IAM1065- Freelance Writer Provides Managing Editing Services

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[00:00:37.50] – Intro

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. GRESTS 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.

[00:01:05.20] – Gresham Harkless

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

[00:01:14.00] – Melanie Padgett Powers

Thanks so much, Gresh. It's great to be here.

[00:01:16.20] – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want 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 MeLEdits. She is a freelancer freelance writer, managing editor, copy editor, and proofreader in Silver Spring, Maryland who primarily works with membership or associations and health care organizations. She has a journalism degree and was previously a newspaper reporter in her home state of Indiana. 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?

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[00:01:51.20] – Melanie Padgett Powers

I am ready, I think.

[00:01:52.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. I know you are. I've been blessed and honored to have the opportunity to be on your show, and I appreciate you for allowing me 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 about how you got started and what I like to call your CEO story.

[00:02:10.19] – Melanie Padgett Powers

So way back when I went to college for journalism. When I was about fourteen 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 and loved it. And so in my 20s, I was a newspaper reporter in my as you said in Indiana, in mostly small towns. So I'm from a small town and I worked some dailies, but mostly weeklies 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 when in my late twenties and I fell into a job at a health care membership association. I didn't know what associations were, but I soon found out that I loved it because in associations, you're writing for the members, not just a general audience and I enjoyed that and you can focus on certain things. And I like I said, fell into health care and realized I loved health care as well. So for years, I worked at health care associations. And then coincidentally, as I turned forty, I was in a job that I 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 on for two years, when I got back soon after my boss, whom I loved, left, and they had a new CEO. And in my opinion, the place was just really going downhill. And I didn't like what they were doing. We got a new boss, And she had a different vision for what she wanted me to do. And I just was like I am forty years old, and I am 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 I was leaving. I was interviewing for jobs and I was just like, I don't wanna relearn the culture because, you know, until you get into a place, you don't know if it's great no matter how great the interview is until you get there. So I was like, I'll just freelance. So I was one of those people who 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 out of 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 twenty thirteen and I just emailed my entire network. Luckily there are a lot of associations here in the DC area and I've 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 love working for myself.

[00:05:21.39] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. So I appreciate you sharing your story so much. And I think the quote that was coming, you know, to mind, for me was, like, the harder I work, the luckier I get. And I love that you talked about how you were able to build those relationships. Because I think so many times we don't realize that the relationships we're building are not necessarily to build a business or it's not necessarily to get another job.

It's not necessarily to do this or that or the third, but when you're good at what you do and you couple that with the ability to develop those relationships, sometimes when you go down a path that some you're not always as sure how all the steps will align, It's leaning on those relationships and the great work and experience that you have that a lot of times allow you to those, I guess, that bridge to be built.

[00:06:04.50] – Melanie Padgett Powers

Yeah. And I love to talk about building relationships and because I say that all the time that, 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 health care. 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 been critical to my career.

[00:06:42.80] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And being able to 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.

[00:07:03.80] – Melanie Padgett Powers

So I love having a diversity of services that keeps everything interesting. It also means I get work. I'm never bored. I'm never overwhelmed with one particular thing. I focus on how 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 means I'm a project manager for a magazine, and I make I run the whole thing, and I 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, pester everyone constantly that they're not meeting their deadlines and they need to send me their stuff, copy edit everything, work with the graphic designer, and then proofread everything and then start it all over again.

We're doing usually 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 writing. I have a journalism background. I 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. 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 come in at the very end and proofread it, the last step before it goes off to the printer.

So it's just I love working with my clients. I'm 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 fun to work together and I need your help. So I 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 a matter of having a good working relationship with people and enjoying doing what I love while helping these people at associations.

[00:09:11.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And so I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself or your business or a combination of both. But what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:09:22.39] – Melanie Padgett Powers

I 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 have, I know what plagiarism is and what not to do. I know how to interview people. I know how to sort of get the story out of people. And then I combine all that with you know, I also am 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 try to let my clients know that I can help you with all of these different areas. What do you need help with?

[00:10:04.70] – Gresham Harkless

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

[00:10:16.89] – Melanie Padgett Powers

I thought a lot about this because I love productivity hacks 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 Zaratzky. And it is full of productivity and focus strategies. I think they have eighty-seven tactics in the book.

[00:10:40.70] – Gresham Harkless

Wow.

[00:10:41.20] – Melanie Padgett Powers

And it talks about certain strategies in the beginning. Like, they talk about picking a highlight for your day. One thing 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 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 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, alright. It's time to head down, write this story, tune everything out, and I always play that one song, and it just sort of sets the mood. So they have all these great tactics in that. So, again, it's called make time.

[00:11:36.70] – Gresham Harkless

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 to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:11:49.00] – Melanie Padgett Powers

Well, I talk to freelancers a lot about this idea that we are business owners and not, quote, unquote, just a freelancer. And I think the freelancers who embrace that and know that they are business owners find way more success. They're way 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, do they are they gonna like my portfolio, and, am I going to be available? This is a mutual relationship. You need to be interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you.

You need to decide, do I wanna work for them? Not just whether they'll hire me. Even if they are like, oh, my gosh. We need you so bad and whatever you want, blah blah blah. And I think you know what? They don't seem like the right fit. You just walk away. You say no.  It's not that you just don't take every job that comes along because they're willing to hire you. You need to think of yourself as the business owner how you wanna run your business and how who you wanna work with.

[00:12:57.20] – Gresham Harkless

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 open now to different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Melanie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:09.10] – Melanie Padgett Powers

Well, I admit I don't often think of myself as a CEO, but I say I'm a freelance business owner. So it's and 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 work hours, my structure. Pre-pandemic, I took a lot of vacations. I went to a lot of conferences because that reinvigorated me. And if I'm not going to do those things if I'm going to work around the clock and not give myself time off and be stressed out.

If I'm going to 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. So if I'm not gonna treat myself better than all of the employers I ever had, then why am I doing this, right? 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 working on the weekends. And it 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.

[00:14:26.10] – Gresham Harkless

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 a hold of you, listen to the podcast, and hear about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:14:40.79] – Melanie Padgett Powers

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 deliberate freelancer dot com. Of course, it's free. You can find it on all your podcast apps, and it focuses on the business side of freelancing. And so it is not just for writers, not just for editors. It's an industry, and we talk about all sorts of things. We talk about pricing a lot, red flags of clients, and how to get clients, but we also talk about mental health and 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, as you know, 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 deliverfreelancer.com.

[00:15:36.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. We will have the links and information shown to us. And anybody who wants to contact you from Meledits, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:15:43.20] – Melanie Padgett Powers

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

[00:15:51.29] – Gresham Harkless

Okay. Perfect. And we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But thank you so much for taking some time out. I love everything you're doing with the podcast because I think, you can't always guarantee success, but I think one of the best ways to get as close to success is knowing what you're kinda doing when you're starting and becoming a freelancer.

And I love that you talk about looking at it from a business owner's mentality because I think that helps increase the likelihood of success, and all the topics and information that you have on it is golden. So thank you so much for all the awesome things that you're doing, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:25 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by 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. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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