Julie Sherwood, a mum from Kent & Freelance PR/Marketing Consultant recently agreed to review the widely acclaimed Mrs Moneypenny’s ‘Careers Advice for Ambitious Women’ written by Financial Times columnist and star of Channel 4′s ‘Superscrimpers’. We found out whether we should be dusting off our bookshelves and making room for this title. But first we took this opportunity to find out more about one of our users.
What prompted you to start Freelancing?
Having children! I started when my first daughter (Emily, now 7), was just weeks old. I have always loved working, and I needed an outlet to still feel like the old me. It wasn’t about the money initially, more about clinging on to some independence.
What do you enjoy most about Freelancing?
Meeting some incredibly inspiring people and learning qualities about myself on the way. Freelancing is a powerful journey, you work so hard at securing work and then producing the work. It’s a constant cycle to keep busy. I love the flexibility freelancing offers around family life. I am lucky to fit work in between by children’s nap-times, nursery or school and I work in the evenings.
Are you a full time or part time Freelancer?
Well – it seems like I never end working. Although I probably work around 25 hours a week, it feels like more because I never have a day off. But that’s the beauty of my work – I can do some work in the morning and evening – and take the afternoon off. Sometimes I will be working even on Saturday evenings whilst watching the X-Factor, but I may have had lunch with the girls they day before. As a freelancer, you also work extra hard promoting yourself so I do a lot of social networking, blog and article writing to boost my profile.
Do you teach/train or tutor?
I do offer training/mentoring through my work. I coach other Mumpreneurs on how they can drum up publicity for their business by doing their own PR. I love it – it’s so rewarding to reveal the secrets of PR and show other business owners what they can achieve on very little budget.
What job/project have you enjoyed the most and why?
I have loved working on high profile projects, such as Peppa Pig Books when I freelanced for Penguin Children’s Books. Well known brands are easy to communicate and it’s great to encourage a love of books with children. I particularly love working with new businesses who have never secured press coverage before as you need to be more creative with selling the client to a journalist, and it’s a real buzz when a new business gets their first spot of press coverage.
Tell us about the most recent job you won…
My most recent job was a real eye opener – I had to produce a series of press releases for a new car cleaning product launching in the UK. The car cleaning products don’t use any water, so I had to research the environmental impacts of cleaning products on our environment and water usage and promote the benefits. The company I worked with were based in the States, so the time delay was quite handy as it helped that I could work in the evenings and liaise directly with them -this suited me.
If you had to fast forward your day what would it look like?
It would definitely start with me checking my list…I am hot on lists, so the night before I work out what I need to do for my freelancing work, and home life too. (I have two daughters, aged 4 and 7, and my husband runs his own IT development company. I need to make sure that I make the most of every second of my day. I have learnt to set boundaries in my day and everyone then knows what I am focusing on. ) First things first, I wake my daughters up – devoted my time to them until I get to the school gates just before 9am, I then march back home where I get straight onto checking my PPH messages, email and social networking sites. I like to keep a good online presence, so I check industry news and get a few tweets out. Speaking to feature writers, journalists and editors on pitching ideas and/or case studies to try and get my client some press coverage would be next on the agenda.
During the day if I have writers block or need a five minute break, I might whip the hoover round the living room or hang out some washing. By the time I look round it’s 3pm, when I down tools and become Mum again. I collect my daughters from school and then devote my time purely to them until bedtime around 7pm.
I used to try and answer emails and phone calls when the children were here, but I have learnt not to now. For the client it looks unprofessional to have children in the background, and for my children, they see that Mummy is not giving them total attention. It’s not fair to anyone.
I often then check emails and catch up on some work after 8pm most evenings, do my To Do List for the next day and perhaps write a blog or two. It’s exhausting, but I love what I do and I could never imagine working in an office 9-5pm again!
I feel lucky, if I get any gaps in between work, I sometimes nip out during the afternoon to do my supermarket shopping and a schedule in a power walk once a week with a friend. Even though I am busy, the power walk is always so worthwhile – the gossip and giggles are so refreshing!! I also allocate an hour a week to my daughter’s school (which is only five minutes away) to listen to children read – so freelancing gives me the flexibility to do this.
