Lizzie Davey is Redefining Freelance Success

TL;DR

Lizzie Davey has been a freelance writer for 11 years. She transitioned from a low-paying marketing job to freelancing. Like every new freelancer, she started out navigating chaos but eventually found her niche in e-commerce tech.

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• the power of networking
• LinkedIn engagement
• authenticity
• building a personal brand
• getting clients

Through adaptability, financial transparency, and prioritizing well-being, we highlight the evolving nature of freelancing and the importance of redefining success over time.

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Transcript

Rachel Meltzer (00:00.272) Welcome to the guidebook Lizzie. Would you introduce yourself for our listeners?

Lizzie Davey (00:04.472) cool.

Lizzie Davey (00:10.006) Yeah, hi, I'm Lizzie. I'm a freelance SAS and tech writer, mostly for e-commerce tech companies. And I've been doing this. This is my 11th year now. And as well as writing for clients like Shopify, Klaviyo, CoSchedule, I also run Freelance Magic, which is a site that's full of resources and courses for freelancers.

Rachel Meltzer (00:32.36) Heck yeah, I feel like we run very similar paths. Where are you located?

Lizzie Davey (00:36.3) Yeah, definitely.

Lizzie Davey (00:41.751) I'm in Brighton in the UK, so it's about an hour south of London by the sea.

Rachel Meltzer (00:47.462) It's nice to see how all over the world will find other people who are doing similar things to us. And it almost feels like having a coworker, you know what I mean? Because we can talk about things and actually feel understood, which I feel like in freelancing and coaching can sometimes be hard to find.

Lizzie Davey (01:05.974) Yeah, especially that crossover. think that's like not that many people who are doing kind of that little bit in the middle where it's we're doing client work, but also we're doing coaching and stuff for other freelancers.

Rachel Meltzer (01:17.2) Yeah, yeah, totally. How did you get started with freelancing? What made you want to go freelance and how was the beginning of your career looking like?

Lizzie Davey (01:27.534) Um, I think, so I was 23 when I went freelance. this is like, this is my 11th year now. And I'd always, I know it, feels like less time, but also like much longer than that. It's such a weird, weird feeling. Um, can't, can't really remember doing anything else, but, yeah, I'd always wanted to work for myself and I was working in marketing at the time in like a really low paid job.

Rachel Meltzer (01:35.356) Wow.

Lizzie Davey (01:54.318) didn't really have any responsibilities and my my ex-boyfriend at the time he got a job in Spain so I was like do you want to come with me so I was like yeah like well I've got no responsibilities and I think to tie me down here like let's do it and the plan was to just give it a go for like a year and if it didn't really take off then I would come back to the UK get a proper job again in air quotes proper job but luckily it did

Well, I mean, I say it took off as in I earn more than I did in my measly marketing job before, but that's not really saying much because I was earning very, very little. But I think by that point, I'd build up kind of enough of a client roster to muddle my way through. And I kind of got a taste for the freedom that it brings. I love to travel. So in my previous nine to five jobs, I had, I always used up all of my leave and then ended up having to like...

take money out of my paycheck because I was traveling too much. I think for me, having the ability to just like jump on a plane whenever I wanted was, it was like novel and like, I just didn't want to give that up.

Rachel Meltzer (02:52.872) Ha ha ha ha.

Rachel Meltzer (03:00.124) Yeah. Yeah, that is the best part of freelancing, whether you've used it for adventure or practically like I both travel a lot. I'm going on six trips this year already. And also I have a chronic illness. So like, I just, I literally do not think I could hold down a traditional job because at least in the U S like they're sick time that they, they give you like seven days of sick time. I'm like, I'm taking seven days of sick time, like every two months. Like that is not enough.

Lizzie Davey (03:12.984) No.

Lizzie Davey (03:21.495) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (03:28.206) Yeah, that's wild.

Rachel Meltzer (03:29.51) And then the amount that I wanna travel, like two weeks off or some, I think the most I've heard in the US is like five weeks off of like paid time off. I know, I'm like, I'm gonna use that up in like six months, I cannot do that. Right. I've also gotten so used to like the four day work weeks, like I do occasionally work on Mondays, probably like once or twice a month, but almost.

Lizzie Davey (03:36.782) It's still not late, though.

Lizzie Davey (03:42.226) Yeah, I want to be away. I want to go away every like once a month, it's not really going to work for me.

Rachel Meltzer (03:56.218) I would say 50 to 60 % of my Mondays I am going to the gym and doing my errands or like I'm using a long weekend to go on a trip. And it's just so nice to be able to have that control over your schedule, to be able to decide for yourself, like where you're going to be, when you're going to be.

Lizzie Davey (04:08.685) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (04:14.22) Yeah, exactly. Just being like, okay, I'm woken up and I'm not really feeling it today. So, you know, I'm just gonna start work at lunchtime instead.

Rachel Meltzer (04:22.5) Yeah, the flexibility. So at the beginning of your career, like you did it to travel and you were making back that marketing job income. What it, how did that progression look like over the next, you know, five years where you were still sort of like learning freelance, building your business, raising your rates. Did you have like a squiggly progression that sort of in hindsight made sense?

Lizzie Davey (04:25.902) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (04:33.624) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (04:51.951) Yeah, it was absolute chaos. Looking back, like, I don't know what I mean. I still don't fully know what I'm doing now. I don't think any of us know 100%. But I look back at that time and I'm like, I was literally just throwing spaghetti at the wall, like literally just taking anything and everything. I think I started as a travel writer. So the majority of my client work was with travel companies.

Rachel Meltzer (04:53.881) Hehehehehe

Rachel Meltzer (05:00.716) Totally.

Lizzie Davey (05:15.832) But I was also writing stuff about like short spine syndrome in dogs and real estate in Puerto Rico. And just like a mad mix of things because I just said yes to basically everything that came my way. And then I was on Upwork mostly at that time getting my clients. Then about two to three years in, I was like, I just feel like I can't earn any more than this on Upwork. Like the rates are really low and I'm really struggling. And I was seeing other freelancers out there who weren't on Upwork who were earning like

Rachel Meltzer (05:26.395) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (05:38.952) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (05:44.908) bank and I was like, how are they doing that? And I am just like stuck working like 14 hours a day, just trying to like make a full time income. So I got myself off of Upwork and I started instead of writing for travel companies, because I found that a lot of them were very budget conscious, let's say the rates were not great. Yeah. And I like lots of people will write about their travels for free. So it was like a really competitive so

Rachel Meltzer (05:46.984) Mm.

Rachel Meltzer (06:05.0) Frugal. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (06:13.376) I kind of leaned back on my marketing experience that I had before and started landing some marketing clients. So doing marketing copy for, just a real range of brands, like just a wild mix, like no, really, there was no method to my madness. Like niche was all over the place. I think I pitched myself as like a lifestyle and marketing writer. It's like, yeah, not, not, not great positioning, but it meant that I

Rachel Meltzer (06:25.32) You

Rachel Meltzer (06:36.401) Mm-hmm. Very general.

Lizzie Davey (06:40.204) Very, yeah, very, very general. And then over time, I just started to learn more marketing clients. And then it kind of really changed for me during COVID. So in 2020, I started working with a lot of e-commerce tech brands, obviously e-commerce was huge during that time. And so for the past five years, that's literally been kind of like my bread and butter. And that's where I found the sweet spot. And I think it was like a combination of

Rachel Meltzer (07:00.356) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (07:08.564) right place, right time, also like maximizing on an industry that was relatively new, but also kind of well established and booming yet.

Rachel Meltzer (07:18.566) Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really, have just been updating the content for my find your niche workshop that I am doing next month for like the first workshop in my get started freelancing series on YouTube. But in the past, when I taught it, it was, I don't know, things before 2020 felt much more stable and slow. Like you could,

Lizzie Davey (07:35.95) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (07:46.284) and

Rachel Meltzer (07:47.56) pick a niche and stick with it for 10 years and probably be fine. But as my career progressed from 2017 to now, I also went through that where I like, I was on Upwork, I randomly ended up working with coding boot camps on Upwork. And then I was like, there are so many of them and nobody is specializing as a freelancer in writing just or doing marketing just for coding boot camps. So I just like fell into that niche and I liked it, but it wasn't like, it wasn't like travel where I was like passionate about it. I was just like,

Lizzie Davey (07:49.902) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (08:16.744) This is work. I'll go have fun outside of work. And I got to a point where I was just like capped out. Like I was making $300 a blog and I had like, ooched up to it. started at like $99 a blog. It was so bad. And then I just slowly made it to 300, 350. And then I started proposing 400 and only one bootcamp said yes. And five more said no to that rate. And I was like, okay.

It's not me, it's not my skills, it's the niche. So how can I find something that's like either something that I already have the skills for or something adjacent to what I'm doing that will pay more and that shift worked out. But I feel like any freelancer who is going to make it long-term, especially nowadays, has to be willing to like examine your niche, pivot your niche and understand.

like why your niche is important. It's okay in the beginning to like be all over the place. Everybody's doing it. Like we both were like, I was writing about like cannabis, dogs, education, coding, like all this stuff. But if you want to grow and have a long business, it's really helpful to be able to figure out the viability financially of niche.

Lizzie Davey (09:12.586) yeah, all over the place. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (09:32.796) the next niche you want to look at and slowly pivot into it so you have that security long term. Otherwise, you might cap out or you might get stuck or you might end up stuck on a platform or whatever.

Lizzie Davey (09:44.258) Yeah.

Yeah, I completely agree. And I see that in when people ask me like, well, how did you change niches? Like, what was the like jump off point for you? And I'm always like, there was no jump off point. Like it happened very slowly, very organically, like just one client in the marketing niche and then another and then another. And it was, there was never a moment where I was like, right, I'm going to stop writing about travel completely. And I'm going to completely remarket myself now as something totally different.

Rachel Meltzer (10:13.244) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (10:14.358) And I think now, especially like we have to always be, we have to be able to pivot. hate the word pivot, but pivot when necessary.

Rachel Meltzer (10:20.858) It's more like a, it's almost like a dovetail. You know what I mean? It's like, you're still writing about travel, but then you get one marketing client, you keep writing about travel, but then you get another one. And then you slowly phase the travel to be like a quarter and three quarters of something else. And it takes time. You're right. Like it took me three months to do that pivot, but I was like ruthless about it. I was like sending hundreds of connection requests and DMs every week.

Lizzie Davey (10:24.717) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (10:28.461) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (10:33.397) Exactly,

Lizzie Davey (10:37.262) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (10:49.958) to the tech companies I wanted to work for, I made my ideal clients list. I was very strategic about it. And I feel like if you're just kind of like, well, I kind of want to do this other niche, and then you don't strategically and efficiently put effort towards it, it's not going to happen. I wrote, I did for every new client I got in the tech niche when I was switching niches, I offered to do a test piece. So the first one I did the test for free, the second one I did it for like,

half my rate, the third one was a full price test. But it's like, again, it's that ooching concept where it's like you go from like, lower to higher to higher, you offer up a little bit of yourself in order to get over the jump and make that leap. But it's never like, yeah, it's never like cut and dry, like clean break.

Lizzie Davey (11:30.029) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (11:42.562) No, never. And also it's like you're starting again, well, not from scratch, because obviously you've worked with clients and I think that's a big part of like the experience, but you often don't have a lot of like samples in that niche. So you are essentially starting from scratch, proving yourself that you can write about this. So I did exactly the same, like three test pieces for the first couple of clients that I worked within in a new niche.

Rachel Meltzer (11:49.48) Mm.

Rachel Meltzer (11:53.8) you

Rachel Meltzer (12:03.816) I think as well, from what I've heard from the people who have hired me, it's like your portfolio pieces sort of lay here at like, I don't know, they're helpful, but the more helpful thing, the higher up thing, the thing that's going to influence them the most is who you've worked with in the past. So.

Lizzie Davey (12:21.005) Thank

Lizzie Davey (12:26.592) Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Rachel Meltzer (12:28.454) getting the first three clients, whether you're a brand new freelancer or you're just like switching your niche or whatever, they're gonna be the hardest to get. But once you get those first three, it's all in threes, I'm telling you. Everything's like the rule of threes. Yeah, once you get a third one, it's like no one's looking beyond those first three and then you have that sort of credibility and trustworthiness, yeah. And I get poached a lot. Like I put all the clients I've ever worked for on my LinkedIn page as like,

Lizzie Davey (12:39.542) Yeah, the power of three.

Lizzie Davey (12:49.814) Yeah. Yeah, I can.

Rachel Meltzer (12:57.274) an experience itself with obviously titled freelance. And I've had people come to me because they saw me on another company's page and were like, you wrote for so-and-so. Are you open to talking about another gig? And I'm like, yes, it's working. Yeah, totally. So when did you, did you go straight from Upwork to LinkedIn or how did you end up getting off of Upwork and getting clients elsewhere?

Lizzie Davey (12:59.01) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (13:12.605) This is what I wanted, yes.

Lizzie Davey (13:26.072) So no, LinkedIn is a relatively new thing for me. I'd say it's probably like the last two years that I really started. I mean, I had a LinkedIn, but like I never used it. wasn't like posting on it because I was like ill cringed. Like, well, I couldn't get over that cringey feeling. But to get, once I got off Upwork, I was just sending pictures to companies, like researching, making a big spreadsheet of companies that I wanted to work with, and then just sending them pictures and getting in touch with them via it.

Rachel Meltzer (13:33.095) wow. Yeah, you weren't marketing. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (13:41.16) You

Lizzie Davey (13:56.002) email and that was kind of my entire strategy for like maybe two to three years following Upwork and then by that point I had enough bylines out there and my website was performing quite well on Google for people who were searching for through an access writer so then there was like a period of about two years where the majority of my clients came through my website so it was like inbound and then kind of

Rachel Meltzer (14:21.86) Nice.

Lizzie Davey (14:25.122) just after COVID, I got on LinkedIn and that's kind of been fairly pivotal now. Like I've seen the inquiries from my website die down and now it's more kind of like word of mouth, networking, that kind of thing.

Rachel Meltzer (14:36.936) When you started to get inbound leads from your website, did you do blogging and everything? You were doing keyword research as if you were your own client, putting out blogs.

Lizzie Davey (14:50.602) Yeah, exactly. So probably not as much as I should have been, but I was publishing, I think it was like two blog posts a month and then just kind of optimize the pages on my website. And I think it was a large part of it was like, I was just there before everyone else. So I think not like I was one of the first SAS writers, but I think I was like one of the early cohorts. So having my website with that longevity on it and the right keywords just kind of happened to be very, very handy. It worked out very well for me. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (15:15.364) It just worked out, yeah. The domain authority and the length of time that you've had and been contributing to your website means a lot in SEO, yeah.

Lizzie Davey (15:21.762) Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And also I had, so with my bylines and stuff, had the companies that I was writing for was linking back to it. So I think that that helped us out obviously.

Rachel Meltzer (15:34.952) Mm hmm. Yeah. So you've kind of done everything as far as getting clients. Would you say like if someone was starting their business right now, how do you typically recommend? Like what's your number one recommendation for getting clients?

Lizzie Davey (15:39.434) everything. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (15:46.734) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (15:51.424) Yeah, so I think now it's like very, different to how it was 10 years ago. I mean, I would never like encourage someone to use Upwork, but I know that like some people are still finding work there now. Like I, but I would never say, yeah, you should get yourself on there. No, exactly. But like if you really need the work and you need it quickly, like it can be a good place to pick up quick gigs. Right now, I think the cold pitching I did in like those post Upwork days isn't really working as well as it used to.

Rachel Meltzer (16:05.672) It's not like the most efficient.

Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (16:20.978) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (16:21.038) So I would say LinkedIn networking like Slack channels with other freelancers and the kind of clients that you want to work with and just kind of putting yourself out there like posting on LinkedIn. Yeah, networking and just being visible, I think, to most important things right now, I think.

Rachel Meltzer (16:38.618) Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like things are really moving towards a more because there are I feel like there's so many businesses who need freelancers and there are also so many freelancers that are looking for gigs that it feels like there's a lot of competition. So those like newsletter gig postings or the posts on LinkedIn that have gigs, you're competing with hundreds of other freelancers, whereas like

Lizzie Davey (16:56.525) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (17:04.872) If you can get a referral, it's probably just you or you and maybe three other freelancers, or if you can contact someone in their DMs with etiquette. There's a video on my YouTube if anyone needs to know what the etiquette is. But that there's so much less competition when you have, when you can do it through networking or through referrals rather than, you know, the listings or Upwork or whatever.

Lizzie Davey (17:13.464) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (17:30.55) Yeah, and I think companies, especially now, are far more risk averse. Like, their budget, they don't have as much budget, they don't have as much leeway to experiment with freelancers, so they need it to work out quickly. So having a referral or a recommendation from someone is like, it goes a really long way.

Rachel Meltzer (17:41.65) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (17:47.144) Yeah. Yeah. And also the like free or discounted test pieces. have a guide for test pieces on my blog. If anyone needs to know whether you should be offering free tests, but there's sort of these phases that I always talk about where it's like, if you're a beginner and you've had less than three clients offer a free test, whether it's you're a beginner in the niche or you're a beginner freelancer. And then once you've sort of gotten past that first three client Mark, you can offer it as a discount and so on and so forth, but it just makes it.

It's so much easier for the person who's hiring you to make that decision and for you, could turn into like every company that I did a free test for turned into a 10,000, 20,000, $30,000 contract and it was worth it.

Lizzie Davey (18:26.464) Yeah, sometimes they just need like the reassurance and if it's if it's going to take me like half a day to give them reassurance that's going to lead to like 10, 20,000 pounds like yeah, of course I'm going to do that.

Rachel Meltzer (18:30.776) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (18:38.234) Totally, totally. I will say I don't recommend doing the free tests that are like, they give you a job application and you have to do a free test and you're competing against hundreds of other freelancers. That is not what I am saying. Just like if you're talking to an individual through a referral or through the DMs. Yeah. Yeah, totally. you mentioned Slack as Slack groups as being a good way to get gigs. I, I used Slack groups a lot, but I never, I've actually, maybe I have gotten gigs, but it was like sort of

Lizzie Davey (18:45.688) night.

No.

Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel Meltzer (19:08.504) in a tertiary way where it's like I networked with a person in a Slack group and then they remembered me and then they recommended me rather than like it being directly from the Slack group. Which Slack groups do you recommend and how have you seen that like play out?

Lizzie Davey (19:23.008) Yeah, I think in a similar way to you, like it's just more about the being visible and like being connected in your industry. So for me with the Slack channels, it's been a similar thing where it's been like, I've been talking to someone on there or someone see my name and then they get in touch or they recommend me or I've been tagged in a post saying that Lizzie might be a good fit for this. The Slack channels that I use mostly are Tofee, so top of the funnel.

Rachel Meltzer (19:31.432) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (19:43.464) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (19:49.094) Yeah, TOEFL's great.

Lizzie Davey (19:50.35) which we did the festival for last year. And then the Superpath one is good. I mean, there's a ton of people in there, so it can feel a bit busy, but there are some.

Rachel Meltzer (20:01.448) SuperPath grew exponentially. I was part of SuperPath in like 2021 and by 2023 I was like, oh my God, there are so many people here. It's insane.

Lizzie Davey (20:04.479) really did it.

Lizzie Davey (20:11.694) Like 15,000 people in there or something as well. I'm like, are there this many content marketers in the world? didn't know this.

Rachel Meltzer (20:17.632) I know, and there's even more that aren't in there. It's crazy. Yeah, but there can be some really good opportunities in there as well.

Lizzie Davey (20:20.524) Yeah. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (20:25.612) Yeah. And I think like, I'm not a massive fan of like the jobs channels in those, in those Slack groups, but the, like the networking element, the kind of seeing people and like being able to DM them and have private conversations and stuff is really useful.

Rachel Meltzer (20:41.19) Yeah, I've also found that just like being able to answer people's questions and you can do this, figure out like where your ideal clients hang out and be able to answer their questions there. I've had a lot of people get gigs through Facebook groups actually because they'll be in a group where their ideal clients are hanging out like coaches or like, I have a few freelancers that are writing for like wellness coaches or for beauty founders.

Lizzie Davey (20:45.377) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (20:56.461) and

Lizzie Davey (21:03.928) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (21:04.72) And so they're in a Facebook group or a Slack group with those ideal clients and they just answer their questions. And they never promote their services, they just always answer their questions. And then when they have questions, they go back to the writer that had answered the question or the marketer and then it turns into a discovery call and then they end up working with you. that can also be a sort of simple way to do that. And I think like everything else, I always talk about like making it a getting clients routine and

I have a routine for that that I go through where it's like, you take an ideal client from your list, you connect with them. There's a whole follow-up routine, but you could also add to that like 15 minutes of engaging on a Slack channel. And as long as you're doing it consistently as a routine, it will work. But if you're like, oh, I should have done that. Oh, I would get around to it. Oh, it's last thing on my list. If it's always the last thing on your list, it's not going to be like sustainable.

And it's so helpful to do things consistently so you aren't worried when you need to go get clients. So I always recommend like do it first thing in the morning and limit yourself so you don't go down a rabbit hole.

Lizzie Davey (22:12.522) Yeah, because it's so easy to just like spend no two hours have gone and I'm still doing this thing and I don't really know what I'm doing and if it's gonna work but yeah I think exactly like but the consistency is key and I think I think about it from my perspective like when I'm in slack channels like there are people that I notice popping up regularly who are like Sharing really good advice and it's like their names that I remember so I just try and like imagine it from the other way around like reverse up

Rachel Meltzer (22:18.896) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (22:37.212) Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, totally. That works really well. Nice. I love those recommendations. So when you started posting on LinkedIn like two years ago and you have 11,000 followers, how do you think that happened?

Lizzie Davey (22:48.482) Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Lizzie Davey (22:55.41) Honestly, I don't know, like there is no, I have no idea. Like honestly, I, there's no strategy that I have, but I think it's, so it started in the end of 2023. I was like, right. Everyone's saying that I need to be on LinkedIn. I'm not, so I'm just going to give it a go for like, I think it was like a month. I was like, I'm going to post five days a week for a month and just see what happens. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (22:57.48) the

Rachel Meltzer (23:20.498) That is also what I did.

Lizzie Davey (23:22.722) And it was like insane. was like, okay, this is like getting far more engagement than Instagram, Facebook, like all of the other social channels. And also like people who are in my niche, I find on like other social channels, it's really difficult to like get through the weeds and find people who are actually like in your niche. And I think for me and for us working with tech companies, working with SaaS companies, like the majority of them are gonna be on LinkedIn. That's gonna be their kind of.

Rachel Meltzer (23:29.746) HARDLY.

Lizzie Davey (23:51.394) social media of choice whilst they're working. So once I'd seen the results from that, I was like, okay, maybe people have a like, maybe they're right about LinkedIn. So maybe I should just do it. And then I kind of baked it into my daily routine. And it was a really good exercise for me to just like creatively write without a brief for a client or without having like deadlines from clients. And I found that I really enjoyed having that time to myself to just like...

Rachel Meltzer (23:54.44) totally.

Rachel Meltzer (24:00.584) Mm.

Lizzie Davey (24:19.138) basically put my brain on paper. yeah. So I'd batch create posts each week with whatever I was thinking of. I'd use questions that I'd get from students, questions that I get from my newsletter, and just kind of write answers to those and then post them on LinkedIn. And I think for me, like the main thing that I try to be on LinkedIn is transparent and very like...

Rachel Meltzer (24:21.832) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (24:28.349) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (24:46.648) freelancing is good, but it can also be really shit. And I'm very open about that on LinkedIn. And I think having that kind of relatable mindset was really valuable in helping people like connect with me and like both freelancers and also potential clients as well. think having that like human connection is really, really important.

Rachel Meltzer (24:49.608) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (25:06.94) Yeah, you're really authentic on LinkedIn. And I think that is the people who are most successful on LinkedIn are obviously consistent, but authentic. that's people are really looking for a human connection at this point and not like some aesthetically perfect thing like Instagram, not some negative thing like Facebook, not something overstimulating like TikTok. Like this is kind of a place you can go to like learn about making your business better, feel heard, feel seen and.

Lizzie Davey (25:14.872) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (25:19.703) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (25:32.056) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (25:34.332) find your peers, basically, like connect with people who, like you said, networking.

Lizzie Davey (25:39.374) Yeah, exactly. And I think once you get to a certain point, so once I got to like 5,000, 6,000 followers on LinkedIn, it kind of just snowballed. it's less, like, they always say it's like hardest to get the first 1,000 followers. And then like once you're showing up regularly, there are people who will like share your posts or recommend your posts to other people. So it's kind of like the growth from 5,000 to 11,000 was like much, quicker than it was from zero to 5,000.

Rachel Meltzer (25:47.304) Mm-hmm.

quarterly.

Rachel Meltzer (26:06.152) Yeah, totally. just hit 5,000 at the end of last year after one year of posting basically every day. I think I took two weeks off. But again, the nice thing about LinkedIn is you can schedule it all in advance. So you don't necessarily like, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Yeah. And you don't even have to post on weekends. So it's like four or five posts a week. So easy. And I'll just like make them as I'm inspired during my like allotted 30 minutes of LinkedIn time each day in the morning. And it really like

Lizzie Davey (26:12.13) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (26:18.126) Yeah, you don't have to be there. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (26:25.122) Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (26:35.494) You're right. It does snowball because I'm now already at 6,000 and it's been what 30 days since the new years when I hit 5,000. So it really does get faster as you go. And, I think engagement is also huge. Like I respond to every single comment. I encourage people to comment and contact me. So it really makes a difference when you are being your authentic self in the comments as well. And I try to make my comments on other people's posts.

Lizzie Davey (26:51.246) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (27:05.478) just helpful. Like I'm not there to do marketing. I'm just there to like help people and answer questions and like give opinions in a way that's not rude. And I think that makes a huge difference as well. Like I always ask before I share a resource or I always ask before I share a recommendation, I'm like, do you want a solution for this? Instead of just like throwing solution in their face, it's always like, this is so relatable. Freelancing sucks sometimes. I have solutions for this. Do you want them? And it's not like a, I almost,

Lizzie Davey (27:28.119) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (27:34.298) It's like guerrilla marketing, kind of, you know what I mean?

Lizzie Davey (27:36.79) Yeah, exactly. And I think, yeah, it's and it's more I find because I really struggled with kind of the whole social media and like putting myself out there at the start because I'm like cringe, I'm quite a private person. Like I keep my I don't really use social media like in my personal life. So for me, it was like, this feels very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. And then I think for Instagram, it was like, okay, I can do this because it's just educating people like I can just post like how to

Rachel Meltzer (27:53.832) Yes.

Lizzie Davey (28:03.15) like things and it's fine. And then on LinkedIn, I was like, Oh God, this is like, it's nice being transparent. But as soon as you start getting the engagement in the comments and people being like, I completely relate to this and oh my God, I've had this experience too. For me, LinkedIn is like all about the humans, unlike other social media channels where it's less about that. So I think really kind of like leaning into that. And like you say, engaging in the comments, like I replied to every single comment. If I see a post that comes up on my feed where I'm like, Oh yeah, I relate to this, will.

jump in the comments and write about that as well. It just feels very like, well for me anyway, it feels very like natural and like having a conversation with someone.

Rachel Meltzer (28:40.872) Yeah, totally. You have to treat everybody like humans on LinkedIn. Otherwise, they're just not going to engage with you.

Lizzie Davey (28:44.832) Yeah. Yeah. It's like those comments that like obviously written by AI where people just like regurgitate the post in a different way. And it's like, what, like, what is your per like, is your goal with this?

Rachel Meltzer (28:50.461) my god.

Rachel Meltzer (28:56.68) Totally, it's like you're just doing this as a chore and I would rather you just not, like you're actually harming your reputation at this point. Yeah, I completely agree. I just don't respond to the ones that feel like AI or they just like didn't read the post, you know. Are you still using other platforms for marketing or are you exclusively just using LinkedIn now?

Lizzie Davey (28:59.242) Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, why bother?

Lizzie Davey (29:08.216) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (29:19.69) So I'm using LinkedIn and Instagram, Instagram and TikTok actually, but I mostly just repost Instagram stuff onto TikTok. the, so LinkedIn is mostly, I do post a lot about freelancing on there, but that's kind of where I've got my profile as I'm a writer and for tech companies and SaaS companies. So that's how a lot of clients find me. And then Instagram and TikTok is more for the freelance magic side of things. So.

Rachel Meltzer (29:28.185) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (29:46.068) all at all for launching content and how to use them and videos.

Rachel Meltzer (29:50.14) Yeah, that makes sense. Hell yeah. Well, that's perfect little segue. Tell me more about freelance magic, what you offer, what it looks like, how somebody could get into using your resources, all the good stuff.

Lizzie Davey (30:04.406) Yeah, so freelance magic is has been my baby for many, years. It actually originally started because I was just getting so many emails from people who were like, how are you? It was when I was living in Spain, they were like, how are you like traveling and doing this freelance stuff? So I found myself like responding loads to emails, and it was taking up a lot of my time. And I was like, hang on a minute. Is there like a market for this kind of stuff? Like, could I sell this? And I didn't start selling it at first. It was like lots of freebies. But now it's kind of got

Rachel Meltzer (30:09.25) You

Rachel Meltzer (30:18.044) Mm.

Lizzie Davey (30:34.37) I've got four core kind of like, what do I call it? It's like tracks in it. So there's a workflow wizard, is, it's like a bundle of templates, scripts, and tutorials for freelancers to handle onboarding, client relationships. And I'm actually launching a new version of that next month, which includes a customizable Notion dashboard. So you can manage like all of your projects, backend and capacity and pitches and everything all in one place.

Rachel Meltzer (31:03.216) I love Notion.

Lizzie Davey (31:03.604) And then I've got, I know me too. I've done it with someone called Annette Lucina and she is like a Notion ambassador and she helped me build my own dashboard. So she, yeah, so like a personalized dashboard. So she's built this Notion one for Workflow Wizard and it's amazing. It's honestly just great. So good.

Rachel Meltzer (31:13.548) that's awesome.

Rachel Meltzer (31:24.55) I'm always jealous of the people who make their notions like super aesthetic. Like when I sell my notion stuff, well, all my notion templates are free, but I always like make them pretty before I put them up for people to download. But my personal notion is like a brutalist architecture, like concrete, like everything is gray. can't, it's not pretty. Yeah. Totally. It's just like a list of notes pages.

Lizzie Davey (31:28.459) I know.

Lizzie Davey (31:35.736) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (31:39.093) same. Yeah.

Yeah, same. I'm like functional, it needs to be functional. Like that's all it needs to be.

Lizzie Davey (31:52.566) Yeah, just like a spreadsheet, but yeah, in motion.

Rachel Meltzer (31:56.228) Yeah, I have like a beautiful, like it's a dashboard. It's very functional. But the one when I, I like duplicated it, obviously cleaned out all my data to give it to my freelancers that are in pop club. And I was like, no, I need to make this pretty. There needs to be some colors. This is bad. Everyone's like, you're so organized. I'm like, sure. Totally.

Lizzie Davey (32:10.606) People can't see this. I don't want anyone to see this.

Yeah, it's taken me two days to make it look pretty, but I can completely relate to that, completely relate to that. And then I've got, so yeah, as well as what I've said, there's also pitch and prosper, which is kind of like a guide to pitching, but warm pitching instead of cold pitching. So going through the whole networking, like platforms that you can connect with potential clients on how to find out where they are, how to find out who you should be connecting with.

Rachel Meltzer (32:26.088) But I'll see you off.

Rachel Meltzer (32:41.672) Mm.

Lizzie Davey (32:47.758) That's kind of a walkthrough of that and then I've got create better content, which is basically a video walkthrough Looking over my shoulder about how I create content for brands like Shopify Clavio like how I'm creating pieces that I'm charging like upwards of a thousand pounds for

Rachel Meltzer (33:04.678) That is awesome. I have yet to see something like that. Like I've seen people, like there are copywriter courses and stuff like that, but content writing, feel like that is rare. That's really cool.

Lizzie Davey (33:12.974) Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, it's because I had a lot of questions from people who were like, how do you like write content so quickly? Because in another freebie, have this the newsletter which goes out every Friday and it has a list of things that I've worked on that week, including how much revenue I've made, how much money I've billed for and as well as kind of a practical tip and something called freelance money diaries, which is where I kind of outline another freelancer's financial situation.

in a less boring way. But the, yeah, so a lot of people like, how are you writing so much content each week? I can see in your newsletter you're writing loads and I was like, oh, well, I've got this process that I use so that, I mean, I've been doing this for 10 years, but also I've got this structure, this process that I use for writing each piece so it makes it much quicker. And they're like, oh, what is that? And I was like, oh, okay, maybe people want to see this. So it's literally just like me walking through the process that I use to create these pieces.

Rachel Meltzer (33:47.716) Hehehehe

Rachel Meltzer (34:07.016) Mm.

Rachel Meltzer (34:15.004) That is awesome. How many pieces of content would you say you write every week?

Lizzie Davey (34:20.59) So it's usually about four pieces. So I try and do like one piece a day and like you, I'm doing a four day work week. So I like to stick to four. Sometimes it's like five and that's a real struggle for me. And it's like a very, very busy week. But yeah, usually on average, it's about four pieces a week.

Rachel Meltzer (34:24.871) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (34:36.582) You push yourself. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (34:42.696) Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm, I do like two or three, but that's because I am also doing one-on-one coaching, which takes up a lot of time. So, but when I'm not doing one-on-one coaching, I'm just like, I could do like one a day. I used to do two a day and then I got burnt out three times in a row and I was like, all right, I need to stop doing this. I need to chill. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (35:01.198) Yeah, yeah, I used to do loads and I don't know how I did it like I'd literally write a piece and then be like, right, I have to start another one immediately and I just don't know how I did that.

Rachel Meltzer (35:10.376) Totally. I think there's something about the beginning and how excited you are about, especially where you and I, like at the beginning of our careers, we did it to travel. That excitement and like the adrenaline you're lifting off of, feel like does contribute to your capacity until you get burnt out the first time and then you're like kind of knocked down a peg, you know?

Lizzie Davey (35:18.061) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (35:31.0) Yeah, yeah. And also I was much younger then. So I think I was just like, yeah, I'll do anything. And I'm so young and healthy and everything. I think now I think, yeah, it goes down. Like literally the day I turned 30, I wasn't that quite that. But now I value kind of time, like downtime, and I'm really kind of prioritizing my health, like mental health and physical health and stuff. trying not to get burnt out again.

Rachel Meltzer (35:35.665) Yes.

As soon as you turn 30, it's like.

Rachel Meltzer (35:44.272) Yes.

Rachel Meltzer (35:55.86) Mm-hmm. I feel like this is the classic evolution where you kind of go ham in the beginning because you just need to get something off the ground and make it work. And then you slowly end up in a four day work week at like a smaller capacity and you think about your body and you have a slow morning and it's very natural progression for freelancers, I think.

Lizzie Davey (36:14.06) Yeah, yeah, and I think it's like the changing like how success changes so at the beginning I was like, my god Yeah, like I've made this much money this month. This is I'm successful and now I'm like, I took like every Friday off this month and I didn't work I only work like however many hours like that success that feels successful to me

Rachel Meltzer (36:32.402) Yes, I love that you mentioned that. I feel like the construct of success is so important to examine every year. Because you can, I think a lot of times what I see, a trend that I see that worries me is freelancers just setting arbitrary goals. Like you need to know what your capacity is, what you want your personal life to look like, what you want your work schedule to look like, how much money you wanna earn.

Lizzie Davey (36:39.296) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (36:49.272) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (36:57.192) where that money is going. can't just be like, want to earn $10,000 a month because I want to earn $10,000 a month. Like it needs to be for a reason or else you won't be able to like, or you'll expect yourself to do like three times more in a year than you actually can because you didn't sit down to look at your capacity outside of your client work hours to like actually achieve those goals. it's that idea of success is sort of that value that's going to drive all of those goals. But a lot of people sort of get into freelancing.

with the idea of success being a monetary thing, which I think is important, obviously, you need to pay for your living and like, you know, it's a good goal to have, but I think that idea of success is going to change over time. And if you're not examining it, it just turns into this background thing where you end up kind of fighting yourself of like, why can't I reach this goal? Why am I not excited about it? Right? Because maybe your idea of success is actually like, I spent an hour every morning with my dog.

Lizzie Davey (37:47.042) Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (37:56.412) You know what I mean, it's tough.

Lizzie Davey (37:57.1) Yeah, yeah, and I think you can tell quite quickly because there's been when I started I had no idea that it was like possible to earn anywhere near as much money as like I'm earning or any like some of the freelancers I know are earning like I was like if I can replace my full-time job income like I will be happy and like for many years I wasn't earning more than like 30,000 pounds freelancing and I was like fine because I've got all of this freedom and then I think that was like

Rachel Meltzer (38:13.308) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (38:22.094) during the pandemic, I was like, hit my first 10K month and I was like, oh, this is great. And I was like, I feel nothing, not like I feel nothing, but like, I don't feel the kind of excitement that I thought I would because everybody's like, oh, once you hit 10K months, you've made it. And I think you realize quite quickly, like, whether that is your idea of success or not, just by like sitting and thinking about how you feel about that. if you're feeling numb or nothing, it's like, okay, so was that your idea of success or no?

Rachel Meltzer (38:28.326) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (38:35.794) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (38:45.787) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (38:51.546) Hmm. I think there's also, there's two things at play there. This idea of arrival. We set goals. We arrive at the goals, but then was your goal just to hit a 10 K month or was your goal to consistently have 10 K months? Did you burn yourself out getting to that 10 K month? Then that's not sustainable. Maybe your goal needs to be raising your rate. So the 10 K actually fits into four or five clients instead of six or set, right? Like there's sort of, sort of so many things about that. remember

Lizzie Davey (39:06.038) Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (39:20.424) In 2018, I threw like the Appalachian Trail, which is like 2000 miles of backpacking for like six months straight. And the whole time you think about getting to Katahdin, which is like the last mountain, you think about what it's going to feel like when you summit. I like would cry thinking about it sometimes. And I would be so like, you just imagine it so many times and it is the arrival of the goal. And I got to the top of Katahdin and I felt absolutely nothing. I was just like.

Lizzie Davey (39:25.966) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (39:36.11) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (39:49.324) Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (39:50.82) it is over. That's it. I'm going to sleep in a house tonight. I'm gonna take a shower for the first time in a week. Like, I'm not gonna see my best friends every day. Cause you're like out there with, you make friends with all these people. And that was the very first time that I very tangibly felt like it is not about the goal. is not about arriving. It's not about the end. It's about the journey you take to get there.

Lizzie Davey (39:53.294) done. Yeah.

Rachel Meltzer (40:15.506) what you learn, the friends you make. It's not about making $10,000. It's about learning the skills and the marketing positioning and the business acumen to get you to that point and all the friends that supported you getting to that point too.

Lizzie Davey (40:18.658) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (40:31.458) Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah. And it's kind of like for me, was, just want to see if I can do it and like what it takes to get there. And then it's kind of again, like what happens after that? What do you do after that?

Rachel Meltzer (40:38.658) Mm. Mm-hmm.

Rachel Meltzer (40:44.22) Yeah, yeah. It's hard too, because it's almost hard to celebrate your goals as a freelancer when you do reach them because you do have to worry about what's next. next week is just as important as this week when you hit the 10K.

Lizzie Davey (40:51.37) Yeah.

Lizzie Davey (40:56.837) Yeah, you can't really take your foot off the gas can you because you're like, oh yeah, I did this. Okay, now into the next brief and the next project.

Rachel Meltzer (41:02.888) Totally, yeah, there's always something coming down the pipeline. The to-do list never ends.

Lizzie Davey (41:05.378) Yeah, it never ends ever.

Rachel Meltzer (41:09.335) No. Okay, I did not want to ask you one personal question. I was reading your website and one of the fun facts you had on there was that you used to do donkey racing. What? Tell me more.

Lizzie Davey (41:14.146) Mm-hmm.

Lizzie Davey (41:24.428) It's like misspent youth. No, so I used to, I used to have like be quite horsey and we had at the stable yard where I kept my horse. they would go take like the horses for these like weekend shows and then they'd have, they'd want to take some of the riders from the stable yard, to race the donkey. So

Every weekend we would go to like these country fairs and then they'd have these donkeys in this pen and people would bet on which donkey they wanted to win and then we'd get on the donkeys and race them around this track and you'd have like these middle-aged men like yelling at and I was like 12, 13 just like yelling at you like go on I've got money on you you need to win and just like what am I doing with my life and just like racing on this tiny donkey.

Rachel Meltzer (42:10.184) That is so funny. I cannot imagine. I used to ride horses when I was a kid too and it was like, the donkeys would be the worst thing. I would never want to ride a donkey. They're so stubborn.

Lizzie Davey (42:20.652) Yeah, they were just nightmares. Yeah, so stubborn nightmares. Like many of them didn't even get off like the starting line. It was just chaos, absolute chaos. It was very fun, but chaos.

Rachel Meltzer (42:27.352) totally.

Yeah, totally. That's hilarious. man. Okay, cool. Well, let's... Is there anything else you're promoting right now that you want to talk about besides Freelance Magic? Is there anything upcoming down the pipeline?

Lizzie Davey (42:42.702) Yeah, so the next thing I've got coming out is obviously the next version of Workflow Wizard, which should be coming out end of February. We're just finalizing the last bit. So yeah, that's an all-in-one Notion dashboard for freelancers. And it comes with all of the templates, tutorials, and scripts from the existing Workflow Wizard, but in a Notion format, so you can have everything in one place and create your own kind of headquarters for all of your client work. So that's coming next month.

Rachel Meltzer (43:11.804) That is perfect. And you have your own podcast as well, right? Are you still recording for that?

Lizzie Davey (43:16.726) Yes. So the podcast is called It's Fine. I'm a freelancer and I share kind of more transparent, like authentic takes on freelance life, like questions that, existential questions that freelancers might have. And I do about six episodes every quarter. So kind of in the middle of, got three more episodes left this quarter. And it's kind of like more philosophical questions about freelancing and trying to answer questions like whether AI is going to replace us and.

Rachel Meltzer (43:45.096) Mm.

Lizzie Davey (43:45.88) whether like what kind of methods of getting clients are actually working in 2025 and what's not working anymore.

Rachel Meltzer (43:52.173) Mm-hmm. Heck yeah, that is perfect. And definitely check out Lizzie's newsletter if you haven't already. I love the financial transparency in your newsletter. I think it is so needed. Like there's so much taboo about talking about finances. I hate it. It's so unnecessary. There are so many things that I think I could have avoided if I had understood, like financial literacy is such an issue.

Lizzie Davey (44:06.862) Thank much.

Rachel Meltzer (44:18.888) especially in the US, like, our credit system is fucked. But yeah, I appreciate you doing that. And I actually submitted last year mine. So if you go back in the archives, you can find it eventually.

Lizzie Davey (44:33.698) You can do this year's one as well if you want. can do another year.

Rachel Meltzer (44:36.194) sure, I'll do it again, do it every year. Yeah, my taxes definitely went up because I am not doing as much traveling for work anymore, so. I know, it was really nice while it lasted.

Lizzie Davey (44:44.044) I expense that. Yeah, I know. I know I need to get my expenses up. More travel.

Rachel Meltzer (44:51.272) Yeah, right. man. Well, thank you so much for coming on the guidebook. was great chatting with you today and I hope everybody goes and checks out your new workflow Notion dashboard. That's so exciting.

Lizzie Davey (45:05.646) Thanks so much for having me.

Rachel Meltzer (45:07.25) Thank