I Answered Freelancers’ Biggest Questions (Pricing, Clients, Mindset & More)

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Transcript

Rachel Meltzer (01:08.664) Welcome everybody to office hours. I would love to hear where you are tuning in from, where you're joining us from. Pop it in the chat if you care to share. I'm here to answer all of your questions, whether it's about freelancing, my get started freelancing bootcamp, my coaching services, getting started freelancing, if you're further into your career, if you have questions about pricing, about LinkedIn, about your website or portfolio.

the services you're offering, whatever you got, throw it at me. I am here to answer your questions for the next hour. So pop them in the chat and let's get started. I'd love to hear from you.

Rachel Meltzer (01:55.246) And if you stick around to the end, I am also offering discounts on my coaching services. So there is that.

Rachel Meltzer (02:22.478) I'm gonna keep an eye on the chat while everybody filters in, but I'm excited to hear from you guys. Where are you tuning in from? And if you're already freelancing, I'd also love to hear like, where are you at in your business? How long have you been freelancing? What kind of services do you offer? All that good stuff.

Rachel Meltzer (02:53.28) And if you're just here to vibe and co-work, I'd love to know that too. Feel free to share.

Rachel Meltzer (03:48.93) just wait for a few more people to trickle in. But I'd love to hear from you in the chat if you're already watching.

Rachel Meltzer (04:28.91) I while we wait to get started, can share a little bit more about me if you have not interacted with any of my free YouTube lives before. I teach people how to get started freelancing and how to get clients using LinkedIn and email cold pitching as freelancer so you can get off of platforms like Upwork and Fiverr and really actually earn the big bucks that you see a lot of freelancers making. I help you with everything from creating your portfolio to pricing your services.

picking what services you should offer, setting up your business. Basically everything is covered in my free get started freelancing bootcamp which is currently going on. We have one free workshop every month and one free office hours just like this one. You can ask me any of your questions anytime. Normally my office hours

are saved for my paid coaching programs like Pop Club, which is a $33 a month membership program, or my one-on-one coaching program, but I'm offering them for free during the Get Started Freelancing Bootcamp so you can get the help you need alongside that bootcamp because, you know, workshops are only as good as the questions that are asked around them. In my opinion, you really need to customize everything you learn about running a freelance business for yourself and your own business. So that's what I am here to help you do.

If you have any questions about freelancing, digital marketing, LinkedIn, anything else, I'm happy to help. And if you want to learn more about me, I will pop my website link in the chat so you can.

Rachel Meltzer (06:14.094) And if you wanted to join us for the Get Started freelancing bootcamp, that link is in the description of this video. And it will take you from A to Z. We've done two workshops so far, Finding Your Niche and Picking Your Services. But there are replays of those right here on this YouTube channel. And there are also workbooks for it for free on my website if you want to check those out. But we have workshops coming up soon. Our next workshop is about

creating your freelance portfolio to attract clients. And that's in April.

Rachel Meltzer (07:04.974) While I wait for some questions to roll in, I'm going to check in with everybody who signed up for the event and let them know we are now live.

Brad says, I always think of questions after office hours are over. Mostly here for the vibe today and positive mindset. I feel you Brad. It's so easy. Everything just like flies out of your head when you're ready to ask the questions.

Cultivating a Positive Freelance Mindset

Rachel Meltzer (09:21.782) I'm happy to help with any mindset struggles you're having. If anybody has any of those, I think we all struggle with mindset once in a while.

Rachel Meltzer (10:39.448) Any recommendations on ways to keep a positive, encouraging, and confident mindset? I have like a million recommendations for that, Brad, so that's a really good question. I think it's really important to remember that we are not perfect and we should not expect ourselves to always be positive, encouraging, and confident. It is unrealistic to expect yourself to be that way all the time.

However, if you can leave behind that all or nothing thinking and really give yourself the grace to practice and be imperfect and start again when you notice that you have strayed away from the mindset that you're trying to cultivate, I think that's the first step. The second step is really awareness. So understanding where your mindset is drifting from the confident, encouraging, positive.

space that you want to be in, noticing when that happens, what's triggering it, if you're spiraling, where your thoughts are going. That noticing is going to give you a lot of data that's going to allow you to take more action towards becoming the type of person you want to be. If you can start noticing that data, you don't even necessarily need to like write these things down or record them. You just need to acknowledge it in your own mind.

then you can start to see where things are going wrong and how you can curb that behavior. So it might show you like limiting beliefs that you have. It might show you lessons that aren't serving you anymore. It could show you little habits that you know aren't good for you, but that you continue to do anyway. For example, I know that snoozing my alarm is just gonna make me feel stressed for the rest of the day. It's literally proven to raise your cortisol levels.

And I know that I don't want to do that anymore if I want to have a good day. So if I catch myself snoozing my alarm, it's helpful to at least notice it and admit to myself that I did a thing that I told myself I wasn't going to do. And that allows me to take gentle action towards doing the thing that I do want to do, which is waking up without snoozing my alarm, for example. And sometimes you might also find that the things that you think are going to put you in a

Rachel Meltzer (12:58.83) space of positivity aren't always the right solutions and you just need to experiment with them. Like I was convinced for the longest time that I like needed to wake up at 5 30 a.m to be productive but I constantly snoozed my alarm and I was always overtired and then I started realizing I go to bed at like 10 30 or 11 every night because I like to hang out with my partner after work and that's when we go to bed when we tend to hang out in the quality way that we think we want to. So why am I forcing myself to get up at 5 30? Like

I don't have to, like I can start work anytime. Like I can do whatever the fuck I want, so why am I doing this to myself? So I realized it makes a lot more sense for me to just like wake up later or even not set an alarm. Usually if I don't set an alarm, I wake up between 7.30 and 8 a.m. and I'm completely fine with that. Like it allows me enough time to get my morning routine done, get enough sleep and get to work on time. So like.

what's the big deal. So sometimes it does take experimenting. Like you might think one thing is what you want or how you think you quote unquote should be, but then the more you do it, you realize like, maybe that actually isn't the right prescription for me. And I just need to try something different because the data is showing me that I am not following through on this thing. And there's a reason you're not following through on it. And the reason could be.

your limiting mindset. I'm completely capable of waking up at 5 a.m. every day. I just choose not to. Or it could be that it's actually just not the right solution for you. Or it could be that, you know, you need to try something that's like a combination. Like maybe your alarm clock just isn't the right alarm clock. Or maybe you need a reason to get up in the morning. I'll tell you what, I took care of my friend's kid for a week. I have no problems getting up at 5 a.m. when I'm taking care of a kid. Like...

Not that I'm saying I need to get a kid, but having a dog does help me wake up at a reasonable hour because she needs to go outside. Like she can't be kept inside for 12 hours straight. So finding ways to motivate yourself can also be helpful. Obviously you already have kids, Brad, and you know, taking on more responsibility like a dog might not be the answer for you. But these are just examples of things that I've noticed have really made a big difference on how I.

Rachel Meltzer (15:14.254) expect myself to show up and take action towards the things that I want. The mindset is really just practice. You're going to fall off the wagon sometimes. You know, there's a reason we don't have team sports practices seven days a week. Like there's always a day or two off. So don't be afraid to give yourself some grace, but also remember that it's a practice. Like you have to keep doing it over and over. You're never going to get stronger at the gym if you don't consistently go to the gym, right?

So hopefully that's helpful. Self-expectations are, yeah. a lot of us don't set our expectations of ourselves intentionally. It's like things that we've carried over from our past or that our parents taught us or that we learned in school or that we learned at work. And sometimes we don't even know where these expectations came from. They're just there. And it's like, maybe I should like, I don't know.

think about this or inspect this or figure out why I'm having these expectations of myself and then reframe that and that can also help you get in stock too.

Rachel Meltzer (16:21.452) Yeah, and please enjoy the weird pop-up emojis that Apple has decided shows up on my video now when I use my Apple webcam. That's delightful for me. Big thumbs up exactly when you mean not to have it.

Rachel Meltzer (16:47.438) but I am here to answer any questions if anyone else has any questions or if you wanna share more about your business and where you're at in freelancing, I'd love to learn more about you if you're just tuning in and we haven't met before, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat. I love getting to know you guys and seeing like who's actually showing up behind these live streams, because I can't actually see your faces on YouTube. I can just see what you put in the chat.

Rachel Meltzer (17:35.31) And if you're just here to vibe and socialize like Brad is, feel free to share that in the chat too. I love co-working. We do a lot of co-working inside Pop Club. My paid community for freelancers, Brad's in Pop Club, so you'll see him in there if you head over there. But we do tons of live co-working in there and it's really fun to feel like you have co-workers and get to share the experience with other freelancers, but also, you know.

actually get some work done and have that accountability and a space to see how time is passing. Sometimes time passes so quickly when you're focused and it helps to know how long things are actually taking. Sometimes I use co-working sessions as timers to figure out how long services take me because I hate using time trackers. It works really well. But this is a perfect place to be if you just want to go work for a little while too. We'll be here until 4 p.m. Eastern so for another 40 minutes or so.

But if you have any questions, you can always pop those in the chat too. Or if you just want some advice or a pep talk, or if there's something you've been noticing about freelancing that you're like, is this how it's supposed to be? Is this just how the industry is? I'm happy to share those insights too. A lot of popular topics lately have been around AI, whether ghosting is increasing from potential clients and other.

things like that. If you're concerned about something with freelancing in the industry, I'm happy to talk about those things too. It doesn't just have to be about setting rates or creating your portfolio or what should be on your website or getting started and things like that. That's okay too.

2025 Trends in Freelancing: AI, Ghosting, Layoffs, Mor Opportunities

Brad asked if there are any trends. I'm noticing this year that are different from 2024. I know that's kind of broad. That's OK. Yeah, there are definitely things that are changing with freelancing this year in particular. One of the major things is definitely how AI and the use of AI is shifting. I've been experimenting with

offering smaller packages than what I normally would at slightly lower rates if I am allowed to use AI to supplement that work. So I have one experimental client right now who I use a lot of AI for. And it's really interesting to see how the AI tools are changing and whether or not this is a viable solution.

In a lot of ways, I don't wanna discount my services if I'm using AI because I am still an expert and I am still the writer and I do deserve to get paid. However, at the end of the day, if the amount of time that it's taking and the amount of expertise I am giving is lining up with that rate that I'm offering it at, then it can work out. Like I wouldn't normally do blogs for $325, but if I am...

charging 50 cents a word and the blog's only 600 words and it takes me two hours to write it, then what's to say? Like it does line up with my hourly rate, it does line up with what I am trying to earn. So I'm trying to look at things a little bit more creatively from a standpoint of pricing and time and also using it to streamline things like how I'm repurposing my content and how I'm sharing.

about my offers, it's a lot easier to ask AI to write a rough draft of a LinkedIn post than it is to write every single one yourself or of an email that you're trying to write for clients. So AI is one of the biggest trends that we're seeing in 2025. And it was also a really big trend that we saw in 2024 as well. So I think it's not necessarily news, but how we're using it can definitely

Rachel Meltzer (23:15.854) change as our business grows. Another major trend I'm seeing is just a lot of ghosting in 2025, like more ghosting than I think there used to be. And by ghosting, mean like clients who are saying they're interested in your services, you might even have sent them a proposal or done a discovery call with them and then you just don't hear from them. And I think a lot of that is because things are changing so rapidly right now, especially in the US with our government. And just in general, like...

things are changing quickly, how people's budgets are changing, how their role at their job is changing, whether or not they are or aren't hiring freelancers. I've had people tell me like they just learned last week, they're no longer able to work with freelancers. Labor laws also changed at the end of 2024. So some companies are sort of coming to a head with having to deal with that. A lot of legal departments are sort of pushing back on hiring freelancers right now.

So I think it's important to remember that typically ghosting is happening for a reason. Either the company like doesn't know what they're doing, isn't sure what their budget is. You know, they might be waiting on a decision from somebody else and they're not able to answer you the way that they need to in order to get started working with you. So those are like the two negative trends I'm definitely seeing. On the positive side of things, I have seen

Way more freelance opportunities being shared in 2025 than there were in 2024 or even 2023. Really, this is the best as far as the opportunity landscape goes that I've seen since about 2022. So that is positive for sure. And it's definitely on the rise, especially with layoffs. A lot of companies are laying off full time workers, but then using contractors to fill those spaces at maybe a lower rate or with a smaller like

amount suite of services and things. And so it's sort of a double edged sword where it's like, of course, we don't want people to be getting laid off. And it would help if like things were more stable for us. Definitely, I saw much better business when things were stable. But honestly, the best my business ever did was 2020, which is right when COVID hit. Like, for some reason, when things are chaotic, a lot of times freelance opportunities go up.

Rachel Meltzer (25:38.818) because it's much faster than hiring a traditional employee and companies need help to stay on top of the landscape that's changing. So there are positives and negatives to living in such an insane landscape like what we're experiencing now, which is honestly, in a lot of ways has precedence. We've seen a lot of these things before, but altogether all at once as the avalanche that our

landscape in the US is right now. I don't think we've ever seen it quite like this. So it's kind of hard to predict how this year is going to go for freelancers. But I definitely think that there are just these big spurts and waves of opportunity as layoffs change, as interest rates change, as our economy changes, and policies are changing pretty rapidly as well.

Rachel Meltzer (26:36.76) Yeah, if you guys have any more questions, don't be afraid to pop them in the chat and I'm happy to answer them.

Rachel Meltzer (26:47.34) And if you have any fears about like freelancing or what's going on in the freelance market right now, don't be afraid to ask questions about that too. I've experienced a lot of ups and downs in the past seven years. I'm sure there will be many more. think a big part of being a freelancer is resilience, being able to adapt and change and grow as things are thrown at you is also really important.

Also, I don't know if you guys have tried this. This is not an ad. This is literally just my favorite thing in the whole world. I only drink Spindrift Seltzer, because it's the only one I like. And the apple flavor that just came out is amazing. Like, you gotta taste it if you haven't. I started ordering it online, because our local Trader Joe's only carried it for like a week, and then they sold out of it, and I'm obsessed now. They don't call me Meltzer Seltzer for nothing, am I right?

Rachel Meltzer (27:48.694) I do sometimes feel like I'm just like partying alone in my room when I'm doing YouTube lives because I just see the chat. I don't see anybody's faces. It's so different than like when we're in pop club and we can see everybody and the group on the screen and be like eight people talking to each other is wildly different than just seeing a chat fill up with people's comments.

Rachel Meltzer (28:57.006) All right, I am here and I'm watching the chat, but I am gonna run through a couple of things in the background here while I wait for y'all's questions, but I am still here and I am still happy to answer your questions as you have them.

Rachel Meltzer (30:21.102) Really excited to have to edit this silence out later when I go to publish this video.

Building your freelance business in 2025

Glad, the office hours are helping, Brad. This is doable kind of head space really takes a while to feel like it's a real concrete thing for you. I remember when I first started freelancing, literally my only goal, my only goal was to be able to feel like I was just showing up for work and I could just do my job and leave. I used to work as a barista and that whole job is like muscle memory pretty much.

having a happy shiny face and I missed the whole like, I show up to work, I do my job and I leave and it was fine when I was doing freelancing part time on the side. I was like, like I can do this because I had a backup job and it didn't feel like it was so serious and important and I was learning things and I was like charging low rates as I learned things so it wasn't a big deal.

But when I lost, when I got laid off and I lost my barista job, I just wanted freelancing to feel like a job, like a career, like a business. Like I was just like showing up and I was in control and I was on top of things. But it does take a while to get to the point where you feel like you're in control. Like you are climbing a mountain for a while before you can coast. You kind of have to like learn how to tread water and learn how to trust yourself and believe that you can tread water and you can do the things that you need to do in order to do your job.

It takes time for sure and it takes practice more than anything. But it definitely does help to like surround yourself with people who are already doing the thing. And it makes it feel more normal because they're like, yeah, this is totally normal. Like this is just how we do things, you know? It helps to see it for sure.

Affordable Website for Freelancers: Notion, Super, Portfolios

I’ve been making websites for freelancers lately and for all of them I use my iPad to create custom graphics and procreate for people like hand drawn and it is by far my favorite part of delivering the website to them. So if you want a website that has a hand drawn shit on it let me know fully custom to you and what you like. I am really enjoying it as like the best part of this whole job.

Rachel Meltzer (34:58.094) Yeah, I've been making, Brad just asked you make websites in Notion? I've been making websites for freelancers in Notion using Super to do the navigation bar and all of the aesthetic stuff. The nice thing about Super is you can add CSS to it to change how things are looking. So it makes it really easy to customize, but Notion has specific layouts that you can't really break.

So it's hard to break the website once I've built it, but you can still change things and move things around without necessarily like messing everything up. so I think it works really well for newer freelancers. If you're looking for something affordable, it's only $16 a month to use super. And I just charge hourly for these websites. So the smallest packages like start at $500. and I offer a discount to current clients as well. So if anybody is interested in that.

let me know. I'm also promoting one-on-one coaching right now. I have four spots available still and all of my one-on-one coaching packages come with a free Notion and Super website. But if you don't need the website part of that package you can always let me know and I can just give you a little discount instead. But I know that like getting your website and portfolio done is the most time-consuming part of getting started freelancing.

and most people get really hung up on it or become total perfectionists about it and it can be really challenging. So I think it's important to just like get that out of the way as easily and quickly as possible because the thing about your website, especially when you're starting out, you're gonna have to redo it because your niche is gonna change, your services are gonna change, your prices are gonna change. You're going to figure out how to position yourself properly and your first website ain't gonna be it. I spent like 12 hours on my first website and it wasn't that good.

and I ended up having to change it like three months later, because I completely changed my niche. So I think it's nice to have something that's easy to change and not too much effort and not too expensive too. And if you guys want to see examples of those, they are on my website in the shop as well. And I can pop that link in the chat too, if you're interested.

Rachel Meltzer (37:23.992) But I do also have a course about making your website on your own in Notion and Super. It is coming out soon. All of the members of Pop Club will get instant free access to it when it launches. And same with my one-on-one coaching clients. But if you want to buy it standalone, you will be able to, or it comes with the done for you websites. So you can easily edit your website later with tutorials.

and help and not in the most confusing way possible. I always hated one time I, well, I took web design classes and it really helped me realize how much you can do with websites. I originally had my second website made by a professional web designer, but she never gave me access to the Canva files so I could edit.

how it looked or information on what she changed and how she changed it. And I get that like some of that stuff designers want to gatekeep sure, but when Squarespace updated to the next version, it ruined all of the custom CSS that she did for me that I paid for. And she shut down her agency not long after I worked with her to go into a full-time career. And my website was basically ruined and I paid $3,000 for it. And it was only a few months.

that it was live and looking good and I really struggled with it. So that's when I actually took a web design course. I was also writing for coding boot camps at the time. So I got a discount on this course and it informed the writing that I was doing for coding boot camps. So it just kind of worked. But now I've used that course to figure out that like you can do things in a much easier way. That's much more enjoyable. Like I like Notion so much more than I ever liked Squarespace. So that's where I make my website now. And that is the

offer that I have if you want me to make your website for you. do it, the backend is in Notion, so that's how you'll edit it when you want to edit the content on your website. And then I use Super to create the navigation bar and how everything looks. So my most recent client Stephanie, when I made her website, I actually made the navigation bar custom. I custom drew on my iPad with a watercolor pen because she loves watercolor art. It's like her whole hobby vibe.

Rachel Meltzer (39:47.342) She's a writer and a copy editor, but she loves watercolors. So I was like, okay, how can we combine this? So we combined it to make her logo. She like hand drew it herself with watercolors. And then I made all of the assets for her websites. I hand created in Procreate and her website only took me eight hours. So I charged her $800 for it. I'm just charging hourly because like freelancers cannot afford a $3,000 website. Like, and I enjoy doing it.

It helps everybody. I'm not here to like make an insane profit. I'm just here to like help you get over that hurdle. Stephanie put off creating her website for three years and I was like, girl, let me help you. Let's just get it done. And I got it done in like two weeks, I think. And now her navigation bar is like a hand water colored, like beautiful see-through stripe that like perfectly flows into the rest of her website.

and we framed all of the pictures she used with Polaroids, because she loves analog cameras, and it just all flows seamlessly with her personality. And it was so easy and simple. And she loves Notion, and she knows how to use it. So it makes it easy for her to then go and edit it later when she needs to, because our businesses are changing all the time. I think I edit my website probably once a week with new portfolio stuff, or a new way I want to word something, or my prices have changed, or whatever.

I'm always an advocate of doing things the simple way and the affordable way and making it yours so that it actually feels like something you're gonna use. I just saw a bunch of new people joined us, yay. If you're new here, hi, I'm Rachel Meltzer, it rhymes with seltzer. And this is Office Hours. You can ask me anything, I'm just here to chit chat with you guys about freelancing. If you have questions about...

what I do, what I offer, if you have questions about freelancing as a digital marketer, happy to answer those questions too. If you have questions about mindset or anything like that, let me know and I'm happy to help. We're just kinda here chilling and coworking a little bit while I wait for your questions to roll in. But don't be afraid to use the chat.

Rachel Meltzer (41:58.476) If you're already freelancing, I would love to hear where you're at in your freelance business. And don't be afraid to introduce yourself in the chat. I can't actually see your faces unlike how our office hours normally go over in pop clubs. So I would love to hear more about who's watching, who's here, what are you guys up to? I'd love to hear from you.

Free and Affordable Freelance Portfolio Platforms

If you want to put up a quick and dirty portfolio without building a whole site, any advice on good platforms or how that might look otherwise? That's a great question, Brad. Actually, since you're in Pop Club, you do have access to my Notion templates if you want to use them. They're literally like the structure that I use on the backend of those super websites. And you can make a page that basically looks just like those. They just won't have a navigation bar or like custom.

colors and fonts and things like that. If you wanna like co-opt that layout for yourself and you can make a Notion website for free, it just won't have a custom URL. If you wanna have a custom URL on a Notion site, it's $99 a year. So there's always that option. That's what I would recommend because it's really flexible and easy and you can technically make it searchable on the internet. Alternatively, if you know you're gonna be getting your clients on LinkedIn.

You can always put up your portfolio pieces as LinkedIn articles. And then later when you get clients and you have more portfolio pieces, then you can go about building a website or creating an ocean site or something like that. There's also canvas sites. They're completely free. Again, no custom URL, but they do look really pretty. I think they're kind of challenging for writer websites because you have to put that content that you're putting in the...

Canva site somewhere like people have to be able to somehow find it on the internet So you could put those like in Google Docs, but I feel like it's just more professional It looks more professional if it's all just like in a notion wiki and I can show you what that looks like if you want I think I made an example notion site in the Portfolio lesson and the freelance resource library because I do have a template that's like a one-page website template

inside the resource library for notion and canvas sites. Yeah, here's the lesson. So it does kind of mostly look like a website fully, but it's not exactly it. Yeah, here's the link to that lesson in the freelance resource library. So if you're not in Pop Club and you're watching this, you won't be able to see that.

Rachel Meltzer (47:30.646) what's behind that link, but it's a template for Notion. There's also a template for Canva if you wanted to make a one page website that introduces you as a freelancer. The structure is like an introduction to you. So there's an about me section, a services section, a portfolio section, and then a contact section at the end.

The Notion version uses a gallery view database to show your portfolio kind of in like a blog style. Whereas the Canva one, you will have to like, again, publish those somewhere. So if you want something that like looks a little better, but you still want to just publish your pieces as articles on LinkedIn, you could make a canvas site and then just like link them to those LinkedIn links, or you could put them on Medium. Honestly, I recommend staying away from Medium at this point. It's not really like...

No one's really using it like a search engine like they used to. Alternatively, I've seen some people use Substack as a good option. And then there's like a shitload of free portfolio sites out there. I just like having more control. But there is a lesson in the resource library. And I have posted about this on my blog before. But since I'm in the resource library, here's the resource library lesson that has like a bunch of different platforms you could use.

So clippings, contently, clear voice, journal, card, Contra, they all begin with C apparently. Those ones all have free options. I also really love ReadyMag. They make it easy to make no code websites that are really cool and fun and you can add animations and stuff. But their free option isn't that great, but their paid option is.

So cool, I would love to use it more, but it's a little too complex to offer as an affordable service. And then if you want a paid option, if you bought your domain through Google, I think Squarespace actually owns it now. Actually, I don't know if Google sites are still a thing.

Rachel Meltzer (49:35.612) nevermind. yeah, Google Sites is still a thing. So Google Sites is free. But you have to buy a domain to use Google Sites from Google. But that's always an option that I only learned about pretty recently. The Writer's Residence is another paid option, but it's really affordable. think it's like nine or ten dollars a month, and it's designed for freelance writers' portfolios. And then Copyfolio, Authory, Journal.

Squarespace and show it are some free options or wicks even Sorry, not free. They're paid, but they're not very expensive But as far as easy goes like use the things you've already used before like if you spend a lot of time in Canva You can just make a canvas site or if you spend a lot of time in notion like I do everything in notion That's why my websites in there, you know, so just makes it easy Hi Joanna, mostly here for the vibes love that

How to get the most out of Pop Club

As someone who's already mostly set up at this moment as a freelancer but still working on growing my business, how can I get the most out of being a pop club member? That's a really good question. I think the best part of being a pop club member really is the community. So if you're already freelancing and you feel pretty comfortable in your business, having coworkers sometimes can be really helpful when you're feeling lonely. And I know you take advantage, so much of our coworking, which I love.

I think also just like the resource library is massive and you can use a search bar from any part of pop club. Like you can be on any page in pop club and click the search bar and you can search for things. So if there's something that comes up for you that you're struggling with or like you need an email template or something like that to like email a client, you can always search for it. so that's always a helpful option and, you know, you can always DM me, which is really

the number one part of Pop Club that I think is most helpful for people. But I think also accountability buddies, like if you have a goal in mind for the week, whether it's like deadlines you need to meet or you just want to make sure you get your portfolio done this week or whatever, you can always post in accountabilities to ask for accountability. Or if you're just like having a bad day, you can always post in pep talks to get a pep talk.

Rachel Meltzer (51:56.558) And then I think the workshops are pretty well metered for like, there are some for beginners and there are some for more experienced people, but I think the Q &A with guest workshops are like probably the most valuable for people who are more experienced, like when we have the financial experts come in or like Anna Burgess Yang when she came in and did her systems workshop, like there is stuff that even I learned from that workshop or like Polly's SEO workshop.

There are so many different facets of SEO and it's always changing. So it can be really helpful to see what the guest experts are doing in our community too. So yeah, hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, Brad, it's crazy Google Sites is still around. I don't know how much longer Google Sites is gonna be around though. It feels like Google is getting rid of a lot of their services.

because they were charged with being a monopoly recently. So I know they are selling off some of their products or just killing them altogether because they gotta get away from those monopoly accusations. Medium seems like what it does and doesn't get indexed changes all the time. Yeah, medium's algorithm is changing all the time and it's not.

I don't know, feel like medium isn't really keeping up necessarily with what we necessarily need as freelancers. It used to be, I feel like it used to be kind of a different experience for sure.

Rachel Meltzer (53:40.023) Thanks Brad, vouching for the community aspect of POP Club.

It's nice to just know what other freelancers are doing sometimes too. There's so much that's like, I didn't know what I wanted my freelance goals to be or what my freelance business could look like sometimes until I started interacting with other freelancers. I actually used to share an office in person. rented a desk in a shared office with two other freelancers and then I saw what they were doing. I was like, my God, I could totally charge more. I could get these clients that I thought I couldn't get before.

And it can just be really helpful to have that kind of modeled for you, you know?

How to work with Rachel Meltzer as your coach: Pop Club, 1:1 intensives, 1:1 Express, 1:1 Accelerator, Free Events, Get Started Freelancing Bootcamp, 20% off Coaching All right, we've got about five minutes left of this Q &A, so I just wanted to let you know, if you're interested in working with me as a freelance business coach, we've talked about Pop Club a lot. It's my membership community for freelancers. It's only $33 a month. And if you attended this webinar and you signed up on the community events calendar, you will be getting a 20 % off coupon in the mail. If you're watching, or in your email, in the mail. If you're watching the replay of this,

feel free to contact me. Just go to melzerseltzer.com slash contact or comment on this video and tag me and I'll make sure that you get that discount code. It's 20 % off your first three months of Pop Club. If you're considering joining, that brings it down to $26 a month and you'll basically get one month free if you stick around for that whole three months. And if you're interested in one-on-one coaching, like I said, I have four spots available for my three month program, One-on-One Express, and it comes with a free website.

done for you right now. So if you're interested in that, you also get 20 % off if you attended this office hours. So yeah, I look forward to seeing you in there. My one-on-one intensives are always available. They are $175 each. It's one hour with me one-on-one and then you will get a game plan roadmap dashboard after the fact with resources, notes from our call and a

prioritized to do list so you know what to do next and so you can get unstuck in your business. We'll basically audit where you're at in your business or if you haven't started yet, we will create a roadmap for you for what you need to do to get started. And then I'll also help you solve any of your problems, whether it's around mindset, rates, portfolio services, getting clients on board and dealing with your client load.

and growing your business, all those sorts of things we can work on in intensives and those are sold on a rolling basis so there's no limit if you want one. You can always sign up and all this is on my website at melzerselter.com. You can find the link in the description of this video but if you have any questions at all anytime feel free to contact me on the contact page of my website.

Rachel Meltzer (56:47.736) Don't be afraid to hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm much more active over there. We will be doing another office hours next month, just like this here on YouTube live. And you can sign up if you want to get email reminders for it on our community events calendar, which I will pop in the chat if you would like to join us. All the community events are completely free and we're also hosting a portfolio workshop next month.

and we've got some creative writing workshops coming up too. So if you're interested in any of that, definitely check out the Community Events Calendar. And thank you so much for joining me today for office hours. I always love answering your questions about freelancing and all that good mindset stuff. So I'll see you guys on the other side. Don't be afraid to hit me up. I'm happy to answer all your questions.