IAM1665 – Freelance Writer Provides Managing Editing Services

Melanie Padgett Powers Teaser 00:00

Well, I talk to freelancers a lot about this idea that we are business owners and not, quote and quote just a freelancer. And I think the freelancers who embrace that and know that they're business owners find way more success. They're a lot more confident. And so one of the things I like to say is, especially when you are, for example, interviewing clients or potential clients, it's not about, okay, well will they hire me?

Are they gonna like my portfolio and am I gonna be available? This is a mutual relationship.

Intro 00:37

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders, without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 01:02

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. And if you've been listening this year, we're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes under certain categories or topics that we think are gonna be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

This month is going to be about not forgetting about the human part of business. Often we forget about the human part of life. We often forget about the human part of business. So look forward, self-care tips, fitness, burnout, purpose, biz and personal, personal branding, motivation, drive, success, understanding your why, and of course, how important customer service is.

But at the heart of it, it's all about remembering. The human part of business. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I am CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Melanie Padgett Powers of Mel Edits.

Melanie, it's great to have you on the show.

Melanie Padgett Powers 01:59

Thanks so much, Gresh. Great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 02:01

Definitely super excited to have you on. And before we jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Melanie so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Melanie is the owner of Mel Edits. She is a freelancer, freelance writer, managing editor, copy editor, and Proofreader in Silver Spring Maryland, who primarily works with membership associations and healthcare organizations. She has a journalism degree and has previously been a newspaper reporter in her home state of Indiana.

And Melanie is also the creator and host of the Deliberate Freelancer Podcast, which focuses on the business side of freelancing. Melanie, it's great to have you on the show.

Are you ready to speak to the I am CEO community?

Melanie Padgett Powers 02:36

I am ready. I think.

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Gresham Harkless 02:38

Awesome. Awesome. I know you definitely are. I've been blessed and honored to have the opportunity to be on your show, and I appreciate you for giving the opportunity to share your wisdom and your experience with us. And so I guess to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more on how you got started and what I like to call your CEO story.

Melanie Padgett Powers 02:54

So way back when I went to college for journalism. When I was about 14, I decided I wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I had joined the high school newspaper staff and loved it. And so I was one of those very lucky kids that knew what they wanted to do and I went to college for that and loved it.

And so in my twenties, I was a newspaper reporter in as you said, in Indiana and mostly small towns. I'm from a small town and I work some dailies, but mostly weekly where you do everything besides reporting. You're the photographer, you lay out the newspaper, and I loved it, but the pay was really bad and the hours were really bad.

And I was also living in my hometown, which is very tiny, and I had no social life. So I moved to the Washington DC area in my late twenties and I fell into a job at a healthcare membership association, and I didn't really know what associations were, but I soon found out that. I loved it because associations you're really writing for the members, not just a general audience.

And I enjoyed that. And you can focus on certain things and like I said, I fell into healthcare. Realized I really loved healthcare as well, so for years I worked at healthcare associations, and then, as I coincidentally turned 40, I was in a job that I absolutely hated. Unfortunately, I had been there actually, I had gone back to this job, to this organization, but in the meantime, after I had been gone for two years.

When I got back, soon after my boss, whom I loved left, and they had a new CEO, in my opinion, the place was just really going downhill and I didn't like what they were doing. And we got a new boss and she really had a different vision for what she wanted me to do.

And I just was like, I am 40 years old and I'm sick of being a manager and having to listen to people that I don't respect and don't agree with. And I was feeling very independent, and some people hit that road a little earlier, but I just thought, you know, I'm leaving.

Like, I was interviewing for jobs and I was just like, I don't wanna relearn the culture because, until you get into a place, you don't really know if it's great, no matter how great the interview is until you get there.

So I was like, I'll just freelance. I was one of those people, I had no idea what I was gonna do or how I didn't have all this money in the bank, I didn't have this plan. I just was like, I gotta get outta here. So I decided I was gonna freelance as a writer and an editor because I love both.

And so I quit. And that was, if you do the math, you're gonna tell how old I am, but, that was October 2013. and I just emailed my entire network. Luckily, there are a lot of associations here in the DC area, and I'd been here long enough that I had a really good network. You know, colleagues had gone on to other associations, former bosses, that kind of thing, and I emailed everybody and said, this is what I'm doing and people started giving me work.

So I was very lucky it wasn't planned out, but because I had built that network up, it started happening fairly quickly and I've been doing it ever since, and absolutely love working for myself.

Gresham Harkless 05:56

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. I appreciate you sharing your story so much, and when you're really good at what you do and you couple that with the ability to develop those relationships.

Sometimes when you go down a path you're not always sure how all the steps will align. It's leaning on those relationships and the great work and experience that you have that allow a lot of times allow you to bridge to be built.

Melanie Padgett Powers 06:18

Yeah. And I love, you know, you talk about building relationships, and because I say that all the time you know, people who say they don't like networking, they don't like marketing.

I call it relationship building. I love associations. I love healthcare. I love writing. I love editing. And I will talk about those all day long. And apparently, I had done that when I was an employee, and that's what built all those relationships. I had true friends in the association industry who were like, yeah, we need some help.

We'll hire you. Or I can recommend you to this person because I know you're good at what you do and you're reliable. So here's a connection. And building those relationships has really been critical to my career.

Gresham Harkless 06:54

Yeah, absolutely. And, being able to you know, develop those relationships, of course, be excellent at what it is that you do, and when you're passionate about what it is that you do as well too, that starts to exude in everything that you're doing.

So, truly appreciate you for sharing that. And so, I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more on how you work with clients and how that manifests itself as well.

Melanie Padgett Powers 07:13

So I love having a diversity of services that keeps everything really interesting. It also means I get work. I'm never bored, I'm never overwhelmed by one particular thing.

I really focus on it. I can help membership associations in all these different areas. And you mentioned several of them. So I am a managing editor. I mean, I am super organized. I'm a project manager basically at heart in my world it's called managing editing. But it basically means I'm a project manager for a magazine and I make, I run the whole thing and work with the client to develop the story ideas, hire the freelancers if we have that, or find out who's gonna write these stories on staff.

You know, pester everyone constantly that they're not meeting their deadlines, and they need to send their stuff. Copy, edit everything, work with the graphic designer and then proofread everything and then start it all over again. We're actually doing two magazine issues. You have two going at one time.

You're finishing up, one while you're starting the other. But I also love writing and so I do a lot of writing. It's mostly magazine. I have that journalism background. I really love to interview people and write those narrative feature stories or membership profiles. That's something I love to do. And then I do copy editing and I do proofreading, and that's part of the managing editing.

But I have a few select clients where I just do copy editing for them, or I just proofread their magazine. That's all I do. I comment at the very end and proofread it, the last step before it goes off to the printer. So I love working with my clients. I've become friends with a lot of them, in all honesty.

Or I have friends that have hired me because they're like, Hey, this would be really fun to work together and I need your help. So I really try to work with people that I enjoy working with. I don't take jobs that are going to bore me.

I don't keep clients that just are not a good fit. It's really a matter of having a good working relationship with people and enjoying doing what I love while helping these people at associations.

Gresham Harkless 09:16

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for yourself personally or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Melanie Padgett Powers 09:27

I really think it's a lot of the things that I was saying. So I have this long-term experience and focus on membership associations, but I combine that with my journalism experience.

I'm a reporter I know what plagiarism is and what not to do. I know how to interview people. I know how to get the story out of people and then I combine all that with, I also I'm a writer and an editor. I didn't just choose one or the other. And I think that combination, I just don't see that combination much in my association world that can provide all of those different things.

And so I really try to let my clients know that I can help you with all of these different areas. What do you need help with?

Gresham Harkless 10:09

Absolutely appreciate that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Melanie Padgett Powers 10:21

I thought a lot about this because I love productivity hacks and tools and apps, and so, but I wanted to recommend a book because there are a couple of books I like, and I think some of them are a little more well-known than others. But there's one called Make Time and it's by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, and it is full of productivity and focus strategies.

I think they actually have 87 tactics in the book.

Gresham Harkless 10:44

Wow.

Melanie Padgett Powers 10:45

And it talks about certain strategies in the beginning, like they talk about, pick a highlight for your day one thing, what in your work life or your personal life that has to be done that day. And then they talk about how to laser focus on that highlight.

And they talk about all the tactics to do that. But then there's just a bunch of other tactics that you can use throughout the day. And so one that I've used that I really like is they talk about using a soundtrack for your highlight of the day. But the way I use it is I have one song and it's a song that I'm not likely to play or hear any place else.

And so, I play it when I really need to focus on something. I play it at the beginning and it's like, I'm Pavlov's dog now. Like I hear that song and I'm like, all right, it's time to head down, write this story, tune everything out. And I always play that one song, and it really just sets the mood so they have all these great tactics and then that, so again, it's called Make Time.

Gresham Harkless 11:40

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Melanie Padgett Powers 11:52

Well, I talk to freelancers a lot about this idea that we are business owners and not, quote and quote just a freelancer.

And I think the freelancers who embrace that and know that they're business owners find way more success. They're way more confident. And so one of the things I like to say is, especially when you are, for example, interviewing clients or potential clients, it's not about, okay. Will they hire me?

You know, are they gonna like my portfolio and you know, am I gonna be available? This is a mutual relationship. You need to be interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. You need to decide, do I wanna work for them? Not just whether they hire me even if they are like, oh my gosh, we need you so bad and you know, whatever you want, blah, blah, blah.

And I think, you know what? If they don't seem like the right fit, you just walk away. You say, no, you just don't take every job that comes along because you know they're willing to hire you. You really need to think of yourself as the business owner and how you wanna run your business and who you wanna work with.

Gresham Harkless 13:00

Well, Melanie, truly appreciate that. And so now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote, CEOs on the show. So Melanie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Melanie Padgett Powers 13:12

Well, I admit, I don't often think of myself as a CEO, but I basically say I'm a freelance business owner, so I'm the CEO, I'm the only one here.

So I am the CEO of my life. To me, it's really about the freedom of owning my own business. It is a really hard and busy thing to do to run your own business, as you know. And so if I'm going to do this, I wanna set my own work hours, my structure pre-pandemic. I took a lot of vacations, I went to a lot of conferences because that really reinvigorates me.

And if I'm not going to do those things, if I'm gonna work around the clock and not give myself time off and be stressed out, like if I'm gonna treat myself like that. I should just go get a job because they'll give me a salary and they'll give me health insurance, you know? So if I'm not gonna treat myself better than in all of the employers I ever had, then why am I doing this?

And I think too often we get into these situations where we're just working way too much and we're not taking time off, we're not taking vacations, we're working at night or we're working on the weekends. And it really means to me the freedom to have control over my life and the say over what I'm going to do with my life and my career.

Gresham Harkless 14:27

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Well, Melanie, truly appreciate you again for taking some time out. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best they can get ahold of you. Listen to the podcast and hear about all the awesome things you're working on.

Melanie Padgett Powers 14:42

Yeah. I'll just briefly talk about the podcast. So it's called Deliberate Freelancer, no ‘The' in front of it, deliberate Freelancer. You can go to deliberatefreelancer.com. Of course, it's free. You can find out on all your podcast apps, and it really focuses on the business side of freelancing. And so it is not just for writers, not just for editors, it's any industry.

And we talk about all sorts of things. We talk about pricing a lot, red flags of clients, how to get clients, but we also talk about mental health and you know, we talk about diversity on there. We talk about vacation, you know, you need vacations. We talk about time tracking, so the episodes are solo sometimes, but I also have a lot of guests like, you've been a guest on, and so I would just encourage anybody to subscribe wherever they get their podcast.

You could also, I started recently a deliberate freelancer newsletter that comes out every week, and you can get all that information at deliberatefreelancer.com

Gresham Harkless 15:35

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And we'll definitely have the links and information show notes, and for anybody who wants to contact you for mail edits, what's the best way for them to do that?

Melanie Padgett Powers 15:42

Yeah, so meledits.com or melanie@meledits.com. I'm also on Twitter all the time, and that's also Mel edits.

Gresham Harkless 15:50

Okay, perfect. And we'll definitely have the links and information that's shown us as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 15:57

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harless, Jr. Thank you for listening.