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SUMMARY
- Many parents are attracted to freelancing because it allows them to work from home and spend more time with their kids. In this installment of our Freelancer Interview Series, you’ll meet Mollie Horne, a new mom who is slowly but surely transitioning to full-time freelancing and creating the life she wants. Interviewing her on behalf of The No Pants Project founder Mike Shreeve is fellow mom and NPP Growth Director Delicia Ivins.
- Mollie Horne is a travel marketing specialist from Denver, Colorado. She provides marketing and communications services such as blog writing, email newsletter writing, and SEO to tour operators and travel agents. A travel buff herself, she was bitten by the travel bug when she was a university student and has been on the go ever since.
- Though it took her awhile to pinpoint her freelancing superpower, Mollie knew that it would have something to do with communications even before she joined The No Pants Project. She assures other NPP students and freelancers that it’s okay if you don’t know what you want to do yet—you’ll eventually get there if you do the internal work. And if you don’t like where you end up, you can always pivot.
- When Mollie first came across The No Pants Project, she was a new mom who had just returned to work after maternity leave. Aside from missing her daughter, she was miserable at her administrative job, leading her to consider becoming a surrogate mother to earn money.
- Though Mollie still has her day job, she has been side hustling while raising her daughter for the past year and a half, and is very close to becoming a full-time freelancer.
- Mollie got her first client after completing Mike’s Fast Client Getting Workshop. Although that didn’t work out, she has gone on to land other clients, including a luxury safari outfitter and a music tour operator.
- One of the challenges Mollie faced when she started freelancing was not having a lot of spare time. Not only did she have to juggle a 40-hour job and a new baby, but her husband also travels a lot for work, so there would be times when she didn’t have anyone to help her out at home and with errands. In addition, she got herself into too narrow a niche by targeting millennial families, something that she fortunately realized early on.
- Mollie’s top tips on freelancing: Write things down or use an app to tame your monkey mind. Focus on one thing at a time; don’t bite off the whole pizza. Nothing has to be perfect; consistent work beats perfect work. Don’t devalue your skills.
- Mollie attributes a lot of her freelancing success to Mike’s Fast Client Getting Workshop and having the support of the coaches and other students in NPP. She says that having the NPP community as her sounding board was a huge piece of building her business.
- Mollie’s advice for people who are on the fence about The No Pants Project: “Don’t wait. Your future self will thank you more than you know, whether it’s six months down the road or three years down the road.”
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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT: Freelancer Interview Series with Mollie Horne
Mollie: I would say don’t wait. Your future self will thank you more than you know, and whether it’s six months down the road or three years down the road.
Delicia Ivins: Hey, how’s it going? Delicia Ivins here with The No Pants Project on behalf of Mike Shreeve. Today I’m here with the magnificent Mollie Horne, who is going to talk to us a little bit about her freelancing journey. Mollie, where are you joining us from?
Mollie: I am joining you from Denver, Colorado.
Delicia Ivins: Okay, so is it really cold there right now? Like really?
Mollie: No, shockingly. Actually we’re supposed to have a 64 degree day next week and it’s troubling. Yeah, we’re lacking on the precipitation front for sure.
Delicia Ivins: Oh, okay. Well then that makes sense because you guys a lot of that snow melt and everything is your precipitation and stuff, right?
Mollie: Right.
On Her Superpower
Delicia Ivins: Well, that’s crazy. Tell me a little bit about what it is that you do for your clients. What is your superpower?
Mollie: My superpower is working with the travel industry. Tour operators, travel agents, but like with marketing and communications. A lot of the business is not focusing on family travel, which is a huge segment and that’s my pet project. Where I initially had niched down to that, I’ve moved back a bit to target the travel industry at a larger scale and then I can convince them along the way that they need to look at family travel a little bit more.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. What made you decide family travel? Do you travel a lot yourself?
Mollie: I do, yeah. I have an 18, no, 19 month old now, little girl. I grew up not doing a ton of travel with my family necessarily, but I was really fortunate to be exposed to a lot of amazing travel while I was in school at university. That firmly planted the travel bug in me, and I’ve been [inaudible 00:02:26] since. I travel probably four to five times a year, trying to get an international trip in once every year or two.
We actually just did our first trip to the UK. It was our first trip, an Atlantic family vacation and she did really well. Travel is near and dear to our hearts for fun and the memory making, but also because we feel like it raises good humans, and I want to make my little girl a caring, compassionate, global citizen. I feel that’s an integral part of that.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. Now, when you say that you do marketing for the travel industry, can you elaborate a little bit on that? What kind of services do you offer travel agencies?
Mollie: Yeah, right now I’m doing a bit of work with a luxury safari client, is one of mine and I’m doing some blog writing for them. I’m helping them with their email newsletters that go out once a month. Just making things … They have good content and a lot of expertise and knowledge, but they don’t present it as cleanly and easy to digest for today’s internet consumers as they could.
Making sure things are bulleted lists instead of blocks of texts and that their photos are high quality and that things are optimized for SEO if at all possible, elements like that. If you are in The No Pants Project or considering The No Pants Project, there’s an element that you’ll learn about called the Omnipresence method. That’s basically like Starbucks take at being everywhere all the time.
The most convenient option, the one everybody turns to. I’m just about to do a service centered around that for a music tour company. They do domestic and international tours for school ensembles and community choirs and church choirs and whatnot. They’re looking to better target the audiences that they’re aiming for via social media.
I’ll be doing the Omnipresence method for them on Facebook for a couple of weeks to see what sticks organically and then niche down and help them draw out some content to the audiences that are really liking what they have to offer and capitalize on that.
Delicia Ivins: That’s awesome. You’re talking about Omnipresence, but that’s kind of basically you’re testing what content the audience would resonate with.
Mollie: Yeah, because I think a lot of … Anecdotally, at least a lot of people I talk to have a good idea of who their audience is, and definitely know who they want to target, but they may not have a really concrete data proven view of who actually sees what they post, who interacts with the content they share, and having something that is strategic and measurable like the Omnipresence method can really help them go, “Okay, this is where we’re doing well, here’s where we need to improve.”
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. Did you know what your super power would be going in to the No Pants Project?
Mollie: I had a pretty good idea that it would be communications centric, just to give you a little bit of a background on me. My background’s in music and theater, so I had degrees in both and in performance. I’m going to pause. I’m a creative and I got pretty strong doing oriented streak. Give me projects, give me feedback, have me have me work on something for you and I’m pretty happy.
I also spent a good portion of my twenties working with families and kids as a nanny. I feel particularly suited to family travel obviously, but also family travel for clients who are looking for high end clients in more well-to-do families. I’m, “Wow, okay. I have literally been inside those families and get how they think and what they’re looking for and how they operate.”
I knew that, that was a skill set that was unique and that maybe not a lot of people would think to utilize. I’m glad I thought of that. I’m a helper by nature. Sharing good news, encouraging, empowering, helping equip people with whatever exciting knowledge or tips or breakthroughs I’ve come across. That’s very much the heart of who I am, and I’m really detail oriented, which helps.
I knew my strengths would lie somewhere in communicating valuable things to people who need them, who need help. It just so happened that travel is something that I love and care a lot about and care enough about to make it something that I do on a daily basis. It took awhile for me to get around to that. I definitely …
You’ll hear talking in probably the open community about people who are struggling with week two or had struggled with week two, but want to encourage folks who are thinking about the joining the program like it’s good work. It’s hard work to do, but if you push through and do the internal stuff, you will eventually get there and figure out what it is you want to do and then you can always pivot. It’s good. Nothing is set in stone.
Delicia Ivins: When you came to your idea of targeting travel and then also maybe tying in to that marketable family travel and the more affluent and everything, was that stuff that you got from the week two exercises when you were working through those?
Mollie: Definitely. There’s lot of list taking and was just flow chart, like brain mapping, literally brain vomit all over my page to figure out what the heck I was doing. I also don’t do this in a vacuum, I don’t do it alone. I reached out to good friends of mine and said, “Hey, okay. Here’s some things that I think I’m good at, but what do you see from the outside? What can you tell me about myself that I may take for granted or not value myself as much as others value of me?”
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. Yeah, I think having that outside influence is key and that’s one of the reasons too that I love just having the group aspect because even if you tend to be more, “At least some of our people there are a little bit more introverted, how does that …?” Maybe we are, so they rely a lot like you say personally, “Okay, out of the homework assignments that I’ve posted, can some of you guys give me feedback. Where do you see could be an opening here for me or something.”
Mollie: It’s all good.
Delicia Ivins: How is your confidence going into The No Pants Project and you seem pretty confident now about what. What were you thinking when you purchased and you were just getting started?
Mollie: Yeah, when I was getting started … I was thinking about this morning actually. I’m not a terribly desperate person, but leave it to motherhood to just totally wreak havoc on your mind and your heart. I’m pretty sure I found The No Pants Project via a Facebook ad. I don’t know that I was targeted because I was a new mom. I think I might have been targeted because I legitimately was considering like surrogacy as income to …
Literally, this was two weeks after going back to work from maternity leave. I was offered 12, so it was 14 weeks after having my girl. I was so desperate to not not be with her that I was literally considering leasing my body because I had a good pregnancy, I’m a healthy person. I had a good labor and was … I think too many people have troubles building families like they would like to and I thought, “Okay, well, that’s a good chunk of change and maybe I could do this and it could be like a year of income.”
I was going there and that’s where my head space was. I was back to work for two weeks and miserable and bored out of my mind and wanting nothing more than to be home with her. I thankfully found No Pants Project and going into it, I watched the Webinar and I’ll tell you I have a pretty strong intuition and I can smell a scam from a mile away. I was really, really pleased and surprised to find Mike and not at all scammy or sleazy or shmoo rui as he says.
Right out of the gate I was, “This seems like it could work.” I was ready not to be stuck on my desk for 40 hours a week doing tedious work I didn’t care about. I was willing to give it a shot and I did. I think initially, I was a little hesitant to tell people about what I was doing just because it is a little unconventional and people don’t just decide, “Oh, hey, I’m going to Paul a total 180 and do this thing.”
“I have friends on the Internet helping me,” like “Really Molly?”
Delicia Ivins: I remember that.
Mollie: Yeah. It’s definitely … That’s the first mindset shift is this isn’t crazy. I deserve to give myself a shot at this. That alone was a huge hurdle for me, but I did it and I’m glad I did and it wasn’t all puppies and roses to start with. Like I said, especially in week two, you do a lot of hard work and it sometimes takes longer to slog through that than you would like, certainly did for me.
I was, “Oh, I started in August, I’m going to be full time freelancing by Thanksgiving and that will be [inaudible 00:13:32].” A year plus later, I’m not full time freelancing, but darn, I’m getting close so yeah. There were some hurdles in the beginning, but it’s totally worth it. The difference that’s made in my sense of self and how I view myself and the self-talk I give myself is very different now.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, most definitely. I think even to speak to that, some people hitting that 90 goals, some people even taking longer. Even for me it’s taken me longer. I did have some really awesome initial wins right out the gate in the 90 days, but I’m still trying to build to what my idea of full time freelancing is. Everybody has got their idea of what they consider to be freelancing.
I’m just still trying to build to that and I think it just depends on how far along you are in your own personal journey and what skill sets you had before, and is there a big learning curve? Do you have to learn a lot of skill sets to get to where you need to be?
Mollie: Yeah, exactly.
Delicia Ivins: A lot of that can.
Mollie: I definitely had to build from pretty much the ground up. I’m a very capable writer and communicating comes easily to me thankfully because I’ve spent much of my life in front of people, but yeah, I didn’t have some delicious skillset of magic that I could just throw out right away. My husband on the other hand is like motion graphics, editing, videography, I’m, “Oh my gosh, if I were my husband.”
Delicia Ivins: Right?
Mollie: Yeah. That’s been a fun thing to see too. You see, I love chatting people who’ve been in the group as long as I have, like where are they started and where they thought they were going and then how they’ve pivoted and how that’s like a totally different outcome than then they probably expected for themselves, but it’s totally jamming right now. That’s been super fun to see.
Life Before The No Pants Project
Delicia Ivins: When you mentioned before that you were at a 40 hour week job right after having your daughter. What were you doing at that job? What were you doing at a desk?
Mollie: Administrative assistant, executive assistant stuff. Attending meetings, taking minutes, answering phones, picking up supplied deliveries, getting the mail, nothing that was remotely challenging to me or exciting, and nothing that fully utilized my skillset. I also didn’t feel like I was being challenged at all. I didn’t feel like management was leading and mentoring me in a way that I had expected when I started the job.
I just felt it was going to be up to me to initiate everything and forge my own path, but even that, there’s definitely a glass ceiling and I just … I knew that this job had a shelf life and whether it was The No Pants Project or leaving it altogether for another J-O-B, I knew I couldn’t stick around forever. I’m not in it for retirement, that’s for sure. I don’t know how people do it. I really don’t. Yeah.
Delicia Ivins: No, and I think for some people it’s a really good fit. They like this kind of tasks, but I can definitely see how you’ve been extroverted in a background of performance, how that would be a little bit tedious for you.
Mollie: Yeah.
With The No Pants
Delicia Ivins: Okay, so you were working a 40 hour a week job and you’d been at that for a couple of weeks and then you got into The No pants project. Now you’ve been in The No Pants Project, what you said close to a year now?
Mollie: It’s been a year and five months. Yeah.
Delicia Ivins: Okay. How many clients have you worked with or when did you get your first client? Tell us a little bit about that.
Mollie: Yeah, so my first client was … When Mike rolled out the fast client getting workshop, which is a piece of the program that’s a bonus freebie module. When he rolled that out I think is when I started, I jumped on board with that right away and I actually got my first client from the fast client getting workshop. I hadn’t yet gotten to week six and seven and building my funnel and doing all of that in The No Pants Project modules. I was more than ready to have a client. I was, “I want this client yesterday, let’s do this.”
Like I said, I’m a doer, so I’m, “I will put my nose to the grindstone. I don’t care how long it takes. I will send as many emails as it takes to get somebody to talk to me.” I did, and I got my first client in about April of earlier this year and did a project for her. She was really non-communicative and I actually never heard back from her. I couldn’t get her to answer my emails.
You’ll run across one of those every once in a while. It’s just, “Well, guess I’m going to be ghosted. That’s okay. Onto the next one.” Then I got in touch with a really great company that I have done a little bit of consulting for, but they’re newer and they’re starting up and they’ve got just enough capital to have things running, but need a little bit more investment to invest in somebody like me.
I haven’t done more work with them, but that’s definitely a client where I’m, “We’ve established a relationship. I keep in touch, they like me. I know they will eventually hire me. It’s just a matter of when.” My sort of like, okay, “This is all snowballing,” came with my second foray back into the fast client getting workshop because I took a break over the summer to build my funnel and my lighthouse and run my Facebook ads and see if that stuck.
That’s actually the point where I realized I think by niching all the way down to travel businesses, you want to target more millennial families. I was, “I think that’s a little narrow. I think I need to pull back for a minute. Then maybe when I’m the person to go for that thing and made a name for myself, maybe I can niche back down. I learned in that process over the summer of doing the incoming traffic thing.
I was, “Oh, okay, I need to pivot a little bit and re-evaluate.” That’s when I went back to the Mike fast client getting workshop and was, “Okay, I’m going to talk to all kinds of people in travel.” I’m talking to outfitters in Alaska and cruise operators and travel agents and safari specialists just to see what sticks and that worked. I have the safari client that I’m working with right now, I’ve got the music tour company, and then there’s another one I’m this close to onboarding.
I just have to get her to commit. She specializes in vacations and travel with the conscience and conservation minded specifically for families. Lucky lucky there’s a client who is very firmly in my niche and I’m excited to work with her, but I don’t at all mind working with the others I actually I’m targeting. Music tour operators hadn’t even hit my radar until about a month ago and I was, “Wait, I went on tours with my choir. I’ve been there as a recipient of that service and I’m now on the other side, like helping you market it. Maybe I should reach out to those folks.” I did and it worked. Yeah.
The Struggles
Delicia Ivins: Pretty cool. Okay, so tell me a little bit about maybe some struggles that you had when you were in the program. Did you struggle with trying to figure out your superpower or were there any worksheets or just trying to connect the dots or on time to work on the assignments? What was that like for you?
Mollie: Yeah, I think time was definitely a concern because I was working a 40 hour job and had a new baby. My husband travels about halftime for work. He’s also a freelancer. When he was on the road and I was doing work and daycare pickup and drop off and it’s just … There was a lot and finding time was a concern and actually, before I purchased the program, I emailed Mike to say, “Will this work for someone with as limited time as I have?”
He’s, “Yeah, you’re not going to get through it as quickly, but you can do this.” He was right. Having enough time was definitely a challenge. I touched on this before, but getting myself into too narrow a niche targeting folks who want to talk to millennial families specifically was something that I can pursue again in the future.
I had to back up from that and I’m glad I realized that when I did. I also had some concerns about Facebook ad spend and was nervous about hemorrhaging money. I did my big first Facebook ad campaign over the summer when I built my funnel and that’s great and I got some valuable information from that, but that was always in the back of my mind like don’t spend money you don’t have, don’t spend money you don’t have.
As soon as you turn that first client or two, you’re, “Oh, I have money to reinvest.” If you can just push through to that first one or two, it takes a load off, if you can just re-train your brain there. I was definitely frustrated at how long everything was taking me. I always want to move at a faster pace and I can be patient when required but generally speaking, I’m a very impatient person and I’m, “I want it now, I want it yesterday, I want it perfect.”
I’m a perfectionist. This is also a problem because that makes my processes slower. I’m also very by the book so it’s like the worksheet says to do this and Mike said to do it this way in the training, but I would get in my own way with feeling like everything had to be just so before I can move on to the next thing. Time and time again, especially in the Facebook group, people are, “Take a breath, keep going.
You can always circle back around and edit and re-work your way through that lesson. Not everything has to be perfect or 100% complete. All your i’s dotted and t’s crossed. It’s okay.” That was hard for me to … Yeah, that was a hurdle for me. My self talk was garbage. I started worrying I would never make this happen for myself and that I would let myself down especially as a mom because one of my biggest motivations for doing all of this is because I wanted more freedom in my life.
I wanted a lifestyle where I could be the mom and do it how I wanted and not have anybody telling me that I had to be chained to my desk for 40 hours a week. I had several points where I got really down on myself. Her birthday’s in May and about late March, early April of this year, I just totally face planted and anxiety and depression. It was just a hot mess because I was, “I’m failing, this isn’t working.” I got myself all psyched out and freaked out.
I don’t remember what the pivot was, but I was finally, “Okay, you know what to do. Take a deep breath and do the work and keep moving because momentum is like 99% of the Juju you need to get through this. It’s like if you can literally keep doing one more thing every day, you will make progress. It’s sitting back and saying, “Oh well this isn’t working,” that gets you stuck because well, yeah, if you’re not taking a chance on yourself and if you’re not making daily steps of progress, yeah, you’ll fall in a hole too. Climb out and start again.
Delicia Ivins: That was definitely … Even what’s crazy is that … I think it’s harder for people who really have an academic background to do the worksheets because these people are just sitting there, “I don’t know if I did this 100% right. Did I-“
Mollie: It doesn’t match the template.
Delicia Ivins: I know, freaking out and I get it. Because I did the same thing at first and when I flipped down, is helpful is … Like I was explaining to one person in the group. I was, “Look, do you remember in high school math when you’d have a test, right? Like problem number three you did not know the answer to and you would just freak out and stare at it.
Then you would get a problem number four and part of the answer to problem number three was the answer to problem number four. Just focusing and all of a sudden you’ll be, “Oh, it makes sense. I can go back and fill in the gaps, got it.” It’s funny how that works and I think the program is pretty thorough, but if you get hung up somewhere, if something doesn’t click right away for you then just ease into the next one and then that’ll give you some pieces to look at the pieces for that.
Mollie: Yeah, for sure.
The High Points
Delicia Ivins: That’s super funny because I know I did the same thing. Tell me about the high points. I know over the summer and testing that and getting your phone all up and everything and testing that targeted niche. That was a little hard, and I totally empathize with that because I did the same thing. Everybody’s got to do it. You got fall forward. Coming out of that and getting to the point where you are in now, tell me a little bit about that process and what were some of the high points and you were, “Oh.”
Mollie: Yeah. Definitely pushing through the early and then intermittent ongoing mock of my negative self talk and mindset issues. Just continuing to resist that and to try to not succumb to that. That process has been really great because it’s made me a better human and more content with myself, which is good. Doing the work, like I said, pivoting back to the first client, getting workshop for the second time and getting results was amazing.
My first thousand dollar plus invoice felt like I’d freaking won the lottery. It was so wonderful. I was, “Wow,” and then, “Yeah, I had to work to get here,” but really once you navigate your way around and you know what sticks and what works and how to talk to people and how to help them and get them to understand that they have a need that you can help with. It’s really not like rocket science and we’re not saying money grows on trees and I can print a year’s income in a month, but I can definitely make this happen.
This is not a one off, it’s not a fluke that people see me and are interested in my work and will pay me. People will continue to do that if I continue to put myself out there, so that’s awesome. Watching my husband’s excitement for me grow over time has been really cool because he too is also a pretty healthy skeptic and not being in the program, he was seeing everything from the periphery and only getting what I shared with him.
It took a little bit longer for him to go, “Oh, yeah. This is cool and this is working for you. Awesome.” That’s been super exciting because everybody needs somebody in their corner and another cool perk with him being a freelancer as well and doing video work, I was actually able with my safari client to land him a little video job with them. Just bringing him on board and being a mini agency, and establishing a relationship between the two of them that will hopefully yield more work for him as well was really cool.
Yeah, lots of little and big wins but just the overall sense of this is really going somewhere and I have momentum to build on and foolish me if I just decided to sit down and not do any more work because I’ve got a good thing going.
Delicia Ivins: You’re a mom so I can totally be, “Just keep swimming.”
Mollie: I love Dory.
On Her Future as a Freelancer
Delicia Ivins: You’ll get that, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t mom. Watch Finding Dory and be mom. You’ll be fine. How would you feel about your future now? You’ve kind of got some things that are going, some things that are yielding some concrete results. You’ve also conquered these kinds of things that aren’t, I wouldn’t say they’re not concrete, but they’re definitely from what … Like the world of nine to five, 40 hour a week.
Those people head down, do this work, get the retirement plan, that idea of concrete. You’ve got a husband that’s a freelancer and now you yourself are a freelancer. How does that play into your perception of how your future looks and what you guys are looking at and how you’re planning for your future?
Mollie: Yeah, definitely. I do feel I’m finally at the point, thank God, where my two weeks notice is within sight. It’s pretty far off there, but by the spring, I think I will be able to just say, “All right, I’m done.” I’m feeling like I said before, I’m the only person who can get my own way. I just need to keep building on this and moving and good things will come. I’m not going to say, “The possibilities are truly endless,” but it definitely looks a lot like that from where I stand, which is so cool.
I would not have said that a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago I thought like many people do, “Oh, well freelancers have x skillset like my husband. Well I can’t do that, so I’m not the freelancer type.” Now I’m, “Shoot, we can both be freelancers.” Yeah, there’s definitely a few things you have to negotiate because once I leave my job, we will not have sponsored health insurance or life insurance or short term disability or longterm disability, all of the myriad things that come with your secure job.
We know in advance what it’s going to take and we know what purchasing those things for ourselves is going to require, so we’re able to plan the budget accordingly. I know once I hit x dollars a month regular income, that’s pretty much my break even point. Then everything after that is gravy. Yeah, we definitely have had to look at finances and make those calls as judiciously and patiently as we can, but it’s coming together and it will happen. I’m excited.
Delicia Ivins: We’re … It’s kind of … Well, I won’t say it’s my fault, but I’m just trying to get him into freelancing. It’s fun because I’m getting to help with build his business and do all that. He’s good with me being related and me trying to help set up his LinkedIn and set up, teach you how to have that, do some cold emails on how to do outreach and stuff and how to position themselves and whatever. For me it’s fun because I [inaudible 00:35:44].
When we first got married, we were off on this adventure together. We were learning about ourselves, we were learning about us, who we were originally and how we work together as a couple, and then through freelancing, it’s the same thing. We’re having to learn how all this works together. It’s kind of a whole new couple adventure, which is fun.
Mollie: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Delicia Ivins: With your super power and with what you’ve learned through him, what would be your top two or three tips that you would give to someone who is considering freelancing or getting into freelancing or something along those lines.
Mollie: Yeah. I think one of the biggest things is if you have a monkey brain issues like I do, put things down on paper or an app. There’s a website called mindmeister.com that is a mind mapping website and it’s beautiful and magical and I can literally get out all of the things that I’m thinking about, the ideas that I have, all of the stuff that would usually clang around in my brain and stress me to the max.
I can get that out and have something that is a visual plan that’s digestible piece by piece. That helps a lot. I would say just in general with the work you’re doing in No Pants Project, take things one at a time. Don’t bite off the whole pizza. Take a bite at a time, you’ll be fine. There’s a coach in the program who says done beats perfect. Totally true.
Nothing has to be perfect in the work you’re doing for yourself or the work you’re doing for clients or want to market yourself. Consistency and doing the work beats perfect work. Email consistently, be present on social media, which by the way isn’t dead contrary to popular belief. It’s still there. Yeah, do the work, don’t feel like it has to be perfect.
Another thing for me specifically and the folks that I’m working with, I think a lot of people are good communicators and writers and they don’t value that enough. You have to remember not everyone can write or wants to write or wants to take the time to write or communicate whatever platform that might be. Don’t devalue that skillset.
If that comes easy to you, there are 10 people in line behind you for whom that is a struggle or a pain in butt and you can do it for them and they would be happy to pay you for it. Don’t take your skills for granted for sure.
Freelancing Tips from Mollie
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. Okay, so tell me maybe for those who are watching, maybe some breakthroughs or a really cool tactic or a strategy that you have found that really helps you as a freelancer in getting it altogether.
Mollie: Yeah. Definitely pivoting from The No Pants Project to the fast client getting workshop can be a really good tactic if you’re just eager to get some more results quicker, or if you want to have a good testing ground for several ideas. For a little while I was tossing around the idea of doing stuff more focused on food and food travel and … Oh, and then working with nonprofits, which would not have been very lucrative much as they’re awesome.
Working with nonprofits and folk serving families and disenfranchised groups. I could have very early on, if the fast client getting workshop had been an option at that point, tested each of those markets and just cold called contacts in those industries to see what would stick. I happen to … I’ve already decided on travel when I was doing that, but even then like I said, it helped to figure out, “Okay, I need to zoom out and look at a broader audience.”
if you’re, if you’re equally interested and curious in working with two or three different, totally different markets, the fast client getting workshop is a great place to test that. You have no skin in the game except for your time and some emails. You’re not running Facebook ads and spending money that you may or may not have. Literally like if you can just send 10 or 20 or 30 emails a day and it can be templated it’s okay if you don’t have to be super personalized.
I know that I’m scary. Yeah, just a few emails a day can get you tangible results as far as deciding where you want your superpower to be. I think another thing for me that really helped was realizing all of the support that I had in the group and in the coaches in particular, having the Q and A’s to listen in on and I’m just learning from other people who are asking questions that I wouldn’t have thought to ask.
in observing, oh my gosh, I learned so much. Having a place where I knew I could post questions or share work and say, “Okay guys, am I on the right track? Am I totally off base?” Just having that sounding board was a huge piece of, of building my business and getting from where I was to where I am and feeling, “Yeah, this is something that I’ve built. It’s a real thing. It’s doing something. I’m accomplishing goals right and left.”
That’s all very much thanks to the support that I had. Don’t do this in a vacuum if I can tell you one thing. I’m sure there are plenty of programs out there that you can purchase them worksheets or templates or videos or whatever and watch it and bada bing bada boom, you’re supposed to have this new life and that’s all fine and dandy, but if you don’t have people to share it with and people to walk through with, you will not get the same results.
I don’t have any prior experience to tell you that, but I’m just telling you now I have gotten at least 20 times my investment in the program from, from the work that I’ve done in the last year and a half. That’s because of the people who get back and consistently get back. Don’t do it by yourself.
Mollie’s Corner
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. I think that’s why the coaching aspect is, and the Facebook group and everything was so key. That was why I joined because when I was looking at programs, I looked at about five or six different programs that were all going, “Learn this thing, learn this skill, have your own business,” whatever, and Mike’s Webinar was one of the first ones where I was, “Okay, but what if I get stuck?”
They’re, “Oh no, there’s coaches, there’s the accountability person, there’s this Facebook support group, I’ll be doing Q and A’s,” and I was, “Okay, I can handle it.” Because I just know me. It wasn’t my thing. In the program, it was my confidence and myself. For me, it was, “I’m probably going to get stuck somewhere.”
For those people who are considering looking at The No Pants Program right now, what would you say to them? Maybe they’re in the open community or maybe they’ve watched the Webinar, but they’re not really sure. They’re reading through the blogs, trying to figure out if it’s legit, if it’s real, if it will work for them?
Mollie: I would say don’t wait. Your future self will thank you more than you know, and whether it’s six months down the road or three years down the road. This is the part where I cry. Obviously I’m coming at it very clearly from the angle of a mom who just wants to be with her kid more, but you need to know that. Right now you’re doing an amazing job.
Don’t feel guilty for trying something and you’re not getting it right the first time. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Ask for loads of help. There are plenty of people who want to give it to you and this program and this group is the best place I can think of to get the help you need and deserved to make a really massive shift in your life.
I’m not the same person I was a year and a half ago and I’m so glad because she was feeling pretty helpless in the midst of being totally elated mom. Just feeling, “Okay, there’s definitely a ceiling here and I don’t know where to go.” A lot of that was doing part two. My feeling like I had to hold up my end of the bargain with finances and keeping us stable.
Because with my husband freelancing, like I said, insurance and stuff was my responsibility and I felt like I couldn’t walk away from that without endangering my family and to have somebody say, “No, like there’s another way to do this and here’s the path. Let me walk with you on it.” Yeah, that’s been a life changer and I know that’s a big statement to make but it has changed my life. Totally.
Delicia Ivins: I’m sorry. I’m trying to dry this out. I knew you were going to have it, Mollie.
Mollie: Oh, I know. Sorry. I told you. Yeah, so thing’s are good.
Delicia Ivins: I know. One of my favorite things about doing this and for me, why it’s such an honor for me to be able to do this, is that I get to see everybody doing the work in the group and they help me as I build my business and I get to help them as they build theirs and everybody’s helping each other. When I get to see somebody one on one and see them as close to live as we can be.
This is just so much more personal and I’m so proud of you because I know that you’ve put in the work and I’ve watched you in the work and you, and so many other students and stuff and NPP like there are some people who they have a key skillset and they already have an audience. They’ve already been building their freelance business, but they still don’t know how to go full time. Those people, like they skyrocket and they get it. They’re out nine days, they’re good.
Then there’s some people who are starting from the ground up. We didn’t know we had another option and it takes us a little longer, but that’s okay because we’re the strivers and we’re going to get it. When we get it, it’s going to be freaking awesome. I’m super excited for you because I know I’ve been watching you and seeing how much you’ve been striving and I see you’re on the precipice of this great awakening of Molly Horne and it’s so fun to watch.
I love watching people blossom.
Mollie: Me too.
Delicia Ivins: Molly, you’re amazing and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to hang up with me and for making my mascara run. Lunchtime, so awesome on that. I look forward to seeing you in the group later and I’m super excited. I’m going to get this over to the team because I’d love to get this up soon. I want to make sure that everybody can get the amount of encouragement that I got just from having this time with you.
They can get that and they can feel that and they know that they don’t have to be stuck. They don’t have to have a ceiling, that they can take the skills that they have and the abilities that they have and the gifts and the experiences they have, and they can create a lifestyle where they help people and serve people just like you do now.
Mollie: Amen.
Delicia Ivins: You’re awesome. I will see you in the Facebook group. Yeah?
Mollie: Yes ma’am.
Delicia Ivins: All right.
