Getting laid off twice might not sound like the beginning of a story about job security. For Satta Sarmah Hightower, it was.

Satta started freelancing in 2014 after back-to-back layoffs. She figured freelancing would tide her over until she found another full-time job.

Twelve years later, she has built a multi-seven-figure solo business. And strangely enough, she now considers freelancing the most secure job she’s ever had.

Why?

A layoff can erase 100% of your income overnight. A well-built freelance business gives you diversification — across clients, relationships, services, and opportunities.

But resilience like that doesn’t happen accidentally.

In this conversation, Satta walks me through seven lessons she learned while building her business:

1. Treat your business like a business.
2. Choose your niche wisely.
3. Always be marketing.
4. Don’t just date your clients. Marry them.
5. Repurpose profits into future revenue.
6. Create a business continuity plan.
7. Go with the season you’re in.

What I appreciate about Satta is that none of these lessons depend on working yourself into the ground.

Quite the opposite.

We talk about setting boundaries even when losing a client scares you. We talk about choosing a niche based not only on what interests you, but also on demand and profitability. We talk about why your best source of future revenue may be the clients who already know and trust you.

Satta also explains her “W-2 prevention plan”: a pre-decided set of actions she can take if a big client disappears or revenue suddenly drops.

Because panic is a lousy business strategy.

Finally, we talk about something that tends to disappear from conversations about seven-figure businesses: seasons.

Sometimes you can push. Sometimes your family, health, caregiving responsibilities, or plain old life need more from you.

Building for the long game means knowing the difference.

Note: This conversation was originally recorded for the Advanced Freelancers Summit in May 2026.

Key Points

• Treat your business like a business: Stop acting like a hired hand waiting for clients to dictate your schedule. Build systems, processes, financial discipline, boundaries, and diversified marketing into the business.
• Choose your niche based on more than passion: Satta followed demand toward B2B tech content and used her journalism background as a differentiator. She even studies current job descriptions to see which skills clients are hiring for now.
• Always be marketing: Don’t wait until a client disappears and your nervous system catches fire. Marketing works better as an ongoing habit than an emergency response.
• Turn clients into long-term relationships: Look for gaps you can fill, educate clients about the other problems you solve, and stay in touch. Your clients are busy. They aren’t necessarily going to remember to call you.
• Reinvest in yourself: Satta regrets being too conservative with her resources early in her career. Today, she deliberately puts profits toward future growth opportunities, including her book, The Forever Freelancer.
• Create a W-2 prevention plan: Decide in advance what you’ll do if revenue drops 50% or an anchor client disappears. Satta’s plan includes sending LOIs, checking in with current and dormant clients, and activating her network.
• Go with the season you’re in: There are seasons for pushing and seasons for pulling back. A sustainable business should accommodate both.

Notable Quotes

“I’ve had experience over the last 12 years that proves to me that being proactive is the path to sustainable business. If I wasn’t and if I just sat around and moped when things weren’t well, and I’ve had times even in recent years where things haven’t gone the way I thought they would go, but I was able to turn them around because I just did what I knew worked.”

“Don’t just date your clients, marry them. And by that, I mean you want to build long term relationships with clients, whether that’s through retainers or they become anchor clients. You don’t want just one assignments because I think I really saw income growth when I started to have those long term relationships and engagements with clients.”

“People are busy. They’re not thinking about you. You’ve heard of demand generation marketing where you are everywhere your potential customers are, even when they’re not ready to buy… So it’s sort of like the same principle. You’re like omnipotent in a way. And then all of a sudden when there’s a project, because you’ve been in their feed or you’ve sent them that touch base email, they’re like, oh, you’re the first person they think.”

“Go with the season you’re in. So rest, recharge and play the long game. This is especially important for parents and caregivers. I think there will be there are seasons in life and there are seasons in freelancing. There will be times where you can work a lot and really pound it out and really grow your business really fast. And there’ll be times where you can’t, where life takes over. You have to give yourself grace and realize that it’s a continuum here.”

Resources Mentioned

• Check out Satta’s website: http://sattasarmah.com/
• Connect with Satta on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sattasarmahhightower/
• Learn about Satta’s book, The Forever Freelancer: https://www.sattasarmah.com/book
• Listen to Satta’s previous Freelance Cake episode: http://freelancecake.com/podcast/from-accidental-freelancer-to-strategic-business-owner-with-satta-sarmah-hightower
• Read the 15 Ways to Get Clients Fast essay: https://www.freelancecake.com/blog/15-ways-to-get-clients-fast
• Check out the Freelance Cake Community: https://www.freelancecake.com/community

Watch This Episode

Transcript

00:01
Hey there, welcome to the Freelance Cake Podcast. I'm your host, Austin L. Church, founder of the Freelance Cake community. The goal of this show is to help full-time committed freelancers get better leverage. As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire whatsoever to see you work harder. So I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices  you can use right away to make the freelance game more profitable and satisfying. So chill out, listen in, because the best is yet to come.

00:40
Welcome to another episode of the Freelance Cake Podcast. Passing the seven figure mark in your freelance business isn't the result of one breakthrough moment. More often, it's the product of hundreds of small decisions made consistently over the years. My guest today is Satta Sarmah Hightower.

01:00
This is Satta’s second time on the show. So definitely go back and listen to our first conversation. Satta talks in this episode about launching her freelance business in 2014 after a series of layoffs and how she has gone on to reach seven figures in revenue within seven years. She's a B2B content marketer, author of the Forever Freelancer, and someone who has built her business with a remarkable focus on sustainability, resilience, and long-term thinking. So what Satta and I talk about is her seven lessons for growing from accidental freelancer to multi seven figure business owner. We talk about what it really means to treat your freelance business like a business. We talk about why choosing the right niche, can dramatically impact your growth trajectory. And we talk about how consistent marketing, not panic marketing, creates stability over time. One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Satta's point of view on playing the long game. How do you navigate different seasons of life? What do you do when growth doesn't happen at the pace that you want?

02:23
How do you build a business that's designed around your life rather than the other way around? That's what we discuss. So if you're looking to create a more resilient, profitable and sustainable freelance business, this episode is full of practical wisdom. All right, sit back and enjoy my conversation with Satta Sarmah Hightower.

02:49
Satta, somehow I tricked you into coming back and talking to me again. Thank you for being here. One of the things that I most appreciate about you is how honest about your story you are. You don't give people the edited, made in public version. You give people the very real version. And so I want you to introduce yourself, but I'm going to frame it quickly. So like I said, you have one of the most honest origin stories in freelancing that I've encountered. You went through two layoffs in five years. You had a significant amount of student loan debt. You landed in freelancing in your words by accident. In August 2014, is that date right?

03:47
Summer 2014, yeah.

03:48
2014 and so what made you decide against going to look for another full-time job and why do you say that freelancing is the most secure job you've ever had, I think that those sort of book and questions will give people an idea of who you are before we get into the real meat of the interview.

04:17
Awesome. So I have been full-time freelancer for 12 years since summer 2014. And I entered freelancing by accident. It was not intentional at all. was after back-to-back layoffs. And I think what kept me going, I started really in earnest May 2014, just thinking, I'll do this to bide my time. It'll be fine. We'll move to a bigger city back. Cause I had moved from New York to Orlando because I was getting married and my husband had a job. I didn't. So that made the most sense.

04:47
I was like, we'll leave Orlando and move back to like New York or a bigger city. And then I'll just get another like journalism or media job. But I think one thing that kept me going was momentum. So I got, you know, my first client, it was something that I applied for at the Orlando Public Relations Society. There was a job board that they had and I found a contract gig. And then steadily, my former colleagues would recommend me for work, hired me for work because they had moved on to full-time roles.

05:17
So that momentum kept me going. And honestly, privileged to be quite frank. I was married and my husband had a stable job. He health insurance, which we all know is a barrier, especially in our country, if you want to be self-employed. So I had that cover, so to speak, to keep on going. And because we lived in a lower cost of living area, that was also an advantage. So I used all those things as leverage and it kept me going.

05:46
Yeah. And then this is one last question. Every time I speak to you, you seem proactive. Do you have to manage your mindset in order to then be proactive? Are you good at managing your mindset? And then I promise we'll get into the real interview, but yeah.

06:10
No, and I've gotten better about managing my mindset, but I will go back because she asked me about the security thing, which is counterintuitive. So call me scarred. Call me like I have career PTSD or trauma. But when you've been laid off twice or multiple times, I know there are people who will listen to this and who have been in that situation, you lose all your income, 100 percent of your income at one time. Since I've been self-employed in the last 12 years, that has not happened, even during the pandemic.

06:42
The pandemic, which was a scary time. So from March, 2020 to April, 2020, I lost… my income dropped 51 % because clients put projects on hold. They abandoned them. Everybody was panicking, but that's not 100%. So that's why I say it's more secure for me because you have income diversification, client diversification. So that's why I make that bold, but in my view, true statement. And as far as mindset, it's something you constantly have to work on. It's a muscle you constantly have to build. I'm proactive because I know I've had experience over the last 12 years that proves to me that being proactive is the path to sustainable business. If I wasn't and if I just sat around and moped when things weren't well, and I've had times even in recent years where things haven't gone the way I thought they would go, but I was able to turn them around because I just did what I knew worked which are, you know, some of the principles we'll talk about in a little bit.

07:44
Being proactive is the path to a sustainable business. I think we can end there. That's so good. You mentioned the lessons. Here's the way I see this going. You and I just talk about each of the seven and then we kind of pursue anything that's interesting. How does that sound?

08:06
Yeah. Perfect.

08:09
Okay. Lesson number one in building a seven figure business. What have you got?

08:18
Lesson number one is treat your business like a business. I think too often we look at ourselves as service providers or as hired guns, hired hands, but we have to get out of the mindset. You are no longer an employee. You are an entrepreneur. So I think treating your business like a business, I think we can look to what big companies and enterprises do. They have standard operating procedures. They have processes and workflows. They have financial systems.  They don't just market on one channel or to one particular customer all the time. They diversify their marketing efforts. So I think we can follow suit to do the same thing to build our like boutique creative businesses as well.

09:03
Do you see people who think they're doing that and then  you can see that they're not because of their habits or what they say?

09:17
Yeah, I think sometimes people may look at freelancing as an opportunity to do all things at once like, oh, okay, I can be self-employed, but also watch my kids at the same time full time. And it's sort of like you're still running a business. So you have to treat it that way. It's still a job even if you're working from home. So I think that's  we all have room where we can do better, but I think that's one area or just working constantly like whenever a client asks for something you're right on it. And there's there's a line but sometimes that can lead to burnout you're working weekends. You're working nights because you say yes to everything you have not defined the parameters of your work. So I think those are just a couple of examples.

10:05
I got started in 2009 after getting laid off. And I think that may be why I resonate so much with what you said about thinking that betting on myself may be the surer bet than looking for another nine to five position. But I remember I used to get out of bed and get dressed as if I were going into the office. And it's less important now, but back then it was really important for me. Like having that ritual got me in the right frame of mind. Like this is a real job. This is not me making stuff up until I get another real job. Can you think of anything specific to your story where you realized I'm not treating my business as a business and then you had to make specific changes? Anything come to mind?

11:06
I think just letting clients dictate my schedule all the time. You know, that can lead to… over… it was never to the point where I was working like 80 or even 60 hours a week, but even as a freelancer working 40 hours a week on client work can feel like a lot. It's not the same as working 40 hours a week in a W2 job because it's very concentrated work. And on top of that, you're running a business. So I think I had to just get brave, especially when I saw things weren't going the way I wanted to go, or there was just too much of an imbalance, a power imbalance. Like my clients control too much of my business, I didn't control my business. So I had to get those things back in balance, and sometimes that meant firing a client or pushing back on things, even when I was scared of losing a client. But I think my business has gotten the better of for it.

11:57
Even when I was scared, I just want to like underline that so many times that like I tear the page because based on what you're saying, these important decisions you made for your business weren't easy.

12:14
No, not at all. You just either… What's the phrase like feel that feel with fear, do it anyway. You know?

12:26
Yeah, do it scared. There may be a book called Do It Scared, but there's not a whole lot, like even if we say it right now and someone listens to this interview, there's still not a whole lot that can prepare you for what it feels like in your body when you have to do it anyway, right? I think I didn't make certain changes until it hurt worse to stay the same. Because even when I wasn't working, I might be worried about what this client was thinking or feeling. Speculating. Maybe someone's upset with me. Lesson number one, treat your business like a business. And that means necessarily that you have to do things that scare you and that are going to be very uncomfortable. Anything else you want to add to that lesson before we moved at number two?

13:23
Nope. I think you got it.

13:27
All right. Number two. Hit me.

13:30
Choose your niche wisely. Because I see sometimes people think they can become a freelancer... They only do what they want to do as far as producing content or working on the types of projects they want to work on. Like for example lifestyle content. Those things are interesting and fun to produce but they don't always make for a sustainable, resilient business. You have to have a mix. Like I have anchored my work on B2B tech content. I happen to actually like writing about that stuff. I find it very interesting and fascinating because I think tech is the layer across all our lives. We use it every day. It really shapes our work in different ways and our lives in different ways. But I think when you are a freelancer, you have to be really smart about what you focus on in your service offerings.

14:20
So I think it's important to define or develop your ICP, so your ideal client profile. What clients will make your business most resilient, make sure you get paid, but also strikes a good balance between work you really like doing and work that is profitable. And I think how you position yourself is also important. For me, I've sort of used my storytelling skills as leverage, like to say, you know, I'm a former journalist turned content marketer and I can help businesses tell their story. So it's not just about writing, it's about framing a narrative for businesses. So I think you have to look at what are the unique skill sets and experiences you offer and how can you reframe them to position yourself in a certain way to attract that ideal client.

15:05
So when you say pick your niche wisely, wisely means sometimes you may take on projects because they pay well, even if you don't find them like super entertaining.

15:20
Yes, but they don't all they don't have to be entertaining. They can be educating. They can be skill building. You know, there should be something, you know, Cacchi Reynolds Lewis, who's a longtime freelancer. She has a framework, passion payer portfolio. So I think you can look at your work in that same sort of way. Like, are you doing it because you're passionate about it? Are you doing it just for money? Are you doing it because it'll look attractive in your portfolio and help you land that next best client. So I think that's a good framework to use too.

15:51
It's a great framework. I wish I had known about that sooner. And then with bringing in specific differentiators that you think will help you serve a specific audience, did you just sort of stumble across those by process of elimination?  Did you identify the right ones that you should emphasize after talking to prospective clients? Like how did you learn what to include in the story that you told?

16:26
I think yeah, it's talking to clients, seeing which way the winds are shifting, pretending I'm full time job hunting. Like I still to this day will go on LinkedIn and Indeed, a job board and see what job descriptions are out there, what roles are out there and see how clients describe those things like the skill sets they're looking for. And then I try to  see how I can beef up my experience in some of those areas to make myself more marketable to clients. Like what things should I be working on? Like if there's something in the job description that says AEO, like, you know, artificial engine optimization, which is the new thing, it's not replacing SEO, it's complimenting it, then I need to know about AEO. Let me try to figure that out. So things like that to position yourself for where the current market is and where it's going, I think are really important.

17:17
I'm glad you bring that up. One, because you're the first person I have ever spoken with who has mentioned reading job descriptions to notice skills and competencies that you ought to build out next. That is genius. Beyond that, though, we talk about this a fair amount in the freelance cake community where we can get comfortable solving a specific set of problems for a client. But then their business or market shifts, their problems change. And we have not changed our positioning and our messaging to then focus on the current set of problems. We're still speaking to them as though they have the same set of problems they had 18 months ago. So it sounds like you're reading job descriptions and that actually helps you just stay up to date on the problems they have. Is that accurate?

18:20
Yeah. And I think depending on your engagement with the client, I think when you're fractional, it's a little bit easier to do this because you're more embedded with the team. But to have those like regular check in calls and touch points to talk to them about what's going on in the business or things you notice and to pitch things and help them strategize in a way. I think that also can help you develop more long-term relationships with your clients and more partnerships with your client.

18:49
So if there ever were an advanced freelancer, you would be her. You were about as advanced as they come. So it's obvious to you that we ought to niche down now. Was there a time when you were not specialized?

19:09
Yeah, in the beginning, because you're like, I'll take work wherever I can get.

19:14
Show me the money.

19:16
Exactly. So I wasn't. So I was even in the beginning doing more journalism focused work because that's my background. That's what I knew. I have a bachelor's, a master's degree in journalism, but it became clear to me that where the money was, was in content marketing. I should also say my last job before I became a freelancer, I managed native advertising projects. That's what it was called at the time for an in-house agency for an AOL brand for a content studio. So I would be leading the RFP process with Fortune 500 clients, pitching them ideas for campaigns. So I was on the other side of the table. And then once I became a freelancer, since I knew that world, I did a mix of both journalism and native advertising content marketing, but doing that mix, it became clear to me, okay, this is where the money is. This is where the volume of work is. This is where the demand is. So that's the direction I'm going to go in.

20:11
Beyond seeing or noticing what paid well, can you, and maybe to some degree, your own enjoyment of the subject matter, were there any other criteria that helped you decide how to niche wisely?

20:29
No, I mean the money was a big part of it. I think to be fair, yeah, when you're a freelancer you're running a business, that is very important. It also has to do with where the demand is at a certain given at a certain moment. So with tech I saw that there was a growing demand for B2B tech content and a lot of clients seem to want someone with my specific skill set who had been a journalist before and on the other side of the house. They didn't come from a pure marketing background. They came from a storytelling background. So I just used that to my advantage. So I think, yeah, that's you have to do your research, do market research here, but also know yourself and know what you're uniquely capable of and talk to other freelancers who are in these niches too.

21:17
You bring up such a good point. I think we tend to minimize or compartmentalize and then minimize certain things about ourselves. So it's like, okay, as soon as I'm a freelancer, I'm not likely to look at the full scope of experience I've had across work and across my life and say, which of those things makes me uniquely capable to do this? I think that's a mistake, right? Because you're saying you were a journalist, you're good at telling stories and you're good at interviewing people. You're good at like finding the lead instead of burying it. And you knew to bring that into your work on the content side. I think a lot of people don't. It's almost like they pretend like they haven't had all these past lives. I know this is sort of a curveball question, but like, why do you think we make ourselves less interesting and less valuable than we really are?

22:18
I think because we're over indexing on a particular job description or a particular need a client has. So we try to tailor ourselves in that mold so much so that we forget about all our previous experience and that that is applicable and just as valuable to the job as whatever the client says they're looking for.

22:38
That's right. It makes this memorable too. There is this one. She was a part of this program, this coaching program I did, and she was a black belt and it's either judo or taekwondo. And she was a sort of crisis manage- she was a crisis management consultant. And she would point at her training in martial arts and say, I'm really good under pressure and I teach you how to be. And I was like, that is a genius connection. Why don't more of us? I can't help, but think a lot of the parents out there ought to say, listen, if I can get my three year old ready for bed, I promise I can handle your campaign.

23:23
But I think people are also afraid of oversharing. I think there's this backlash now to people sharing too much of themselves on social media. So they rather keep certain things close to the best, especially  I notice this with caregivers and parents. There's hesitance among us, you have children, too, to share, you know, that part of our lives because we're worried either an employer or client will think we're not as committed to the job. We have other things that are taking up our mental and physical bandwidth. So we can't possibly be capable of balancing these two things. And I hate the word balance. Let's say integrate, integrating these two things at the same time.

24:01
I think you're right. There is that fear. And yet my experience has been when I do share a bit more, I think I tend to attract the clients that are more reasonable, maybe even more mature. They're like, of course you have kids. Of course there may be a time when you need to take a call on the pickup line. Like, of course. You have a whole life outside of work. Of course. So I do think that's an unsung benefit of having the courage to bring more of yourself is you end up attracting clients who agree with that, accept that, you know, are realistic about that. But. Lesson number three. What is it?

25:00
This one doesn't need that much explanation. It's pretty self-explanatory, but always be marketing.  If there's a first commandment of freelancing to me, it's this. Always be marketing, not just when you lose a client and you're in panic mode, but make it a consistent part of what you do week in, a week out. And that can be as simple as sending an LOI. That can be commenting or liking posts on LinkedIn from people in your direct network and making sure you have touches with people in your direct network frequently, and appearing on a podcast and guesting on a podcast or writing a blog post. Whatever works for you, do it consistently.

25:43
Was there a time over the last 12 years when you definitely didn't have that always be marketing habit?

25:53
Oh, yeah. For the first half of my career. Yeah, I only marketed when I had to. Not when, you know, not when I didn't need to. And that's not the way to go. You have to do it. It's part of running a business. Anyone who has a business, whether they're a freelancer, fractional, brick and mortar business, they are constantly marketing and focusing on customer retention and customer engagement. And that's what we need to do too. I would only do it in a panic. And I feel like clients can sense it or prospects can sense it when you're desperate, like when you're marketing out of... Because everything takes on a new form of urgency. So I think just to avoid that, just do it consistently.

26:41
Did something specific happen? Was there a precipitating event that made you say, okay, I have to start doing this? It's non-negotiable.

26:54
No, I think we've talked about this before, but getting a business coach, he instilled this mindset in me. Like you don't really market when you're in a panic or when you've lost a big client or your income dips, you market all the time. So because he taught me that, Ed Gandia, shout out to Ed. He's still informally mentoring me to this day. Because he taught me that, it's become sort of a habit that I can't break.

27:23
I appreciate that you actually took it back to lesson one, like treat your business as a business. This is all interconnected and it all starts to work together like a flywheel. You even said this. It's hard to imagine a profitable business that is not always marketing. So you need to act like a business, create your business as a business, and always be marketing because that's just what businesses do. Lesson number four.

27:55
Don't just date your clients, marry them. And by that, I mean you want to build long term relationships with clients, whether that's through retainers or they become anchor clients. You don't want just one  assignments because I think I really saw income growth when I started to have those long term relationships and engagements with clients. So I think that's a key part of building a profitable and resilient freelance business.

28:21
What gets in the way? Why do some freelancers have so many one offs?

28:28
I think maybe they're not as good about following up or finding opportunities for that next best project or proactively telling their clients, hey, I'm available, or I do X, Y, and Z. Sometimes we think, oh, a client hired me to write a white paper. That's all they need is white papers. They need me to be a white paper writer. When you don't know they may have other demand-jagging campaigns, infographics. They may need content strategy help. They may need project management help, but because they don't know you do all these things and you haven't proactively told them, they're constantly looking for someone else to do X, Y, and Z when you can do A, B, C, and D and X, Y, and Z.

29:11
So when you get one project that's in one silo, how do you proactively educate clients to let them know you can do the other things too?

29:24
I may go on their website and see what they're doing or what they have done in the past. And I'll oh send an email to my point of contact or project manager and say, Hey, you know, I can do these things too. Or with some clients have been proactive, I've done like a quick deck, put it together. And I was already did a few projects with them and said, Hey, I think this is where we can go next in terms of, you know, your campaign. Let's think about some other assets we can create around this or even if you do want to ask that, like a white paper, for example, is a perfect example, you can repurpose that and spin it off into so many different other pieces of content for a client. And they may not even be thinking that way. So I think to just look for opportunities where you can grow the relationship is important.

30:13
You look for opportunities with current clients. You study their websites, maybe even their socials. You flesh out some ideas, you pitch them those ideas, and then surprise, they actually hire you to execute on some of those ideas.

30:35
Yeah, look for gaps to where you can be of additional service to clients.

30:42
It seems so obvious when you describe it. Are we scared? Are we brain dead? Is it both? Like why don't we do this? It's so much easier to get additional business from the clients we already have rather than to win a net new client. Help me understand why we don't do this.

31:06
I think we're just all busy operating with our heads down and trying to do as much as we can and a given day that we often ignore the obvious is to build relationships, strengthen relationships with people we've already built them with. It's a lot, you know, big businesses, I'm going to go back to this, talk about this too. They talk about customer lifetime value. They talk about the cost of customer  acquisition or CAC, like what's your CAC? And it's high, there's a high resource, time, and monetary cost to acquiring a new customer, i.e. a new client if you're a freelancer. It's much cheaper and more beneficial to nurture the current customers and clients you already have.

31:52
Do you have a CRM or a spreadsheet or some other tool that helps you remember people?

31:59
No. Well, I have my freelance payment tracker, which I talk about in my book, The Forever Freelancer, but this is a Google Sheet that I custom built. I've been using it for since 2014. So I can go back to June 2014 and tell you exactly the clients I had, the companies I worked with, what projects I did for them, how much they made me, what my internal hourly rate was. I can do this for every single month in a freelancer. 12 years times 12, 144 months. I have 144 months worth of data that I can go back and look to. So if I wanted to market to an old client or a dormant client that maybe I haven't worked with in a year or I've only worked with like on a quarterly basis, I can go into that spreadsheet. I can turn that into a CRM. I'm in the process of doing that in addition to all the other things I'm doing and look at that. So if you have something like that, I really hope all freelancers do, if you're using platforms like Moxie, whatever, look at those things as rich gold mines of information that can help you  market more effectively and really treat your business as a business.

33:09
So when someone hasn't heard from you in a little while, what do you say?

33:15
I'll just send an email to check in. Hey, how are you? You know, I know it's been a while since we've worked together, but I'm wondering,  you know, I do a lot of work with agencies to solve that. Oh, I'm wondering, are you still doing working on this account that that client renew? You know, it can be something as simple as even saying you saw something in the news that was relevant to them or an article or they were, they were featured in something and you reach out to say, Hey, I saw you in this. Congratulations. You know, we would love to collaborate again in the near future if the opportunity arises, something as simple as that.

33:55
So we all hear about staying top of mind and  that's how you stay top of mind is just I don't want to oversimplify, but you essentially reach out and say hello.

34:07
Yeah. And LinkedIn is a great place to do this because it provides a good opportunity to easily stay in touch and have those touches with clients. Like if you see them post something, like you can just leave a comment to chime in and then afterwards maybe follow up with an email message or an email or whatever it is.

34:25
So you might hit the, not hit them, but you might reach out to them in multiple places. And then I'm guessing it looks more organic. It doesn't look like you checked a spreadsheet and then said, following up now, because you may contact them in a LinkedIn DM one month and then via email two months later.

34:50
Yeah. And sometimes they'll contact you. I've had this like a few years ago with a client that I hadn't worked with in a few years and they posted something on LinkedIn and I was like, oh, congratulations and left a comment, you know, expounding on it. And they, you know, put something, actually it was my maternity leave post, actually. I  posted about returning from maternity leave after I had my second son. And they were like, I guess it occurred to them, oh yeah, Satta’s still freelancing. We haven't worked with her in a while. And she left me a comment and then emailed me, email still the same. And then we did a project together. So I actually, had a couple of instances from that one maternity leave post where I gained thousands worth of work from that.

35:35
I think this whole idea of you and me and other freelancers proactively keeping in touch like speaks against this assumption that I want to call out explicitly. The assumption is when our clients need help with something that we can help with, they will reach out to us.

35:58
No.

35:59
And you're saying or at least implying that there are projects you don't think you would have gotten if you hadn't been the one to reach out.

36:09
Exactly. People are busy. They're not thinking about you.

36:15
How do I put this? They're not thinking about you.

36:19
And I think this is the whole idea. Like you've heard of demand generation marketing where it's like you are everywhere your potential customers are, even when they're not ready to buy. You're like educating them, you know, and channeled where they usually visit. So it's sort of like the same principle. You're like omnipotent in a way. You know, you're like there. And then all of a sudden when there's a project, because you've been in their feed or you've sent them that touch base email, they're like, oh, that's, you're the first person they think.

36:52
Yes, I've had that experience so many times and the client will say, I'm so glad you reached out. I was meaning to reach out to you. I think they think they mean it. Like, I know they believe it when they say it, but I'm sitting here thinking, I don't know that you would have reached out. I think as soon as I reached out, it became obvious to you that you should have reached out to me because, oh, Austin, he can help with this. It happened to me earlier this year. I booked a coffee catch up with an old client and he had not one, but two different business ventures he needs help with. And he was like, man, I'm so glad we made this happen. I don't know that he would have given me that work if I hadn't  reached out first. And maybe it's neither here nor there, but what do you think about that?

37:56
I think that's spot on. And I will say don't only do this with clients, do it with other freelancers and professionals in your network, former colleagues. Something I've been doing a lot lately is virtual coffee chats. I joined a group for female entrepreneurs and I posted my introduction post and I put my Calendly link there saying, if people want to, you know, have coffee chats, you know, for us to talk shop or just  say hi, get to know each other, feel free to book something on my Calendly. And people have done it and had like two or three a week. It's like 20, 30 minute calls. But this is another way you build your network. You build your referral network and referral pipeline. So I think that's also another opportunity as well.

38:41
Yeah, we don't need a thousand clients. Yeah, we just need  satisfied clients. Relatively small number. And then we need to keep in touch with them and then proactively build out our network of potential referral partners like other freelancers. OK. Lesson number five. What have you got?

39:06
Repurpose profits into future revenue. And by that, mean one of the, we've talked about this before. One of the biggest mistakes I made early on in my freelance journey was being too conservative with my resources, not reinvesting them back into the business or into myself. And, you know, over the years I've gotten a lot better about that into reinvesting them into passion projects, but also future growth opportunities, whether it's the podcast I launched with my sister where I was like, I'm an elder millennial. She's a younger millennial. And the podcast is sort of like focusing on our different perspectives based on where we are in our lives speaking to millennial women. Or even my book that I have coming out in June. That is an opportunity for me to fulfill a lifelong passion, but also because I want to ghost write books for other female entrepreneurs, founders and thought leaders in the future. So to write up to ghost write a book and you have had to either have ghost written a book before or written a book before. So I have invested in myself, made a significant investment in myself in that way. So I think when you have a business, whether you're a solopreneur or you have a small business, it's so important to reinvest profits back into yourself because I think that can help your business grow and help you grow and develop.

40:28
Yeah, and it would be hard to do that if you're chronically short of cash. You will end up chronically short of cash if you're inconsistent with your marketing. So you're kind of describing. Yeah, it's like you're describing this flywheel where if you treat the business as a business, you're more likely to, you know, push your prices up over time because that's what other businesses do. You're more likely to have better boundaries. You're more likely to follow up with past clients. And I just see all of these different choices working together across time to give you bandwidth to write a book, which can then launch you into the next thing, as you just described. Let's double click on the book real fast. Is that the cover I see behind you?

41:21
Yeah, the cover right above me. So yeah, the book comes out June 17th. It's called The Forever Freelancer: How to Build a Thriving Solo Creative Business and Unlock Family and Financial Freedom. And I'm presenting freelancing as an avenue for folks to design a career that's purpose-built for their lives on their own terms. I think self-employment is one way we can do that in a country where sort of the caregiving infrastructure is woefully inadequate and also employers seem to demand more and more of us. I think one way to create that infrastructure for yourself is through self-employment and creating your own freelance business.

42:08
I know enough about the book to ask this next question and you can tell me if you want to answer it or not.

42:13
Sure.

42:14
Do you think that women are less likely to reinvest in themselves and their businesses than men? And I know that's an incredibly incredible generalization, but like maybe I'll reframe it then. Are there unique challenges that might prevent women from reinvesting in their businesses?

42:35
Yes. And I think it's because we tend to put other folks before us. You know, I think I have this line in the book that, you know, the world only loves us, prioritizes us when we put ourselves last, it feels like. So, yeah, I think because we are prioritizing other people and their needs before ourselves, it makes it hard to reinvest in our careers and in our businesses because women are afraid of looking selfish because that label is often put on us. Oh, you're not nice enough. You're not likable enough. The likability trap, that's a whole other different conversation. And I think one of the ways we subconsciously make ourselves more likable is by putting other people before us and attending to their needs before our own. And I don't think long-term that benefits us. I think to have family freedom, financial freedom, you really need to be a little bit selfish. And I had to be a little bit selfish to write my book to set aside this time to say, this is something I want to accomplish. And to tell the people around me, I need your support in helping me accomplish this. And this is how you can support me. And I think more women need to do that. More parents, more caregivers, more people need to be a little bit selfish and put themselves first.

44:02
Yeah, and the irony of being a little bit selfish is it normally just means moving toward true sustainability. Like if you aren't caring for yourself, you will burn out and then you can't care for yourself or anyone else.

44:17
Yeah. There's stats that have shown that like when a woman, you know, when you invest in educating a woman or something or helping her start a business, her community benefits like tenfold or something like that, like because she gives back in ways other, sorry, to my male counterpart here, that men often don't. So I think that's another, there's a communal aspect to this that when you invest in women, they invest back.

44:48
Yeah, I put a roof on a house one time and I was the only man on this crew. And I mean we finished faster than the other crews and none of us had any roofing experience, but I did notice it was remarkably collaborative. And this, the sort of the ethos was we can win together, right? And in recent years, I find myself very eager to learn from women entrepreneurs specifically because oftentimes the strategies for growth that I encounter are more humane. They're kinder to the person running the strategy. The idea being, well, what's the point of winning if you are bone tired, weary, on the verge of a breakdown or some sort of collapse the entire time? And so, I think it's important what you said to even if you have to call it selfishness at first. To identify one or two things, what are those one or two things like if you had to make a recommendation to be a little bit selfish? Can you think of anything?

46:15
Might be too micro, but I think. For if you're a freelancer, identify one career development opportunity, whether that's like usually like a conference or something like that that you want to attend, to make time for it, put it on your calendar and say, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to this thing for a week. Something to get you from behind your desk and interact with other people IRL in real life, I think is important. And I think just having, you know, I know part of the summit is to having a growth roadmap and creating that. I think before you decide what, you know, to do anything you need to decide what to do, you need to have a game plan and strategically map out what does growth look like for you, then identify specific tactical opportunities to execute against that.

47:05
Yeah, and it's really hard to create the space for a plan like that to emerge if you're still sort of tangled up in the fabric of your everyday life, with laundry, and at least it is for me. It's laundry and dirty dishes. It's like so much easier to go somewhere else, meet some new people and plan there than to try to do it at home with all the responsibilities. Maya Angelou, she, I think this was her word choice. She called them domestic cues. She would rent a hotel room several months at a time to do her writing because she knew that she couldn't do it when she was surrounded by all the domestic cues. And I loved that. But yeah. All right. Lesson number six.

47:55
Create a BCP or business continuity plan. So my last job before I became a freelancer, I created a BCP for my company I worked for an AOL brand. And it's basically like an emergency plan. And this was in 2012. We had to enact it during Hurricane Sandy. This was… I was in New York. So it's sort of like, how do you continue your business in light of significant disruption? So I think freelancers also need a BCP or you can call this your W-2 prevention plan. Like what will I enact to prevent me from taking a full-time job and to keep my freelance business going? So for example, if you lose a big anchor client or your income drops by 50%, what would you do  to recover? What are some things you would do? So in my case, it would be send a ton of LOIs, check in with current clients and tell them I'm available for more work. Check in with dormant clients or old clients and, you know, do my check-in saying, hey, I'm available for work. If you have anything coming up, I have some availability. Reach out to people in your network, former colleagues, and tell them, you know, about your availability. So there are certain things you can do to recover and make your business more resilient. The first option doesn't necessarily have to be okay I'm just gonna get a full-time job.

49:21
Yeah, and the job market being what it is while we're recording this that may be a slower option than you think and by the way, I think that idea, that BCP idea is brilliant. I don't think I have a full-fledged plan. I do have what I call a freakout protocol and it's like a pre prescribed set of actions to help me avoid a freakout right? Because I think it's easy to catastrophize like one thing happens and before you know it you're in the spiral where you're on the street because you've lost your home or whatever, right? Or even maybe something happened in the past and it was dramatic but you're not the same person anymore. You have more skills, more competencies, more relationships, more experience, probably better mindset, but our minds are still gonna do what they do, our thoughts meaning, and our emotions will too. And so knowing what you're gonna do before it happens strikes me as really wise.

50:36
Yeah. What is one action in your freak out protocol? I'm gonna turn the table see I'm gonna interview you right now.

50:42
Sure so I have this blog post that I wrote and I think the title is 15 ways to get clients fast (https://www.freelancecake.com/blog/15-ways-to-get-clients-fast) and as cheesy as it's gonna sound I read my own blog post. So I like I wrote the blog post so that I would have it published out there and all I have to do is go to my own blog. Look it up and then I run through the steps. One of the steps is look at proposals or recap emails I sent out. Look at what the client bought. Did I propose anything in perhaps like a bigger package? And then they got a smaller package instead. But what that meant was there was this other stuff that I thought they would benefit from that they didn't buy. Can I take that extra bit of scope now that we've wrapped up the original scope and kind of what you mentioned earlier can I just go pitch them on doing it now? And that's just one of the steps. And so normally by the time I get to the end of that first step of my freak out protocol, which is really just generating ideas for drumming up work quickly, I have some ideas and it is unusual when if I run through the protocol, I don't end up with paying opportunities by the end. And by the way, my mind has calmed down. The quality of my thoughts has improved. My thoughts are more life-giving  instead of panic inducing.

52:26
Having a bias towards action can really prevent the freak out. It makes you feel in the world where everything feels uncontrollable and in chaos, it feels like that's the one thing you can control your effort.

52:38
You're 100 % right. And I have indulged in freak outs in the past, gone to a really dark place and then no joke, like the next day, a great opportunity will come out of the blue. And I'm like, instead of spiraling yesterday, like that just seems like such a waste. Like I wasted the afternoon fretting about what could happen when I could have spent the afternoon saying, this is another part of my freakout protocol, especially if it's one specific thing that happened, like losing an anchor client, for example. I will ask myself, how can I turn this into an opportunity? Like it seems bad on the surface, like superficially it sucks to lose a client, especially without notice, but to instead believe things happen for me, not to me and I know that is a complicated way of thinking about it. Generally it has served me well though. Okay, I lost a client if this is happening for me, well, then what's the opportunity here? What becomes available to me now that this client is out of the picture and I can sort of start feeding my imagination and creativity instead of feeding my anxiety.

54:07
Yeah and go into that dark place.

54:08
Yes. And we have these wonderful brains which enable us to do the work in the first place. And it helps when they start being an ally again instead of trying to pull us into that dark place. Does that answer your question?

54:24
Yes, it does. I'm going to read your blog post now.

54:28
Well, keep it in your back pocket. And often when folks reach out to me over email and sort of confidentially say, I'm freaking out. I just lost a client. I'm worried we won't be able to pay our bills. I'm like, start here. Come up with a plan, execute the plan. And then I don't hear from them again, which I know means they stopped freaking out. It worked. Okay. Let's talk about lesson number seven and then let's talk about the workbook.

55:01
Great. So lesson number seven is go with the season you're in. So rest, recharge and play the long game. This is especially important for parents and caregivers. I think there will be there are seasons in life and there are seasons in freelancing. There will be times where you can work a lot and really pound it out and really grow your business really fast. And there'll be times where you can't, where life takes over. You have not only young children, you have an aging parent who God forbid is sick and needs more care. So you have to give yourself grace and realize that it's a continuum here. And you have to play the long game. As long as you can keep a roof over your head and food in your belly. If you can't work like a mad woman or mad man right now, that's fine. There will be, there will be a time and place for that. Trust me.

55:54
Yeah, that is, this is a sneaky and good one because I can look back at specific times in my life where my responsibilities and other areas of life went up, but I did not like recalibrate business fast enough and it created a ton of stress. So it's like pay attention to what your own life needs from you, the rest of your life needs from you, not just business. Okay. So I know folks who have listened or watched this interview will have minds buzzing with ideas, maybe have some specific things they want to do. You also have a workbook. Let's talk about that before we close.

56:41
So I created this 29 page workbook. It's called the Seven Figure Freelance Framework. It's a strategic reset for advanced freelancers, I also think it can help you create your growth plan or you can use it as sort of the baseline for an annual performance review. So it's prompts, ideas, and action items that you can think through, things you can note, you can write within the workbook to think about looking at your client base and seeing where there are gaps. Are you sticking true to your ICP, your ideal client profile? Where are there opportunities for you to grow the business, whether it's a passion project or a specific new line of business or product you can create, a new offering you can create. So I think the Seven Figure Freelance Framework just gives you sort of parameters for how to think about your business, not just today, but for tomorrow and where you want to take it.

57:38
Well, that sounds amazing. I imagine we've got the link to the landing page where people can opt in to download that. Cool. Yes. So what's the name of the workbook one more time?

57:53
It's the Seven Figure Freelance Framework. Say that seven figures.

57:57
Yeah, exactly. Tongue twister. I will make sure that that link lives below the interview. Satta, thank you again. It's always such a joy to talk to you. Can't help but think that the best is yet to come and can't wait for some folks to read the book too. Congrats on that.

58:20
And there's stuff in there for advanced freelancers too. So yeah, definitely read it even if you've been at this for a while. There are great reminders and helpful things going forward for your business in there too.

58:31
Wonderful. Well, thank you again and I'll talk to you later.

58:34
Thanks, Austin. Great talking to you.

58:36
Hey, before you go, let me invite you to join our community for more established advanced freelancers. It's called the freelance cake community. One member named Michelle had this to say, I'm just so impressed by the quality of the conversation that's happening in the group. The in-depth questions, experiments and thoughts being shared are just so refreshing. And the other communities I'm a part of, it's all beginner questions, which is fine, but it's awesome to find a more advanced space where it's okay to ask more advanced questions. Thank you, Michelle. Here's a little more about the community. Each week we do live group coaching and live coworking. You get access to a massive resource library and obviously the community itself, which we host using Circle. Of course, the people are the best part of all this. It really helps to surround yourself. with smart, accomplished, and optimistic people who are out there taking risks and building the businesses they really want. If that interests you, visit freelancecake.com forward slash community to learn more and apply. You can find that link in the show notes. I hope to see you there.