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On Episode 22 of the Law & Business podcast, I chat with Sarah DeGeorge of Socially Dedicated. It’s a part of our Philly Bloggers series. Sarah and I chat about her blog, Socially Dedicated, and what it means for business. Sarah has tips on her blog, such as how to stay on a client’s money habits, how to balance your work and life properly, and what it means to be a freelancer.
We also chat about how Sarah uses her blog and her social media consulting concurrently.
You can find Sarah’s blog, Socially Dedicated at http://www.socdedicated.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/socdedicated
Here is a lightly-edited transcript of the episode:
Intro:
You’re listening to the Law and Business
podcast hosted by Anthony Verna. We tackle the difficult questions where business
and the law intersect to help you run a smarter business and avoid costly
mistakes. Brought to you by Verna Law, PC a full-service law firm, focusing on
patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain names, and advertising law. For more
information, call (914) 908-6757 or send an email to Anthony@Vernalaw.com.
Anthony Verna:
And welcome to the Law and Business podcast. We’re in the middle of our
Philadelphia bloggers series. You like the side of that, Sarah, don’t you?
Yeah, right with me is Sarah DeGeorge of the Socially Dedicated blog. How’d I
do?
Sarah DeGeorge:
Good. Great. Made it sound better than I ever do. So that’s what counts.
Anthony Verna:
Wonderful. Wonderful. Once again, the Law and Business podcast is brought to
you by Verna Law, focusing on intellectual property and advertising law. You
already heard that in the introduction. So, Sarah, let’s start here. Tell us
about your blog and what you do.
Sarah DeGeorge:
So my blog is kind of an extension of my career, so I freelance and socially
dedicated. It came from both my initials are SD and I do social media marketing.
Anthony Verna:
That’s very handy.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah, I know, right? There was, there was a plan to incorporate a logo when I
finally put it together and have my signature being the SD part of the logo.
But that’s a completely different story. But anyways, my freelancing is like I
said, then carried over to my blog because I wanted to be able to kind of talk
about it, and a lot of people that are bloggers tend to, and, I see a lot of
them, they are freelancing on the side more so with content creation because of
their writing and everything like that. So, it was kind of like a three-sided
venture because it’s it’s a portfolio page, it’s a blog itself, , I put it as
like a business front too. So, it shows the services that I do alongside the
information that I put out with the blog. So that’s kind of how I positioned
the website itself. Whole package kind of.
Anthony Verna:
Yeah, I understand. I understand that completely. So, when I look at your blog,
I see topics like best business practice of being yourself, freelance truly
isn’t free, staying on top of client’s money habits. Are these topics that you
draw from your experiences in work?
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah, I’d say so. Sometimes something might happen and instead of me being
grumpy and spiteful and being all you know, write a blog to inform others about
the situation and how to do it in a way where you have your freelancing career
and your reputation behind you and it’s good, everything like that. Like
sometimes it is inspired by my own personal experiences in a way that I can
almost, it’s a teachable lesson. Oh, unfortunately I have to go through said
lesson, but I’d like to help other people not have to go through it. Yeah, Basically
I think most of it is kind of like personal experience. Some of it is just I
see something, or something sparks my interest. Maybe nothing happened
personally to me, but I’m like, hmm. Like that’s something we should talk
about. And I tried to put my own spin on it. I’m still young so I’m, I’d like
to say I’m kind of in like that mid-level part right now. I’m no longer, I
would say entry level. I would like to say I’m, I’m getting to the level where
I could be like, Oh yeah, I’m sure sort of an expert in the career by like riding
that middle level where I can write about it, where I’m like, here’s my
hindsight, but then here is where I’m working towards too. And maybe somebody
else who’s on that journey can relate.
Anthony Verna:
What sparked the idea of making a blog that related to work in the first place?
Because in a way, in a way your blog and work are intertwined. It’s very
similar to my blog as well, my blog and this podcast, my law practice. I mean
everything gets combined as one anyway. So, what sparked that for you?
Sarah DeGeorge:
I just felt like I had a lot of ideas and maybe like a lot of thoughts. And I’m
really in my own group of friends. Not, you know, the Philly bloggers, we’re
all bloggers. But in my own life I’m really the only freelancer I know. So,
it’s not like I could really talk to people about this in my own groups. So, I
wanted to kind of put my thoughts out there. And, in writing, because I went to
school for journalism a little side. So obviously writing is kind of like what
I do. So, I felt like this was a place where I’m putting my thoughts out there.
I’m putting them out there for somebody else to hopefully, sure. Talk to me
about it. Agree with me, disagree, anything. I felt like it was a good platform
for me to hopefully help other freelancers and small business, you know,
anything along those lines.
Anthony Verna:
And now your freelancing is social media and other digital…
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah, so basically anything in that realm. I kind of teeter on the lines of
communication and marketing. Cause I do content creation, SEO, paid marketing,
like ad words, Bang. So, I wear many hats, I feel like for a lot of the time,
but it helps because I get to have my creative…
Anthony Verna:
Everything is under digital media.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yes. You know, it all kind of combines in itself. If somebody wants me to write
their blog posts for them and then they’re like, oh wait, you do ad words too. Do
you want to do our paid marketing too? And I’m like, Hey, I actually know that
it’s not something that I’m like, I don’t know what paid marketing is.
Anthony Verna:
Sure. So, I want to ask you about your latest blog entry. Close the Laptop and Breathe
seems a little bit at odds with what you actually do.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah, I think it was almost kind of like one of those things where I’m writing
it and I’m hopefully like, Sarah, you’re writing this, so hopefully you take
this into consideration. I feel like it’s one of those things where as
freelancers you, sometimes you want to practice what you preach, but you know,
I’m writing this blog as I should be closing the laptop and breathing and you
know, it’s kind of like, it’s almost like an oxymoron or something where you’re
like, wait, but you’re, you’re doing the opposite of it by writing this blog
sometimes. Obviously, I think it’s like one of those things where you write it
in hopes that you almost like it’s a teachable lesson to yourself. The
backstory is obviously they are friends and few sponsors hosted a yoga event at
the Philadelphia Marina. So, it was a good event and hopefully it was a
teachable lesson to freelancers that hey, if you’re invited somewhere, just
take the time. Don’t worry. The work is going to be there whether you take an
hour for yoga or not. So that was basically the whole concept of the blog. So,
hopefully somebody else does yoga or whatever it is they want to do to relax
for a little bit and close the laptop and breathe.
Anthony Verna:
So do you find that the blog helps with the work/life balance or…
Sarah DeGeorge:
I guess relatively speaking in comparison, you know, fashion bloggers and
travel bloggers, there’s a little bit more of like a colorfulness to theirs
where I’m talking about freelancing and small business. It may be a little bit
more of a dry topic. But for me when I’m losing my creative juices from actual
work that I do, Socially Dedicated is a good place where I’m writing about
something I actually want to write about and it kind of is a relaxing kind of
moment when I’m just writing cause I chose the topic, I wasn’t handed it. And,
of course, obviously I don’t mind what I do and freelancing but at least this
is almost like my own self-curated work that I do. So, a little different than
you know, being handed something and you’re like I have to research this. I maybe
don’t know what it is about or at least this, I’m like okay I feel confident enough
I could just type. I don’t have to do research beyond like statistics or you
know, things like that.
Anthony Verna:
We get that way too. Where either after filing some applications or writing a
motion for litigation, I got to turn off the screens and I have to walk away
even though I also know I’ve got blog posts that are like sitting in the back
of my head, waiting to come out. And I look at the last time I actually put up
a blog post I’m like, oh, I’m overdue.
Sarah DeGeorge:
No, and that’s actually, I think I’ve written about that in the past. Do you
write? Sometimes I feel like as bloggers we see a gap and we’re like, we need
to fill that gap. It should’ve just come naturally. Like should you just, right
when it’s like you really feel like you want to write or do you go on as to
where you’re like, ah, it’s been too long and then you write something and
maybe it isn’t 100% what you want, but you’re doing it because you feel that
you haven’t updated in a while. It’s kind of like a weird, I guess, like battle
within. You’re like, do I wait until I have this perfect blog to write and then
it’s going to feel great, I’m going to be happy about it, or do I make sure I’m
constantly updating content just for the concept of updating content?
Anthony Verna:
Yeah. There are some who say perfect is the enemy of good.
Sarah DeGeorge:
I can agree with that.
Anthony Verna:
My particular struggle with blogging really is that. It’s like I need to
balance the fact that I work and I have a practice where I have other people in
the practice as well, and so you have to balance that along with the fact that
a blog entry is important in today’s world, when your blog is related to your
work, , and you’re not really selling advertising on your blog. Whereas, if
you’re selling advertising on your blog, that is your work and that is your job
and so you do have to get something out, but your blog, when it’s related to
your work, well, it’s marketing for you or you’re missing a marketing
opportunity.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah. It’s just, it’s one of those things where you’re just like, what is the
right balance and how do I get to that point where I know the right balance and
I think it’s a very open ended. I think it depends on everyone’s schedule. With
blogging, you don’t want to burn yourself out because then I’ve had friends
with blogs and they burn out and then they were so good at it, but they were
almost too good at keeping up with it. And then all of a sudden now I look back
and they haven’t wrote a blog in like four months because they’re like, I
couldn’t do it. I didn’t even do it. I couldn’t do anymore. And then it’s then
maybe the idea was maybe you were just doing a little too much. Maybe if you
had scaled back even the slightest bit, you wouldn’t have hit this wall of
sorts, you know? So, I guess there are places where they’re like, oh, this is how
many times you should be updating this or how many times you should be
blogging. But then at the same time, I think like there’s that gray area.
Anthony Verna:
Do you set goals for how often you want to post or is it just whenever the
spirit moves you to write something?
Sarah DeGeorge:
So currently I have a pretty full plate with clients, so I think I’m on like
the, when the spirit needs to just because of just like I said, my current
lifestyle. But I’m kind of in the process of looking through my clients and
seeing when contracts are up. Are there any clients that maybe there is no
future growth between us and you know, I’m trying to make my schedule be as it
having like, you know, 10 clients, but I’d rather have like five clients in
which it’s a good relationship. I’m not getting stretched thin with time. With
that being said, hopefully when I go through kind of my, I don’t wanna say
purge of sorts, I will maybe flip to the other side where I’m gonna be a little
bit more structured in my blogging schedule. Like my blog is very important to
me and I want to see it continued to grow at some point. It’s growing, but you
know, I’d like for it to be also a focus of mine instead of where I go to when
I need a creative reboot.
Anthony Verna:
If you were to pin an ultimate goal on your blog, what would it be?
Sarah DeGeorge:
I’d really love for my blog to be where I gain more of my clients. So, a lot of
my clients right now, and it’s great because it is referral based, so I’d like
to think that I’m doing well, but I’d like my blog to almost be more or less
where people are like, hey, I like what she’s saying. She seems like she knows
what she’s doing, let me hire her and that be where I find most of my work. I’d
like people to find me based on the fact that they think I’m knowledgeable or
that I’m a good freelancer and I can help them. That’s what I know best. So
that’s why I write about it. So hopefully.
Anthony Verna:
When you write a blog entry, how do you advertise that you’ve written a blog entry?
How does that work?
Sarah DeGeorge:
So, it depends on what the blog entry is. If it’s just a blog entry where it’s
kind of like a think piece, I usually post it on the some groups that I’m
involved in on LinkedIn, like the usual avenues. My social media, I’ll make
like a graphic on Instagram leading them to the blog. I haven’t done that
lately, but that’s what I used to do, like new blog and those are my avenues
right now for the most part. The other thought of that was, if it is a blog
regarding something, so I’m trying to do like a small business spotlight if you
will, in Philly. So, we recently did Founding Footsteps. They’re a tour group.
So, when I’m done with the blog, I obviously send it to said person and then if
they want to share it on their social feeds.
Anthony Verna:
Yeah, I mean in a way this is some of the stuff that you blog about when you
think about it, like these are the connections and you have a blog post
specifically on connections for small business people. It sounds like you try
to keep that in your mind as these connections and you keep the advice that you
gave on the blog.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Like I said, I try my best. Sometimes. I think the one part where…
Anthony Verna:
We’re all allowed to make mistakes and slack off and take time for ourselves.
So, don’t worry about, yes, of course you’re doing it to your best of your
ability.
Sarah DeGeorge:
So I try to make those connections. Especially I think small businesses and
Philadelphia, shameless plug for Philadelphia, I think we’re really great city
where people actually want others to grow. So, I don’t look at another maybe
freelancer, small business blogger as a competition. I’m like, how can we
formulate something? Like I ran into somebody one time and they wanted me to
give talks with them. They were like, “Oh hey, like let’s try and do something
when we can find the time.” So, I try to connect and disseminate my information
from my blog out to others who might either want to work together with me on
something for greater cause or so on and so forth.
Anthony Verna:
It makes perfect sense. And I am glad to see that you are practicing what
you’re preaching on the blog. I do want to talk about another entry you had
back in April about the fears of small business owners and freelancers. What
are some of those fears and what advice do you have to get over them?
Sarah DeGeorge: (
I think the biggest fear for freelancers and small businesses is just the money.
I know it stinks and I’m not really a money driven person, but it is the
biggest fear because you’re no longer working underneath somebody where this is
your salary and this is that. And I think that…
Anthony Verna:
I would, I would completely agree with you. Cash flow is a big, big fear.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Oh yeah. And then, cause you can make as much as you want, that’s great, but
you can also not make anything cause you’re not guaranteed. And I think another
fear with freelancing is you’re kind of your own entity. And if anything goes
wrong, it just completely falls on you. There’s nobody that you can be like,
well you can talk to my manager or something like that. So, it’s a lot of
accountability and I think that’s a huge, you’re basically in charge of your
success or failure. Sure. So those, I think…
Anthony Verna:
Well, I mean to look at it the other way, when you do something well, that’s
also on your shoulders and people look at you as saying you helped me out in a
situation.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah. Unfortunately, I feel like people tend to go to the bad side first. I think,
just like everybody’s like, oh, it could go really well, but then everybody’s
like, yeah, but most likely it’s not gonna work out. And I’d say a good chunk
of people usually go to the pessimistic end of things first.
Anthony Verna:
I hope we’re not all Eeyores in life.
Sarah DeGeorge:
My boyfriend is always like, when we watch it Winnie the Pooh, he’s like, “Oh
hey, it’s you and it’s Eeyore.” So, he’s like, there’s Sarah. We tend to be
very hard on ourselves and that’s I think why that tends to be the case. And
then you’re like, oh it worked out, but it’s not going to work out next time.
Anthony Verna:
Oh yeah. What advice do you have on getting past some of these fears?
Sarah DeGeorge:
I think you just have to focus on the wins.
Like I know that sounds really simple and it’s not as simple, but you kind of
like, if I’m feeling really down about something that happened. Maybe I send
something in, and my client was like, ah, it’s really not that good. And then
you kind of get down and you’re like, wait a second, but I just sent this in.
So, for example, something didn’t work out with one of my clients, but then I
was like, wait, but I just pitched to Runner’s World and we got an article in Runner’s
World. Then they have, and you know a bunch of people like that. I was like,
wait, I did that right. Maybe I didn’t do this right, but I did that right. So
that’s kind of key to kind of keeping yourself in check is just to remembering
the good things. I was on the phone with a client yesterday and he was like,
you know, you’re a very important cog in this little, small business wheel that
we have. You know, sometimes you think that your work isn’t getting appreciated.
But then you hear that and you’re like, wait, no. They said I am an important
part of this, so I’m going to remember that comment for sure when I’m feeling
blue.
Anthony Verna:
I mean I have two particular thoughts and you can tell me what you think about
this. One is, I know for a lot of small businesses, it’s difficult to do this,
but outsourcing certainly helps. Like when it comes to money and being an
attorney, I’m not an accountant so I know how to touch Quickbooks. I can look
at it and I can read it because I had my own practice now six, seven, eight.
Yeah. And longer than I ever thought that I would have to have my own practice.
So, I first started by just doing Quickbooks. Myself and with my former partner,
we would just spend a day doing Quickbooks and that’s like eight hours of a day
wasted on Quickbooks. So, one of the things I’ve done is I’ve gotten a
bookkeeper. In the end, that’s outsourcing. Qhen it comes to collecting money,
some of that falls onto my bookkeeper. Then on the cashflow issue, what are the
ways that you can increase your cash flow?
My firm takes credit cards, which for a lot of people sounds weird for a
lawyer, but I mean, it’s normal in today’s world. And I even have a colleague
who accepts Chase Mobile payments, as strange as that might sound. She’s like,
yeah, I do some things post credit and she doesn’t even take credit cards, but
she’ll take mobile. Oh, I know, how strange. So there are ways that you can do
to make sure that your fears are alleviated by getting that support. And I
realized that sometimes that’s not easy to do, but you kind of have to
outsource some things to keep your support rolling.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Yeah. It’s funny, actually, I was going back, I actually shared one of those
posts on my social media yesterday. It was like, the title was like, “When’s a Good
Time to Hire Employees?” So ironically, that’s why your question, I was like,
Hey, I just posted something about that so I like it. It’s just l every company
has growing pains or small business freelancers, even sometimes. A a freelancer
you are like, hmm, well I have this other freelancing friend that’s better at
this than I, maybe I can have them work on this. So, I think it’s definitely a
good way to alleviate some of those fears. Like if it’s something you’re just
really not comfortable with, it’s probably better to outsource it because
you’re going to get a better return having somebody really good doing it than
you trying to like just pass something off as whatever it was and they’re going
to be like, “wait, what did you even just do?” and you’re like, I don’t know.
Anthony Verna:
Right. When you take over the social media campaign of a company, is it usually
because a company has been doing it themselves and they’re not seeing a return
or a specific focus? It’s easier thought of then said.
Sarah DeGeorge:
You know, I’ve had the people that are like, I’m not seeing a return, and I
don’t understand the analytics. Can you look at them? Another is just simply,
they just didn’t know how even how to set it up. Like you know, you just have
the basic and then some they’re like, I saw that you did this for x client, you
know, they’re my friend. Could you do this for my company as well? And then I
look, and you have to take into a whole bunch of things into account. And I’ve
been given social media like marketing and management positions based on many
different reasons. Just from the most basic to more in depth, deep dive type
reasons.
Anthony Verna:
Sure. Understood. We’re running a little bit out of time, so let’s end on this.
I actually like how your blog looks.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Oh, okay. That’s good. Sometimes I question that.
Anthony Verna:
So, I’m curious what your backend is and how, how you set that up.
Sarah DeGeorge:
It’s really simple because…
Anthony Verna:
I’m glad that you said this really simple cause I think a
lot of people out there listening don’t necessarily realize how simple it is.
Sarah DeGeorge:
Oh, yeah, cause a lot of people they think to have a good blog they’d do WordPress,
they need to know coding and stuff like that. And WordPress is probably the
best platform for you to have the most control under. But because I was more
focused on the blog end then like the web design, I just use Weebly. It’s very
drag and drop. I set the whole thing up and it was very seamless. And I like
how their layout was. I originally had a WordPress website. Wasn’t that pretty?
Anthony Verna
Like for me, I had somebody set up my site and I have a bachelor’s in computer
science, but it’s been a long time since I’ve coded. So, I have the WordPress site.
It’s there. There are some areas that could be drag and drop. But what I like
about the blog section of this is that all I have to do is add a new post,
title it however I want, just start writing, and it’s there.
Sarah DeGeorge:
No, I agree. I think it’s just basically find the platform that works for you.
If you want to get into deeper stuff like the SEO and stuff like that, again, WordPress
seems to be the best for those types of, I guess goals. If that’s your goal. For
now, Weebly is fine. For me, I’ll probably at one point, because I have friends
graduating that are like web designers and stuff, I’d love to give, you know
what I mean, help freelance or helping freelance or I’d love to pay them to
create, you know, and then I would move everything over to that new platform
that they made for me. But in the interim, Weebly.
Anthony Verna:
Yeah, like I said, I do like how it looks. Sarah, tell everybody how they can
find you.
Sarah DeGeorge:
You can find me at socdedicated.com – s o c dedicated.com. You can also find me
under the same usernames for Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Anthony Verna:
Keeping it uniform. Rule number one. All
right guys, thanks very much for listening to the Law and Business podcast.
We’ll be back in a few days with another episode. Thanks very much for
listening.
Outro:
This has been the Law and Business podcast. Visit vernalaw.com for more
episodes. To contact Verna Law PC, send an email to Anthony@vernalaw.com or
call (914) 358-6401.
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