Harriet Minter: ‘For years I was haunted by the words "proper journalist"’
The freelance journalist, broadcaster and public speaker on the importance of multiple revenue streams
If there’s one person who’s had the biggest impact on my career, it’s Harriet Minter. The journalist, broadcaster and public speaker is a mentor to me, having imparted advice and wisdom that’s helped me get where I am today.
A week after I lost my job, Harriet took me for lunch and it turned out to be a pivotal moment in my freelance career. It was Harriet who taught me that not only is it possible to make decent money as a freelance journalist, but more crucially, that wanting to make a sustainable and healthy income is nothing to be ashamed of, especially as a working woman.
Harriet writes about women and work for a host of British publications, including The Independent, Grazia and Psychologies Magazine. She hosts the weekly radio show Badass Women’s Hour and for the last two years has made a Love Island podcast (which I’m proud to say I’ve been a guest on three times). She’s also going to be speaking on next week’s FJ&Co panel on funding your freelance journalism.
The pep talk Harriet gave me right at the beginning of my freelance career is something I wish I could bottle up and drink from every time I need a boost. In this interview with The Professional Freelancer, Harriet shares some of that positive, can-do attitude towards freelancing, as well as practical tips for bullet-proofing your career.
TPF: You do a mix of work alongside your writing and journalism. Why do you think it's important to have multiple revenue streams as a freelancer?
Harriet Minter: For me it comes down to interest and security. I am naturally more of a generalist than a specialist so if I only work on one thing for a long time I can get quite bored, having different revenue streams means I'm constantly moving between different areas and learning from them which I find more interesting. It also means I can cross sell lots of stuff, so if you have a client that you've done some copywriting for but you also run a "how to write great copy" course, then you have two products you can sell them.
From a security point of view, the entire time I've worked in media, I've heard how media is dying. I don't think that's true but I do think the revenue streams for it are changing all the time and that makes people nervous, no-one is ever quite sure where the money is or how much there is. I knew that for me, I could only make freelancing work if I wasn't constantly terrified of running out of money, and that meant I had to have several different streams so that if one industry was going through a "where's the money" crisis, I could turn to another industry to pick up the slack. If Love Island has taught us anything it is surely, don't put all your eggs in one basket.
You do a lot of paid public speaking, how do you get this kind of work?
So, having just said I don't like having a specialism... I do have a sort of specialism! I write and talk a lot about women and the workplace. And because I'm known for having a lot of knowledge in this area then people come to me when they want a speaker on the topic. In the beginning people would ask me to be on panels and I would just set myself a small goal to make sure I said one or two things that I thought would be memorable. From there people began asking me to speak at conferences and for a while I did this for free then one day I just said, "I usually charge for this sort of thing, do you have a budget?" - you'd be surprised how many people do have a budget that they've just failed to mention! From there I challenged myself to up my price for each speaking gig until I found a natural ceiling.
I still do some stuff for free if I love the organisation or think they do particularly brilliant stuff for women but the majority of my speaking is paid and it's a substantial part of my income. I also have a speaker agent but it took me a few years to build up enough trust on both sides that they really pushed to get me good gigs, but now I'd be lost without them. However you don't need this. Email events you like and ask to speak, find your specialism and then develop a couple of short paragraphs of what you'd talk about and send it out to potential clients. And then just get out there and do it, the more you do it the more you'll get asked to do it.
Why do you think freelancers are apprehensive about taking on branded or commercial work and what can they do to overcome that?
For years I was haunted by the words "proper journalist". Yet, ironically, the people bandying that term about had come up through the ranks at a time when journalism actually paid properly, required no training and allowed you to do lots of work on the side without anyone questioning it. Yet I allowed their opinion of what I did to affect the type of work I took, it was bonkers.
There is a legitimate concern that a journalist's impartiality can be questioned if you're writing an article about a company that you're also doing lots of paid commercial work for but I just try and avoid those topics. I think the question you have to ask yourself about all work is: does this align with my values? If it does then great; do the work, take the money and move on. And be proud of it! Writing an interesting internal report is a hell of a lot harder than writing an opinion piece, if you've got the skills to do both then shout about it from the rooftop!
There are lots of different types of "commercial work" a freelancer can do. What would you recommend someone new to this type of work do as a starting point?
First up, make an honest list of the skills you have. Don't get distracted by "oh but I'm not very good at that" - if you do it, write it down. When we do things every day we start to think that they're very normal and everyone understands them but that's absolutely not the case. When you've got your skills think about how you can monetise them. For me this is essentially: how can you do them for somebody, how can you teach them to somebody or how can you talk about them in an interesting manner?
Write down a couple of examples for each of these and there you go, you now have six different income streams. Next to each of these put two companies that could benefit from them - you now have twelve potential clients. Then start to think who at those companies you can contact and suggest a coffee and a chat. And you're off.
You have brilliant Instagram content - how important do you think it is to have an online presence as a freelancer?
I have such a love/hate relationship with online presence. I don't think I do it consistently and I could definitely do with an actual strategy but I suppose I look at it as a shop window - if I want people to know what I do I need to show them. I think an online presence is helpful but I know lots of brilliant freelancers who have no or little social media activity but are brilliant at building relationships with editors and clients so they have lots of work. My view on this is to put your effort where your skills are: if you know you're great at persuading people to go for coffee and you can then persuade them to commission anything, then spend more time doing that then picking photos for Instagram. Equally, if you find it easy to be online and interact with people that way then put your effort there.
The term "personal brand" can be quite daunting for lots of freelancers, what tips do you have for developing your voice on social media?
I think work out what are the key things you want to be known for and focus it around that. My social media doesn't cover everything I do and all parts of my life but I try and ensure that it always reflects my tone: funny, feminist and compassionate. If it meets that then I'm happy. Essentially with "personal brand" (such a terrible term) what you're trying to do is give people an impression of you before you turn up so they know what to expect. So everything you do online has to resemble who you are in person, there's no point coming across as all sunshine and rainbows on your social media if you're a hardened, cynical type in real life. Other than that, have fun with it, don't give it too much of your time and don't link any of your self-esteem to it. When you're counting likes it's time to go meet a friend for coffee.
Being a successful freelancer involves building resilience in the face of rejection, what's your best advice for dealing with setbacks?
I wish I could tell you there is a silver bullet for managing rejection resilience but it mainly relies on lots of small actions. I'm actually running a day long workshop next week for freelancers who'd like to be better at it (plug, plug, sign up here etc) but the main things I've learned are:
Rejection is almost never personal, and if it is it's about them not you. While you might feel someone is rejecting you personally it's generally that someone else has proposed something better suited or it's just not the right time.
Give yourself time to process the feeling of rejection, be sad about it and have a bit of a mope, but put a time limit on it. Once the time is up you either have to pitch it elsewhere or come up with a new idea.
Be honest with yourself about what's really at stake here: if you don't get this job is this the end of your career? Probably not, because you're still going to wake up tomorrow and have to find something to do. Is this the last chance you'll ever have to pitch that organisation? Probably not.
So what we're really talking about here is that one idea you had didn't suit one person you pitched it to. Take the feedback and move on. The only way you know what's around the corner for you is if you keep moving forward.
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