Create your Freelance Portfolio

Watch the replay:

Transcript

Rachel Meltzer (00:53.12) All right, welcome to How to Create Your Freelance Portfolio. Let's just get started with sharing where you're tuning in from in the chat. And we'll just wait for people to trickle in and then we'll get started.

Rachel Meltzer (03:59.502) All right, awesome. Thanks for sharing everybody. Keep sharing where you're tuning in from if you're just joining. And let's get started. Today I'm talking specifically about how to create your freelance digital marketing portfolio. So if you offer a freelance service that is not digital marketing related, this.

could work for you, but it might not be the right workshop for you. just to clarify, I also don't really teach journalism or social media marketing because I find that they are not a great path to earning a sustainable career and usually lead to burnout based on my experience with coaching other freelancers. So this might not work for you either if that's what you're looking for. But if you're a freelance writer, graphic designer, brand designer, web designer,

any of those sorts of freelance digital marketing things, email marketer, SEO strategist, those types of digital marketing. This workshop is definitely for you. So if you haven't heard of me before or been to one of my workshops, Hey, I'm Rachel Meltzer. It rhymes with seltzer and I run Meltzer Seltzer.

I'm an adventurous freelance writer and business coach. used to live fully nomadically and fun fact, I just moved into the house that my partner and I just bought, which is really exciting this week. This is the first workshop from my new office. I am finally settling down after being nomadic since 2016 and it is very nice to be having a community and a neighborhood and just like chillin'.

But I do have a lot of experience with being a digital nomad. So if you ever have any questions about that, don't be afraid to ask me. And that is why I call myself an adventurous freelance writer. I really got into digital marketing and freelancing to fuel my passions for through hiking, van life, rock climbing around the country, skiing, and all those sorts of adventurous things that I like to do. I mostly do digital marketing for tech companies. That's like my bread and butter. And that's how I make the majority of my money.

Rachel Meltzer (05:55.01) but I also work with small outdoor brands and help them with full marketing strategies, setting up email automations, and making marketing more manageable for smaller companies when I can. It hasn't always been this way though. It's been kind of a long career journey. And if you've had a similar like windy squiggly career journey, I would love to hear about it. Feel free to share it in the chat. I'd love to get to know you guys more. I actually started out, I went to college for elementary education and politics.

I thought I was going to reform the US education system. I was like really gung-ho about it. And I very quickly realized that politics in the United States was on a downward decline as we all may know now. Not gonna share my political views too much here, but I definitely was discouraged by the way our political system works and how much.

impact I could have in public office versus how much impact I was actually having working face to face with real people in my community. And then I also just realized like, I don't know what the heck I want to do with my life. And I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail instead. I wanted to live in a van and I just wanted to like go on adventures and get away from the mental health issues that I was having and find better ways to take care of myself.

So I went freelance to support those goals. At first I was just getting stuff on Upwork for like content writing, mostly for education cannabis and coding bootcamp niches.

and then eventually I decided to niche down into coding boot camps. didn't know anyone else who is just working for coding boot camps and it made it really easy to make my profile searchable on LinkedIn to niche down that specifically. And I ended up filling my entire roster with just content writing and email, copywriting for coding boot camps. And that worked really well until I priced myself out of that niche. And I decided to expand my niche into SAS and tech instead. And again, I still mostly do content writing.

Rachel Meltzer (07:49.97) And I've actually started doing community engagement as well for some of these companies. And then, I do outdoor industry marketing setup for smaller cottage gear brands, because I just still love the outdoors so much. And it's just such a passion project to be able to do that stuff on the side. So yeah.

It really helped me to hone in on my ideal clients and that allowed me to raise my rates, niching down, upscaling and getting specific on who I wanted to work with really made a big difference in my business. And it also led to more inbound leads and referrals because I was networking within a specific industry and it makes it easier to just like become known for something when you can niche down.

So that's how I went from no experience, I literally did not have digital marketing experience from school, I've never had a corporate job, worked for an agency or anything like that. And now I've made up to six figures in a year from freelancing. So that's my experience, that is why I'm here to teach you today. And if you ever have any questions about getting started, this...

is a part of my Get Started Freelancing Free Bootcamp series. There have already been multiple workshops and Ask Me Anything sessions. So you can go back and watch those replays on my YouTube. Just click my little profile picture if you wanna watch those replays. And there are also upcoming more workshops and Ask Me Anything calls. And you can join those also right here from my YouTube page. And there are free workbooks for every single workshop in this series.

don't forget to grab your workbook. The link is in the description box below. So today we are going to talk about building your freelance digital marketing portfolio. I love seeing where you guys are from. We got more people. The Netherlands? What? The UK? my gosh, you guys, there's like no one from the States here. This is wild.

Rachel Meltzer (09:49.31) beginner freelancer here. I love when an in-house digital marketer becomes a freelancer though, Jacqueline, because it makes it so much easier to make your portfolio because you've actually done things. When I had to make my portfolio, I had never done any digital marketing and it really was how I learned how to do things. It was very experimental. From Canada, amazing. Dan's been freelancing for three years now. Wow.

This is awesome, you guys. It's so exciting to see so many people here. The Philippines, what? Hell yeah. We've got a real global audience here. This is amazing. Okay. So first we're going to talk about how to build your portfolio from scratch. If you have no experience, this workshop will help you. If you do have experience, this workshop will also help you. There are certain steps you'll be able to skip if you do already have experience, which is the best. Definitely makes things easier. Raleigh, hell yeah. I used to live in Durham, North Carolina.

so not too far from my old neighborhood, Portland, Oregon, Lebanon. Wow. Hell yeah. my gosh. Another teacher to content writer pipeline girlie. Hell yeah. I don't know if you know Polly Clover. She's one of my besties. She's also teacher and freelancer. I know so many teachers who've become freelance content writers. It's, very common.

Pipeline apparently it felt very squiggly to me to be doing that career path and then I met a ton of other people who doing it So that's Okay, then we're to talk about the truth about what clients are actually looking for when they're hiring you and when they're looking at your portfolio We're going to make a plan for creating and executing your portfolio with actual deadlines that hopefully you can stick to and we'll also talk about where to publish your portfolio 3 and you know the most commonly asked questions about

portfolios, I think there are a lot of myths out there when it comes to like what your portfolio should be and needs to be. And based on my seven years of experience freelancing and coaching over 200 freelance digital marketers, what I have found is that most people will let their portfolio hold them back at the beginning.

Rachel Meltzer (11:56.33) it's really easy to get caught up in perfectionism and worry about what people are thinking when they're looking at your portfolio. And in reality, like most people aren't taking the time to look through your entire portfolio when they're thinking about hiring you. They actually just want to look at like one piece that is the most relevant to them. So usually when I share my portfolio with potential clients, I actually just share one piece and I make sure it's the piece in my portfolio that is most relevant to them, what service they're asking for, what their company is.

like what niche they're in, that sort of thing. And they'll actually most of the time only look at that one piece. They're not going and like rooting through your whole portfolio. Most people don't actually have time for that. So let that reassure you, I hope. Honestly, the first like five clients I had didn't look at my portfolio at all, which is crazy to me. But the truth, they told me that. But I think it's common to believe that like you need a

website to get started, you need real client experience, you need a perfect portfolio, there shouldn't be any mistakes. My portfolio now has typos in it, I guarantee it because I'm dyslexic and I'm not taking the time to go through that because the majority of people I work with have an editor who works on their team to make sure that the content that is going out is well edited and when I don't have an editor on the team of my client that I'm working with, I hire an editor to go through my shit before I actually send it to the client. So...

Just saying, it doesn't need to be perfect. My portfolio is far from perfect. It actually doesn't even include all of my experience right now because I just moved my website to a new website. So it's very normal and okay for your portfolio to not be complete, to not have a full blown website, to just have like a portfolio page, to have a free website. You don't need to have client experience. You can get started without client experience and I will show you how during this workshop. What you actually do need in your portfolio is two to three samples.

for every service you wanna offer. And these samples should be targeted to show your dream client that you get them. You get what they need, you understand the industry, you understand how to provide the service they're looking for. And that service, you could just be offering one service. You could just be offering blog posts, or you could just be offering email marketing. It doesn't have to be complex. You don't need to have a giant menu of services.

Rachel Meltzer (14:13.322) I honestly recommend starting with one to two services. If you're not sure what services you want to offer, you should go back and watch my services workshop. It's on my YouTube channel. It's free. It's part of this get started freelancing bootcamp. And it also has a free workshop workbook with a quiz in it. If you're not sure what you want to offer, your portfolio should also showcase your work online. You need to be able to link to it, to share it with your potential clients. I highly recommend taking the extra step to make

even a free website on like Notion or Canva or something. I have templates for this and we'll talk about this further in the workshop. Rather than just doing like a Google Doc or a Google Drive, it really is not necessary to have like a Wix website that's perfectly designed or a Squarespace website that costs you $40 a month or whatever. But it is important to take the extra step and get out of Google Drive and like really, you know, sell yourself on your website, on your portfolio. And lastly,

you're gonna have to show up some confidence. Unfortunately, that is a part of it. Sometimes you're still faking it till you make it and that is completely okay. I'm looking at the chat here. I love that you guys are also following Polly on LinkedIn. If you don't already follow Polly Clover on LinkedIn and you're a former teacher, you're into SEO or you just wanna follow some good content on LinkedIn, she's an awesome follow. Hell yeah, we have more people from Canada.

Tam says, where can I get these samples if I haven't worked on it before? We will talk about that in a minute. I have a whole process you're gonna go through. Kat's asking, what if I wanna write for an industry I have no prior experience in, but they're asking for published or live articles, should I still go for it? Definitely you can still go for working in an industry you've never worked in before. There are some clients who are gonna want your work to be fully published and there are ways you can get around that.

that we can talk about. can write for websites that allow you to, they might not pay you, but they might allow you to submit an idea and publish it for you. There are definitely companies like Featured who are trying to get expert quotes. They have a bunch of options for getting guest posts published or getting quotes published. You can try to submit to those. So that work could...

Rachel Meltzer (16:32.279) potentially be enough, but a lot of clients don't need your work to be published before they work with you. And if like the first person you've been pitching says we need it to be published work, maybe they're not the right first client for you and that's okay. I know it feels disappointing and difficult to like turn down a client when you haven't even gotten one yet, but sometimes if their requirements are unreasonable, then that's just not the right first client for you, right?

What do do if the work you did was for a secret org like the government? That is a great question. You will need to read your NDA very carefully, your non-disclosure agreement that you probably signed either as a part of your contract or as a separate document. And you can sort of like generally describe the organization that you worked for without specifically naming it. And you can redact information from the work that you did when you publish it.

And like we'll talk about later in this workshop, I highly recommend writing your portfolio pieces as case studies to show your process. And that will allow you to elaborate more even though you've redacted some of the information. But especially with the government that we're currently in, highly recommend checking your NDA before you publish anything.

And if you guys have questions, do not be afraid to pop them in the chat. I will answer them throughout the workshop. I have ADHD. I know it can be really hard to hold on to your questions. It might take me a second to get to your question. if it, you know, if you put it in there, I will get to it. I promise I read the chat throughout the whole workshop, don't worry. So let's talk about actually creating your portfolio.

The goal of your portfolio is to showcase the services that you offer. Again, three to five samples of your services, even if you made them from scratch with no client experience, that is showing the services you offer. And we want to use case studies to show off your process and your skills. And we'll get to more on that in a minute. You also want to speak to your ideal clients. And this is why I don't recommend putting projects from college or types of services that you don't want to actually offer or work from.

Rachel Meltzer (18:42.646) a niche that you didn't enjoy or aren't going to continue to pursue. It might be a good example of email marketing that you did for coding boot camps.

my experience, but if I don't wanna work for coding bootcamps anymore, it's not to say like I'm not gonna put that in my portfolio, but it might not be the main thing that I'm gonna showcase, and it might not hurt for me to make a new email sequence for the new industry that I wanna work in, say the outdoor industry. Those are two very different industries, and the email marketing that I'm gonna do for them is going to be very different, so it doesn't make sense for me to like show that old work to...

the new niche. It would make more sense for me to create a sample and then also say, I've been hired to do this work by this other company if you also want to see that, but this sample is what's going to be most relevant to you when you share that portfolio with the potential client. So you're going to focus your portfolio on the types of clients you actually want to get and create work specifically for them. If you don't already have work that can showcase that. And if you already have other experience, you can still include that stuff in your portfolio. But it helps to make a targeted

portfolio for your ideal clients so that you can actually speak to them. Like if you walked into a shoe store and you were looking for a pair of loafers that could go day to night with your outfit and the shoe store was like, yeah, we only sell running sneakers actually. You're not gonna like buy shoes there, right? And it's the same thing as a freelancer. If an outdoor company came to me and they wanted email marketing and I was like, yeah, here's the email marketing I did for a coding bootcamp.

it's not really fully relevant to them and they're not gonna necessarily feel like I'm the right fit and they might actually pass me up for another freelancer. But if I have a sample in my portfolio that shows work for an outdoor brand, it could be a fully made up brand. don't, they're honestly probably not gonna look that hard about it. Then that's okay. And they're gonna be like, this is so relevant to us. This is the vibe we're going for. We love it. And then they also see that I have experience working for clients.

Rachel Meltzer (20:46.466) then they're going to be more likely to hire me than if I just sent them that generic coding bootcamp email marketing sequence, for example. And the other thing is creating your portfolio is going to help you practice and it's going to help you gain confidence in your skills, whether you're changing a niche, whether you're starting from scratch and you've never freelance before, or even if you're putting together data and testimonials from past clients. Every time I update my portfolio with new work from clients, I usually update it once a year or twice a year.

and I have to go through and put those testimonials in, I will never feel more confident than that. It feels so good to be able to see that I have made somebody happy and done a good job in my services. So now we're going to go through the process of creating your portfolio. So definitely go and download the portfolio workbook if you haven't already. It is an interactive notion workbook. You can duplicate it to your own notion. If you don't already have a notion,

account, it's free, and you'll be able to edit it and duplicate it once you sign up for Notion. So step one to creating your portfolio, and if you have any questions guys about using the Notion workbook, don't be afraid to type it in the chat. I'm happy to help you make it work. before we dive into step one, when is it safe, in quotes, to create a made up brand for your portfolio? Really, anytime.

you don't have a real client to showcase for something that you want to land in the future, you can make up a brand for your portfolio. So that's why I recommend starting with research. Step one for creating your portfolio is studying your dream clients. So

this can honestly, I should have pluralized this, your dream clients plural. You want to check out like what they're doing for their brand, what their voice is like. You want to look at their competitors. You want to find good examples of the deliverables you're trying to create. You might want to find tutorials for things that you don't know how to do. And if you haven't already figured out like who your dream client is, you might want to go back and watch the find your niche workshop or run through your find your niche workbook. If you were at that workshop.

Rachel Meltzer (22:58.112) Again, it's on my YouTube. During that time, we did brainstorm a few potential ideal clients, dream clients. And if you need more information on like how to come up with your ideal clients, how to find them, the freelance resource library, which comes with all of my paid coaching options, like pop club, my membership community, that's only $33 a month. There are a bunch of lessons in there for creating your ideal clients list, defining your ideal client, where to find them on

things like Crunchbase in industry databases, there's like 20 different ways to find your ideal clients in there. Highly recommend checking that out if you're feeling confused about what I mean by dream client or ideal client, they're basically the same thing. It's basically just a client in your niche who could afford to pay you and who does need your services. So when we do research, we might wanna look at social media to get a feel for the brands.

Get on their email lists if you're doing email marketing or branding. Use Key Search or Answer the Public if you're doing SEO. TikTok's Creator Search Insights tool can also be a really helpful way to see what things are trending on things like social media and search engines, because it's like what people are looking for, and it's backed by real data. So even if you don't use TikTok that much, that can be a really helpful tool to figure out how to create something that is timely and on brand right now.

You can also look up frameworks for things like copywriting, good content, frameworks for writing a good email sequence. I love Liz Wilcox. She has great email marketing resources if you need frameworks. You can also look at current industry and services trends like new SEO requirements, what's working in email marketing, what's working in social media, whatever your service is, you're going to want to look at what the current trends are. And then you can sort of

keep up with those as you go by following industry leaders on social media. And then also like Chat GPT is a really good resource. Ask it anything. Like if you're not sure and you need help, try asking Chat GPT. You never know. But I'd love to hear from you. Do you already know who your dream client is? Feel free to pop them in the chat. You could have multiple dream clients. It's up to you. But basically when you're creating your portfolio from scratch,

Rachel Meltzer (25:18.046) or you're creating your portfolio for a new niche or you have no experience, you are going to want to model your work off of a brand that already exists. So you're basically speaking directly to them. You don't want to copy them exactly. You don't want to use their logo or their name, but you can essentially create the essence of a brand and you can either vaguely say an outdoor brand in your case study as you describe the company, or you could say,

you could make up a fake brand for them. And honestly, if you want to save time, you can use chat GBT to do that. They can literally create logos and brand voice guides and all kinds of stuff for creating a brand if you really need to. There are a bunch of really good tutorials for this actually on TikTok and on YouTube. If you would like to go the full nine yards, if you need design elements for whatever you're doing, whether it's web design, graphic design, email marketing, that sort of thing.

But if you're just writing, you don't even need to go that far. But it helps to have a real brand and know what their brand is, what their voice is, what their competitors are doing, and good examples of the deliverables you're trying to create so that your portfolio speaks directly to your dream clients. And when they look at it, they're like, oh yeah, this girl's the right fit. I know she knows what she's doing.

So like when I first started, for example, writing for coding boot camps, I didn't actually have experience writing for coding boot camps. I did write for a coding boot camp review site and that did help a little bit with my cloud, but I didn't actually have any experience with actual coding boot camps. So I wrote spec blogs and email marketing, like email, I did like a welcome sequence and I did like five blogs basically for...

a fake coding bootcamp that I completely made up myself from scratch. And it really did help me land clients much more easily and quickly than before I made those spec samples. Dan said the likelihood of somebody checking if it's a real brand is really slim. It's totally true. They're not really, what most people care about is actually like whether or not you executed the service well and what your process is.

Rachel Meltzer (27:35.636) and how working with you will work. They care about that so much more than whether or not what you wrote was for real brand. So don't be afraid to just go for it and make up a few fake brands to get started. There's nothing wrong with that and no one's really gonna be checking into it that hard. Kim's Dream Client is an outdoorsy publication that is education and diversity focused. I love this. I feel like there would probably be a bunch of nonprofits.

that would work to fit in that category, Dan is targeting gaming studios as a narrative designer. That sounds like such a fun job, Dan. What the heck? I didn't even think about doing that as a freelancer. That is genius. So cool. And you're also targeting marketing studios that have a range of clients. Nice. Feel free to keep popping your dream clients in the chat. I would love to hear about them if you have anything in mind.

let's talk about step two. Step two is planning. So once you have that basic information of like what's going on in your industry, what's going on in your services and the types of companies, brands that you might want to write for, now is the time to plan your portfolio. So you're going to want to pick one to three services that you want to offer. I generally, I do offer more than three services, but when you're first starting out, I usually recommend just doing one to three.

so that you're not overwhelmed and it's easier to position yourself and get clients because you can say what you're specializing in. I talk about this a lot in the services workshop that is on my YouTube channel. If you wanna watch the replay, you can watch it for more information on how to pick your services and why I recommend just doing one, two, three to start. Once you've picked your services, you're going to make up that first client. You're gonna concretely make them up. You can use ChatGBT to help you or you can just...

quickly run through and create a brand or an off-brand essentially. And then you're going to need to outline what you're going to create and the steps you need to create it. Lastly, you're going to set deadlines for each step that you outlined. And if you're not sure how long something is going to take, again, ChatGPT is really good at estimating these things.

Rachel Meltzer (29:52.546) but don't forget to build in time for learning if you've never done this service before or if you are new to freelancing in a certain industry, like a new industry can sometimes take a little bit of time to learn. And I definitely recommend limiting how much time you are giving to each step. So if ChatGBT said this should take you two hours and you're building in time for learning, let's say 30 minutes, then set a timer for two hours and 30 minutes. And at the end of that timer, turn it off.

take a step away, you can come back and edit, but we really don't, as human beings, know how to step away from the perfectionism. Like done is always better than perfect, but if you give yourself a whole day to do something, it will take a whole day to do it, if that makes sense. That's my experience, at least. That is what I have seen in most freelancers that I work with. It is much...

better to time yourself and try to give yourself a limit than it is to give yourself the whole day to do something because then it will take the whole day. One of my favorite things that I've gotten, not that you need to like go out and buy something, is this cube timer. I really thought they were like gimmicks, but they're great. You set it down on whatever time.

you want it to set. let's say I wanted to do 50 minutes, just put it down like this and it's right in front of my face the whole time. And when it goes off, I actually notice it. You can also just use the timer app in your computer or in your phone or there are web apps for this. But for some reason, the physicalness of this really helped me hone in on actually using it. So I highly recommend this one has both noise and vibration. So if you don't want like a beep, beep, beep going off when you're done,

there are options for that, highly recommend. It has been really helpful for me as far as restricting myself. So in the portfolio workbook, there is a whole area for planning your portfolio. It will help you plan out the services you wanna offer, the client you're doing it for, the information you need about that client, and how to set deadlines. So if you're doing something that's gonna take multiple steps, for example, creating an email welcome series, you're going to need to write out each of those steps

Rachel Meltzer (32:07.566) how long you expect them to take and give yourself a deadline. If you already know you need to have your portfolio completed by a certain deadline or you're thinking in your head, I don't want this to take me more than a month, write it in the chat. Like when do you think you want your portfolio to be done by? Obviously you need to be somewhat realistic, but I think you'd be surprised at how quickly you can actually complete a portfolio if you buckle down and restrict to the time that you allow yourself to do it. Again, done is better than perfect, so.

don't expect yourself to have it be perfectly done. And if you need lessons on how to provide services, digital marketing services, we have everything from SEO to email marketing. We have brand voice guides and branding, all kinds of services. We have lessons for them in the Freelance Resource Library. Some of them are from me, some of them are from experts, like Polly Clover has a bunch of SEO workshops in there. We have

a ton of different workshops in the Freelance Resource Library that comes with all of my paid coaching options if you're interested in learning how to provide specific services. And sorry, I'm just looking at the chat, see if there's any questions. Never thought to use AI to estimate how long things will take. Yeah, I actually used to use the Goblin app. I don't know if you ever heard of that. It's supposedly designed for people with ADHD. What a surprise. And it breaks down.

tasks into smaller tasks and tells you how long things take. And it was pretty accurate. And so then I started realizing, I could just like ask Chachi BT instead of using a separate app. You're giving yourself two weeks to do it, Bo. I believe in you. Tam already has a bit of a draft, but wants to make new samples for more than one niche. So maybe a month. I think that's completely reasonable. It also helps to put it on your schedule. So like, when are you actually realistically going to work on it? For example,

Maybe you work on it on Tuesdays and Thursdays for two hours before you start doing anything else. That's another tool I always use when I don't, I'm putting something off, do it before you do anything else. It will put pressure on you, because it's like, I have to do this other thing. If I do my portfolio first, then maybe it will actually get done, because I have this external pressure. One of my services is ghostwriting LinkedIn posts for leaders in my niche.

Rachel Meltzer (34:28.544) Obviously as it's ghost writing they don't want to be named or have me share the actual content anyway, I could use it Yeah, so you could definitely what I would recommend doing is taking screenshots and Redacting information so over their profile picture you could use Something like I love the notion faces. Have you seen those? There's like a face generator a notion you can use it to like

make a face, make a profile picture. It's just like an illustration or you can make an illustration and procreate on your iPad if you have one or on Canva and then redact their name. You could make a fake name or something like that to put over it and you can edit the screenshots in Canva for free. There's also a great tool that I use. I think they do have a free trial. If you have a Mac, it's called Clean Shot X. They have an amazing screenshot tool. It will put like a nice background behind it. Like my

desktop, I don't know if you guys are like this, but my desktop is just like covered in screenshots. So when I go to take a screenshot, you just see like all of the other screenshots on my desktop, but this will blur, will put an image behind your screenshot instead of your desktop, which is really nice. And you can also edit right within the app. like I'll redact that information and put the profile picture over it right in CleanShot X on my desktop. So that can make things much easier. Or you can just edit it in Canva. That's what I used to do.

And that way you're not necessarily sharing their business name or all of the content and the content won't be indexed by search engines because it's an image, but you can still show those examples in a great and useful way. If you don't wanna use real examples, you could use samples. Yeah, that's true, Dan. If you have the time and energy to create new samples, you could definitely do that.

I actually, when I first got into LinkedIn content writing for other people, I made, don't tell LinkedIn I did this, guess, I made a fake account for a fake person and I made content for her. I got her like 3000 followers and some of her posts got like 50,000 likes and I got a lot of like, I basically got really good stats for her. spent like three months.

Rachel Meltzer (36:50.904) doing content marketing for this fake account. And then I used it to make a case study and then I deleted the account so that I wasn't just like being an asshole out in the universe. But that is an option if you wanted to go that far or you could just use it to, basically it needs to look like LinkedIn so you could mock it up in Canva or you can post things on LinkedIn and take screenshots and modify them or whatever. But it does help what it looks like. It's actually in the native thing that you're selling.

to So that is also an option if that's something that you are interested in spending the time on doing. Part of the reason I did that was because I wanted more data and I wanted more proof that my methods work. So like I have a whole framework for LinkedIn content marketing now. It's on my website. So when people go to like look at that service, they see my framework and they know that like I'm not just like talking the talk. I am also walking the walk and that I can get results and I have screenshots of all of those results that I got for her and it really

helps with your credibility, but you don't have to go that far if you don't want to. So yeah, making a plan, having a deadline, doing your best to stick to that deadline. And if you need an accountability buddy, we have a whole channel in Pop Club, my community membership called Accountability Buddies, where I will literally hold you accountable to your goals and check in with you along the way. So step three is creating. We've already talked a little bit about how to create the things for your portfolio.

But really it is like the hardest part is making the actual deliverables for most people because we become perfectionists. Perfectionism will kill you and it will kill your motivation if you let it. So again, we need to put perfectionism aside. It is the number one thing I see holding freelancers back. So I like to use my portfolio when you're making these samples as sort of an experiment.

It helps to start with a brain dump. So all that information that you took in for the research and all the information you put into your plan, you can brain dump. You can share this with ChatGPT if you want, that can help you process it. Then create an outline, which you should have done in your plan, but if you haven't, if you skipped that part because you wanted to do your plan quickly.

Rachel Meltzer (39:05.23) create that outline and then it's time to create a messy first draft. I recommend not editing too much obviously some things like copywriting you're going to have to edit as you go because you need to fit a certain character count or it needs to look a certain way or feel a certain way but a messy first draft is going to get you so much further than constantly editing yourself if you're doing something like content writing or any other long form content.

and then you can sort of polish it up at the end. If you need another set of eyes on your portfolio pieces, I offer free portfolio critiques as a part of the Pop Club membership. I will literally critique your portfolio as many times as you want. So Pop Club really is there to support you every step of the way if that's something you're interested. And if you need templates, we have them in the Freelance Resource Library. If you're feeling alone,

in your experience as a freelancer. The Guidebook podcast, my podcast, it comes out every Thursday, might help you. I interview freelancers about their journey to becoming freelancers and all of the emotions that come along with this career path. I think when you're creating your portfolio, especially if you don't have experience yet, it can really be like, what the heck am I doing with my life?

It can feel really uncomfortable. sometimes listening to other people's experiences can make it easier. I know for me, I used to listen to podcasts when I first started freelancing. Listening to other people's experiences really made it easier for me to keep going because it was like, everybody struggles through this part. That's totally normal. And again, talk to Chachi PT. Act like it's your bestie. It'll literally give you pep talks, tools and solutions. And if you're a reader, Bird by Bird is a book that I recommend. actually think...

Rachel Meltzer (40:53.614) Just toppled my whole bookcase, no problem. This is Bird by Bird. It's by Anne Lamott. You can also get it on as an ebook or from Libby. I'm sure your local library probably has a copy of it. It's fantastic. I have highlighted so much stuff in this book, but it really is a pep talk on really how to get through both writing and life.

And I read it when I was creating my first portfolio on recommendation from another freelance writer. And it really, really helped me get past the mindset stuff that was keeping me stuck. So if you struggle with that and you're a reader, it's a very quick read. It's a pretty skinny book. Highly recommend. Looking at the chat here. Dan said, accountability buddies. Yes, accountability buddies. Yeah, that channel is really fun if you need help.

Most people in Pop Club are excited to pair up with other people because getting shit done is always easier with somebody else. Body doubling is the best. We also have coworking calls. So if you need accountability to show up and actually work on your portfolio, we do coworking at least three times a week. And I'm on there. We can literally cowork you and me in Pop Club if you want to join. It's great. Stephanie, welcome.

Stephanie's in Pop Club. Such a good book, right? Highly recommend. All right, so the most exciting step of your portfolio really is publishing it. You don't need a fancy website. I will say this over and over again. I did not have a website the entire first four years of my business. I only really have a website now because I offer coaching and I needed a way to share those services. Otherwise I would probably still just like have a free portfolio somewhere.

Highly recommend starting with a free Notion site or Canva site if you don't want to pay for something. In Pop Club, I have templates for each and I can show them to you. Actually, the digital marketing page on my website, if you go to MeltzerSeltzer.com and you click digital marketing in the nav bar, is that template. So if you like that page, it's the Notion template, feel free to steal it. The Canva template is very similar. You can just add a lot more design options in there if that's more your style.

Rachel Meltzer (43:08.824) There are so many ways you can create a free website that is aesthetically pleasing and not difficult. Utilize them. You do not need to pay tons of money for Squarespace or deal with a headache that is Wix or any of those other things. If you want to go for it. But I find that a lot of freelancers waste a bucket load of time on trying to make their website and make it look really good. And then they just have to change it in a few months because they realize, I want to offer different services or.

this isn't the niche I wanna offer or the brand that I made when I first started looks so ugly, I'm gonna change it. I can really help to just start with something free, start with a template, make it quickly and do your best. It doesn't need to be perfect. I do not recommend using sites like Clippings or Contently or those other portfolio sites where it's like you get...

one option for the page and you get like a little blurb because you can't really create persuasive pages that sell your services and your brand. They just show your portfolio pieces. So if you really want to sell your freelance services, I highly recommend having a at least one page website that shows like a little bit about you, the services you want to offer the...

your portfolio, your experience, testimonials from clients. Obviously some of these things are gonna be things that you need to add later if you haven't had clients yet, but having the foundation be set up in something that is limitlessly, like you can change it as much as you want in the future and you're not gonna have to completely recreate it, but allows you to showcase your experience and your services in a persuasive way is important. I also,

Notion sites, I recommend more than Canva because you can get it indexed by search engines. So someone can Google search Rachel Miltz or freelance writer and find my portfolio pretty easily. Whereas Canva sites are not Notion, are not, sorry, not indexed by search engines, but they are much prettier. And if you're already comfortable in Canva, that's a great option. Again, I have single page website templates available in there.

Rachel Meltzer (45:19.094) But I'd love to hear where you're gonna share your portfolio. There are tons of platforms for sharing your portfolio and there's nothing wrong with paying for them if you want to and you really like those platforms. But share it in the chat where you guys putting your portfolio up. And again, those templates are in the resource library, but if you want them, I do sell them as a standalone product in my shop as well. And I can share the link for that. And there are...

Options and suggestions for formatting your portfolio like how it should look what you should include in a case study If you should do mock-ups and that sort of thing in the portfolio workbook and that link is in the description of this video If you haven't downloaded it already But yeah, I would love to hear from you. Where are you sharing your portfolio? Because also I like hearing other options if you guys are using things that are different than mine

You already made a Squarespace site, that's totally fine. If you've already put in the effort to make it, go for it, use it. If you like Squarespace, satisfied. I personally just don't like Squarespace. It felt like overly complicated to me. Tam says, Notion, hell yeah, I love Notion. It's so simple and the options really are limitless with it, it feels like.

another question. If you've created a lead magnet like an ebook, would you share the entire thing in your portfolio or just an extract? Is it reasonable to be able to share the whole thing? So it depends on where the ebook is. So I did an ebook for a client and I shared screenshots of five pages. It was like a 20 page ebook or something like that.

And I shared a case study of like how I made it, what they gave me, what I contributed, how quickly we did it, because it was like a fast turnaround project. They paid me a rush fee. So I wanted to like include that in the case study. And then I just linked out to their website where the ebook is actually hosted a lot of.

Rachel Meltzer (47:14.562) Companies now will use eBooks for SEO. So I don't recommend copying and pasting the whole thing onto your website because it will compete with their SEO and it can actually hurt your domain ranking. So yeah, I recommend screenshots as much as possible and just linking out to it if you can. Dan also has Squarespace, but the portfolio page needs work. Yeah, definitely, I feel that.

Tumblr is another option. Tumblr is another option. Yeah, people don't think about Tumblr a lot. It's kind of faded into the background, it seems. Katz has a canvas site, but looking at migrating into Notion, yeah, if you want to get started quickly, I can share the link to those templates. Yeah, awesome. Cool. Yeah, I feel like Squarespace is pretty popular. I personally just got really frustrated with it, but it is a perfectly fine option. Again, like you need to use what you

are going to actually use, if that makes sense. Don't use Notion just because I told you to. If you don't like Notion, don't use it. I don't like Squarespace, so I'm not gonna put my website on Squarespace, but plenty of people have their website. Obviously, millions of people have their websites on Squarespace and love it. So it's really up to what you're actually going to use and whatever's easiest for you to actually update, what feels aesthetically pleasing to you. Those are all important things when you're picking where you're gonna put your portfolio. And you can always migrate it later if you...

age out or decide you don't like whatever tool you started on. Bo created there's unlovable. Interesting. I've never heard of that. Cool.

Are the tips that I'm sharing about research domain and everything noted in the template or resource page? I'm not sure if they are. I don't think so, but I can update it to include those things. It's actually like a hot take. should do that. Yeah, if you are sharing work that you did for a client, I always recommend just linking out.

Rachel Meltzer (49:20.052) that work rather than fully copying and pasting it to your own website if your website is going to be indexed by search engines so that you are not competing with their SEO. It will drive your domain ranking down because your website is newer. will almost guarantee the other domain will be more established than yours and have a better ranking than you and it will hurt your website if you do that. Jacqueline has a WordPress website.

Perfect, yeah, if that's what you're comfortable with, use WordPress in-house, use it for your own. I think that is appropriate, yeah. All right, awesome. So if you need resources, again, the Freelance Resource Library is available. can buy it independently if you don't wanna buy a membership to Pop Club or you don't wanna do one-on-one coaching, but it does come with all of my paid coaching options. And Pop Club's only $33 a month if you want community, accountability buddies, access to the entire Freelance Resource Library and all that good stuff.

It's only $33 a month. I think I've said this enough today. Maybe I should get this like tattooed on my forehead. Done is better than perfect friends. Okay. Just keep shouting it from the rooftops. Don't be afraid to like DM me on LinkedIn or something and be like, tell me again. I think the majority of people get stuck because they want their portfolio to be perfect. Your dream clients want relevant more than they want perfect. I will say it forever and ever done is better than perfect. My first clients literally didn't look at their

my portfolio, you just need enough in there to get started, truly. You just need your portfolio to exist. It does not need to be perfect. You will update it once you get clients. It's really just there as a vessel to prove that you can do the services that you're offering. That is all. All right, so I'm gonna run through a few frequently asked questions and then I will get to any of your lingering questions. I know I've answered a lot of them during this workshop, but if you have more questions,

don't be afraid to pop them in that chat. So can I use writing from college or past projects that were not paid work? I think you probably know the answer to this by now, but usually I would say no. If it was a sample of a service that you do want to offer, even if it was in a different niche, fine. If it speaks to your ideal client, great. If it showcases your digital marketing skills, awesome, share it.

Rachel Meltzer (51:43.032) put in your portfolio. But otherwise, it's mostly just gonna be filler that's going to distract your client from the relevant information in your portfolio. And it's literally better to have a smaller portfolio that is very targeted and really good examples of the services that you're offering for the niche that you're offering, than it is to have a bunch of filler that is completely irrelevant. You want to look like a specialist, not a generalist. I talked about this a ton in the niche workshop, as well as the services workshop. Go back and watch those replays if you haven't seen them.

But it is important to specialize in some way and you can decide what your specialty is. It could be a service, it could be a niche, it could be the type of client you serve, it could be a value that your business has. It doesn't matter what you specialize in, but you need some kind of specialty and if you are just putting all this filler in your portfolio, you're not gonna look like a specialist and that is important.

Can I get started getting clients before my portfolio is done? Yes, go for it. I highly encourage it. You may want to hold off on pitching big fish, I call them, like very large companies that are your dream client and in your niche until your portfolio is done. But pitching smaller brands and publications is very much worth it. It takes time to get clients. The majority of clients are going to come from follow ups. And we'll talk about this a lot.

in the getting clients workshop later, excuse me, in this bootcamp. It is coming up. You'll find it on my YouTube channel or on our community events calendar. But basically, the majority of your clients are going to come from follow-ups. And follow-ups take time because following up with someone just two weeks later, not a lot is gonna change in two weeks. Most of the time, you're gonna wanna follow up with them quarterly after a while, so every three months. And...

Three months is time that you could be working. So the earlier you start networking, the earlier you start pitching, the earlier you start following up, the better because you need to build that foundation of connections or email cold pitches or however you decide to get your clients so that you have people to follow up with so that you can get clients and so that all of that activity is overlapping and you don't have any gaps in your leads and getting client activities.

Rachel Meltzer (54:03.342) So yes, the earlier the better, even if your portfolio is not done, it'll actually probably help you build out your portfolio faster because if you do get a client, then you can use them in your portfolio. And if you get someone saying, yeah, I'd love to see your portfolio, then you're like, shit, I gotta get my portfolio done. And you'll get it done much faster because there's actually a reason to get it done. So highly recommend pitching before your portfolio is done.

And lastly, how many pieces do I need? Again, I want you to aim for about three examples per service you offer. Three to five total to start is fine if you're offering one to three services and you can add more as you get clients. I will say for bigger multi-part projects like email marketing, social media marketing strategy, that sort of thing. One strong multi-deliverable case study like a welcome series or one month of social media strategy or something like that is

completely okay to start and you can just add more as you go because it's a lot of effort to create multiple email marketing efforts or social media efforts and those that's probably enough of an example. But if you're offering just like blogs or standalone content pieces, ebooks, I would recommend having at least three in your portfolio and they should be varied. There are a lot of different types of blogs you can write. So, you know.

try to give some variety, but use your best judgment based on effort and deliverable size. And if you're not sure what you should be doing, don't be afraid to ask me questions. You can comment on this YouTube video and I'll make sure I respond later. If you have a question in a month about this, or you can DM me on LinkedIn, or again, you can join Pop Club and DM me on there. So.

What questions do you have? What lingering questions are left over? Pop them in the chat and I will answer them. If you don't have any questions, I would actually love to hear the best thing that you learned during this workshop in the chat. And don't be afraid to use that workbook that is in the description. It has everything you need for planning your portfolio, motivation for writing it, examples of good portfolios.

Rachel Meltzer (56:13.72) how to format your portfolio and all that good stuff. And I believe the link to the templates for Notion and Canva are in the workbook, but I will also find those real quick and share them in the chat with you.

Rachel Meltzer (56:46.33) Thanks, Bo. Yeah, please like this video. Please subscribe to my youtube channel I don't know where my link to the templates went But I will put it in the follow-up email if you did sign up on the community events calendar And I will put it in the description of this video in the comments later once I find it Dan says the workbook is awesome super glad to have that. Thank you. I'm so glad you like it It's very helpful. Yeah, if you want future workshops on freelancing

Don't be afraid to subscribe to my channel. I also post my podcasts on here and they obviously go in a normal podcast feed if you're more of a listener than a watcher. And while you guys pop your questions and best things you've learned in the chat, I'm just gonna run through my offerings and discount codes if you guys are interested in any of those. I do offer coaching and I am offering it for 20 % off right now.

I currently have two spots available for long-term one-on-one coaching if you want three months or six months to help you launch or revamp your freelance business. And I also offer just one-on-one intensives if you just want to like talk to me for an hour, get your business in order, get help with the things that you're struggling with the most. And that again is 20 % off.

If you're interested in pop club, your first three months are 20 % off right now. So it's only $26 a month instead of 33 for your first three months. And you can cancel anytime. You don't have to do the whole first three months to get that discount.

And the accountability buddies channel is popping off. also have coworking. You'll get a 20 minute one-on-one strategy session with me when you join pop club as well. So we can make a roadmap for your first three months in pop club and get you on the right track to achieve your goals. Whether those are financial goals or wanting more control over your life and your business, getting better clients, any of the above. It also comes with my freelance resource library and our community, which is hosted on circle.

Rachel Meltzer (58:38.25) If you want someone to make your portfolio website for you, I am happy to help. I offer done for you websites for freelancers. I make them in Notion with Super. So Super is an app that basically makes your Notion website pretty and it makes SEO better. But you, when you go to edit your website or add a new portfolio piece or anything like that, you just edit it right in Notion and Super automatically updates it. It's super easy. Super.

Super easy. I did not, that was no pun intended, but it did happen. So yeah, if you want a simple, unbreakable website, the Done For You website service is a great option. It starts at $500. I literally only charge my hourly rate for it because I wanna make it as accessible as possible for freelancers. I know we don't make a ton of money as freelancers. So if you're looking for a website that's made for you in Notion with...

a more pretty overlay, that is an option for you. And all of these links are in the description box below. I think I've already told you about the Freelance Resource Library. I also offer a done for you service for getting clients on LinkedIn. And you can see my whole process for this in the Get Clients on LinkedIn workshop. And I also offer LinkedIn profile critiques. If you need help polishing up your LinkedIn, getting more inbound leads on LinkedIn and making it more professional, that is an option. It's only $25.

And lastly, I have a crap load of free resources. I don't know if you noticed as you're currently in a free resource, get started freelancing in the free live bootcamp for the freelancers. But I also have other free community events like creative writing workshops, money dates, and things like that. I have a weekly newsletter, a weekly podcast if you're interested in either of those. And I don't just copy the podcast into the newsletter like some people do. The newsletter is its own independent thing full of tips and resources. There's a free resource every week in there.

The Get Clients Guidebook is how I get clients on LinkedIn. There's also a corresponding workshop on my YouTube channel. If you want to watch that, the replay is up. I've got templates for Notion if you're new to Notion and you want to create a dashboard or a way to track how your pitching is going and who you need to follow up with. And then lastly, I have the business setup checklist if you're not sure if your business is set up correctly and legally in the United States. It's there for you.

Rachel Meltzer (01:00:53.688) Those are all of my free resources and I'm always happy to answer your questions. Even if you're not in my paid coaching programs, don't be afraid to DM me on LinkedIn. That's where I mostly hang out. I don't really do much other social media besides YouTube and LinkedIn. So check them out. If you're interested, you can send me a connection request. I will accept it and you can DM me anytime. And yeah, please like and subscribe to my channel.

I am always sharing freelance resources. I also do like normal YouTube videos, not just live workshops. So those will come out on your feed if you're someone who avidly uses YouTube. Thank you for coming, you guys. Thanks, Tam, for showing up. Jacqueline says, honestly, done is better than perfect as my new mantra.

I'm about to get that tattooed on my arm. Seriously, perfectionism is such a good excuse to procrastinate. Your brain really thinks it's a good excuse, but it's not. It's not worth it. My life has changed so much since I really adopted that done is better than perfect. I would literally not be here teaching you if I hadn't. I was such a perfectionist about my coaching business when I first started and it, it's so much better now that I'm not being a perfectionist, truly. Bo says plus one on the workbook. Hell yeah.

Hadn't thought to consider my client and the portfolio before I made it. I know that's the thing, it's like, okay, I could just put all my work in my portfolio. That's my portfolio, you know? But when you make it actually engineered for the client and to speak to your ideal client and your niche, it does something for you. Like make the effort you're putting into your portfolio worth it, honestly. It helps so much with getting clients. All right, y'all, thank you so much for tuning in. I will see you on the next one.

And yeah, don't be afraid to check out the description box for all those links to our upcoming free community events. Our next workshop is going to be about setting up your business. So if you need help with that, don't be afraid to check that out and I'll see you in the next video.