Last week I employed a freelancer from Kenya to help me with Natasja King Coaching. That’s a first for me. But when something means a lot to you, like launching yourself as a coach, you want things to be done right. There’s a lot on the line, and first impressions last!
I’ve never before thought of paying someone to do admin-y type things for me. I’m a PA and an “I’m sure I can figure this out for myself” kind of person. This time however, I really needed help. I was wasting valuable time on an email campaign in Mailchimp that I just couldn’t get to work the way I wanted it to. I work full-time, and my coaching business is a side hustle. Working from home and not having to commute certainly gave me back at least three hours daily, but it still wasn’t enough. And I was getting stressed out.
The clincher was when I received an email from Tide about their Member Perks. As a Tide business banking account holder, I get 20% off my first project with People Per Hour, the UK’s largest online freelancer marketplace. A freelancer to help me out with my project…… perfect!
For my free Feel Supported email course, I knew what I wanted to write, I knew how I wanted the emails to look, I designed the feature image for each email, I knew that I wanted to add downloadable content and that it had to drop into mailboxes every second day, but how? And with GDPR rules, I was petrified that I would accidentally send someone a Feel Supported email when they had only signed up to my newsletter. All of these worries dampen creativity. The mind is only really free to play and be curious if it isn’t bogged down with technical stuff (there is no better word than “stuff” for settings, preferences, coding and three hundred different ways of doing one thing.)
Freeing yourself from technical issues is why you get an expert to help you out. What is “stuff” to me, is an absolute no-brainer to someone else. So why wouldn’t I employ a freelance expert?
The MailChimp expert I employed, is the lovely Irene. View her PPH profile here.
Knowing that Irene was working on the technical bits of my Mailchimp campaign, was such a weight off my shoulders. In the few days it had taken Irene to work her magic, I submitted an idea to a magazine (which they accepted), I had a brainwave for marketing myself to an old contact with a vast reach, I watched Zoom recordings of talks I had given to capture my own words and use it as quotes for Instagram and LinkedIn, I wrote three – count it, three – blog posts and I had a great time designing content in Canva. All because I didn’t have to fiddle around with email automation.
Asking for help is not just critical for good mental health, it’s also hugely beneficial if you have your own business. It frees up your time to do the things you really care about and are good at.
My advice: employ a Virtual Assistant, get a freelancer from People Per Hour, or just put out a request for help on LinkedIn. In this time of furloughs and a slow job market, there are many experts out there just waiting to help you out.
If you want to try People Per Hour, use my referral and we’ll both get £30 credit in our PPH account.
And if you would also like a Tide business banking account (which is a fantastic!), use my referral code XEVY5J. Tide will give us each £50 when you open your account.
Natasja King 