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- Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel.
I've got a special guest today.
This is Hollie.
Hollie is a freelancer.
I get a lot of questions about freelancing,
it's not something I do a lot of myself,
so whenever I'm around someone who does do that
as a full-time thing,
I wanna bring them on
and get them to share their knowledge with you.
First of all, tell us about yourself.
Tell us about your business and what you do.
- Yeah, so basically like Charli said,
I am a freelance designer, mostly focusing on branding,
and brand strategy and that sort of thing.
But also a lot of other graphics and stuff
that comes along with it.
I have done, worked in agencies, in house,
all that sort of stuff since I studied design at university,
and then just figured out through that
that I love working by myself (laughs)
and doing my own thing and having my own business.
And so, I just last year been doing it
for just over a year full-time.
I'd made that decision and best decision ever.
- That's awesome.
So your business is called black and white studios.
- Yes.
- Why did you decide to, like,
be a freelancer under that name
rather than just being Hollie Arnett,
which is her name by the way.
- Yes. (laughter)
Yeah, it's kind of a weird decision that I think
I'm still not sure --
- Fair enough, yeah.
- Whether it's the right thing to do.
Because I still sometimes, I call myself a freelancer,
and then sometimes I call myself a one woman studio.
Sometimes, like, I'm a business owner, or whatever.
But I made the decision, I guess,
so that I could build a brand that was bigger than me,
I suppose.
- Yeah.
- And so if in the future I want to expand into,
I don't know, courses or like other offerings,
or I wanna hire other people, or whatever,
then it's not tied to my name.
- A question people often ask me about freelance,
and that I'm sure you get asked as well,
is how do you find clients?
Or, how do clients find you,
is something parallel. - Yeah.
- Which was does it tend to work for you
and how do you make that happen?
- Yes, so, it has luckily never really been
me finding clients.
- Cool.
- It has always been clients finding me.
And I would say 90% of the time that is through
word of mouth.
- Right.
- So there's like people like you who I've met, worked with,
hopefully enjoyed working with me and my work that I do,
and then tell other people.
And also, like, I've been freelancing since high school,
like random bits and bobs,
and so, like, people just know that that's what I do,
and I've made a lot of connections through like,
networking and going on events and running events,
and all those sorts of things,
just I meet people, they get to know what I do.
They work with me, they tell other people.
- Yeah.
- Or they come back and work with me again.
And so, yeah, it's all just talking to people,
getting to know people. - Yeah.
- And making those connections.
And then a few random people will come through my website,
but more often than not, not the most valuable clients.
- Okay, interesting.
- It's the people who, yeah, who I meet,
or who know who I am, or know someone who knows who I am,
that I have the most, the best relationships.
- Yeah.
I know that's the case, (laughter)
most often,
is that word of mouth is the best way to get clients.
When you're just starting out,
how do you, like, build up that word of mouth?
- Yeah.
- What do you recommend people do when they're like
brand new to freelancing, never had a client before,
so they don't have anyone to give the word of mouth.
- Yeah.
- What do you recommend they do?
- The best thing that I found is like,
owning that that's what you do.
So, like, tell people that that's what you're doing.
Put up on your social media bio,
or if you meet someone, they ask what you do,
say, "I'm a freelance designer, I'm a freelancer whatever."
- Yeah.
- And just like, yeah, owning that and being proud of that,
and telling everybody that,
and putting out there into the universe
that you're open for work and keen to try things,
is yeah, probably number one.
And then also maybe doing internships
or trying working with people, not for free,
because I don't recommend that,
but maybe like discounted rates or doing things for friends.
Or, I did a lot of volunteer design work.
- Okay. For like a charity,
that gave me portfolio work and stuff I could share.
- Yeah.
- And the ball just starts rolling from there.
- Nice, you've gotta have a little faith in the process,
which seems scary. - Yeah, yeah.
It's definitely not like an instant thing,
that you're gonna go from zero to a million clients,
or zero to a few high paying clients,
it's gonna, it takes a while.
- Yeah.
- And it's about making those connections
and getting people to know who you are and what you do.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- So obviously it's really important
to give your clients a good experience.
- Yes.
- So that they want to refer you,
so that they want to come back and work with you again.
- Yeah.
- We've talked a bit off camera
about how you work with clients.
- Yeah.
- And I think it's really great approach.
I'd love for you to share, like,
how you bring clients on board,
and how you make that a great process for them.
- Yeah, so, I guess like I'm a real big relationships person
and so I would much rather have a few clients
who I work with on an ongoing basis
and get to know them really well,
and like just work really well with them.
- Yeah. - Together over time.
I try and make that experience as best as I can,
and so I always, always try and talk to people
face to face, whether that's a video or in person,
if they're in the same city as me.
More often than not, they're not.
So like, video at least, so they like know my face,
can get to know me as a person.
- Yeah.
- And I can get to know them, we establish trust together.
- Yeah.
- And my whole why, or mission or vision,
or whatever you want to call it, is visualizing visions.
And so I'm so passionate about
working with people who are passionate about something
and want to see that come to life,
but maybe they're struggling with visualizing that
or making it into something tangible,
and they have this amazing idea,
and I want to help them to visualize their vision.
- Yeah.
- And so I just love doing that.
I love my job.
So I try and have a great time working with these people,
and so I think that they can see that as well.
- Yeah.
- And I try and just make it super fun for them,
super fun for me.
I'm always, like, taking note of the process
and how it's going,
and I get feedback from them along the way and at the end
so that I'm always improving the process too.
- Cool.
- Hopefully it's seamless and fun and enjoyable.
- Yeah. - As it can be.
- Well, I've heard from,
I've referred several people to Hollie for branding,
because that's not something that I do.
So whenever someone asks me,
(laughs)
to design a brand, I'm like, go talk to Hollie instead.
And I've heard from the people that I've referred to you,
about how great your process is.
- Oh I love that.
- How, you know, at ease they felt,
and they were worried it was gonna be like,
this big stressful thing, and that you made it easy.
- Yeah. - And so that's awesome.
Do you have a set list of questions that you ask people
to like, figure out their project?
- Yeah, I do.
Like, it changes depending on the person.
- Yeah. - And the project, and stuff.
Obviously, just because one size doesn't fit all.
But there are always the same questions.
Like I'll always ask them, obviously, like,
why are they coming to me?
What do they think that they need?
Because sometimes it's not always what they actually need.
- Good point.
- But what do they think they need.
Like, what's the problem?
Why now? - Yeah.
- Why are are they coming to me now,
what's made them make that decision to talk to a designer?
What do they already have if they do, or don't.
I always ask if they've seen stuff that they like,
or hate. - Yeah.
- Actually finding out stuff that people hate
is really helpful, more often than not,
more helpful than stuff that they like.
(laughs)
- Yup, interesting.
What would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned
since going full-time freelance?
Like what's been the biggest challenge you've faced,
and like learned from?
- Wow, what a question. (laughs)
I think one of the biggest things I've learned
is learning about myself.
- Okay.
- I think I'm naturally,
I think we're the same personality type,
and part of that personality type
is loving personality type things.
- Yup. (laughs)
- Like loving, yet finding out more about ourselves,
and being really self-aware.
And so, like, throughout the last year full-time freelance,
I've done a lot of figuring out, like how I work best,
and how I feel when certain things happen,
and you know, all these different things that
make up me and who I am.
- Yeah.
- And what I'm passionate about, and how I operate,
and what makes me happy and what makes me frustrated,
and you know, all these things.
And so I think, I've learned how important that is.
- Yup.
- Especially because when you're freelancing
you're by yourself most of the time.
And you know, you're your own biggest company.
- Yeah.
- And so you have to like, love yourself,
and love spending time with yourself,
and understand how you work.
- Yeah.
- And so I think that's been a massive lesson.
- I love that.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- That's like, any freelancer I've talked to,
they've never answered that.
- Oh, cool. (laughs)
- Great answer to that question.
They both said something like, pricing or like scoping work.
- Oh yeah, like practical things.
- No, that's amazing.
I think you're right, that when you're working by yourself,
I find this as a remote worker too.
- Yeah.
- You have to enjoy your own company,
and you have to enjoy your work flow,
and figure all that out.
- Yeah.
- That's cool.
Do you have, to end the video, a piece of advice
for a budding freelancer out there?
Like, what's something that you recommend they do?
We've already talked about how to find clients and all that.
- Yeah.
- But is there anything else
that you would recommend for them?
- I've had a few people ask me this
because I do little bit of like,
tutoring and stuff at university.
- Yeah.
- And so I work with a few students
and people who are thinking of freelancing.
And I think the reason that I knew
that I wanted to freelance and that it was the right thing
for me to do,
and that I could smash it out and be awesome at it,
is that I had one, tried freelancing already,
before I went, like full-time.
- Right.
- And also I'd tried a bunch of other ways of working.
So, like I said, I'd worked in agencies,
I'd worked in house with you. - Yep.
- Worked in house at some other start-ups.
And I kind of tried those things,
figured out what I liked, didn't like,
kind of I could take parts of it that worked for me,
and parts that didn't work for me.
And I think having all that experience,
made me feel confident. - Yes.
- To dive full-time into freelance.
Whereas, I think, it might be quite,
not saying that you can't do it,
because I totally believe that you can,
but like straight out of uni, or straight out of school,
or something, it's a lot. - Yeah.
- And I think having that experience,
not just in terms of work, but in terms of like,
working with the team, and working on client briefs,
and working on real life projects,
and learning from people
who have had more experience than you.
- Yeah.
- And being around people who can like,
bounce ideas off and things like that.
That sort of stuff is so valuable,
and I think once you've had that experience,
and learned those things,
and taken parts that you love and don't love,
then you'll feel confident in freelancing full-time.
- Yeah, I love that.
- Yeah, but if you're passionate about it
and you really want to do it, I'm like,
I'm freelancing's biggest advocate.
(laughter)
- Awesome.
- Yeah, I totally am.
I believe in you and yeah, I'm so for it.
- Cool, okay.
Well, there we go.
If you want to freelance, Hollie says do it.
- Yeah. - Go ahead and do it.
Thank you so much Hollie for sharing your insights.
I hope that you watching could see,
just how much of a people person Hollie is,
and how much that helps with your clients, you know,
and helping them want to be returning clients,
and referring clients as well.
- Yet funnily enough, as the biggest introvert ever.
(laughs) - Yeah, ironic that.
Alright, well, if you want to find Hollie's work,
follow her on social media, she's a great follow on Twitter,
I will say that.
All her links will be down below in the description,
so check them out,
and if you are someone who needs branding done,
then maybe you could contact her
and see her process in action, there we go.
Alright, thank you for watching everyone,
give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it,
and I'll see you in the next one.
Bye.
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