Workfree Connect: With Georgie Darling

We caught up with Georgie Darling, freelance travel writer, business strategy coach for female freelance writers and community leader, on how Covid catapulted her career and how she maintains an epic freelance work life balance.  Let’s dive in 👇🏼

WF: How did you kick start your freelance career?

G: I left London spontaneously in November 2019. I’d always wanted to go freelance but it felt quite a scary concept. An opportunity came up for a 6 month digital marketing project in Indonesia, it was a great midpoint, the combination of moving abroad and stable employment. It felt safer than throwing myself into freelancing without any support or experience. Within 6 weeks the pandemic hit. 

One month passed, the pandemic showed no sign of stopping, I was stranded on a teeny tiny island with lots of free time, I had to find a way to earn! So I got my head down, focused on creating a website, a portfolio, reaching out to clients. That’s how my freelance journey began. 

WF: How did you figure out your offering and get those first few clients?

G:I had started out in journalism, moved to copywriting and onto branded content. That’s where I began and where I still specialise today. It’s what I enjoy the most and what I feel the most confident doing. 

At the time I focused on clients that would pay me. I was writing about anything and everything across the world. My first piece of work was a whiskey round up - I don’t even drink whiskey. Other clients included an electric car company, a Canadian make-up brand. 

It’s funny because I now also work as a business strategy coach for female writers and a lot of the stuff I did, I tell people not to do. I took the long route.

I didn’t reach out to people I’d worked with before. I leaned toward facebook groups - I still maintain they’re a great place to find clients but I could have utilised LinkedIn and cold pitching. At the time, my main method was posting my website into the groups and anytime anyone was looking for a writer I’d reach out. It was the only form of client acquisition that I knew. Slowly but surely the momentum did build.

WF: What did the progression of your freelance business look like, from 2020 to now?

G:Taking time to step back and look at my business, the parts I enjoyed, the parts I did out of obligation - let me acknowledge the good bits and made me realise if I focus on the good I could take a deeper dive into the stuff I loved.. I knew I could separate myself from the generalists out there if I specialised. I became more careful when it came to pitching my services to people, how I positioned myself. That was key to helping me grow my business.

Part of that came from building up my self confidence.  When you’re freelance you can sink into the feast or famine mindset. Reframing that, and adopting more of a business owner mindset really helped me assert myself particularly when it comes to making sure I’m paid fairly, to make sure clients aren’t pushing past my boundaries. That’s the biggest difference between Georgie of 2020 and 2023. 

WF: What challenges do you still come up against?

One thing I learn constantly, is that if you are going to grow your own business, you’re going to be putting yourself into uncomfortable situations. As someone who has always shyed away from uncomfortable situations, that’s been a learning curve and has taken a lot of mindset work. Instead of immediately disregarding things thinking no I could never do that, but by actively putting myself in these positions knowing it might not feel good but if I do it, it will feel a lot less intimidating the next time, it’s going to lead to good things.  

When I first started imposter syndrome often held me back. I’d stop myself from taking opportunities because of my what if’s. Whereas now I try to flip it and change how I look at it. What if it goes really well? What if you charge the higher rate and the client immediately says yes? That ‘what if’ becomes your lowest rate from now on. 

WF: You’ve now created another arm to your business that aims to empower female freelance writers through your coaching and online community.  Tell us more.

G: My coaching business the freedom route  came about accidentally, but truly by request -  there was a market for it. I think people like the fact that I work specifically for female freelance writers.  The demand grew organically and by the time I started to build up my 1:1’s, I had people that wanted to work with me on a smaller budget. I put all of the stuff that I coach into a course called Self marketing magic that I run two or three times a year. It’s a 10 week group coaching course with a private community that brings people together who are all at their own stages of growing their own freelance writing businesses. As it grew, I recognised the value these women had in getting together once a week to talk about business struggles. I thought it would be great to have a bigger, free but private community to make it more accessible. We’re now close to 3000 people and despite the bigger size it’s still very down to earth. People post their website links and get feedback, people share job opportunities and hire each other. It’s very collaborative, people can talk openly about their business without fear of judgement.

I didn’t have this when starting out. For example, in the freelance industry there’s not really any transparency with rates.  No one really talks about money and there isn’t a rule book. Having these freelance communities is essential when growing your business because it gives you other like minded people that you can bounce ideas off and sense check things like your hourly or day rate. 

WF: What is a key takeaway you’ve learnt from your freelance community?

G: Accountability. We set mini goals and when we check in the following week, we hold each other accountable. Suddenly you’ve got a group of people to cheer you on and to check that you got that job done. A lot of the time we doubt ourselves. Sometimes we need someone to say you’re doing the right thing, it’s going to pay off.  Some of the women I work with have been in the industry for decades, are incredible at what they do, but struggle asserting themselves, or self promoting. Community can be so valuable in this capacity. 

WF: What has freelancing opened up for you beyond your career?

G: The biggest benefit to me is the freedom to travel. One of my biggest frustrations of working full time was having 25 days of annual leave. I’ve been travelling full time since 2019.

Having the freedom and flexibility to work around my own life rather than have my life shaped around my work, that’s the biggest win.

The money is another one - since leaving my full-time job I’ve quadrupled my salary. And that’s working less hours, working while travelling full time, and working with clients I love. 

The other benefit is the confidence I've got from running my own business. When you’re freelance you’re responsible for being your own editor. Having that confidence to be like yes this is a good piece of work and not having someone to approve it - that’s given me the confidence to do so many other cool things.

Thanks Georgie - We loved catching up you and hearing about your journey as a freelancer.

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