Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

Wish me luck as I try and cram 4 weeks of work into 3 weeks this month so I can sit and stuff my face with mince pies for the remainder of 2025.

Hope you've got a better plan than me!

P.S. This week on Instagram, I shared the tiny, easy system that gets me clients every month. Check it out here. And don't forget to give me a follow for regular tips and tricks!

Here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I wrote 2 pieces for clients (Spoke and an influencer marketing tool)

👉 I refreshed 1 Shopify post

👉 I had 1 kick-off with a new client

👉 I held 1 freelance mentoring call

👉 I had a Q4 check-in with one of my long-term clients

👉 I reviewed the translation of a product for a new client

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~16

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~2

💰 Total revenue this week: £2,800

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Check out my three practical courses that have helped 500+ people get more clients, earn more money, and create better content.

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

This week I want to bring you into a conversation I had with a freelancer who honestly blew me away.

She’s a visual artist and illustrator doing incredibly meaningful work in the cultural space. We’re talking community workshops, commissions for museums and galleries, collaborations with archives, and this beautiful ability to use her art to explore identity and underrepresented stories.

But she’s also dealing with something nearly every freelancer wrestles with, whether they’ll admit it out loud or not: consistency.

Consistent work, consistent income, consistent opportunities.

She told me she keeps having quiet spells, unpredictable peaks and dips, and no real idea how to make things feel steadier.

And honestly, saaaaaame. I’ve been there. I’ve lived through those months where one week you’re drowning in work and the next week you’re staring at your inbox.

So instead of giving her a lecture on theory, I walked her through what I would do if I were in her exact position.

The outreach problem

The first thing she said to me was, “I’m doing outreach but I don’t know if I’m doing it right,” and I hear this constantly.

What most freelancers think is a confidence problem is almost always a systems problem. If I had her skillset and her inconsistent pipeline, the first thing I’d fix is the structure behind her outreach with a simple plan that answers the only three questions that matter:

1. Who am I trying to work with?
2. Where do I find them?
3. What am I actually saying?

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Her current approach was what most freelancers default to: random cold emails into random inboxes and then internalising the silence as rejection.

But as we talked, it became obvious that she has waaaay more potential clients than she realises, she just hasn’t grouped them into buckets.

So if I were her, I’d start with three:

Bucket 1: Cultural institutions. Museums, galleries, archives, heritage centres, a.ka. the places that already speak her language. They get what she does because they live in the same world.

Bucket 2: Local businesses aligned with her identity-driven style. Think restaurants, theatres, indie shops, boutiques, a.k.a. places that constantly need visual work but don’t know who to approach.

Bucket 3: Job-role-based outreach. Instead of hunting by industry, search by job title: Art Director, Engagement Manager, Creative Producer, Visual Lead, Exhibition Curator.

These people exist across every kind of organisation. Suddenly you’re not limited to “places I know,” you’re expanding into “roles that value my work,” which immediately multiplies your opportunities.

We also talked referrals, because most clients love recommending great people but will not do it unprompted.

I told her to make a list of everyone she’s worked with this past year and send a simple, confident message letting them know she’s opening a few slots and asking for introductions.

Uncovering your positioning when you don't know what makes you different

We also dug into positioning, which us freelancers looooove to overcomplicate until they’re spiralling into existential identity crises.

She said she struggles to explain what makes her work unique, but the minute she described what she does, it was obvious: she brings cultural stories into mainstream spaces, blends traditional mediums with tech, approaches every project with depth and care, and puts identity at the centre of her creative process.

Truth time: your unique positioning isn’t something you sit down and invent (it's not a simple tagline). It’s something you uncover through the people who’ve already experienced your work.

I told her to ask past clients why they chose her, what stood out, and what felt different. Those answers are gold because clients see your value without all the insecurities and blind spots you carry around. Their words can then become your website copy, your portfolio framing, your outreach language, your bio.

If any part of her story feels familiar (e.g. the irregular projects and the sense that outreach is just shouting into a void), here’s what I want you to take away from this: freelancing becomes exponentially easier when you stop relying on vibes and start relying on systems.

A simple weekly plan. A few clear outreach buckets. A positioning story shaped by the people who already believe in you. Sounds so simple, right?

Consistency won’t magically arrive. You (unfortunately) have to build it.

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As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

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