start that conversation of what's a deliverable and what do we really need? Where are our customers at and what do they need to hit, to hit? And it may be, it is an infographic, but it's an infographic because you understand that your customer needs to consume information quickly and they're really looking for the right detail from you and some right understanding in order to click the buy button. So those are the conversations you need to be having with the person who's doing your content, really understanding the customer and understanding what it's going to take to actually to make people hit the buy.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, so brilliant. So if people want to get more and know more and get more to you and just soak up some of your confidence, I think like you, you would be an amazing like women's confidence business coach. I know you're probably not looking for another job like that right now, but I think you'd be really great at that. How can they connect with you and follow you? And just how can you help other women, especially I think women in Utah and Utah in Utah Valley who are trying to navigate and come into their own in terms of work opportunities, working in corporate or in entrepreneurship? What— how can people connect more with you? And what parting advice and spirited words can you take us out on?

My email is karina1@gmail.com. Had it for a really long time. I— Brittany can probably link you to my Instagram. Jet Set Karina is my Instagram. I'm happy to have those conversations. I have a real passion around making sure that women are able to have the life that they want for themselves. And that may mean doing— not working a traditional job at all. It may mean being completely fulfilled and happy with choosing to be at home with your children. It could be somebody who's, you know what, I want to do something else and I'm ready to like maybe dip my toe back in and see what working will be like. Like my biggest piece of advice for that would be to tap your network. Have people who've worked with you before who can put you in touch with some, give you a chance. And the good thing is, sitting on the corporate side, there are more and more companies out there who understand the value that women who haven't had a traditional career can bring to their workplaces, and the capacity, the intelligence, the empathy, that they are able to deliver inside a corporate environment. And if you're not happy with the life that you're living, if you're not happy with either where your career is or what your opportunities are, you don't have to take that. You can let it happen to you, as my friend Caroline says, or you can look at it and decide you want to do something different. You have that ability. It— so often what you think that you want isn't actually of what you want in the end. And so you have the ability and the capacity to look around and go, I really want to try that one thing. Try it. Reach out to somebody who's done it. Reach out to your network and say, I'm willing to look at an internship. A lot of companies these days have internships for women who are looking to get back into a work environment. That's a great— allow you to try something new. Internships are no longer just for kids that are coming out of college. For sure. And you, you know what, call or email an HR department and say, I noticed an internship on your website. I'm willing to intern for you. Here is— it's been a few years since I started working, but I'm really interested in— I'm scrappy. I'm hungry for it. I want to learn. I'll be your best intern. And you don't even necessarily have to settle for an unpaid internship. Companies of repute these days always pay actual money to interns. It may not be like a great deal like you're looking at. And I have coworkers that I worked with at Workfront who came back to work in that way. They graduated with a marketing degree 20 years ago, but never really worked inside a company after that. They stayed home with their children for a while. But there are companies that are out there that understand that you have skills that you have, you're bringing from a different life that are of value. And do your best job of selling and advocating for yourself. Say, yeah, you know what? I, I was at home with my children for a while, or I was contract and freelance for a while, or let me show you what I have been doing. Take up all of those skills because you have been doing so much, you have been learning so much, and you have even more in front of you if this is the pathway that you're—

Yeah, market yourself and show that to be your first real, yeah, sense of your, of your sales acumen or whatnot, especially if you've been all with, and I I think of like nonprofit work and government work, and which, yeah, you've been involved with all of that.

So yeah, absolutely. Like, all of that works. You can call a nonprofit and say, I want to show up, I want to answer your emails, I want to understand how this works. People are willing and people are out there and want to be able to help you. That's just the way humans are. They just— they're interested if you show up, if you're willing to work hard. If you are an advocate for yourself and if you're looking at like where you can deliver value, there are companies out there that are interested.

So, uh, I love all those tips. So good. I know that this is going to help someone out there who's going to hear this and be like, this is what I've been waiting for to know. How do I get back on that on-ramp? And that, yeah, don't— it doesn't— you dust up that resume and just do it.

So internships, look at those. Two, contract and freelance. Like maybe contract to freelance is what you love and you want to keep doing that and you love the flexibility, but it is also a pathway into a company or building up a network or going back into the corporate side. If you're able to say, show the work that you've been doing and the learnings that you've been able to accumulate, that's another pathway into it. Like you just start doing it and you know what, it only takes one person to reach out and go, hey, You have something special or different, or you have a lot of value. Believe in yourself that you have that value and then go and find that person who can let you in.

Like they're out there. Yeah. And don't, yeah. And don't let anyone be that gatekeeper. Try again. Keep, because sometimes people, they're not trying to be crummy to you. They're just busy. And so that's why you got to be your advocate for yourself. You got to be your best cheerleader. Yeah, absolutely. I've just loved this conversation, Karina. Thank you so much for taking time. Time to do this today and right in the eve of our holiday festivities going into the 4th. But, but yeah, I just really appreciate your perspective and getting to hear your story and hear those fulcrum points that have led you on the journey that you have. But, but yeah, obviously been able to provide just tremendous value along the way to yourself and to so many others.

So thank you, it's been great. I'm so excited. You guys, you can do it. You can do it.

You can all do it. Exactly. Thanks. Thanks so much for listening to the episode. Um, it was great just to review it, and honestly, the stuff that Karina shared, it is even grown, I would say, in, uh, its importance, uh, now that we've seen through the pandemic, through lots of upheavals in terms of social and political movements, um, that how important it is, the words that we use to describe ourselves, our products, and how we solve people's problems. So regardless of what you do, whether whether you work for yourself or for someone else, everybody is selling something and is part of that process, uh, product, good or service, or cause. And I think that Karina's tips are even more valuable. It's just a little update on her. She has now moved on and is the, um, senior director at Persado, which it looks to be— it's a super cool AI platform that kind of helps people harness all the words across all the touch points of the organization using AI., and that helps deliver better content marketing messages and kind of synchronizes and puts it all to place. So super cool stuff, and not surprising that Karina is fantastic at that since that is her words. She is the wordsmith and knowing how does, how does that actually make a difference. And so she's now a senior director there of content at Persado, and so I will link her LinkedIn in the show notes if you're interested in reaching out to her. Um, but again, thanks so much for tuning in and listening. If you are again interested in some of our freelancer, you know, resources, or looking to get your business legally legit, if that's on your mind, um, whether you're looking to— you're going from corporate to maybe moving to freelancer, or have already made that jump, or are working and you're the one on the hiring side and you're a brand hiring freelancers and are looking how to navigate those relationships better, how to get stuff in writing so you can get the deliverables and have those win-win-win projects that you all want. I encourage you to explore some of our resources we have at Creative Contracts. That's our DIY template shop that we put nice attorney-drafted, industry-tested contracts at your fingertips for a reasonable price. And here's the kicker: we include video training for all of our major contracts because there's no point in having a whole bunch of fine print that nobody understands. Okay, we want contracts to be fair, clear. We want I want people to understand what they're agreeing to, and the best way to do that is through really step-by-step training where I'm holding your hand on what exactly does this stuff mean in common language, and how can we make sure it's matching the way that you want to show up in your business. So that's what I provide on each of my contracts that I draft for the, uh, Creative Contract Shop. And so I hope you take advantage of that resource along with some of our other free resources— our Legally Legit workbooks, our checklist for getting legally legit, the other podcast episodes that we have here, as well as connecting with me on Instagram. That's where I post a lot of free tips and tricks to help you grow the legal side of your business strategically and safely. Thanks so much for listening in today. I always appreciate your time. And if this has been helpful to you, would love a rating and review. That helps the podcast so much. It helps other people find this, helps, you know, Apple and Spotify and all the other apps know that this is legit content that they should make available when people are searching for resources, you know, put in their, put in their earbuds as they're trying to move along their businesses. Thanks so much for being here, and we'll catch you on the flip side.