The Marketing Mentor Podcast

Newly-minted freelancer, Kelsey Grafton, of Lewiston, Idaho, knows she has a lot to learn about running her new business, BlueSkyMondays. She said it wasn't hard to convince her new boss (herself!) to invest in sending her to the Creative Freelancer Conference as her first big step in that process.

Listen to this 15-minute interview, where Allison Manley, from Rogue Element , answers these questions: How much time it takes to do the proposals and how they decide which ones to do. What to do if the prospect isn’t responsive during the proposal process. What if you don’t have access to the people involved in the actual project, as happens a lot with higher ed and government agencies? Why they...

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is April 30!), is rapidly approaching. For today’s podcast interview, we have Marcia Hoeck, giving us a preview of her session, Skillful Communication with Clients.  Q: What’s the biggest mistake creatives make when communicating with clients?  Marcia: The biggest mistake is not setting the right tone and may...

Last time we talked, Jeff Tara from Brand Vue Design had gotten a client by sending an email (in which he shared his honest opinion about his favorite wine company’s new label). Recently laid off, this happened one week after Jeff officially went freelance.  With such a productive first week, I couldn’t wait to speak to him again and find out what’s happened over the past month. In our 10-minute i...

One of the most popular speakers from last year's Creative Freelancer Conference , Allen Murabayashi, CEO of PhotoShelter , will be back this year (June 21-22 in Boston -- early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!). Allen joined me for a podcast interview to preview his session, Building Your Prospect List: Quality vs. Quantity . In our interview, we talked about the importance of qualifying p...

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!), is rapidly approaching and for today’s podcast interview, we have Sarah Durham, Founder of Big Duck . Sarah’s session will be The Nuts and Bolts of Pricing and Negotiating . At Big Duck, they design exclusively with nonprofit organizations. In fact, they haven’t worked with a for-p...

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!), is rapidly approaching and for today’s podcast interview, we have Cameron Foote, Editor of Creative Business , who will be taking part in the Perspectives on Pricing Panel at this year’s conference. In this 14-minute interview, I asked Cam how freelancers can compete with bigger fi...

As we get ready for the 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is March 30!), we’re doing a podcast interview series with our speakers! Recently, we featured Dyana Valentine , Mark O’Brien , Shane Pearlman and Jonathan Cleveland .  Today, we have Ed Gandia , freelancer copywriter, speaker, coach, and co-author of “ The Wealthy Freelancer .” He joined...

As we get ready for the 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston, we’re doing a podcast interview series with our speakers! Recently, we featured Dyana Valentine , Mark O’Brien and Shane Pearlman . Today, we have Jonathan Cleveland, Principal of Boston-based Cleveland Design . With a staff of five, his firm fills an important need for large corporate clients who, interestin...

As we get ready for the 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston, we’re doing a podcast interview series with our speakers! Recently, we featured Dyana Valentine and Mark O’Brien . Today, we have Shane Pearlman , describing his upcoming session, “Planning for the First Year of Freelance.”  Read an excerpt below and listen to the 10-minute interview, in which Shane talks abo...

Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter focused on food, wellness and creativity—she blogs at www.writes4food.com -- and I’ve been following her marketing journey since she became self-employed less than a year ago.   Lately, we’ve been talking about the merits of LinkedIn, and Bryn has dedicated time, twice a week, to gain visibility and find prospects using it. This past week, she...

As we get ready for the 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference , June 21-22 in Boston, we’re doing a podcast interview series with our speakers! Last week we featured Dyana Valentine whose topic is “Pitch Perfect.” Today, we have Mark O’Brien, President of Newfangled , describing his upcoming session, “Is Your Website Generating Business?”  Read an excerpt below and listen to the 10-minute inte...

Amy Graver’s design firm, Elements , positions themselves as a “virtual marketing department.” It’s a strong positioning for them—but the only challenge is, with such a potentially broad audience (Who doesn’t need a virtual marketing department?), where do you go to find those prospects? How do you efficiently locate those people?  When it comes to Amy, I have a sense there is also something else...

Stephanie Helline, Owner of Strategic Design Studio , had a very surprising response to her latest email newsletter. The topic was, “ Is the Business Card DEAD? ” and she didn’t think much of it when she scheduled it to go out Friday morning. She didn’t even like the topic much, but she was committed to staying in touch monthly with her list of 150+ so she wrote it, scheduled it to send and forgot...

Dyana Valentine is one of our favorite Creative Freelancer Conference speakers; we bring her back every year! This year at CFC (June 21-22nd in Boston) she is going to be talking about Pitch Perfect —and I interviewed Dyana to get a preview. Listen to find out more about Dyana, hear her “working pitch,” and learn: The difference between a tagline and a pitch How to craft your pitch and tagline bas...

“I've already landed 2 freelance jobs since I launched my website this week! Without your materials, I don’t think I would have been as prepared as I am now.” This is what Jeff Tara emailed me after launching his website for Brand Vue Design with the help of the Freelancers Essentials Collection .  I had to know more, so I interviewed him—and I was delighted to discover his passionate approach to...

Last time I talked to independent journalist and copywriter, Bryn Mooth, from Writes4Food , she confessed to slowing down in December and paying the price in January. When I asked her, “What could you have done differently to avoid this slowdown?” Bryn said, “I should have put more effort into marketing in October and November.” Bryn realized, “This marketing stuff isn’t hard, except if you wait u...

In this world where “content is king,” more and more of marketing is “content marketing.” With the need for content so vast—you can be a writer who specializes in exactly what a prospect needs, such as a web writer, content strategist, direct response writer or technical writer. Stacey King Gordon, from Suite Seven , started as just a plain “writer” in 1998, and now she’s a “content strategist.” A...

When it comes to taxes, are you deducting everything you can? Bryn wasn’t.  Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter at Writes4Food . We’ve been following Bryn’s journey, and recently, we talked about taxes. In the first meeting with her accountant, Bryn had a big surprise: She had a percentage in mind for Uncle Sam, but says,   “It was significantly higher than I expected… I knew th...

Bryn Mooth is an independent journalist and copywriter at Writes4Food.com . I’ve been checking-in with Bryn for the past 8 months (since she went freelance) to follow her journey, and last week, we did our first calls of 2012. How did she do? Overall, 2011 “exceeded” her expectations. Bryn was pleased with the income she earned and the work she did. But… January is slow. Why? Bryn says she “checke...

Recently I interviewed Scott Hull ( www.scotthull.com ), an agent for illustrators who, when you ask what he does, says he, “links creativity to the corporate world.” We talked a lot about how illustration has changed and who the new “art buyers” are. He shared some interesting information for creatives and illustrators—especially when it comes to selling themselves to art buyers and agencies. Sco...

Sometimes, all you need is a kickstart. That’s all it took for Julia Nable, co-founder (with her partner) of SandorMax , to decide how to position their small Connecticut-based firm after 6+ years in business.  I met with Julia and Zoltan for a 2 hour consultation in June 2011 (almost exactly 6 months ago). Then, in early December, Julia wrote to tell me they’d made great strides with their positi...

We’ve been talking about crowdsourcing a lot on the Creative Freelancer Blog , and designer, Laurel Black, is central to every discussion. So, I decided to do an interview with Laurel on some basics of crowdsourcing (from her perspective) for those who haven't been following all the comments. We started with a few basic questions: What is crowdsourcing? Who is upset about it and why? How has it af...

Should you be putting samples inside your proposals? Should higher fees equal longer proposals? What are the 5 basic elements every proposal should have? Find out answers to these questions, and many more, in my recent interview for the  International Freelancers Academy  with Ed Gandia. In this hour-long interview, we cover the real information you need to craft winning proposals. Topics also dis...

Bob Bly , who has been a freelance copywriter since 1982 (and made millions doing it) generously shared his one-page agreement in the new  Proposal Bundle for Copywriters  ( Today only: Get $10 off  with promo code:  BUNDLE10 ). I interviewed Bob on the Marketing Mentor Podcast to find out more about his agreement. Here’s an excerpt…  Is it safe to skip the agreements—and get right to work for exi...