#128: How Jeanne Noorman Overcame 20+ Years Out of the Workforce to Launch a Successful Freelance...

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Thank you for joining me for episode 128 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. Just a quick reminder that you can find all the details, show notes of this episode, including all the links we mention by going to b2b launcher.com episode 128 so this is yet another episode in our series this month on this quality of grit and the role of grit in freelance success. If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to check out the introductory episode which is episode 126, as well as the previous episode which is the story on Hannah Glenn, my interview with Hannah Glenn and what she did to overcome all the obstacles when she was getting started a while back as a freelance writer and all that she overcame to become successful to get her business off the ground. So my guest this week is Jean Norman and Jean is a Michigan based freelance writer and copywriter. And she also faced a number of obstacles when she decided to start her freelance writing business after, get this, being a stay at home mom since 1985. So she had very little in the way of a career that she could draw from when she decided to go solo. She had no professional network to speak of and yet she overcame the odds and today is a thriving freelance writer. And I love this because, you know, it goes to show that you don't necessarily need to have a 30 year career. You don't have to have this impressive track record and this big network. Now do those things help? Absolutely. You know, everything you can, you know, you should leverage every single asset that you have in, in your life. But you know, this is a perfect example of someone who didn't have those things yet. She was determined. Now it wasn't easy as you'll see in this interview. And Gene tells it like it is. It's raw, it's uncut. She faced quite a few challenges, but she overcame the odds and she was able to make it happen. You'll hear about her struggles, the number of times she thought about giving up what she did to push through all these obstacles, which I think is very insightful. I love what she shared there and then the five recommendations she has for new freelancers who are trying to get their business off the ground so this is not only an inspirational interview, but very practical and I think you're really going to enjoy it. So without further ado, let's get to that interview with Gene Norman.

Foreign.

Welcome to the podcast.

Well, thank you Ed.

I am so happy to have you here and it's always great to talk to you.

I'm excited to be here. Although I will say I've been listening to this podcast since it began and so it's a little mind boggling to be a guest on the podcast.

Oh well, I am so happy to have you as a guest and I know that what you will share here will be very valuable to listeners. And as you know, this is where I always start by asking you to give us a little bit of background. So why don't you first tell us about yourself and specifically the kind of work you do, the kind of clients you like to work with and of course also what you enjoy most about the work you do.

Sure. I write blog posts and creative web copy for small to medium sized businesses and I, I say it that way because that's part of my elevator pitch. I write a whole lot of other things as well, but those are my main focuses and one of the things I like most is being able to recreate my clients voice and personality in their content, which you can do a little bit more in blog posts than you can in a lot of other marketing materials, you know. So I have a website company that I, that I blog for and I use a very conversational tone with little comments on the side in their blog post. I did one recently that was a question and answer post and I ended it by saying something like, well, that's enough. Nobody likes pop quizzes. You know. Another client that I did, this was a little bit further back. I needed to position a llama hiking company as a really family friendly activity. So I wrote the copy from the llama's point of view and I let the llamas tell the story and I, you know, it's, that's been four years ago and every time I am in contact with that client he tells me, you know, he's still getting ray reviews from his, from his clients that they loved his website, you know, so I just really enjoy, yeah, creating, being creative with my writing.

Well and I wouldn't have thought of the llama thing. So that's, that's pretty neat that you decided to write it from that point of view. That's very creative. And I'm curious, how long have you been freelancing?

I freelanced For a while, way, way back, like in the early 80s, and I sold some stories to magazines and things like that. But back before we had the Internet as a resource, it was a whole lot harder to do it. And so, you know, I just wasn't willing to put in the work, wait for the snail mail to come back and everything like that. We didn't have blogs or websites. So then went and lived another life. And I began investigating freelancing again in about 2012, started working at it part time while I was still working full time in 2013. And I've been full time now just for about three years. But when I left my job, it had more to do with medical conditions that were prohibiting me from being on my feet all the time. So even though I've been full time for about three years, I would say I really turned the corner in late 15 or early 16. So yeah, okay, off and on for a long time. But effective, you know, really effectively, just for a couple of years now.

Well, that's a good segue into my next question for you because as you know, the theme for this month for the podcast is this idea of grit and the role that grit plays in freelance success. Especially when you're either trying to get your freelance business off the ground or when you've been at it for a while and you're trying to get things to the next level. Because if you're kind of stuck in a certain place, there's usually a lot of comfort there. And getting to the next level will require you to get out of your comfort zone, and that requires grit. Now, you and I worked together a few years back to get your freelance business off the ground. And when I think of grit, you definitely come to mind. So can you explain your situation when you were getting started back in 2012, 2013, as you also were trying to do your full time job, you were trying to do your freelance business on the side. What challenges were you facing as you tried to launch your freelance business?

So I had been a stay at home mom since 1985, and like I said, I had sold some magazine stories back then and stuff. I'd homeschooled for 16 years and had a homeschool website, sort of a blog thing before they were called blogs or anybody figured out how to monetize them. And then as my kids got older, I did, you know, I worked with a theater company a little bit and I did some volunteer work, but I didn't have a career per se with colleagues and the like. And then when my kids Were graduated from high school, they were all in college. We had three in college at the same time. And I went, went out and found a job because I needed to help pay for college. I started working in a retail store, worked my way up to store manager. But I wanted to write. I've always, always wanted to write. I mean, if you ask my high school English teacher what I was going to do when I grew up, I was going to be a writer. And so that's why I began looking back at how to build this freelance business. Like I said, after being out of the workforce for, you know, 25 years, I didn't have a niche necessarily to fit into. And I just, you know, homeschooling wasn't a niche that paid, you know, if I were to write homeschool articles or whatever. And I don't know, I just, I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I was good writer and I wanted to write. I'd worked in bank marketing back when this will age me, but back when they were introducing ATMs to the public. But marketing has changed a lot since then. So even online marketing was, you know, completely new. So when I started and you and I talked about this at length back then, I had to start from scratch and build my career from the ground up. And so I did, you know, when I was still working full time, I would get up two and a half, three hours. I was getting up at five o' clock in the morning and working for a couple of hours before I had to go to work. I worked for free. I did projects for free for probably way too long. But I needed to have some samples and I read everything that I could get my hands on. And that, that was a good thing because I learned a lot. And it was a bad thing because there's way too much out there to read and I enjoy reading. And so, you know, that actually sort of became a procrastination tool. I could tell myself that I was working on my business because I was learning about how to do this. And yet learning and taking action are two very different things. And prospecting and selling my services was really, really hard starting out.

Why is that?

Well, because I worked in a retail store and retail customers come into the store to buy things. They come to you, it's easy, you know, they come in, they say, I'm looking for a book. And you say, well, we have a lot of those here. Let me find you 12. Whereas in the freelance market, they don't come to you until you're Established. I'm more to the point now where, you know, I am getting referrals and things like that, and they're starting to come to me, and it's wonderful. But I, you know, there were a lot of different things. One was having been out of the job market for so long, I didn't. Even though I knew I was a good writer because I didn't know what my niche was. And I. And marketing had changed so much from, you know, 1984 when I quit working, and 2012 when I started looking at doing this again. So I had a real confidence crisis that I had to work through as well. And so it was hard for me to prospect because I'd want to say, hey, I'm a really great writer. Why don't you hire me? And not, you know, understand necessarily what they needed, at least initially, and then not feel confident enough to tell them that I could do that.

Yeah, those are. So here's what I'm hearing. Tell me if this is about right. You had been out of the workforce other than, of course, your retail job, but let's just say your professional career, you had put that on hold for 15 plus years because you had stayed home to homeschool.

I. I was out of the workforce for 20 plus years.

20 plus years. Okay. Yeah, I was trying to. Obviously I didn't want to, you know, date you or anything, so.

Yeah, no, it's okay. I'm older than you are. I. I know that.

All right, so 20 plus years. Right. So you don't have, let's say, this background in insurance or in consulting or in software or healthcare, whatever. Right. You didn't have the network that comes along with that. You knew you wanted to write. You were willing to put in the effort. I mean, you're waking up super early, but you didn't have the confidence. You also didn't have the sales confidence. Right. The prospecting confidence. And yeah, I mean, this is really tough. And this is why I, you know, wanted to really kind of touch on this because I know a lot of people are facing that situation. I do coach a lot of people who have, you know, a career they can leverage that makes things so much easier. You didn't have that yet. You said, you know what? I want to do this. Now you're facing all these challenges. Right. Did you ever think about giving up? And if you did, how did you push through that?

I did think about giving up a couple of different times. In fact, in mid-2015, I basically set myself a deadline. You know, I'd I'd worked on it, sort of, you know, learning about it. I'd get a job. The first. Actually one of the first big customers I had was really, really a tough customer. And, you know, afterwards I thought, man, maybe I'm not cut out for this. But then, you know, my husband has. My husband has been phenomenal. He has been behind me every step of the way. And he said, you know, maybe it was just not the right customer. You know, what did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? You know, what can you learn? How can you find the right customer? But, you know, about mid-2015, I finally set myself a deadline. I had at that point, I don't know, I had a month or two with no clients at all, no work at all. Even some of the work that I'd been doing just previous to that was pretty low paying. And I thought, you know, this isn't fair to Greg because, you know, he's supporting me. We're supposed to be putting money away for retirement now, and. And I'm getting really good at solitaire on my computer, and this is not good, you know, and so I set a date and I said, if I don't have a new good paying contract by a certain date, I'm gonna. I'm gonna just go out and find a job. And that's it. And, you know, it was like, do you want to do this? Yes, I want to do this. Okay, then what are you going to do about it? And I had some tough talking to myself, you know, and it was about that time that I met coach Jenny Mustafa Julak. And I know you've had her on the podcast.

She's great.

She is awesome. And she really helped me get out of my own head to quit using perfectionism as an excuse to quit procrastinating and, you know, just to start taking action that was effective instead of just busy, you know, and that made a big, big difference.

Yeah. In fact, we'll link to that episode here in the show notes if people can check that out, because she addresses that head on what you just spoke about.

Yeah. So, you know, I just, I met her online. It was sort of a. It was sort of a, you know, blessing because I was procrastinating. There was this webinar that was going to be on and I thought, well, that sounds interesting. And I don't remember what it was, but, you know, I got involved with her community, her Facebook group, get out of your own way or something like that. Just really was a big, A big change. For me. And then, and I was, I was my own problem.

Yes, we tend to be our own worst enemies, don't we? Well, so here's what I'm seeing, right? You're fed up, you set a deadline, which I think is, that's brilliant. Such a simple thing, right? But you set a deadline at the same time, you start working on that head trash, you start going through and just realizing what it is you're dealing with. You realize that you're your own worst enemy or what are the things started getting you or moving you in the right direction. What ended up like, can you point to a couple of things, two or three things or additional things that really move the needle?

Yeah, I really can. One of the things I had done was I had spent a lot of time learning or telling myself I needed to learn how to, you know, run a business and be a writer and do more prospecting and all those kind of things. And there's just thousands of people online that'll teach you how to do that. And a lot of them offer this free workshop or that free workshop. And so, you know, I was always reading all these things and I decided, you know, I'm gonna choose two or three experts to learn from and I'm, I'm going to follow them, I'm gonna follow their advice and I'm gonna quit spending all this other time online. And so Jenny was one of the experts and you were another. And I have one other that I'm Ruth. I can't think of her last name, but she does Elite Blog Academy. Because I, I have a cousin who is a freelance writer and he said to me, you need to, he said, content is going to make you better money than copy. Content marketing is huge. You need to do blogging and content development. Those are the three that I chose to follow. And I unfollowed everybody else and I unfollowed every group and I unjoined groups and I, you know, I limited all my time online. And then I would get up and I would say, okay, what do I need? What is the most important thing I need to do today? If I need to write, then at 6 o' clock in the morning, I'm writing. Do I need to find new clients? Okay, then how, I mean, how am I going to do that? And I started taking action, not, not being passive about it, but actually sending emails, calling people, going to networking meetings, all of those type of things. Another thing that really helped, a bunch of us from Jenny's Facebook group decided to work through Michael Port's book yourself Solid. And I know you recommend that and used it yourself when you got started.

Oh, yeah, the book, right? Yeah, yeah, it's a great book.

And so we met online every week for 90 minutes, and we were a little bit merciless, held each other accountable for reading and taking action and building our business. And we really became sort of like a mastermind group. And, you know that every three or four weeks, we'd be on the hot seat and we'd have to say, okay, well, this is what I've learned and this is what I'm doing, and this is what's working and this is what's not. And then they would say, well, Jean, this is what I hear you saying. And sometimes it was good and sometimes it wasn't, but all of our businesses grew. And so being involved in that group really helped. And that went on for probably, I don't know, four to six months. And now I still meet weekly with accountability partner, and she's from that group. So those, all those were the big, you know, I had started moving in the right direction, and then those were things that. That helped me really scale my business. Obviously, your group is very good for that as well. I've found a lot of support, actually run into a couple of the people from your group in other groups as well. And one of them is in the blogging group that I'm part of and, you know, helping each other, encouraging one another. Having that support network has really helped because, you know, it sucks to go alone.

Yeah, it does. And it's the accountability. Right. And just feeling that others are going through. So it's not just you. This is such a lonely business, isn't it? Or it can be.

It can be.

Yeah. And then, of course, you mentioned something earlier that I want to highlight, which is, you know, having your husband's support. I think support at home is so key. You know, it's something we don't really talk enough about. But if you don't have that support at home, man, that just makes things so tough.

Oh, yeah. I really think it. Without his encouragement, I couldn't have done it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And by the way, thanks. I'm glad I made the cut. That's the other thing I wanted to mention.

Oh, you're welcome. But you know what? The thing is, you provide a lot of value and. And it's not all, you know, with a price tag attached to it. And that's a big thing. And that's, you know, and the same with Jenny and the same with Ruth. You Guys are out there giving real advice that will help people. If they take your advice and they act on it, it will help them build the businesses that they need to build. And Jenny's telling you how to get out of your own head. And you know, she's. I've paid her very little. I'm hoping somebody's gonna pay her because I haven't paid her a lot. But she is awesome. And she really, really provides a lot of value. And then there's a lot of people that, you know, just want to. Just want you to give, give them your credit card number. And you know that that's discouraging. So.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. It's, you know, it's one of the things that you have to have a value system. And I know some of the other folks you mentioned, they're the same way and that, hey, we want to. When you give and you give freely as much as possible, all that comes back to you. So that's. That's awesome. One of the things that I wanted to touch on was so. So everything you've spoken about, talked about so far, I mean, this really all points down to this grit thing. Want to go back to something you were talking about earlier, which is the whole prospecting and marketing thing and how difficult that is, you know, know when you're out there having to hunt and that, that could be scary for anybody. So that's another area where you had great grit. So you really understand why that's so important. Prospecting, networking, making connections. Right. I'm curious as to which marketing or prospecting self promotion efforts have worked well for you since 2005 and why you.

Feel they've worked well since 2000. 15.

15.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. I mean, or you could go back if you want, but it sounds like things started really turning around for you a couple of years ago.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, and honestly, a friend of mine, in person, friend that I raised my kids with, was a successful photographer, solopreneur. And when I, when I first started my business, I asked her, what, you know, how do you. How do you get this thing going? And she said, network, network, network. And it took me a long time to take that to heart. I didn't necessarily want to put myself out there. And you have to be able to put yourself out there. So networking is very important online. And the, you know, I did get started online and that helped me build my confidence. The, the Mastermind group really helped quite a bit to grow this relationships with people. There was Colorado, Georgia, Pennsylvania, California, Now a bunch of people that I. I'd never met before other than online. And actually there were like three of us that said, let's do this. And we put it out to a group and we got quite a bit, big group to start. There was probably a dozen when we started, and then it narrowed itself down as we kept going, but that really helped. Local network groups have made my business profitable. I started getting a few jobs online from people I met online. But local network groups are what has turned the corner for me.

Can you give us some examples of what groups have worked well for you locally?

Well, we moved to a new town just almost two years ago, and it's a little. I grew up in a small town, and then we raised our kids in a city, and now we've moved back to a small town. But I didn't grow up in this small town town. And it's hard in a small town. Everybody knows each other. Everybody's kids went to school together. Half the people I meet went to the high school at this local small town. So I joined the chamber of commerce and I've gotten involved with the Chamber of Commerce. And you go. I go to every meeting. And you know, you can't talk to every single person at every single meeting, and that's okay, but they give you the time to go around the circle and give your 30 second commercial. And every month I try to highlight some different aspect of what I do, but I always come back to my tagline, and my tagline is not on my website. But what I say at these networking groups is I'm the writer to call when you're tired of trying to do it all. Because I tell people, you know, as solopreneurs, as small business people, we're responsible for everything. We have to do every single thing. Accounting, you know, if you're running a business that's like a brick and mortar business, you're responsible for shipping and receiving everything. And you got into business because you enjoyed doing something, because you were good at doing something. But we're so busy running our business that we don't have time to do what we're good at or what we enjoy doing most. And so that's the benefit that I provide my clients. I tell them, go ahead, do what you do best or rest, you know, and when it comes to writing copy and content, I'll. I'll take on, and I'll take on the best or take on the rest, and I'll do it as best and got a little tongue tied there. But anyhow, you understood no and you.

So and for you, the reason I love that is, you know, you're going after small and mid sized businesses. So generally I don't advise people, people go to and become involved in the chamber. But you know, there are exceptions and if you know your business is small businesses, local businesses, and especially if you're in a small town like this, there's some great, potentially some great opportunities. It sounds like, you know, you're, you're agreeing with that, that. Has all the business been direct chamber members or has some of it been referrals from chamber members?

There have been chamber members, there have been referrals. But I'm involved in a couple of different networking groups. While we're in a small town, we're still, we're half hour outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is not a small town and there are tons of networking groups. And so usually one day a week, not every week I'm going to three now I go early morning network groups and two of them are in Grand Rapids, just the chamber is here in Lowell. And I've met a lot of people and actually I'm not a member of bni, although I think it's a great group because of the health issues that caused me to leave my full time position. I can't commit to being there every Wednesday at 7 o' clock in the morning. And the BNI group is a half an hour from my house. And so I've gone to this BNI group several times. Every time they have a visitor's day, I visit. But I have a friend that's a member there and whenever he can't be there, I'm his sub. And so now everybody in this BNI group knows me because I've been doing this for two years. I got a referral, you know, just recently from somebody I've never, I don't think I've ever actually talked to at that BNI group, but she recognizes me from the, you know, 30 second commercial and stuff. And I got an email that said, hey, I saw this, these people are looking for a freelance writer. I immediately thought of you and I've never, I, like I said, I don't think I've ever actually spoken one on one with her. So I am involved with several different networking groups and I think it's important to find the networking group that works for you and that has the kind of businesses in it that you want to work for most. While I'm in my small town and the stuff I'm getting from The Chamber of Commerce, these smaller businesses in Grand Rapids, that's where I'm meeting people that have the medium sized businesses. And my biggest client, actually I met in a networking group that I joined, oh, I don't know, six months or so ago, and it's a web design company. And I started working for him earlier. Well, I guess it was just beginning of this year, end of last year, and we clicked. And so every time he has he write, I write his blog and then I help with content for his clients. But he also, you know, they don't do web copy. They, they contract that out. So anytime he has a web website that he's building and somebody says, can, you know, can you write my copy? He says, no, but I know someone who can. And that's been a really wonderful relationship. So, you know, I follow up with everyone I meet. Not looking for work, but just building relationships because relationships with people will lead you to referrals. And then also once I get a prospect, I build a relationship with them. This comes from what I learned from you via emailing them blog posts. Recently a guy was named Chamber Person of the Year. I sent him an email and congratulated him, invited him out for coffee, you know, that type of thing. And then, you know, really the best thing you can do is when you get work, go above and beyond what your client is expecting. Give them, you know, do a really good job for the money they're paying you, then you'll be able to charge more and then ask for referrals.

You know, that's sound advice. I agree. Sometimes we tend to look at each project or each client is, okay, let me see how, how quickly I can get this done instead of forgetting about all that and just asking yourself, how can I do the best job possible? You know, I think it's a better question.

Well, and retainer clients are. I, I did not have any retainer clients until last fall. And retainer clients are phenomenal because, you know, as a freelancer, you go through an income feast or famine cycle. You know, you could have six clients this month and no clients next month. And that's just, that's tough. So I really like retainer clients. And blogging is a, is an easy retainer client contract.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, that's recurring. One point of clarification before I move on to the next question, which was when you said these networking groups and Grand Rapids, these are really networking groups, kind of like bni. They are for networking specifically.

Yes.

Okay.

And I would recommend to anybody that's looking for networking groups to go visit a group three or four different times and make sure it's a group that is a good fit for them. But. Yes.

Yeah, make sure there's potential prospects there or that these people are well connected and they.

Yeah. Okay.

So shifting gears a little bit, I want to ask you about this side project that you launched recently, rehearsing retirement. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

Rehearsingretirement.com is my blog, and I'm having a ton of fun with it. Although I'll tell you what, I've been so busy lately, I need to start scheduling me as a client so that I can get my own blog post written and posted. But so here's the thing. AARP says that there are over 9 million Americans engaged in second or third careers, and they call those encore careers. And that's what my writing career is. You know, I had a career before. I raised my kids. I raised my kids homeschooled, ran a theater company, worked in the homeschool industry, and even worked in this bookstore. Now it's time for me to do the thing I have always wanted to do, that is have a writing career. My husband and I are in our late 50s. And the nice thing about being a freelance writer is I can do this into retirement and I can take on as few or as many clients as I want. And so as that's been going on and I've been building my business, but I've always been writing my own sort of things, just little stories and different things. And, you know, as I share those, people are like, you need a blog, you need a blog. And so then last year, we were getting ready to go to Savannah, Georgia, for vacation, and I let a client know that I was going to be out of town. I was going to be gone for two weeks. And instead of asking, oh, where are you going? She said, what are you doing? And I said, we're rehearsing retirement. And my brain just went, bing. That's it. That's the name of my blog. And so Greg and I are working very hard to live purposeful lives. You know, to. This world is just so, so, so busy, and you can put your dreams on hold and never get back to them. And my dream of becoming a writer is. Is coming true. But we started talking a while back about what do we want, what do we want our retirement to look like, what is our lifestyle going to be and when, you know, I had this health issue, sort of thought, you know, did we wait too long to do some of the things. And I'm doing well health wise, but there was a health scare there and, you know, so we started exploring what we wanted our retirement to look like. And we are enjoying our retirement lifestyle now. Traveling, getting more healthy, doing the things we love. And the blog is devoted to helping people do the same thing, exploring what they want their lives to look like and living their lives on purpose and living the retirement lifestyle regardless of their age or their employment status. And, and then also helping people plan for retirement. And we're having a blast. As I told you before we started recording, I leave at 5 o' clock tomorrow morning and I'm headed down to St. Louis. My daughter has a part in a show that's being put on as part of St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. And I'm just going to go down there and spend five days eating good food and watching good theater and doing a little writing on the side. And that's fantastic. And they'll come home and work some more. So that's what that's all about.

So I love it. And I, by the way, I mean, I really think you're onto something here. I, first of all, the, the, the name is fantastic. You couldn't have picked a better name. I love the concept and I know there are a lot of people who were similar situations. So I think you've hit on something here and I'm glad that, you know, you're able to, to work on that on the side this little passion project. A lot of people have these passion project ideas, but they don't pursue them. And I'm glad that you have put in the time and effort to get it off the ground.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And you know, it's, it's so cool. You know, the first time I had initially people who joined were all my high school friends, people from college, relatives, you know. And then every time I post something, I would post on Facebook and you know, hey, check out my new blog post. And you know, I'm writing about this or I'm writing about that and all of a sudden one day there was this really long comment from somebody and I did not know who this person was. It was a complete story and it was so exciting. And so, yeah, now I've got a bunch of people I don't know. And you know, and it's really sort of fun because now I'm, you know, they comment, they read and they comment, they send me emails and stuff. And now I'm getting to know Them. And so my circle is getting a little bit bigger, and I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, love it. Love it. So in wrapping up here, I wanted to kind of put a bow on this thing and then go back to this idea of getting your business off the ground and how difficult it can be. I don't think most people realize how much effort is required. I'm one of the few voices out there saying, hey, this will probably be one of the hardest things you ever do. And I get criticized for that, but I want to give it to people the way it is and you've experienced it. So if somebody were to come to you, who, let's say that they're trying to get their freelance writing or copywriting business off the ground, they haven't had success yet or they haven't gotten started yet. You know, what advice would you give them if you had, like, you know, a minute to just narrow it down to one or two things?

One or two things, Hokey Pete.

Or it could be a couple more things, but. But if you have to just net it out.

Right? So number one would be, start now. Wherever you are, live your life on purpose. If this is something you want to do, then do it. Live your life on purpose. Start now where you are. Build it while you're still working. Devote the time to it. Network, network, network. You know, tell people what you're doing. And don't expect that immediately. Networking takes time. Don't expect that immediately. You're going to have work coming in. I'm trying to think. I was probably involved with the chamber, and, you know, it takes four or five months sometimes before you get a single bite out of a networking group, which can be discouraging when you're. When you're trying to build a business and you think that this is going to be the. The bread and butter, you know?

Yeah.

Find work where you can work for free. Go. One of my clients, I. I don't think I'll ever get a dime from them, but it's a food pantry, and I love helping them. I edit their newsletter. I, you know, I'm going to do all new copy for their website. Just find work where you can, because it's. It's a. It's a sample and build yourself a WordPress website. Take the time to learn how to do WordPress. I think it's a really great platform. And if you can use Microsoft Word, it's very similar. Build a website that you can change regularly, keep it fresh, and get out of your own head. If you find you're procrastinating. Why are you avoiding the work that needs to get done? Get out of your own head. Find people to encourage you. Find people to support you. And, and then, you know, figure out what, what do I need to do today? Do I need to find a client? Okay, then how am I going to do that? And work on things that make a difference that are going to take you to the next thing, that are going to help you meet your goal?

I think that is very sound advice. A lot of wisdom there, Jean.

And yeah, but it wasn't one or two things.

Well, you know what, though? That's, that's, that's solid and it complements each of the points complement each other. So I, I love that there was. And this is coming from someone who's, hey, this wasn't easy for you. So I think folks will appreciate that you have to really work hard and smart at this. So before we sign off, I don't want to leave without asking you, where can listeners learn more about you? Both the rehearsing retirement and other places I can send them.

So rehearsingretirement.com is just spelled out and there's no funky spellings or anything like that. So check that out. It's only been up since October, so there are not hundreds of posts to read or anything like that. And then my writer website is Jeanne Norman.com but Jean is J E a N N e and Norman is N o o r m a n.com Jeanne Norman dot com. And yeah, that's where you find me. Otherwise you can find me at the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Lowell, Michigan.

So if you're nearby, stop on in. We'll include the links in the show, notes to your websites. And Gene, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It was a pleasure to talk with you about all this.

I really enjoyed it too. Ed. I have learned so much from you. And if the things that I have learned from you and the things that I've experienced can help somebody else, I am more than happy to do that. The High Income Business Writing Podcast is.

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