Alexandra Fasulo, Full Time Digital Nomad | How to Make 7 Figures Freelancing on Fiverr

Welcome to success story the most useful podcasts in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Cleary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network has great podcasts for business leaders like the Martek podcast hosted by Benjamin Shapiro. Each week on the Martek podcast, Benjamin tells stories of world-class marketers who use technology to create lasting success for their business and for their careers. These are some of the topics that tea speaks about on the show. If you find these interesting, you'll like the podcast. So how science is changing advertising, how to set up a CRM so you actually use it, private equities take on digital transformation, why big social is focused on newsletters. If these topics sound interesting to you, you will like the Martek podcast. If you want to listen, you can listen to the Martek podcast wherever you get your podcast or of course you can listen to it on the HubSpot podcast network you go to HubSpot.com slash podcast network. Today my guest is Alexandra Fasulo. Alex is a Florida based full-time digital nomad. She's a Fiverr pro freelance writer and a Fiverr millionaire. She offers a ton of content services. So website content development, biography writing, press release writing, distribution, blog writing, ebook writing, and editing. She is also the host of the freelance fairy tales podcast. Of course, if you want to start your own thing, definitely check out her show. It's a weekly series that provides individuals with insight and support getting started freelancing. She gained national international rather attention in 2018 when she was featured on CNBCs, how to make six figures on Fiverr, everything changed for her. She was featured in the likes of MSN, AOL, business insider, Yahoo Finance. Now dozens of people write her every single day to learn how they can make a six-figure income working from home. So we speak about her story. So how she started in freelancing, how she started making good money in freelancing, what her origin story was all about. Then we speak about some of the fame, some of the notoriety that she got when CNBC ran her story and some of the positives and negatives that came of that. And then we go into some very tactical things that hopefully people can learn from. So for example, should you go full-time into a side hustle or part-time, how do you turn a side hustle into a business? How do you get started on Fiverr? How do you be successful on Fiverr? How do you set pricing on Fiverr? How do you basically build yourself into a business and negotiate with clients for the first time? Some of the things that she's learned as she's of course built her business, which now has many people that she hires. And just some other general great freelancing and entrepreneurial tips. So I hope you enjoy. She's an incredible individual. She's obviously built an incredible career for herself. Again, coming from making 36,000 dollars, I'm not mistaken, just working in a job to making hundreds of thousands and then millions of dollars freelancing, copywriting, and then building a business around that. So let's jump right into it. This is Alexandra Fesulo, full-time digital nomad. Yeah, so my origin story started on a farm in upstate New York in the country. That's where I grew up, you know, for 18 years. I had a very creative upbringing. I was outside all the time, writing horses, you know, in the woods, probably played somewhat into being a creative person today, I think being so immersed in nature every day. My mom is an artist, so I was around that a lot. And funny enough, though, I went to college for political science because I, for some reason, still thought I was going to be some type of like an orator or a politician or something like that, peaked my interest and who knows, you know, maybe later in life, it will again. But I went to school for political science because I always liked writing and history and geography and everything. I liked my major, you know, I did it for three years, I graduated a year early because I wanted to get to work. I was bored, that's the theme of my life. And I took a job in Albany and politics that involved writing a lot and working with politicians. And it was okay, like I loved my bosses and my co-workers, but it just didn't, I didn't feel like full-filled at it. And a year later, I moved to New York City two and a half hours away from where I was in Albany to take a PR job. So I was like, oh, maybe I'll feel more challenged. Maybe, I don't know, for some reason, I'm feeling a pull to move to New York City. And then I had like my big breakdown, you know, because I hated that job so much. I quit it after four weeks, had a, you know, had a situation on my hands. And that's kind of where this all began. I started, I tried 15 different side hustles very quickly in months, you know, it was desperate to make rent. I knew I hated offices at that point. I was sure of that. And Fiverr just happened to be what took off. And, you know, it's been a wild ride I never, in a million years, imagined when I got on Fiverr in 2015 that I would be talking about it still in 2021. So that's always like, I'm a big, you know, my stuff's very like mindset. I will say to people, you got to try stuff because you actually may have no idea, you know, about something that's going to feel very fulfilling to you. So walk me through for people who don't know who you are, who didn't see the special that I saw and millions of other people saw. So I want to understand that because that blew up your name. But then I also want to double down on what actually happened with Fiverr. So just tee that up for everyone as well. Yeah. So we'll see NBC first covered my story actually in 2018. They just did an article and that was like my first taste of like crazy PR and hate as well. And the article said like how this 25 year old made 150 K and six months, which is like a shocking title in a way. And that went like mini viral. I felt spill out from it with people close to me in my life. I didn't like it very much. And it was my first wake up call to like the real world and people and how much people can suck. But then it wasn't until March 2021 of this year. CNBC wanted to do follow up. So they did a like 12 minute feature video on me that was very not invasive. I agreed to it, you know, but it was very detailed in my finances and personal information. And that video went more viral than CNBC ever imagined. And I ever imagined I was not prepared for how viral it went. I'm still not prepared for it, right? Because it's like I'm still feeling like the spill over from it. I go on trips sometimes. I'll be random places in the country and people will recognize me. And I'm not used to that yet. This probably doesn't help. Sometimes I'm like, should I die it back to brown? Maybe I don't know. I like it. I think it's a I think it's a vibe. I love it. Yeah. It's good. The only thing is it's very like notice me, but yeah, I mean my Google reputations absolutely trash from it. There's not much I can do to fix it. I don't know why Reddit threads rank higher than Forbes articles, but here we are. So yeah, the CNBC thing went super viral in March. And it's been a really crazy six months since I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I you know, it's I want to I want to let's let's touch on that stuff in a bit. Let's touch on some of this on some of this stuff that you've been that you've been working through and you know, even before I said like, do you want to lean into it? You want to not. But there's I think there's a lot of lessons there for people that do end up getting getting a measure of success. But let's go through your first iteration of entrepreneurship. So you went through a whole bunch of side hustles. And because I just want to finish your story before we start teaching people stuff. So the whole bunch of side hustles five or hit obviously in a big way. What are you doing on Fiverr? Copywriting. So everything from writing blogs, press releases, website content, product descriptions, app descriptions, you know crowdfunding campaigns, editing, all business copywriting, it's called. So it's writing that of buyer buys then they use it to sell their product or service. That's essentially what I do. And people will pay a lot for it because it saves them invaluable time that they can now, you know, go run their business with. A lot of what I do involves research. So if someone will say to me, hey, I need a blog on the five benefits of CBD oil. You know, I'm the one that looks up the studies for it and links it in the blog for them. And people are more than happy to pay one, two, three hundred dollars for a nice blog on their website that can help with their SEO, help them rank on Google. So, you know, I know so many copywriters who make a lot of money because it's not easy work though. It's tedious. And that's why people are willing to pay for it. I actually, yeah, you're not wrong about copywriting. I know copywriters that do much more than just two, three hundred. I know copywriters that actually charge a percentage of like marketing copywriters, they charge a percentage of like the sales. Yeah, like I know people that make like hundreds of thousands, like a millions plus and just copywriting. And I guess the copywriting was because you had background in PR. You knew you could write everybody thinks they can write, but you knew you could write. And how do you think you were so successful in that? What differentiated you from all the noise on fiber? I think it's just I kept my head down. I studied what every single other person was doing on there. How they were wording their gigs, how they were pricing their gigs. I stocked the crap out of everyone. And I kept my head down with it. I spent hours on Google reading over people's blogs, doing free, you know, practice work. I just obsessed over it. I didn't allow the option for me not to succeed at it. If that makes sense, I was like an animal with it. Because you, because you weren't, so a lot of the stuff that I preach is don't quit your job and start a side hustle. And then once that's comfortable, then you can do the full switch. But you were all in day one. You had everything to lose because you had nothing else going at the point when you started. Okay. So you're starting to, you're doing, you're doing very well on fiber. Of course, now, you know, fast forward a little bit, you have a little bit of notoriety because of CNBC, some good, some bad. But what have you built your business into? So as an entrepreneur, obviously for first time, you know, first time is everything you're doing. You've never done this before. You actually joined fiber and you started putting out content and selling the clients. So how do you decide how to grow your business? How did you decide to, and how did you grow the freelancing portion of copywriting? And then how did you decide what other products and services to add into your portfolio as you grew? Well, so the, I mean, the business just kind of grew naturally on its own because the more reviews you get on fiber, the more momentum your profile gets. But how I decided on like new services to offer is I would just listen to my clients because people I think they'll get so in their heads before they even do it. They'll be like, well, how do I know what to offer? How do I know whatever? I'm like, you guys just start doing it and listen to what the clients tell you. Get their feedback. So a lot of my clients were like, hey, if you wrote our blog and website content, do you think you could write our product descriptions too? And I'd say, well, I don't really have any experience with that. And they go, that's okay. We like how you write. And I would, that would be an amazing opportunity to teach myself product descriptions with a buyer who's going to be very understanding already because they're, you know, they know I'm new at it. And that's how I learned every service I offer up to ebooks. I didn't like come up with that. I had clients saying to me, hey, you know, we really like your blogs. You could definitely write like short form ebooks. Would you write one for us? And it was always, you know, that's how I got to, I think my profile is like 13 open services on it now. I would just let the clients dictate it. You know, where's the demand at instead of guessing where it is? Why don't you just, they'll just tell you. Just listen. Just straight up listen. That's, it's so simple when you, when you frame it like that, but so many people overcomplicate what entrepreneurship is. And when you decided to do this, like this is something that somebody could totally side hustle and not just go all in on. But when you're starting to sell a service or a product, do you think that it makes more sense to use a marketplace like a Fiverr or even like an upwork or any top towel or any other? Or is it more, it makes more sense to figure out a website, market yourself? So I think in the beginning, a freelancing platform like a Fiverr is definitely the best way to go. Because they handle so much of it for you, right? Like you don't need to set up a website. You don't need to do your own marketing. You don't need to worry about client disputes. They'll, you know, they'll handle all of it. And I think starting out if you try and just be your own independent freelancer with your own website and everything right out of the gates, you're going to be so overwhelmed. I think it's going to be too much. So I think a freelancing platform's ideal in people's first few years, because you get to learn, you know, time management, you have to start to understand discipline, not procrastinating, you know, customer service. That's a lot to learn. You got to give yourself a couple of years for that. Once you feel like you totally got that on lock, you know how to sell people and all that stuff, then I think taking it off of there where you own 100% of your business is obviously the end goal. That's how you get the agency going. That's how you hire help. You start growing it into something huge. You can make, you have seven figures if you want. But I think a freelancing platform's perfectly fine in the meantime, because you can make six figures on a freelancing platform, which is like crazy. And you can do it by yourself. And how much time did you actually have to put in to hit that, to hit any, any significant amount of revenue that would replace your, your PR job? Was it months? 80 hours a week? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot. HubSpot is the CRM that you have to have for your business. And whatever your business is up to, your CRM platform should be ready. Why? Because believe it or not, CRM platforms are no longer just a selling tool. They're the heart of building and scaling your business with tools for marketing, sales, customer service, content management and operations. The HubSpot CRM platform is fully customizable for whatever your business needs. Use HubSpot to meet customer demand, align your teams, work smarter, not harder, scale up without having the need to slow down with total control and over 650 integrations. HubSpot enables your team to succeed, no matter how big or how small, whether you're just getting started or looking for a robust system, HubSpot is the number one CRM for scaling businesses. Learn more about how you can customize your CRM platform at HubSpot.com. Yeah, so like in only two months, I knew it was going to work. Yeah, I mean, I was working a lot in the beginning. Like I was working 50, 60 hour weeks, never 80 hour weeks. I've never been someone who's like not going to sleep at night for I've always thought that's like stupid in college and people are like I'm pulling on all night or I'm like well that's dumb because you're going to be exhausted tomorrow. Like I've never like gotten that, but I would hover around the like 50, 60 hour mark no days off. And I say to people you don't have to do it that way. Like I'm just being honest about what I did. I'm not saying you have to do it that way, but I think yeah, did working 60 hours a week in the beginning get me to six figures faster probably. If six figures is not your goal, then don't work 60 hours a week. Don't worry about it. Very cool. Okay, and then just I'm curious as to because you mentioned a few other things like when you jump into entrepreneurship, there's other stuff that crops up. There's customer success. There's I mentioned a few things actually. I'm blanking on some of the other stuff, but what are some of those what are some of those things that you don't think about when you're starting because you have it you have your skill that you want to sell to the world. What are the other things that you have to be aware of that you generally don't realize until you're in it? Yeah, oh man so many things. Mark it and not marketing sales, right? Like when you're messaging customers, how do you get them to book more with you? Customer service like customer satisfaction. They need to leave you five star reviews. You have to offer revisions. You have to be professional in your communication with them. If they lash out at you, you have to still be professional back to them. Time management, if somebody places eight orders with you one day, you cannot procrastinate. That's the you know because if you were already procrastinating another huge order due tomorrow, you now have a situation. So you know very like what is that soft skills or like real world common sense stuff is a huge part of this that you know you didn't need to have to do well in college or anything or you sometimes don't even really need to do well in a nine to five because your boss your managers can care of it for you. So it's like all those things you gotta give yourself time to learn those things but those things once you learn them, I think you're infallible. I think once you you know conquer procrastination, you know how to sell things to people, you know how to take criticism and not take it personally, I think you can go do anything then. It doesn't have to be freelancing like I think you're set for life when you like get through that. 100%. Now this is something I'm curious about. Do you think that because I always preach that you shouldn't jump right in but I think there could be a benefit because when you jump right into entrepreneurship, you force yourself to ramp like there's like no looking back like you you could have a little bit of a nest egg but I mean chances are you have to you have to make rent in a couple months and that's going to be an issue if you don't make money. So do you think that by maybe not jumping into if you jump into a side hustle just part time, do you think maybe the drive isn't there and that may give a false a false response to whether or not you could be successful versus if you jump right in and you're like forced like sink or swim. Yeah. I think being forced into it ensures success more and that you're gonna make it work but I have seen a lot of people segue into it half and half where they start at part time while they're out there nine to five and if they hate their nine to five enough they make it work part time. So it's almost I just see it always works if you are so miserable at whatever it is you're doing like that's when it works because if you like kind of like your nine to five still I don't think you're gonna make it work so it takes a lot of work but for the people I know who are just like make it stop I hate this with every fiber of my being I cannot go on another day I see them make it work so it's really like a will thing yeah and okay so now you're in it you're doing it and and the one thing that I always was curious about with someone who offers a service in a freelancing environment where the customers are always different industries different niches how do you stay how do you be effective across so many different niches because of course copyrighting is you definitely have to but I think there's other things like if you are doing any sort of product specific work you have to find a way to execute whatever service it is that you offer against that product in like record time at a very high caliber so what's the is it just research is it mindset is it is there a strategy to find the best information in a short period of time even though you've never learned about that thing before in your life yeah that's that's why the questionnaires are so important and freelancing because if you have a proper questionnaire set up the client will essentially give you everything you already need so you'll say you know what pages do you want done what's the topic do you have a title in mind do you have a blog that you really like that you want this to sound like and by the time they're done with your questionnaire they've kind of given you like everything you need to then just write it for me at that okay so this is like the this is like the customer onboarding piece like this is like what this is when you're first bringing them on like that is like integral to being successful basically and the questionnaire is everything it can it also minimizes miscommunications because like in the beginning my questionnaires would have like two questions in them and the client would I wouldn't know what the client wanted then the client would get pissed at me and I'd get pissed at the client you know all this stuff then when you have the 10 questions by the end when they answer all 10 questions like they can't get mad at you because you literally followed like everything they told you so it's like they don't have a case against you at that point because you listen to them yeah because like I mean occasionally you get a crazy person who you will follow everything they ask of you and they're like bipolar or something and they'll say like that's not what I want and I'm like okay or they could or they could be they could be they could be they could be you know doing that on purpose because they want or they think they know the game right they think if they if they if they complain it's like the person who like like after they ate the meal at the restaurant they're like this was shit like they think like they're going to get a free free something out of you if they just complain enough exactly and if you you know have your questionnaire set up like that fiber will see that and be like okay we see the spires an asshole that person is trying to get free work basically all right okay cool all right so you so now you are growing your business on fiber the next the next step in entrepreneurship or solo entrepreneurship is pricing and and making your business more viable of course so what are some of the because this is something that I've been in consulting before not copywriting but it's something that I struggled with personally I know a lot of people struggle with pricing their stuff how do you price your stuff and how do you know when to increase the price on on your stuff so on a fiber it's really easy because everyone's prices are public so you just go find your competitors and just copy it that's what I did two times I raised my prices on fiber when you advance a level raise your prices when you have more work than you can humanly do in a 10 hour work day raise your prices it's all very like we're you know just fluid like just pay attention type of stuff could you raise your prices even more than those two triggers probably I always tend to operate on the lower end of the pricing spectrum that's a me problem but I say to people you know those are the two instances don't be shy okay very good so walk me through the like the current version of your business so obviously started on fiber you grew some additional product I just want to get at like a holistic and maybe I'll think of some questions to go into or some strengths to go into with then I want to just keep going down your story in CNBC and some of the things that have come out of that as well so what's the current iteration of your business all the product services that you're doing right now yeah so my business has now officially made the jump from just being on fiber to being its own agency essentially so I have a person below me my best friend who's actually the manager now of three different writers so I am no longer the girl alone on fiber writing every day I've always been transparent about that which all the trolls are like she isn't telling the truth I'm like you guys what like I'm always I don't understand why my business can't grow like how how is that a sin like we'll talk about talk about some of that second dude well so I've done this for seven years I would be an idiot at this point if I didn't have people helping me like why would I just keep doing this alone so I have my best friend for the last two months now it's very it's very new is building out an agency essentially below me so I'm helping with the hiring of people I'm looking over their work before it's delivered making sure it's up to par and she's basically doing the rest because I'm looking to now you know move more into almost a coaching like informational realm with this my my season of my podcast is starting next week I want to get more into almost freelance reporting no one else is doing that I want to feature different people's stories talk to other people and freelancing really like create this community of it that is just so lacking online today that's where I'm heading with it right now so I am the most removed from it I have ever been but I think I deserve that it's been seven years like I was going to say congratulations because the only goal of a business owner is to make themselves redundant if you aren't then you're not you don't have a business you just have a a job that you've created for yourself exactly so I'm like I'm like pounding myself on the back for that I don't know yeah other people hate on me for it I don't know why but well I don't know I don't know why I actually don't know why it doesn't really make much sense to me because so this this rabbit hole that I went down was basically is listening to podcasts a prep for this podcast and then I heard you speaking to someone else about like the hate you get online I'm like oh that's interestingly let's let's look into that and the hate really is she's hired people to grow her business so she doesn't do all the copywriting herself and I'm like bra do you know how a business works because most businesses the CEO doesn't do all the things themselves and I don't get what I don't understand because there's a lot of a lot of very successful people that have huge to actually to be honest anybody who you know their name unless they're your best friend if you know their name in the public sphere most likely the interaction that you've seen them have in the world if it's like a social media post there's a good chance that it's actually not them like I hate to break it to you like maybe like Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the few people that's actually still posting on his own social fees but outside of that most public figures have team supporting them most people that are high level or have any sort of measure of success in a business have teams that do the work for them and they're evangelizing they they've made themselves redundant from the business which is actually the goal to be honest if you're a CEO still working in the business after 10 years you should probably rethink how you build your business because your goal is to make yourself redundant remove yourself and to hire people that's the only goal and especially in an agency environment like you have the blessing of you know getting some coverage and that's great and you can use that to drive your business but like you don't want to just be a copywriter for like an individual copywriter for the rest of your life that limits the amount of impact you can have if you can hire great people you have a great name you have a great brand you have a great agency and you can hire people to scale yourself out that really should be the goal but that's the thing that you're getting hate for like just building a business so do you think it's do you think it's you know is it is it successful woman is that the issue is it the coverage you got like in CNBC do you like I have no idea why because it doesn't like I think you're doing it right so I it's hard to see through the lens of people that are assholes on Reddit when you're just like your argumentist is stupid so I'm just curious why you think that's ever come about I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode uprising food if you want to take advantage of a special offer they've put together for all success story podcasts listeners go to uprisingfood.com slash success story that's uprising food dot com slash succ e ss st o r y so what is uprising food well essentially uprising is a vision to liberate all of us from a fundamentally broken food system that is stealing our health there are so many bad foods out there that just destroy our health and the snowball effect is silent inflammation with many of these fast foods 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and on top of that they really are just incredibly good for you you know it's like I've never that person that wants to think things like this but I've been on TikTok for a year and a half now and I just see the way like women are treated with this compared to men is night and day every woman I see come on to TikTok and post some type of financial success that is flooded with the comments of well she didn't do it alone I bet her boyfriend's rich I bet her husband's rich I bet daddy gave her the money it's like people are so uncomfortable with the idea that a woman especially I think it's a young woman too a young woman can go achieve financial success on her own it's like people just hate that concept I don't know why I think that's a huge part of the hate that I get I think another part of it is that I am in a traditionally very creative field and because I have people write to me and call me a sell out all the time and I think it's because I sell writing like much like if I sold paintings or something I think artists can be the meanest of all when it comes to this stuff because you're supposed to be a starving artist you're supposed to struggle everyone a lot of people struggle yeah you know all this stuff so I think that's a current of it and then I think the other current of it is people who have been freelance writers for the last 30 years who haven't figured out how to make this much money from it are pissed that whoops that they didn't realize that they you know instead of making 30k you could have been making 300k per year and I think they hate that I have publicized that you can because maybe the people in their life are like what the hell are you doing wrong then or something you know yeah it's very so actually you know just to think about just to think about successful women it's just obviously I don't experience that I'm not in that position I don't experience that so when I see it it's like holy shit like how is this even a thing but actually I rant so I interview a lot of people on my show and just an aside there's a really successful woman Aubrey Strobel she is a CMO at Lolly it's a crypto company that's really doing well she's done very very well in her career and I just posted a clip of her on TikTok and I got one comment and then one comment was don't go to women for financial advice yeah like I don't get how that's a like a theme in 2021 like that blows my mind that that's the one thing that somebody was like I got to take time out of my day and I want to write this and post it publicly like it's it honestly doesn't really make sense to me at all and it's very sad and it's it's really fucked up to be honest but just it's insecure men I think feel even feel a masculated by a woman coming online and having more sound financial advice than they do because society has told them you know they're the ones that should be the per you know down with the money so I think when a woman comes out here and is more down with the money than they are I think it challenges their entire masculine fabric there it's a real weird masculine paradigm when it really like the goal should be like holy shit she's making three hundred thousand dollars plus on five or maybe I should just listen to two things she says because I don't want to be making 30k anymore and this sounds like a I don't know I'm like you guys I come in peace like I'm a pretty peaceful person like I just get on there and I give people free tips to change their life with that's it people I do I know I know other people other women who are in this financial freedom space with me I'm friends with a lot of them let go on social media and choose a more controversial approach to grow their accounts that's fine I have zero judgment on what you want to do but it's like I get on there and I'm just like hey guys here's three things to do to make more money on fiber today like what I'm like what controversial you know what the second okay so I was I was this this whole reddit thing that I was looking into yesterday I was I was doing it last night and like I actually the the one post that made me like close my computer and be like this is the most this is the dumbest group of of people I've ever met was one person said and obviously everyone's anonymous on reddit around I'm sure you can figure out if you try and really figure it out but they're all anonymous profiles and one person said something along the lines of um she takes pictures on her Instagram by the pool and like how can she be a serious writer if she takes pictures by the pool or or some like I'm sure I like that was the that was basically the theme of the argument like it was like you can probably go find it like it was insane and it's I'm not like trying to like make it seem like more like retarded like stupid then it then it actually is that was it that was really the theme of the argument and I just thought you know what this is this is sad because you know in in in my circle like that's those are not the kind of people that I associate with so I just I guess I'm blind to the fact that there's people like that out there so many of me and while my thing is like okay I post a picture by the pool any guy gets on there post pictures of him throwing a hundred dollar bills off the back of a Lamborghini more comfortable with that and you know I'm not hating on that I think that's awesome like when I see someone throwing hundreds like off of Lamborghini I'll write like freaking get it like that like yeah go for it you're I have a 32 that these these men now this is not all men that's just these horrible people hate seeing women have fun I think it's a thing because I always notice whenever there's women comedians on tiktok or women by one one girl I know Hannah Lee she bought herself a Lamborghini with all the money that she makes and she has fun with her Lamborghini and she deserves that she's worked her ass off and note like the guys are like hate watching women like have fun or make jokes or like I think they only want to think that we're like making sandwiches and and like cleaning bed sheets and if we're like outside having fun they're like we can't have this like something is a rye here like get in the kitchen I don't know it's horrible I well I there must be something there because those comments aren't normal another one said another one said oh I still eat you know I I'm I'm an I'm an actual copywriter this is what the the thing said the the the post said I'm an actual copywriter because all I eat is tuna because I can't afford anything else and I'm in my basement trying to finish something for I'm like bro you should get a job because that sounds like something that sounds like shit like go work for somebody like I don't like first of all all that like lead in the tuna or mercury in the tuna sir from eating it every single day it's probably not good for your health but like bro like you gotta get a real job because that does not sound like a way to live life like you can't figure out a way to like get out of that situation and you so proudly represented online as to this is who I am as a copywriter and I can't even afford like a decent meal like don't flex that that's not a flex that's just like and I'm not and that's what the thing about the internet is like it it democratizes every end like anyone can be successful if you know how to leverage yourself if you know how to leverage right and leverage can be multiple things leverage can be your own personal brand it can be leveraging a talent like other talent and building an agency if you have a really good way of building out a brand of profile and driving leads and then of course you hire out a team there's so leverage can be different platforms leverage can be a side hustle like there's so many ways to leverage with internet there's zero reason why creative should be starving even artists like like like not like copyrighters like NFTs like I don't even know much about NFTs but I know there's people making bank on those just because they're trying to figure it a way to stay relevant with the times they're transitioning their work that they're already doing which is incredible work into a space of taught like leverage yourself take advantage of that stuff anyway I just it's it is I don't even like I don't even know what to say about these people they're just yeah we're just talk how do you do okay so how do you so this is so how do you deal with how do you deal with this because this is not something that you signed up for no one does I mean the first line of defense is trying to separate myself from reading it so my whole family you know has barred me from going on Reddit they're like do not go on Reddit Alex just never go on it so I haven't checked it since May because I don't actually gain anything from seeing people like bond over hating me I don't think as human beings we were meant to like be able to read something like that I think it's a very toxic thing today like to be able to read people shitting on you and public is like cool um so that's my first line is trying to minimize my interaction with it um you know my next line was hiring more help this past spring um Bri you know reads all of my emails before I do so when people send really effed up emails you know she'll just delete them doesn't even tell me that they were sent um I mean I've grown thicker skin I've learned to laugh at it um you know I mean my I think my faith helps me with it um reading the Bible praying and stuff just understanding like humans suck um it was told that we would all suck uh it is to be expected that we suck so is what it is it is what it is yeah that's what it is because I think that's the hardest part about like there's there's always like a a blessing and and a curse when you put yourself out into the world and you put yourself out in a way that you probably didn't even in it you didn't expect it you expect CNBC you didn't expect all this fame overnight so I think that a lot of people again I always advocate for building out a personal brand and putting yourself out there and posting as much as you can and turning yourself into a media company I think that's the way that you anyone could be in a job could be outside of a job it's going to benefit you no matter what but I think that a lot of this stuff comes in that territory and I don't think people ramp as quick as you because most people don't have CNBC cover them and get that immediate but you probably overnight your life was that was yeah I knew there'd be some notoriety from it but the virality of it um neither I nor CNBC predicted um I mean huge youtubers were covering the story you know I flew out to meet Graham Stefan because he was like come on my show I mean it was just absolutely insane uh that how viral it went I I was just like I was sitting here one day with my mom's I was flipping out and my mom was like we should we ask them to take like should we make it stop because it was just kept it was like snowballing and and to to create so I'm I'm curious for entrepreneurs that are are looking for this what are things that entrepreneurs should be wary of as they put themselves out there what are things that they should potentially do because you listed off a few steps as we were just chatting but I'm just I want to lay it out like very succinctly so the things that you've done to not not manage your online reputation but manage how it impacts you so I want to lay out this things that you've done just so that when somebody on the come up like eventually hits it big which hopefully they will that's the goal um they don't get sidelined by this stuff and I think you I think you handled it like why I don't know you that well but you seem to have handled it okay like I'm sure there was some nights so we're not so great but um I think that it can be a very dangerous it can be like a really powerful thing very dangerous thing so what worst what would be some suggestions um so you're saying like some suggestions for people it's like so what you did like you mentioned you like breeze like screening your emails you said like for example I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode canva they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners go to canva.me slash success star if you want to take advantage but what is canva well making content is an essential part of what I do to keep the show going but it hasn't always been easy canva pro allows me to design anything like a pro on any device and I've been using canva pro for a while now for all content for all social that I create for success story so canva pro is a design platform that empowers you to create stunning content with just a few clicks designing with canva pro is fast and fun you choose from thousands of templates for any type of creative any type of device or you can start from scratch as well canva pro has endless premium 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i would say if you are um anticipating a blow up of your story and some capacity online to have at least one person in place with you for when it happens so that you can completely remove yourself from the internet for like two weeks and somebody else can take care of your businesses for you um i think that's like paramount like that you just get off of the internet for like weeks while the storm you know blows through that's smart it's very good yeah let's get on there's no point in reading it you don't gain anything from it do you still see value in in managing your own social or do you think that that can get toxic as well um i like managing my own social media like i don't mind doing all of the content that i do i like to create content i like to be creative i like to help people i like to be an educator these are all things that are me so you know i i like getting on there and creating but yeah i mean i think at some point there is value and having somebody else in your accounts with you who are managing the reputation side of it i don't think you should be the one doing that because there's a vulnerability to putting your story and your content out there and it is you so when people are ripping it to shreds it's never gonna feel good i don't care how famous you are i don't think it ever feels good like i still think of Paris Hilton you know if she like puts a lot of effort into a video i still think if she ever looks at those instagram comments i like that must still hurt her feelings you know of course like she's like these are humans so it's like i still think there's no harm in being a creator get on and create and get off but don't be the consumer side of it create get off if you try and do both you will think because people are freaking horrible online um stand good advice yeah that that that that that false sense security and not not putting your and being anonymous is it it brings at the worst than people yeah absolutely i mean the anonymity is horrible i don't think like it's good for people to be able to be anonymous i don't think that's the point of being alive no i agree i think you should i think you should stand behind the stuff that you said yeah i think that you should i think that you should own up to it um and if you have an this is listen no one's against you having an opinion but tie that opinion to yourself and stand behind it and then and also like there's there's still no excuse there's never an excuse for ripping into somebody um for no reason other than just being malicious it's very sad i don't think it's something that we can ever get away from i think that social media and media like social media mediums can do a better job of maybe removing some of that actually well they're trying to because some social platforms are super super negative but you know i think yeah i know there's always the fine line because then are you censoring people but i think like a reddit that's built entirely upon being anonymous is like i just think like reddit should be like wiped off the map well it's because it's because it's focused on being anonymous so just i think it just like if fosters really bad behavior yes fast if fosters really bad behavior okay well i hope that you know i appreciate you going into that i'm sure that's not easy but i think that there's some lessons in there that and i know not everybody's ever going to achieve like massive massive notoriety and fame but i think that it's i think that there's lessons that even at a micro level you can take away for dealing with an online community because even you know you've had millions of people i'm like small pain that's compared to you and there's still stuff that i get i've had i've had hate before i've had you know i had it my first death threat like this uh past couple lots like you guys have really messed up people actually somebody who writes a lot on this is Tim Ferriss he uh i so he speaks a lot about like the the issues that come with fame and notoriety but anyways we can move out we can move out that i wanted to i just wanted to dive into it and i appreciate your perspective on him a lot thank you um okay so the last thing that i wanted to go into and um and then i'll also i'll ask you if there's anything else that you wanted to chat about this top of mind but i just wanted to understand some advice from you because you work you've always worked everywhere and you've always worked you're not in an office right now correct you're just you your whole team you're all remote um so how do you manage a team because you've built this team in remote you manage them and they're all doing well and you know exceeding all those KPIs remotely so what are some tips for people that it could be honestly it could be a manager within a company or it could be a freelancer that wants to scale their team and then build an agency how do you hire people remote how do you work remote you've been doing it a lot longer than most of us slack is slack um slack uh i've been through a lot of writers i'm not going to sit here and say that i've found them miraculously and here they are um i've been through like probably i mean thousands of people have applied i've tried hundreds of people i've been through probably 20 um it hasn't been easy but um slack so like right now while i'm on this i can see breathe and slack with all of my writers right now and individual threads uh working with them that's the answer is there any because i think it's easier to get a sense of somebody's personality when you're sitting across a table from them but obviously is there any common themes in what you look for when you hire somebody remotely without ever being able to see them except like via zoom um no i just look for hardworking people who don't make excuses so if somebody you know on their first day or in the first test i give them it has an excuse for why they haven't done it yet or whatever they're done like because there's timers on fiber so there is no excuses so if i give you an order and you take it and it's due in two days you have to do it because if you don't do it that we have a problem you know i've done up doing it or whatever so i really just look for people who are hard workers um who aren't excuse makers who just keep their head down that's it you know people without pride who just do their thing yeah and do you feel like when you work remotely um you've obviously had experience in it but do you feel like there's any things that you do to stay focused stay accountable like i'm sure it's a personality thing as well but are there any other tips and tricks for somebody who is very diligent and they just find that being at home in this environment is a little bit less conducive to work than when they were going into an office what what are you saying like how do i get them motivated no not well them but also you like how do it like even you how do you avoid distractions when you're working for um i like i never really have a problem with it because i i know i i see it's you just put your head down and you just get it done yeah it's like i'm so happy to not be in an office every day that like i make it work like right now here if i turn the surround sitting at my mom's like there's a pool oh beautiful nice pool like it's like that's enough that's enough for me i mean i'm pumped like that i'm not confined to an office i'm like you know what i think you know i was going to say you know what i think it is i think it's because okay so i think this the the secret answer um is like love what you do that's it you're not gonna yeah then then everything goes away yeah no i think that's smart and you know what i've actually i've i've had this conversation with people whose workforces have like migrated from office to to home and the recommendation always is okay well if they went home and they just started slacking off or not doing work well it's not the home that was the issue it's the fact that they didn't give two shits about the company before they went home so i'm not saying everybody has to like love love love their job but they should at least to a point like the the the leader's goal in a company is to make the persons uh make the persons job tie into their own personal goals in their life and if the leaders and give two shits about the employees and they doesn't care about what those persons goals are could be financial could be upscaling it could be promotion it could be side hustle whatever it is if you can make that person love their job because that job helps them achieve whatever they want to achieve in their life then they're gonna it doesn't matter they're in office at home it doesn't really matter but it's because too many too many really shitty bosses didn't actually care about their employees then when their employees went home they just thought they could just grow off and not do anything anymore so i think that you actually nailed it like it's just about making sure that if you if you are working in any environment love what you're doing or find something that you love doing that's it find a way to get even even if it's like taking a step like even if it's you know five or freelancing side hustle makes the money on the side validate the business concept and then you can jump in full time that's cool but just like take a step and just don't stay in an environment where you literally hate every single second of every single day and all you want to do is clock out because that is hell so how it has to be okay let's um i want to do a couple rapid fire career questions just insights from from your career before i pivot uh anything else that was top of mind for you that we didn't go into that i wasn't smart enough to ask you that uh that you wanted to go into no i think this has been a good combo cool i appreciate it thank you um and then also if people want to connect with you uh website social where should they go uh website aliexpasnulo.com has links to all my stuff um look up aliexpasnulo on any social media site hello uh my podcast the freelance fairy tales um goes over everything you would ever need to get started freelancing uh and it's free you got to link that by the way because that's that's huge i have a lot of have a lot of people that come on here that have business podcasts but i don't think i have anyone that's just on a pure freelancing podcast so when it obviously let me know but i mean link it and i'll i'll drop in the show notes so people can go check it out because that's very valuable um okay so let's go through some rapid fire questions uh biggest challenge you can take you can take as much time as little time as you'd like biggest challenge you had in your career personal or professional what was that and how did you overcome it hmm let me think um probably the loneliness aspect of freelancing when i was first doing it um had me second guessing it and questioning it for a while because it's very lonely um but i overcame it by making in-person and virtual business friends and realizing i'm not alone good smart good um so just networking networking networking and and how did you when you're when you're networking in a freelancing role because a lot of people are used to networking like going to trade shows or conferences or whatever how did you do that uh meetup.com and instagram is a great place to antique talk um i've made a lot of friends on tiktok uh no but i use meetup.com cool very good um if you had to choose one person i know there's probably been many but pick one person in your life has been incredibly impactful um who was that person and what did they teach you my mom um my mom taught me that it doesn't matter if you're a woman uh forget it forget about that you can do and be anything you want to be in your life you can support a family by yourself you can do you can do it all and no excuses that's the choice. I love that um what would be one um unpopular belief about freelancing that you hold uh an unpopular belief about it like unpopular an uncommon unpopular belief something that not everybody agree with you on. Got any personality type introvert extrovert can do it it's not the same thing as being entrepreneur it's easier in a way um anybody can do it. I know that for very good very good um a book or podcast any any sort of source that you'd recommend people go check out. Can i recommend my own you can i mean it'll go in the show notes no matter what but if you got i could do your own well you have your own podcast of course you don't have a book to you not yet wink wink yeah i'm gonna say like here you need to have a book like you did a CNBC your copywriter it's like coming soon um all right cool uh let's say uh i mean a book i recently read that i thought was amazing was big magic by Elizabeth Gilbert um it's all about being a creative and making money off of your creativity i think anyone is a creative should read that book a podcast i've been vibing with lately this guy gets a lot of hate Joel Osteen whether your Christian or not a great mindset podcast amazing uh victor over victimhood type of if you're trying to pump yourself up i think his stuff's great very good very good um and if you could uh tell your 20 year old self one thing what would it be post your story to social media sooner because prolonging people hating on you like they're gonna hate on you no matter what so just freaking post it it's good advice you're gonna hate it in the last couple we are gonna hate anyway hey i hate every like there's people if people that hate everyone that's that's the thing that's the takeaway yeah so just just don't take it personally just do it just do it do it do it okay um and then if uh okay last question sir uh what does success mean to you success means to me being totally financially spiritually and physically free so not having to actually worry about making money today because it's already taken care of being able to go wherever you want being able to worry about your health because you you have being free is successful to me amazing okay that's all i got Alex that was great that was perfect