Starting a business is hard. And having enough runway to get off the ground is a big part of whether you succeed or fail. Content creator and author of the Hey, Freelancer newsletter, Blair Sharp, is our guest for the 416th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Blair shares how she made sure she had enough runway to figure things out when she launched her business. There’s a lot in this episode, including Blair’s story of giving up alcohol. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.
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Stuff to check out:
Blair’s websiteThe Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground
Full Transcript:
Rob Marsh: This podcast episode is all about what I like call runway. And maybe the best way to explain what I mean by that is a comparrison of your business and an airplane. It takes energy to get an airplane of the ground. The pilot needs to spin up the engines, the aircraft has to accelerate, the wing flaps need to be adjusted to get “lift” so the aircraft rises. And because all of this takes a bit of time… you need a runway to move down while it all comes together.
Your business is a lot like that. Most businesses don’t take off like rocketships. They need runway while you figure a few things out and get the momentum to take off. It takes time… so having a long runway can really benefit your business.
Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and on today’s episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I’m speaking with content creator, part-time psychometrist and author of the Hey Freelancer newsletter, Blair Sharp. The way Blair has built her business is the perfect example of using a runway and time to figure things out, instead of just leaping into the unknown and hoping for the best. It’s a model that a lot of freelancers could benefit from. So stick around as she lays out how she’s made it work for her.
Before we jump in with Blair…
Tomorrow, October 9 is the day of our next members-only training on how to create a lead magnet that not only helps you grow your list, but attracts your ideal clients and buyers, not just people looking for a free download. Our guest Kennedy from Email Marketing Heroes will be sharing a totally new way to create lead magnets that create buyers. That’s how he describes it.
If you want to build your own list or you want to be hired by clients who need help with emails and lead magnets for their own lists, you need to see this masterclass. And the best way to do that is to join The Underground at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu. As a member you’ll have access to dozens of expert trainings all focused on helping you attract more clients and get stuff done. I promise, you can use these trainings to build your skills and expertise so you can raise your rates and earn the living you deserve from your copywriting or content writing business. So jump in at thecopywriterclub.com/tcu today.
And now, let’s go to our interview with Blair…
Hey Blair, welcome to the podcast. We want to start out by asking how you became a content writer, actually also a psychometrist, I think is… Yes, you said it correctly.
Blair Sharp: Most people don’t know what that is or know how to pronounce it.
Rob Marsh: Okay, so psychometrist and you’re the author of the Hey Freelancer newsletter. Yes. And so yeah, let’s dig into that. How did you become all of these things?
Blair Sharp: Yeah, right. Well, it’s kind of a long story. And whenever I tell it, I don’t really know, like, where should I start? We’ve got 60 minutes here. So I’ve been a psychometrist, which means I test people’s thinking. So I work at the Mayo Clinic. I’ve been there. I’m in Rochester, Minnesota. I’ve been at that job for just over 10 years. So I just hit my 10-year mark. And I started writing for a local parenting blog, just on a volunteer basis, in 2019. And really enjoyed it, just as a little hobby. I was doing a lot of essays, some things in the community. And it was kind of like a nice other mom. It was like a mom blog, basically. And so I started there.
And then I slowly started like, dipping my toe into other kinds of writing and writing for other other places, just kind of one off things. In 2020. Then I decided to also go into Instagram a little bit more outside of my personal Instagram. And I created an alcohol free Instagram account, which is there’s a whole space for every kind of Yeah, content, right? Like online, there’s there’s a space for everybody. So there’s a whole like sober Instagram, a sober section of Instagram, I guess you could say. And so I quit drinking in 2018. That’s kind of like the background of that. But I started wanting to tell my story about that and just have it resonate with other people, because that’s kind of a hard thing to do. So I started doing that.
And then that’s what led me into more mental health writing. And I connected with different brands and companies and did some essays and did some topics about alcohol and sobriety and mental health and things like that. So that kind of got me into that lane, I guess. Um, and I’m still working full time. I’m also a mom, so I’m doing all the things. Um, so it was a very slow, like it felt kind of easy now that I’m looking back at it. I think I was a little stressed at the time when I’m doing all these different things. Um, and Instagram was just for fun. You know, it ended up being, I did make a little bit of money, right. With like brands and things like that. Nothing too, too wild, but, um, I wrote an essay, I guess it was an op-ed for Scary Mommy, which is a parenting website about my decision to quit drinking back in 2021, I think is when I wrote that. And that was the first time that I was like, whoa, I could really like, like scared mommy’s a pretty big platform.
So I was like, wow, I could really write for these big name brands and things like that. So that was my first like, aha moment, like, maybe I should try this a little bit more, like keep going and learn how to pitch places, learn how to um, how, how to be a writer today, you know? Um, and so I did, I did that again, slowly, just like one off things, um, started making a little bit of money. Told my husband how much money I was making to prove that, Hey, I could maybe like, you know, less than my hours at work. And so I did that again, slowly, um, here and there, um, my supervisor would let me have days off and things like that. And so I eventually wanted to go part-time at my work. And I put in for that. And it took about a year to actually go part-time. In that meantime, I was still kind of dropping my hours and working less. I was still writing and making money off of it. At some point in there, too, I started calling myself a writer. There’s that moment. I’m not formally trained. I have a psych degree, which is very good for writing, actually. And so I then once I dropped part time, which is about a year ago, so I’ve been doing almost a year, a year in October.
Yeah. So now I kind of I feel like my day job is now my side gig is kind of what I feel like. You know, I have insurance, of course, like that’s a problem for a lot of, you know, small business owners, independent writers. So I have insurance through there. I have this dependable work. Um, just last week I worked an extra day just because, um, I, a few of my contracts ended recently. So I was like, okay, I’m going to come in tomorrow. And they’re like, all right, we can use you. So it’s really nice to have that backup as, um, Just in those times, just in case. Um, cause I’m not very, I’m not very risky anymore in my, you know, old age.
Rob Marsh: Old age.
Blair Sharp: I was a little bit more risky, hence the alcohol free story. But now I’m a little bit more risk averse, you know, a family and bills to pay need health insurance, which I could get for my husband too. But, um, you know, it’s just Nice to have that background just in case.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. I love the way that you build your story or the way that this developed, because as we said briefly before we started recording, there are a lot of copywriters right now who are looking for something to augment what they’re doing with copywriting. It’s hard to find clients. And AI is a challenge in all of the things. That’s not to say that there aren’t tons of opportunities out there, because there are. But while you’re going after those opportunities, it’s nice to have a stable, you know, either a permanent client or an employer who can help with some of those hours. I like to think of it as extending the runway. You know, if you’re going to start a business and you’ve got, you know, $10,000 in the bank or whatever, that’s your runway. And when the money’s gone, if you haven’t figured it out, now you’ve got to, you know, go back to work or you’ve got to do something, right? And you’ve done a really great job of extending your runway as you built a writing business.
Blair Sharp: I always have the runway there just in case, right?
Rob Marsh: Yeah.
Blair Sharp: And I was really careful too about that when I went into writing a little bit more as like writing for work. I call it writing for work. I was kind of writing for fun to begin with, you know, learning how much I should be paid and things like that. But when I first started, I made sure that I had kind of like a a cushion of money, I guess, you know, I figured out the the big thing was to figure out like, okay, if I do drop to part time, how much money do I need? How much is just enough, right to cover that part time drop? And you know, and I know that what that number is. So as long as I’m getting that every month, like I feel okay. I would like more than that, obviously, you know, goal. But so I still have I still have, you know, I have that idea in my head. And then I keep try to keep that much in that business account, you know, just in case, like for times like this, when I dropped, or had, I didn’t drop clients, a few things ended, I had like a summer opportunity that just ended, and then another one also. So there’s things in the pipeline, but I’m in this like weird, as most of us, you know, who are doing freelance work here and there, you know, one off things, you have to kind of be ready for that in case Like I say, I get nervous, like all my clients are going to want to like drop me like the same month, you know, and then I have no money coming in. So it’s good to just kind of have that background because then you’re not stressing, even though I’m still stressing.
Rob Marsh: I think that’s the freelancer fear. We all feel it because there is risk here. Clients aren’t forever. Projects don’t always work out. And every once in a while, it all happens at the same time. And yeah, you panic. And if you don’t, like we said, if you don’t have that runway, now you’re operating from a place of panic. And clients can feel that and desperation. And it’s not a good place to be. So like I said, I love the way you’ve built this. So I am curious, talk to us about psychometry, being a psychometrist, like what, like measuring the way people think, what even is that?
Blair Sharp: probably sounds way cooler than it really is.
Rob Marsh: I’m like, I want to be a psychometrist, whatever that is.
Blair Sharp: Yeah, yeah. Well, we are looking for a few more people, so let me know if you want to move to Minnesota.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, well, maybe after the winter. We’ll see.
Blair Sharp: Yeah, right, right. Yes, so it’s in the neuropsychology division. And so I work very closely with neuropsychologists. So I don’t do any of the interpretation of the results of the tests that I give. I just give the patients the test. So I’m sitting across the table from a patient who comes in who might have brain fog. Maybe they’re older. It’s not always older people. There’s a lot of people who are younger. Maybe they have cancer or maybe they’re going to have surgery. So they need a before and after. Um, testing. So basically like it’s between two and four hours that I sit with them and give them tests. So I’m reading a story and then I’m going to have you tell me the story back. And then I’m writing down everything, you know, keeping track of everything you’re saying. I might say numbers and then have you say the numbers back and then I might say them and have you say them backwards, things like that. Um, different puzzles, like putting blocks together to match a design language, things like, tell me all the animals you can think of in a minute. And then I’m stopwatch and I’m writing everything down in the meantime. I’m also, um. keeping an eye on the patient, like, are there any behavioral things that I need to keep track of, you know, we write behavioral observations down, which I think is very helpful, again, with a psychology piece of writing, like, especially if you’re writing to sell, right, like, if you’re doing copywriting, I’ve got I’ve gotten more interested in like email marketing lately, too. And just like, I love writing, Like conversationally, like I’m just talking to a friend. And so I think that the emails really, that’s a good place for me to be. If I like really enjoy it, I have to do work that I enjoy too. Otherwise it will not. It will not last long for me. I will not want to do it much longer. So I also got, this is a whole nother topic, but I also got diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago.
Rob Marsh: Okay.
Blair Sharp: And I’m learning a lot about. Um, those, those little things that, um, I just thought were me, me being weird. Oh, it is still me being weird. But, um, so a lot of those, those things are coming up as I’m, you know, trying to keep track of all my clients. I never had to do that before at my job, my day job. I I’m doing, I’m bringing the same story to every single patient, which sounds really boring, but it’s actually makes it really easy for me. Okay. Yeah. So, um,
Rob Marsh: So what, what are you measuring? Like, what is the measurement? Like, what’s the purpose of the tests?
Blair Sharp: So all the tests are different. There’s a whole list of tests and it might be usually every patient has similar lists of tests, but it might depend on what they’re there for. If they’re having a language issue, um, like aphasia or maybe they have, um, you know, visual issues. They might have a little bit more visual tests. Um, so we were, we’ll test things like memory, attention, problem solving, processing, speed, language. Um, we do some mood measures. Like, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the MMPI. We don’t do that as often. It’s like a personality questionnaire like that, but, um, just like general thinking.
Rob Marsh: Yeah.
Blair Sharp: Which would be nice if everybody could just have a baseline one of these, right?
Rob Marsh: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. This is why it’s interesting to me because obviously, as copywriters, as marketers, we are interested in the way that our audiences think. And so, yeah, if everybody could show up and on your sign-up form on your website, they could basically say, yeah, my psychometry number is a nine or whatever. That might give us some information. Right. Yeah. So you’re looking for this stuff so that you can either measure increases or declines over time, or just to set some baselines for different kinds of memory treatments or other functional things that are impacted by brain work.
Blair Sharp: Right. So the results, the numbers, the scores, I guess, will be compared to the average for that person’s age. And then for education, sometimes that plays into it too. So I’m 38. They’re not going to compare me to an 85-year-old’s memory, like what it should be based on the normed data.
Rob Marsh: You should come out pretty good.
Blair Sharp: I hope. Yeah, right. I always kind of joke with my patients because it’s hard. It’s hard to do this stuff. It’s frustrating, especially if they’re struggling. And so it’s also my job to get them through three hours of testing. Um, but it’s like, yeah, well, you’re 85, you know, like, I’m not going to compare you to a 20 year old. Don’t worry. Like, you know, kind of joke around with them a little bit to keep them like, okay, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. You know, I’ll just do my best. I just have to do their best basically. Um, but yeah, it’s kind of frustrating for patients.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s really interesting. So, I mean, you, you kind of started answering this, but what do you take from that that is directly applicable to your writing and to the way that you connect with your audiences?
Blair Sharp: I think just a big thing is just working with humans and like understanding people. I’ve always had jobs in that mental health psychology kind of area, you know, whether it be working with kids with autism, I worked, uh, I ran a group home for adults with mental illness before this job. So I’ve always worked in that area, that’s how I started, you know, in the mental health writing space. And so, yeah, I just think knowing what people think, not what they think, how they think, and kind of like what kind of things would they want, because I try to put myself too in other people’s position, like, especially if I’m writing about a new topic that I don’t really know much about, like, well, what would I want to know about, like, as the person who’s actually reading this, you know? Yeah. Or, you know, just making salesy things, not salesy. I feel like that’s very important these days, especially like people know when they’re being sold to, right. Especially with, you know, influencers and Instagram and TikTok and all that kind of stuff. Like we know when you’re just trying to sell me something versus like, oh, you really like it and you want it, you know, share about it. So, yeah.
Rob Marsh: It seems like you probably have an advantage over a lot of content writers or copywriters where because of this experience and trying to understand people deeply and connecting with them, that may be a superpower of yours that a lot of us ought to be picking up on or doing more things to develop.
Blair Sharp: Yeah, I should probably run with that a little bit more.
Rob Marsh: I mean, if you were going to, you know, if, if I was going to say, Blair, I need help with that. Like, what would you say to me to help me develop that kind of empathy or connection with my audience?
Blair Sharp: As a writer, you mean?
Rob Marsh: Yeah. As a writer or, you know, for the people that I’m trying to connect with, you know, when I’m writing a sales page or an email or whatever.
Blair Sharp: Right. I would try to focus, um, kind of think about the stuff, the kind of content that you like, like, you know, Um, what makes you stop and read something or what kind of. Uh, I’m, I’m kind of thinking like I’m like a video Instagram sort of brain lately, but what reels or what videos or blogs are you sharing with your friends? Like, what are you, what are you sending and keep that in mind? Because that means like, okay, you’re, you’re picking up on that. I don’t know how to say it. Like what are your likes? And then think of other people. That’s probably the people that depending on the audience, right? Like if you’re not the audience and it’s different. Um, and of course, if you’re just writing something like a how to, and you just have to do bullet points, I would, a big time, I would keep in mind that people are, have a short attention span these days. So, just keep that in mind and talk to people. right? Like just talk to people connect with people like real life people in you know, day to day had those conversations, friends and family just try to try to put yourself in other people’s shoes when you’re just like, in your day to day. And I think that helps me with writing
Rob Marsh: It’s interesting that you mentioned paying attention to what you connect with. Last week’s episode of the podcast, I was talking with David Deutsch, an A-list copywriter, and that’s one of the pieces of advice he gave as far as improving your copy. He’s like, notice what you notice and then try to figure out why. Why did it connect with you? What is working? What made you curious about it? How does it hold your attention? And that’s a great way to start picking up on the stuff that works.
Blair Sharp: Was it, was it funny? Was there a joke? Did you, you know, what part of the, what, what part of your reading, let’s say it’s a blog at what, or an article, what, what part of it did you kind of lose interest and then why, like, why did it get boring? You know? Again, like I said, like I’d like to do work that I like that should be obvious, right. For everyone, but it’s not. Um, so I love using humor and sarcasm and jokes, not necessarily like pop culture references or anything like that. I, I like that, but I don’t think that hits with everybody, especially, you know, you never know who’s going to read it, but, um, so. I like to add those kinds of things in there, just that conversational to like, it’s people like being, um, people like attention. They like, when you think that you, they care that you care about them. So if you’re talking to them, in a tone. And again, this isn’t going to be general overall writing, obviously, like not technical writing, you’re not going to write like conversational, maybe. I don’t know. But I don’t I don’t do that for that reason. So, you know, just like saying things like, you know, what’s the good or we have good news for you or saying a sentence and then being like, right, like, like those kind of like conversational, and I think reading out loud But I always read my stuff out loud before I am done with it. Uh, a few times to make sure it just sounds, it flows. Right. Um, it doesn’t sound too, too stuffy or too much like a robot, I guess these days.
Rob Marsh: You’ve mentioned a couple of things that I think are really important to touch on. Number one, significance. This psychological principle that we all need to feel important. As a reader of something that a content writer writes or a copywriter writes, we have to feel seen and heard. You can’t just be telling all the time, right? There’s that connection that you’re talking about. which I think is really critical. And then the other thing, you know, as we talk about like noticing where people drop off, that is so hard in your own writing because when we’re writing things down, everything is important. Everything is good. We wouldn’t put it in if we didn’t think it was good. And so having that second reader or something that can tell you where that drop off matters.
Blair Sharp: Yep. And yeah, definitely like a second set of eyes. That’s totally, even coming back to something, a day or two later, I really try to avoid writing, editing, turning in something all in one day. Sometimes you just have to, right? So you might have to take a break and come back. But it’s wild. Sometimes like I will turn something in, it’ll be like two weeks later, I might read it when it’s published or whatever. And I’m like, Oh, that was awful.
Rob Marsh: I know.
Blair Sharp: Good. I’m good. Or I’ll read it out loud to my husband and he’s like, oh, pretty good.
Rob Marsh: Sometimes I’ll have the opposite where I’ll pick up something, not that’s been published, but I’ve picked up something that I’ve written a few days ago. I’m like, wow, that’s got to be way better than what I’ve got down on paper.
Blair Sharp: And that’s why the second glance at it, I try not to do too many glances. You could sit there all day or all week and go over and over and over it. At some point, it’s just got to be good enough. Um, that’s another, that’s a problem of mine of like, what’s good enough. You’re like, don’t need to, you know, make the Mona Lisa here, but, um, you know, let’s try Picasso maybe.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. So let’s turn the conversation just a little bit. You know, as you, you had this job that was, you know, your runway basically allowed you a little bit of freedom to start building a side hustle as a copywriter or as a content writer. And I’m curious, okay, as you sort of figured that out, that’s what you were going to do. What did you do to start connecting with your clients? What kinds of pitches were you doing or how are you connecting with people in order to, you know, get gigs later on?
Blair Sharp: Yes, I am of the mind of just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks right like it kind of goes back to when I was on alcohol for on Instagram posting about alcohol free life and things like that. dm’d like 14 different brands that I knew either like had a blog or a newsletter or, you know, obviously a website, and was just like, Hey, wondering if you need any help with writing, because I am available. There’s a very short, like, even places that I hadn’t ever even, you know, just cold dm’ing them. Yeah. And one of the first people that responded was a treatment center. And the person was like, Oh, my gosh, you have excellent timing. And I was like, And so then I went and got a call from them like, you know, a few days later, a week later. And she’s like, Oh, when you DM me, I was like in the going away party for content person.
Rob Marsh: Wow.
Blair Sharp: That is good timing. Isn’t that crazy? And things like that happen all the time. Like, I don’t know if it’s just me or just, I really noticed those universe, the universe is doing the thing, you know, that it does. Um, it’s good to, good to recognize when that happens because it does happen. People just don’t recognize it. Um, but anyway, so yeah, I started writing for them and then, um, you know, building up like sort of a portfolio with that volunteer, uh, mom blog, um, role, I guess, not really a job cause I wasn’t getting paid, but, um, I had a lot of like. Published clips, you know, no one else didn’t know that it wasn’t my job. I just put it in a portfolio. I made a website. Um, people say you don’t need a website. I prefer to have a website cause it’s easy to just, here’s my, here’s my website, right? Here’s my links. My website’s pretty basic. It’s not anything too extravagant, but I just started getting on all the newsletters that send out freelance jobs or pitch places that want editors, you know, editors that are looking for pitches for certain topics and just started pitching, started making connections. Um, I had a lot of connections with that Instagram account. So, um, and I grew it to like 18,000 followers in like a couple of years. So I was kind of known a little bit in that space.
So I would, you know, reach out to certain beverage brands and I did some articles for them and things like that. Um, so just like little by little, really, um, making connections with other writers. I started, um, posting content on LinkedIn in like 20, I wrote all this down. I don’t remember where, but, um, about two years ago. So about 2022 is when I started posting stuff on LinkedIn, connecting with other writers, and just like, becoming friends with people that are in my ear, my, you know, writing community, I guess. And so when I’m even just like, a couple weeks ago, when I was looking for some more clients, I would send out a message like, Hey, let me know if any of your clients are looking for more writers, or if you see anything that you think would fit. And so I’ve gotten jobs from that, like people will say, Oh, yeah, hey, here’s the name of my editor, here’s the editor’s email, like just giving me those kinds of things. Because you know, the whole search of trying to find an editor’s email or a content leads email, like, which can be kind of fun, I feel like I’m pretty good at finding the information, but I have no problem just like sending a cold message out like, hey, or a cold DM. Hey, You know, I’m available. Here’s some of the stuff that I’ve done. Let me know if you need any help. Super, super like short. I might throw in like a, I know you’re busy, so I’ll keep this short.
Rob Marsh: So that they, um, Is that usually the initial contact that you’re sending out is just that real brief pitch. Yeah. And then how do you follow up?
Blair Sharp: I’m not great at following up.
Rob Marsh: Again, so typical of us as copy. I’m not sure that I’ve met more than a handful of writers who are like, oh yeah, I am the copy. I’m the follow up person, king or queen, whatever.
Blair Sharp: I usually don’t actually, unless it’s like something that I know they’re looking for people maybe. Like if it’s just a cold message, like, hey, I see you have a blog that you haven’t updated in six months. Do you need any help with that? I might not respond back. I don’t want to bug people because I hate when people bug me like that. So I don’t want to be that person. But yeah, a lot of it is just making connections with people online, on LinkedIn. I know they say you don’t need to have a personal brand or you don’t need to be on social media. I think it’s helped me a lot. I think it’s helped me a lot being on LinkedIn and posting on LinkedIn regularly. meeting people, making those connections.
Rob Marsh: And you do have a brand, like you’ve got brand colors, you show up, you know, the same way, you know, in everything that I see, particularly with your newsletter and the assets around that. Talk about, you know, how you went about developing that, choosing, I mean, it’s kind of a bright pink color, it really stands out.
Blair Sharp: Yeah, all of my stuff that I have is so random, like, I have a picture. I took some branding photos, I guess, is that what they’re called, a few years ago. And I was wearing this dress that I wore for our wedding. What is it? The rehearsal dinner. It’s a pretty flowery dress. I’m in some of my pictures, but at this point, it’s old. My hair is shorter. And I went to Canva and I was just like looking, you know, the dropper that you can use to find the colors. And I was like, oh, that’s a nice pink. And it was like one of the pinks that was on the dress. And like, that’s just the pink that I started using. That’s so random, but it works. Yeah, isn’t it random? And then, yeah, so I just did that and all this. I mean, like I said, I’m not trained in any of this stuff. YouTube is my best friend. I have learned how to make a banner, make a newsletter, make a newsletter header, things like that, like all that branding stuff I’ve really just learned by YouTube or Googling, like Google, Google’s actually my best friend, probably. Just learn on the go, learn as I go, whatever I need as I need it. Right now I’m kind of trying to figure out how to use CapCut to make videos for Instagram. I’m back on Instagram again, I’m back on Instagram again, but I’m back on it as myself Just a person, not, not a freelance writer, not an alcohol free person, just posting whatever I think is funny and, and. Having fun now.
Rob Marsh: Very cool. So what does a typical project look for you? Once you connect with that client and they come back to you, what are you doing?
Blair Sharp: Yes. So I’m, I like to be really organized. So I want to make sure first, like that I know exactly what they are expecting, you know, whether or not they give me a brief or some, some of my clients just give me like a title and that’s what they, you know, Um, and depending on whether or not they want SEO, um, they want me to use, you know, SEO in, keep that in mind or not. Some of my clients are just like, just write it. Yeah. Um, so I make an outline first, first, always an outline. I have to have an outline. I can’t just go for it. Um, but I usually will. So I do an outline and then I will just kind of, let’s just say it’s a blog or an article. I’ll just pick a spot that I can just start. What’s the easiest place to start versus starting at the top? And it might be the top. It might be the introduction. I don’t know. It depends on the day. It depends on my mood. And I just start writing. And then eventually, it just comes together. It’s like magic. Because I just pick a spot. And then I pick another spot. And I write that section. And then I write. And then I don’t do a lot of like, upfront research necessarily. I will research as I go, which maybe isn’t the most time effective thing, but it works. It works for me.
Rob Marsh: I’d love to step through an example of how you do this because it doesn’t sound like you’re using a template or that you’ve got a framework that you’re writing to. You’ve got the idea and it’s going to come out, right? So, I mean, you don’t have to use a real project if you want, but let’s say that you’re writing an article about psychometry, right? Sure. Yeah, which you probably actually don’t have to do a lot of research on that because you know it, but you start with whatever feels comfortable. You go back. I’m trying to outline the process for you.
Blair Sharp: Right. Thank you. Something relatable right in the beginning to kind of get people to know that they, or get people to think that they need to keep reading. Like, oh, this is for me. Maybe a question. I write for a women’s health website called Rescripted. And so same with that. We’re talking symptoms of something, right? So I might say that tummy bloat, for example, just like the last one I wrote. Something that’s relatable to get people like, oh, yeah, I do have that problem. I need to keep reading. I need to know what the fix is. But yeah, psychometry, I don’t know who’s going to read that. That’s a hard topic. Other than me, maybe, yeah. What is a psychometrist? That could be a good, yeah. But then, yeah, a relatable, something in the beginning, like, depending on if you’re writing to someone who has memory issues, or if you have a person who’s a family member has memory issues, like how to deal with that. So it might be like this, you know, question of like, does your dad keep forgetting, you know, where he put his keys, and you have to make a list, you know, just like something really relatable, and then going to like, And then I usually start off with just like the basics, like what would be like, what is a psychometrist? And then very like, maybe dry, but make it make it fun. Because like, that would be a dry. I’d really have to really give a lot of put a lot of oomph into that one. And then I really like to have my headers like picked out. from the beginning. The words don’t have to be exact. I’ll change them up a little bit. But as far as organizing it, I really like to have it organized first and see it, not necessarily what I’m going to put in each area, but what the areas are. What are the different headers, like the H2s that you’re going to put.
Rob Marsh: It’s like you’re signposting for yourself as you’re writing. Does that make sense?
Blair Sharp: Yes. Yep. So I do that. I usually save the ending for the end just to see how it ends. And then I always try to make sure that it flows from one to the next so it’s not choppy and in block form. It kind of flows into the next section.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. I write very similarly. Because I write so much sales copy, I tend to, it’s not necessarily a framework or a template, but I kind of know the 10 or 14 things that need to be included at some point, but it’s almost never in the same order, right? You know, it’s like, well, sometimes this goes first and sometimes I want to start with the personal story, whatever that is.
Blair Sharp: Yeah. And it all depends too, like on who I’m writing for, like what do they want, you know? Um, I was writing some emails for, um, a sober brand. This person had a podcast or has a podcast and a sober membership. And so I was writing these emails. Those were super easy to write because that was like me, right? Like my quitting drinking and things like that. Um, so that was a lot more like putting emotion into it, getting people to feel seen for sure. And that stuff, a lot of the mental health, um, getting people to be like, Oh, I’m not the only person that’s going through this. Like, Oh, I did. I did that too. I didn’t realize that other people did that. Like those kinds of things, like those aha moments, like, okay, well, I really need to like, keep reading this, or I need to share this with someone that I know, things like that.
Rob Marsh: So as you figured this stuff out, you’ve built a business. Next, you launched a newsletter to help other freelancers do the same. Tell us about Hey Freelancer, why you launched it and what it’s about.
Blair Sharp: Sure. So everything kind of always goes back to me starting on Instagram. I did start like an alcohol-free newsletter when I was back on Instagram. I just knew that I liked to write and so that was a way to write and Instagram was a very visual platform. So I got into writing there. I kind of lost the love for that topic. So I only did it for maybe four or six months or something like that. But then when I got to LinkedIn, I started talking about freelancing. creating and writing online and all that kind of stuff. And people really were resonating with the stuff that I was posting on LinkedIn and stories. And, you know, I would say how I did something and people like, Oh, my gosh, like, I never even thought of that or something like that. And so grew my following on LinkedIn, I started a newsletter called the relatable create the relatable creator. That’s what it was called first. I didn’t want people to call me the relatable creator, but that’s ended up what people are having because people always say, oh, you’re so relatable. You’re so like normal, you know? And it was very vague. It was you know, you have to niche down if you want to grow. And so as soon as I decided to switch to just freelancers, because that was what a lot of my subscribers were anyways. So I was like, OK, this is easy. I just changed the name to Hey Freelancer. I started writing just about freelancing and that’s when I really saw it take off because that’s where all the freelancers are right on LinkedIn. Everybody’s on LinkedIn trying to get jobs and connect with other people. So yeah, I started writing about freelancing and it grew and I did my real It’s not a secret, but like my the way that I grew, I think the fastest was that it goes out on Tuesdays. And on Monday on LinkedIn, I would write a post every Monday, I would write a post that related to the topic of Tuesday’s newsletter. And then it’d be like, if you want to hear more, subscribe to the newsletter, it comes out at six o’clock tomorrow morning. And then that’s how I got so many subscribers. I haven’t been sharing. I’d like 1500 right now. I haven’t been sharing it anywhere else as much, just LinkedIn. I can’t do two platforms at once. It’s just too much for my brain. I can’t do them well.
Rob Marsh: I’m right there with you. I struggle. I know I should be posting on Twitter. I should be on LinkedIn. Pinterest should be a thing. Our Instagram account is a mess. It’s hard to do more than one or two things. I will say, for me, I do email really well. We have a daily email that goes out and that happens. So that’s our one thing. Everything else is sketch. So I totally get what you’re saying.
Blair Sharp: Yeah. I also, you know, there’s this thing that’s always happened to me is like, my social accounts or whatever will following will grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And then I have my friends who are like, Oh, you got to do something with that. Like, you have to leverage that you have to make money off of that. And I’m like, Oh, I know, like, I feel like I’m leaving money on that table. So like, the plan was to always make products, digital products, like make, you know, freelancing roadmap or here’s whatever. That was always the plan. And I had weeks where I would go, okay, I’m going to sit down, I’m going to brainstorm. I wrote it all out like a big mind map on my whiteboard. I was like, yeah. And then I just never would finish it. So now I’m in this weird space. I’m like, you know what? Just do what you like to do. Just do what you like to do. Because for me, if I don’t do something that I enjoy, it becomes a chore and then I quit. Which is fine. Like quitting is great. I love quitting things that don’t make you, you know, energized. But with content, we know that if it becomes a chore, and it and it is something that you don’t actually like doing, it’s going to show up in the writing, like people are going to know that it’s just like, yeah, I chat GPT, like five ways to start freelancing, and then I just put it in my newsletter, you know, people are gonna know. So I’m trying to figure out how to, so I’ve taken a little break on the newsletter just a few months, just randomly was like, I’m going to stop doing it because it’s become a chore. And I’m going to figure out what I’m doing. So right now I’m in the figuring out stage. And I think I’m just going to start writing about stuff that I like to write about related to freelancing related to work versus these like tips and tricks and advice. I mean, it’s advice, but it’s more experience advice and like, storytelling. Because that’s how I’d rather write. I’m not like this guru, this LinkedIn guru, you know, like, here’s how I made $10,000 in two days, as a freelance writer, and I just started like, you know, those, those, I’m just not that person. And I think it took me time to realize, I’ve always known that I’m not that person. But it took me time to realize, I don’t have to try to be that person either.
Rob Marsh: I have a feeling too, if you started writing that, your newsletter audience would be like, wait a second, this isn’t the Blair we signed up to hear from.
Blair Sharp: Yeah. So that’s what I’m worried about. That’s why I haven’t done it yet. It’s on my list. But I think I’m going to try to give me a chance and stick around for a little bit. And then if you don’t like it, I totally understand. There’s tons of people who do educational type writing. Here’s how you make a website. Here’s how you DM somebody, which I can write about that too. But we don’t all have to be the same thing. And we don’t all have to have the same people who are interested in reading our work either. I think we get hung up on that too. I don’t like every writer. I don’t, how they write, you know, I don’t, we don’t resonate, but there are people that do, there are people for that person. We don’t have to be everybody’s person. So it’s hard to, especially if you’re online and you’re seeing what everybody else is posting, you’re like, Oh, look at all those comments and those likes, you know, like maybe I should do more of that, but then I’ll do it for a little bit, but then, you know, I don’t want to after a while.
Rob Marsh: So it’s not authentic.
Blair Sharp: Yeah. I really want to be myself.
Rob Marsh: When you’re writing the newsletter, what is that process? Are you, do you spend like all day Friday researching writing or is it a two hour thing? Pretty easy to do.
Blair Sharp: What is that one? Is templated. Okay. Template for that. So, um, I have a Google sheet that has. topics listed, you know, I wrote all the weeks out and I just wrote, put in topics, kind of as placeholders. I’ll move them around a little bit. It might depend if I get a sponsor or something like that and I have to write about something else. But I don’t have a specific day. So my weeks are Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m at my day job at mail as a psychometrist. And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I’m at home. So I have three days to do writing or any of those other things. And so I just kind of fit it into my schedule. I don’t always feel super creative every single day.
Rob Marsh: I don’t know about you.
Blair Sharp: But then your personal stuff, it’s different for like, if it’s a client and they’re paying me, I can sit down and yeah, you got to crank it out. I can do it. Yep. But I might wake up and be like, Oh, shoot, you know, I didn’t fall asleep till midnight last night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I’m so tired. Just can’t do it today. I have to do this or that. So I just kind of fit it in where I fit it in. And to be honest, towards the end of before I just took this little break of the newsletter, I was doing it last minute. And I also hate that I don’t like doing that. I want to sit down in the morning. Okay, this is like every writer’s dream, right to sit down in the morning with a cup of coffee and the sun is shining in and like you want that but like that’s like not the reality sometimes.
Rob Marsh: Very rarely, though, very rarely.
Blair Sharp: Those two days a year are great. Yeah, exactly. Gosh, I love those days. I just wish I could bottle those days up. What did I do? What did I eat that made me feel that way?
Rob Marsh: The day before, how did I fall asleep on time?
Blair Sharp: Where did I go for a walk? Let’s retrace. that would be ideal right to like wake up and sit down but but it got to be where I was doing it last minute I didn’t like that I didn’t like rushing it because then it felt like it wasn’t really me giving my full like energy to so I’m I’m trying to figure out um I think this is a thing for a lot of people just constantly trying to figure out the best way to um to do good work especially their personal projects it’s hard when you have personal projects yeah
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Balancing client work with your own business is one of the biggest challenges that freelancers face. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So I want to ask you about your sober story, the alcohol story, which is part of your origin. What led to that and how has it impacted your life?
Blair Sharp: Yeah. So I’m a pretty open book with that. I’ve written about it a lot. I’ve been on over 20 podcasts talking about it. So it’s a short version. Um, I was always like a binge drinker with no off switch. That’s what I say. Once and this is like for anything like if I have caffeine, like if I drink something now, like I need to have it make it count like it needs to have caffeine and like I’m not just drinking some bubbly water like I need caffeine or something. So it’s definitely like my brain. That’s just how it’s wired. That’s just how some people’s brains are wired. Yeah. When I would have one drink, I’d be like, what’s the point? I still don’t see the point of one drink. I would want a buzz. I want something out of it. And the problem with me was that I wouldn’t ever want it to stop. I was never a daily drinker. I didn’t lose my marriage. I did get a DUI when I was 25. I’m 38 now. So I did have that happen.
But I’m in Minnesota or the Midwest. I could name off. five or six of my friends who also have DUIs, you know, like it’s so that was kind of normalized to this binge drinking. It’s not as much anymore. And I think social media has to do with it because people don’t want their… I can’t imagine having like Snapchat when I was in college, like the things that would have gotten sent without me knowing, you know? So, yeah, I had a blast in college, made tons of mistakes, tons of memories. Um, but then when I got out of college, it was like, okay, now you should calm down. And I got good jobs. I was functioning, right? I wasn’t waking up drinking. I wasn’t drinking every day. Like I said, but on a Friday night I would go, you know, go out with friends or whatever. And I would just get super drunk. Like I would be up in like binge drinking, which is what most of us did. And then eventually it just got hard to keep up. Like the hangovers got way worse. You know, I was having to drink. more just to like, I don’t know, I guess I was just drinking more and more. And then I became a mom when I was 30. Okay. And that’s really when like, there was no it was, it was a problem. But it was like the same problem. Like everybody had, right? Like, Oh, got too drunk last night. What happened? Right?
And then I became a mom. And then I’m like, Oh, shoot. Now I am responsible for another human, not just myself. You know, And so I, I had no problem quitting drinking when I was pregnant, didn’t miss it. Just kind of interesting. Like, you know, there’s, yeah, there’s some psychology there that it was like a, here’s a break that you didn’t know you needed. Right. But I did get back into drinking, like after I had him. And there was one night it was super like this could have been any night like this could have just happened where my husband was away and I was home with him with my son. He was sleeping like I was just, you know, having some wine because that’s what moms are supposed to do after a hard day. You know, like this whole mommy wine culture. Yeah. And I like tripped over the baby gate just like like this isn’t like a weird thing. Tripped over the baby gate, dropped the wine glass, shattered the wine glass, and I’m cleaning it up. And my husband gets home, and he says, you can’t. I don’t think you should drink anymore with him in the house alone. He had put on little rules for me to. He doesn’t drink, by the way, which is interesting. He has a bad stomach, so it’s like a physical rule. It’s not like he didn’t have a drinking problem.
He had put on rules like, OK, if you’re going to go to so-and-so’s house, just stay overnight. I don’t really want to be around you. You’re drunk. Because you just don’t stop talking, and then you stay up all night, and all this stuff. But he said to me, I think you should stop when you’re around him alone. And I was like, oh. So that kind of made me think a little bit differently. And that following Monday, I was at work, and I read an email from Scary Mommy. and a blog about a mom who doesn’t drink. And I was like, Oh, there are people that just like, decide to not drink anymore, not, not because they went to rehab, or because they live under a bridge, or they went to jail, like, they just decided alcohol is not serving them anymore. So they decided to quit. Like, I didn’t even know, like, it was almost like I got the okay, to just don’t do it. You know, and so I actually looked up the author of that blog on Facebook and sent her like this 900 word DM.
Rob Marsh: Wow.
Blair Sharp: Like telling her what happened that night before, like, what do I do? I don’t even know where to start. What should I do? And she said, you don’t have to drink anymore. I was like, oh, Never thought about that. Like I just didn’t think it was a thing. All my friends drink. Again, I live in the Midwest. This is what we do. Sunday football, right? It’s Bloody Mary’s after you go out the night before. Like it’s all these things. Alcohol is so, it’s everywhere, right? Not just the Midwest. But I was like, oh my gosh. So she gave me a bunch of resources. She gave me books to read, podcasts to listen to. And I dove head first into all that stuff. And I did not drink again after that day. So I count that day as February 26, 2018. I count that Monday as the day that I decided. I don’t count the last time I drank, even though it was a few days prior, because I didn’t think about not drinking forever until I read that blog. And that’s where that op-ed came in for Scary Mommy. The op-ed is about me reading the Scary Mommy article and then deciding not to drink because of that article. So it’s a full circle universe.
Rob Marsh: Yeah. Well, and I mean, this isn’t the point of your story, but how important content is in our lives and content writers, we don’t always see the impact that we have. I mean, you know, not all content is going to change a life, but There’s an opportunity there where we can make a real difference when we do our jobs really well. So again, I know that wasn’t really the point of your story, but as you’re talking about this, I’m like, wow.
Blair Sharp: No, but it’s true. That’s so true because then when I started posting on Instagram and sharing my story, I would get these messages, just like the message that I sent. And whether it be like a post or a reel or maybe, you know, I used to write on Medium a little bit. So I would write blogs on Medium and then share those. And people would be like, whoa, I just read that. And like, that was me. you know, how did you start? Here we go. I’m telling you the resources now and I’m giving you the books and the podcasts to listen to. And yeah, it’s pretty cool because I just wrote I’m earlier this year, I wrote an article for Expectful, and it was about being a mom who doesn’t drink. And it was the whole story. And like, as soon as that story got published, I was getting emails from people, readers saying, wow, it’s exactly like what That’s exactly what my life looks like right now. Like, I don’t know where to start, you know, like, how do you go out with friends? How do you. Survive the world without having, you know, wine at five o’clock after your long work day, you know? So, um, it has to get bad enough. I would say it has to get bad enough for you to want to change it. You can’t. And that’s why it’s so hard for like family members to try to get people to either quit drinking or, you know, doing drugs, things like that. Like the person has to like, realize like, Oh, I could live a better life. And honestly, I call it. I call it the secret to my life. Like, everything is different. Like, we’re like, Oh, what’s different since you quit drinking? Everything, like everything. Like I probably I wouldn’t be talking to you today if I had, you know, like, it’s just wild. So
Rob Marsh: Yeah. And here’s another copy lesson, right? Like you can’t give your reader or your prospect a desire, which is why we have to tap into where they are as opposed to try to convince them that they need to move to where we are, which, yeah, basic copywriting skills. So yeah, it’s a very lifelike demonstration of it.
Blair Sharp: Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty cool. Again, the universe. I always think of the universe. I’m not very like woo-woo crystals and like birth charts or anything like that. I’m just like things happen. Like if you put good stuff in the world, if you connect with people on a real life basis, like things will happen.
Rob Marsh: Yeah, I’m the same. I’m not a woo-woo guy, but I believe the universe gives us back what we put into it. Yes, so much. Well, Blair, this has been great learning about you, your business, and basically how you’ve built it on the side as you’ve, you know, been employed with an employer. Maybe you’ll end up going full time. Maybe, you know, who knows what the future happens? We’ll see. If people want to find out how that story ends, though, or they want to connect with you, where should they go?
Blair Sharp: So everything’s on my website. It’s just BlairSharp.com. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn. I have a little cheese emoji next to my name. That’s just because I like cheese, really. It’s not the sharp cheddar or anything like that. It’s not the sharp pun. It just so happens. But yeah, I’m on LinkedIn. I’m also, again, like I said, I’m starting on Instagram, which I’m kind of having fun there. So that’s called the Blair Sharp Project. That’s my handle.
Rob Marsh: Amazing.
Blair Sharp: Blair Sharp, The Blair Sharp Project. So that’s just fun stuff like funny millennial mom, introvert, ADHD, whatever I feel like writing or creating over there.
Rob Marsh: So we’ll link up to all of that in the show notes so people can check you out. Thanks so much for being here.
Blair Sharp: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Rob Marsh: Thanks again to Blair Sharp for sharing so much about her business, her newsletter, and educating me on exactly what a psychometrist does, as well as her story about getting sober. I had a lot of fun, and more importantly, I learned a bunch of stuff from this interview. You can connect with Blair on Instagram at the Blair Sharp Project. She’s got all of her links there, and be sure to jump onto her newsletter list in case she starts sending that out again, as we talked about just a few minutes ago. You’ll also see her popping up on LinkedIn quite a bit, and she’s worth a follow there as well.
