27. Talking people, planet + profits with Sally Fox

Intro

Welcome to 15 Minute Freelancer, your snack-sized guide to being your own boss and building a business and life you love. I'm your host Louise Shanahan. My LinkedIn bio says I'm a freelance health copywriter. But for the next 15 minutes I'll be tickling your ears with practical strategies behind the scenes stories and nuggets of wisdom so you can create freelance business that works for you. Whether you're just starting out or you've been self-employed for a while, I'll be right here with you to help me navigate the ups and downs of freelancing life. So grab a coffee relax and join me for 15 minutes of freelancing fun. Don't forget to hit subscribe. 

Louise: Hello, and welcome back to the 15 Minute Freelancer podcast. One of my favourite things about doing this podcast is having an excuse to talk to my internet friends, sort of in real life, but not really, but I can hear their voices. Today I'm very excited to be speaking to Sally Fox, who is joining me all the way from Spain. Hi, Sally. Welcome.

Sally: Hello, thank you so much for having me. It's so nice to finally chat in person.

L: So in case anyone doesn't know, Sally is a freelance copywriter who works with sustainable brands, and has shared a lot of her journey towards building sustainability and social and environmental responsibility into her own business. And this is something that I think a lot of us would quite like to do, but maybe aren't too sure where to start or even what's possible as a small business, if you're just working on your own, where sustainability usually means “are you making enough money to pay your bills year on year?”. So I've asked Sally to join me today to give us some pointers on what it means to run a freelance business with a commitment to sustainability. So, Sally, perhaps the obvious first question, then, is to get clear about what we mean when we talk about sustainability. So how do you define it?

S: Yeah, good question. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, it’s become a bit of a buzzword, I think and it's so broad that it ends up really not meaning anything. So for me, it means finding a way to kind of live our daily lives in a way that will secure or improve the future of our environment, and obviously the people in it. So that can mean things like regenerating the natural world. That's kind of the obvious one, but also things like fighting for social equality and justice, just any way that you can have a positive impact. It might be like a low waste beauty brand, or a garment repair service, or ecotourism. And that's kind of the large-scale view of it but I also see that there's a kind of smaller-scale aspect of sustainability, which is running a sustainable business. And it's kind of what you mentioned, like paying the bills and running a business that suits you, and that you can continue running for a long time. So rejecting hustle culture, for me, is a big one; giving ourselves the freedom to just really enjoy freelance life; choosing the clients that we want to work with; you know, creating for pleasure as well as for money. Or just taking long lunches, whatever, you know, whatever that means for you. But having a business that you enjoy running and that you want to continue running for a long time. 

L: Well, I'm all for that. When we think about how we actually go about incorporating sustainability into our freelance business, what does that mean? You gave some examples there, it could be about how you run your business from a personal point of view. But is it also about proactively promoting sustainability? Whether that would be through speaking up about things that you care about, or green investment or planting trees, which I know you have written about? Is it also about thinking about things that we might be doing now that we should stop? Where would be a good place to start?

S: Yeah, so I mean, the first thing I wanted to say was that something like 95% of businesses in the UK are small businesses, so that's under 10 employees. So that's a massive force for change. I think that's really exciting and important to think about and at the same time, while I am a really big advocate for individual action, and the things that we can each do, I think we all know that to halt the climate crisis, we do need governments and big corporations to step in and do what they need to do. But as small businesses, our kind of superpower is that we get to make those changes really quickly and show what's possible and kind of apply a bit of collective pressure. 

The other thing I do want to kind of caveat is I realise how busy we all are. Like, most of us do our own marketing, our own finances, all of that stuff. So I think it's really important that we don't put pressure on ourselves and that we know we don't have to be everything to everyone. We can't do everything. So I think what's really cool about being a small businesses that you get to choose. There's so many good ways that you can work that into your business, as you say. So, whether it's planting trees or whether it's donating, you know, if you really care about ocean conservation, you could donate a percentage of your profit to that. You know, things like reducing your paper consumption, choosing refurbished electronics – all these things are part of like a practical aspect of running your business. But at the same time, if you care about social justice, you could look at you know, supporting upcoming freelancers in your industry. If you care about mental health, it might be that you promote healthy freelance work culture and four-day weeks. You know, there's so many ways that you can do it. 

I think my advice would just be to think about what really matters to you. And whether that's kind of amending the habits and behaviours in your business, whether it's raising awareness, or, you know, financially supporting that cause, focusing on the thing that really matters to you and, and realising that you don't have to do everything. 

L: That's such a good way of looking at it. 

S: I think if each of us can just do one thing that that we feel is manageable and kind of within our remit, that's not going to send us over the edge. So yeah, I think I think going paperless is a nice one, taking care on where you buy your food from and you know, reducing PVC and plastic. The thing I learned about recently, which is really interesting, is your e-footprint. Our emails, the websites that we own, the websites that we use, all have a carbon footprint, which seemed crazy to me, because I just thought the internet was in the air! But it turns out, no, there's these big data centres and they guzzle a ton of fossil fuels. And so I think things like sending fewer emails, if you can, making sure that you're constantly deleting files and getting rid of the stuff that you've got in the cloud, those kinds of things would make a difference.

L: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting one to bring up. Because I often think this when I'm sending emails through Google, and it has this message at the bottom, saying that it's carbon neutral. And I think that's kind of interesting, given just how much energy is used, storing all the information that we must have across all our different Google Apps. And then even just the fact of using Google, I'm so aware of thinking, “I need to move away from this, there's so many issues with privacy and competition,” and all that kind of thing. And I care about that. But at the same time, it is the easiest way for me to deliver the service I want to deliver to my clients. So there's always kind of a balance there. And yeah, it's a difficult one, isn't it?

S: No, it is for sure. And that pressure can be the thing that puts people off getting involved at all. And so one of the big things that I'm always really conscious of is not putting that pressure on, because I think you stand to lose people for life, you know, if you're like, you have to do this, you have to do everything, you know, you have to eat green, you can't use any plastic, you know, delete all of your emails every single day. It's not realistic. So I think it's just about making those small changes. And then you know, maybe next month, you add another little change and going from there.

L: Yeah, there's definitely an element of maybe building a rod for your own back when you make some of these commitments. You know, if you say you're holding yourself to a higher standard, and then you might worry about not meeting it. Because I definitely feel like that with health copywriting sometimes where I say I want to work with ethical brands, but there are so many different factors to consider, you know, it's really hard not to feel like you fall short, you know, there might be one brand that has great messaging about body positivity, but then their supply chain is a disaster. Or maybe there's, I don't know, a company that has a really ethical approach to manufacturing and using recycled materials, but then they don't treat their staff well, or they don't pay their taxes or something. So it's easy to feel like if you can't take every box, then it's not worth it. So I think what you're what you're seeing is a really useful way to reframe some of that and make it a bit more manageable.

S: Totally. Yeah, the way I see it is if you're flat out running a business, you don't have the time or energy to devote to it, it's fine. Like there's somebody else will be there to pick up your slack. You know, we're a collective where community and if we're all doing little things that is going to make a difference. Part of it is just talking about it just raising awareness, you know, the tree that I plant for every invoice paid, it's not going to change the world. But you know, maybe if it inspires somebody else to do it, or if you just get somebody else thinking about it, then that's something. 

L: I'm sure that helps you attract the kind of clients that you want to work with too, who share those values. 

S: Yeah, I haven't had any clients kind of outwardly mention it. But yeah, it certainly influences who gets in touch with me and the kinds of conversations we have as well, I think, which is great. You end up working with lovely people, which we all want.

L: Yeah, so I'm really interested in your social responsibility policy, which I had to snoop hat on your website. Can you tell us a bit about how you decided to do that, how you developed it, and what it means for your day-to-day work?

S: Sure. So the first thing to say is that it's very much a work in progress. I started thinking about it after I read a blog post by Sarah Townsend, about her environmental initiatives. And there's also a really, really good community on Twitter run by Sian Conway-Wood, called Ethical Hour. And she has loads of fantastic resources about building purpose into your business rather than sort of adding it on as a last-minute thought. So those are the kinds of things that inspired me. 

The policy itself, I divided by environmental and social initiatives. I just thought about the places I could make a small difference, you know, as a very small business of one. So yeah, things like the food I choose to eat, being paperless, the electronic footprint, and as you said things in the community. So talking about wage disparity, supporting other freelancers, that kind of thing. And they're really small acts. So I can't say that it massively affects my daily life. But I think that there's just something really useful about having your values laid out for yourself even more. So it's always like guideposts for how you want to run your business. And when you're making those tiny daily decisions, you've got a in the back of your mind that you've written it down. And you're thinking, yes, this is how I want to run things.

L: And is that something that you review? Do you measure progress against it?

S: Yes, I review it a lot. Because I've always reading things and thinking, “Oh, that's new, that needs to change.” And so it really is a work in progress. I'm kind of always in tinkering with it, and thinking about new things that I want to do with it. My current thing at the moment is trying to make my website more green. So that involves reducing image size. And eventually, I'll have to switch the platform that I host it with and things like that. So it's not something that I share quite so publicly. But I do sort of have a timeline in my mind of things I want to do.

L: So for freelancers, who are maybe thinking, I like the sound of that has given me some food for thought, but I'm not quite sure where to start. How should people go about prioritising the issues they want to focus on? Or are there a few low hanging fruits that people can maybe start with?

S: Yeah, first of all, it can feel super overwhelming. So just start small, and don't feel that you have to go in and be perfect, you know, you're definitely a big advocate of building in public and just start with something small and take it from there. You know, maybe next month, do another thing and build from there. I think the tree planting is a brilliant one, because you can tie it in with your invoices or tie in with your client projects. And that feels tangible. You know, there's trees out there in the world. If you choose a good scheme, then I think that's a really a really strong place to start. Things like going paperless, you know, grabbing yourself an e-reader if you're an avid reader, and – I know that we all have a notebook – to curb the notebook habit. So yeah, those bits are kind of, I want to say quick and easy, but they're tangible and small steps that you can take in that direction. But I think also it's about kind of the presence that you bring to the places that you collaborate with others. So, you know, if you're if you're invited onto a panel, or you know, you're invited to speak at an event, look at the other panellists. You know, are those faces diverse? If not, can you ask for them to be more diverse, you know, just kind of holding yourself accountable. I think.

L: I love the way that you framed as small business superpowers. We won't see the changes unless we ask for them. So yeah, I think that's really important. Just before we wrap up, then, are there any resources that you would recommend if people want to find out more?

S: Yes. So I've mentioned Sian Conway-Wood’s Ethical Hour, they have a Twitter chat once a week. And there's also a small community and lots of really brilliant resources. She did a sort of five-day challenge to build a purpose into your business a while ago, I'm not sure if she's still running it. But that's really good for kind of straightening out your thoughts and ideas and helping you to focus on what it is that really matters to you, and then how to build that into your business. It's really effective.

L: Brilliant. Thank you. So that seems like a good place to wrap up there. And I've definitely got a few ideas there. I think I'll go and do a little sustainability audit of my business. Thank you so much for joining me, Sally. That's been so helpful. Before we go, where can people find you if they want to ask you more about this? 

S: Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for having me. First of all, so I'm on Twitter @sallymfoxwrites, and my website is sallymfox.com.

L: Great. I will put links to those in the show notes so people can come and find you and say hello. Okay, that's all for today. A huge thanks to Sally for her insights and advice, and I will see you next week. Bye.

Outro

You've been listening to 15 Minute Freelancer with me, Louise Shanahan, freelance health copywriter and content marketer at thecopyprescription.com. If you enjoyed this, please hit subscribe, leave a review or share it with a freelance friend. And if you've got a freelancing question you want answered on the podcast find me and say hi on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Thanks, and until next time, happy freelancing!