Disclosure: This episode is sponsored by CrowdHealth, and also includes affiliate links which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through my link. All opinions are my own.

In this episode, Austin L. Church talks to journalist, freelance writer, and coach Wudan Yan about the art of negotiation. The driving force behind The Writers' Co-op, Wudan tells the story of her transition from journalism to freelance narrative writing and sheds light on the two different cultures with their sets of norms.

Wudan goes on to share how her upbringing and academic background provided very little preparation for the freelance world where negotiation is often necessary. 

When teaching freelancers and consultants how to negotiate, Wudan frames back-and-forth as a dialogue or conversation, not a confrontation. 

Her personal journey and insights prove that negotiation can be a fulfilling and rewarding aspect of the freelance journey, even if it doesn’t come naturally to you. 

If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable during a negotiation or felt like your skills are lacking, you’ll be glad you found this episode. 

Key points

• Wudan’s Journey from Science to Narrative Writing (01:53)
• Negotiating a raise for the first time (17:44)
• Wudan's negotiation journey montage (25:37)
• Negotiating rush projects and rush fees (25:51)
• The importance of a conversational approach in negotiations (28:43)
• One simple yet profound tactic to become a master negotiator (36:58)
• How to support Wudan Yan (42:25)

Notable Quotes

• “You're never going to get what you don't ask for, and you can never get more than the maximum of what you're asking for."
• "Negotiating is a conversation. If both you and I are setting really hard boundaries around things, there's no meeting in between."
• "Ask questions that invite a response.”

Resources & Links

• Business Redesign Group Coaching Program
• $300K Flywheel for Freelancers & Consultants
• Learn more about Wudan Yan at https://www.wudanyan.com/
• Check out The Writers' Co-op
• Connect with Wudan Yan on Instagram and on LinkedIn
• ‍Jim Dethmer: Leading Above the Line

Transcript

Austin

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Freelance Cake Podcast. I'm your host, Austin L. Church. The goal of this show is to help full-time, committed freelancers get better leverage.

[00:00:13] As the sworn enemy of busyness and burnout, I have no desire to see you work harder. Instead, I reveal the specific beliefs, principles, and practices you can use right away to make the freelance game more profitable and enjoyable. So chill out and listen in, because the best is yet to come.

[00:00:35] This episode of Freelance Cake is brought to you by CrowdHealth. Healthcare in the US is complicated, confusing, and highly personal. Insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays can get really expensive, especially for freelancers and consultants who don’t have an employer paying for anything.

[00:00:54] Case in point, here’s what a UX consultant wrote to me in an email: “My biggest headache is currently health insurance. It’s so expensive for a family of 4 with 2 self-employed parents. Really tough.”

[00:01:08] That is exactly why my family of 5 switched to health sharing. Over the last 9 years, my wife and I have been through 2 births, a broken arm, 2 surgeries, emergency room visits, MRIs, allergy shots, and a disability diagnosis. Get this, we’ve saved over $60,000 in out-of-pocket costs without sacrificing our quality of care.

[00:01:32] If you’re not familiar with healthcare crowdfunding. I hope you’ll take this opportunity to educate yourself. I’ll drop some links in the show notes, or you can head straight to www.joincrowdhealth.com and use code “freelancecake” (that’s just one word) to get 3 months for $99. Go to www.joincrowdhealth.com.

‍Austin

[00:01:53] Okay, Wudan we made it here. How are you today?

Wudan

[00:01:57] We did it. I'm good. How about yourself?

‍Austin

[00:02:00] I'm doing really well. I've been looking forward to this conversation ever since I heard you speak last time about negotiation. I thought she has such a fresh and helpful and relatable perspective. I really want to have a follow-up conversation with her. So thank you for your willingness. And maybe to kick things off, would you just tell me and anyone who doesn't know you, what your career has looks like, and the type of work you find energizing right now?

‍Wudan

[00:02:34] That's a great question. I mean, thank you for having me. I'm excited to continue the conversation on negotiation. So I have been working for myself for the last decade and before that, I was a trained scientist. I quit a Ph.D.program in cancer biology in 2013 to pursue journalism at the time. Journalism was like my first love, if you will, in terms of how I was gonna escape from a doctoral program.

[00:03:10] And so my start, I trained up as a magazine journalist in fact checking in publications like Discover Magazine and Nautilus and many other places that I ended up freelancing for. I moved overseas for a stint because I thought I wanted to be an international correspondent. I lived in Bangkok before I moved to Seattle where I've been living for going on eight years.

[00:03:36] And over that time, my career has taken lots of twists and turns. I think the first six years of my career, I was very squarely a narrative journalist. That was my bread and butter. I was traveling 3 to 4 months out of the year working on different stories in Asia, in America, the southwest, the Mountain West, everywhere that I could possibly find a fascinating story. And I loved that.

[00:04:02] And then the pandemic happened and I built The Writers' Co-op, which is an all-in-one learning platform for freelance creatives. We also have a podcast. And since then, I've really thought of myself as like an all-around business person. My personal branding these days is that I'm a narrative writer and I help companies craft narratives. I help institutions tell stories. I take a lot of the same storytelling skills that I learned as a narrative journalist and apply it to places that also value the power of story and of the people.

Austin

[00:04:41] So good. So tell me again the year for cancer biology, and when you quit the Ph.D. program.

‍Wudan

[00:04:49] It was April 2023.

‍Austin

[00:04:54] April of this year, 2023…

‍Wudan

[00:04:57] Oh, sorry, I got that wrong.

‍Austin

[00:04:59] No, that's fine.

‍Wudan

[00:05:02] It was in April of 2013.

‍Austin

[00:05:07] April of 2013. Okay, and so what a wild journey since then. And so did you – this is, I think, a good segue into talking about negotiation – when you were in your Ph.D. program, in your wildest imagination, would you have ever thought that you would have an interest in business?

‍Wudan

[00:05:31] I don't know. You know, science is a creative field. I think I appreciate that now as somebody who writes so much about scientists and thought to like come across a discovery or new method of doing something, that seems really creative and people really have to think differently in order to make a difference. And I don't think I appreciated it at the time or I don't think the way that my classes were taught gave me the space to be creative in that way and I probably found that very limiting. So I didn't see creativity in my field at the time.

‍Austin

[00:06:08] But now looking back, you see it in abundance.

‍Wudan

[00:06:11] I do.

‍Austin

[00:06:14] Are you able to carry that message or like beat that drum now, when you speak to scientists?

‍Wudan

[00:06:23] Definitely, I think scientists or anyone who's not used to talking to the media or people who have a very creative way of thinking, don't think that what they do is a good story or if it's creative and there have definitely been times in interviews where I'm like, that's a really different way of thinking, like what influenced you to come to that? Sometimes I need to reflect what I'm hearing back to other people to have them see that they are inherently creative. I mean, I think all humans are inherently creative. We might not be creative professionally, but in other realms of our life as well.

‍Austin

[00:06:59] I could not agree more. I don't think we have a choice in the matter. I think to be human is to be creative. Look at all the problems we solve on a day to day basis. Does that not involve creativity? But so you find yourself part scientist, part storyteller, part business person, and then what sparked this conversation is part negotiator. So you told me or at least I was sitting there when you said that negotiation did not come easily to you at first. Would you be willing to just unpack some of your history with negotiation?

‍Wudan

[00:07:45] This question is like asking me to talk about my childhood trauma but…

‍Austin

[00:07:50] A new direction! New direction!

‍Wudan

[00:07:52] No, no, no, no, I'm happy to answer this. So I was born in China. I immigrated to the US when I was 2.5 with my parents. So my parents are immigrants. Their cultural understanding is quite conservative. And I was a first generation Chinese American kid living in America and just being like, “What is this world? “What is Disney?” “What is the playground?” “How far can I ride my bike before I scrape my knees?”

[00:08:21] And I would say, I was very much in this explorative mindset and so much of what my parents tried to tell me was no. And instead of being like, “Okay, I see you're telling me no, so I'm going to listen to you,” I was always like, “But how can I still do the thing without them finding out?” So, like riding my bike without scraping my knees.

[00:08:44] And so I think I was always naturally looking for a way around things, in a creative way and a definitely a rebellious way as a kid. But I didn't feel psychologically safe to negotiate because there was no negotiation with my parents. They believed they were right, and I wanted things my way as a child and I would not get them.

[00:09:05] And it's funny you started this conversation with a discussion of my past life in science and academia because similarly, when I was a grad student, my stipend was fixed. I was getting paid like $36,000 a year when I was living in New York City. There was no negotiation and there, like journalism, science is very much “You should be so fortunate that you're here. That somebody else, the NIH, the government, is paying for your education.” So there was very little room for negotiation and when you kind of see that there's no room for something, it makes you very hesitant to break the mold. 

‍Austin

[00:09:44] That's right, because there is a social cost that comes with being the person who speaks up or sticks out, especially if the paradigm is just be quiet and be grateful for what you have.

‍Wudan

[00:10:02] Exactly.

‍Austin

[00:10:03] Were there specific moments, especially once you'd made it to adulthood, were there specific moments that helped you break out of the mold, so to speak?

‍Wudan

[00:10:17] Once I started working for myself, definitely. I kind of talked to people who had become freelance writers and didn't go to school, just talked to me about the business and how to sustain a career in freelancing, not just journalism, but doing content and fact checking and diversifying your skill set. And I was like, “Oh, this is a business.” And in business you negotiate.

[00:10:41] And I think learning that basic tenet very early on in my freelance career felt really, really important. And so I feel like a part of me was always trying to just get like a little bit more every assignment or every other assignment. Or if it was, my second or third time working with a client. I would just like push the button ever so slightly within my perceived realm of safety.

‍Austin

[00:11:14] So I'd love to double click on that slightly because I think that's an important takeaway. We often think about negotiation as like a big push forward. But what I hear you saying is that it was more incremental for you.

‍Wudan

[00:11:34] Yes. So like I said, I did not feel psychologically safe to negotiate with my parents growing up. And so you don't go from 0 to 60 in terms of building that psychological safety. Psychological safety is how comfortable we feel putting ourselves out there with no risk of retaliation or push back from somebody else. We can explore, we can maybe say this thing that feels silly, but people will still be willing to have a conversation with us rather than shut us out. And I think I had to gather evidence for myself that it was okay to negotiate.

‍Austin

[00:12:11] Oh, that is so good. Two things: no risk or retaliation. And I think for a lot of us freelancers and consultants, coming into a conversation based on our wiring, personality, demeanor, it's difficult to believe that we can advocate for ourselves without risk or retaliation.

[00:12:442] And then the second thing before I forget was gathering evidence. One, I'm like, “Oh so cool! The scientist in you came out,” but more importantly, that's a big part of confidence, I think. Could you say more about what you mean by gathering evidence and how that shaped how you showed up in a conversation about money or certain points in a contract?

‍Wudan

[00:13:10] Sure. So I think what we believe ourselves to be capable of needs to be based on precedent, our precedent, not just somebody else's. And I think that's why I think that incremental evidence gathering, very empirical approach can be so transformative. So say, I want to, I started my freelance career probably making $300 for a 1000-word article and now I can make $2,000 for that scope of work. And so if I were starting out a decade ago, I would just think that, what is that, getting six times my rate? 

‍Austin

[00:13:51] Six or seven times, which seems insane, right? You're like, “No way! There's just no way.”

‍Wudan

[00:13:57] Yeah, but I didn't go from $300 to $2,000. I went from $300 to $450 to $600 to $1,000 to $1,500. There are so many steps, and I think as business owners, and I notice this a lot when I coach other people, sometimes people have built that progression for themselves, but they don't take stock of it.

[00:14:16] And I think so like when people work with me, especially in building confidence in coaching and negotiating, I tell them to log their wins. It sounds so rudimentary, I'm sending them… basically on a journal assignment that they could have done in the sixth grade, but just keeping a written list next to your desk of all the things that you “won at” in a given work week, in a month, in a quarter, that all adds up and it acts like a mirror and reflects back to me or you or anyone else, what it is that you're capable of and what clients are letting you do. That's how you build evidence for yourself.

‍Austin

[00:14:52] I don't think that sounds rudimentary at all. I think it sounds incredible. I think why wouldn't all of us surround ourselves with a cloud of witnesses? The witnesses being past precedent. Like I keep a bottle of Cheerwine – which is a red soda made in Asheville, North Carolina – I keep a bottle on my desk because it reminds me of this formative moment in middle school in the seventh grade, when I stood up to the biggest bully at my school.

‍Wudan

[00:15:31]

Yep.

‍Austin

[00:15:32] So it's for me, precedent of having a spine, advocating for myself, not being afraid, taking a step out, risking, all of that is, embodied in this silly little – but it's not silly for me – bottle of soda. So the idea of a win log in that body of evidence making it tactile, I think is so powerful. These days, now that you've, well, I don't want to get to that question just yet. I was going to say, how do you think about negotiation these days? But take us back a little bit. And would you tell us about some moments or experiences you had that represented, like, “Oh, here's a bit of precedent. Here's a bit of evidence. Here's an increment.” Would you just give a few examples of that?

‍Wudan

[00:16:36] Yeah. So it was about a year and a half, I believe, into freelancing. And I found out I got an internship at Nature Medicine, which would really give me the time and space to dig into writing long-form science features, which is what, at the time, what I wanted to do. And before I learned that I got that position, I was tutoring full time for a test prep company in New York City making, I don't know, $58,000, I think, enough to live on for sure with roommates and freelancing in the mornings.

[00:17:13] And with that internship, I would have basically had to switch to a full-time writing. Of course, that internship did not pay well at the time, I think they were gonna offer me like $10 an hour. And I just sit there at my desk being like, “Okay, this is obviously the right opportunity for me and I make so much more as a test prep tutor. And now there's an opportunity cost. How can I make this work for just 3 to 4 months financially?” I needed to ask for a raise.

[00:17:44] And so I asked for $12.50 an hour. I wrote my editor. I wasn't apologetic, but I definitely was over explanatory. I was like, “When I first moved here, this is what I did to assess my cost of living. And now I would have to do this full time and there's an opportunity cost. So would you be ok with this very meager increase?” And she was like, “Let me run it up the chain.” They ended up being okay with it. And so I was like, “Okay, if the bar is on the floor, somebody can pick the bar up a little for me.”

‍Austin

[00:18:17] And maybe you've already answered this question, but would they have given you 25% more if you hadn't asked?

‍Wudan

[00:18:26] No. no. I always say with negotiating, you're never gonna get what you don't ask for and you can never get more than the maximum of what you're asking for. I’d have to think about the wording there. But yeah, two basic tenets of negotiating.

‍Austin

[00:18:48] You're never going to get what you don't ask for. I mean, when can I buy that mug? I feel like we all need that like in our offices and studios. That is such a good story and it goes back to your earlier point where you didn't ask for $25 an hour, you didn't ask for 250% more, you asked for 25% more. And you got a Yes. What did that do to you? How did that make you feel? What happened after that?

‍Wudan

[00:19:25] I mean, I think that was like the first time I really negotiated for anything, even the freelance work I had taken up to that point. Somebody would give me $25 or $30 an hour for a job and then the next job that I got from somebody new, I would ask for $35, but I think for something that was a lot more consistent, I would show up to an office four days of the week basically, that felt really big. It wasn't just really a one-off, if that makes any sense, because there was more consistency to the work that I'd be producing for them.

‍Austin

[00:19:58] So this is another thread I want to tease out. And I think there is a tight rope to be walked here. You mentioned, maybe you overshared in terms of making a case for $12.50 rather than $10 an hour. Yeah, I think it can sometimes help to share our rationale and use logic when we're negotiating. What advice would you give when it comes to walking that tight rope?

‍Wudan

[00:20:29] Yeah. I think sometimes so the reason that some journalism internships are unpaid, or the reason that many are very lowly paid is because people 30 to 40 years ago thought that inflation to the extent that it's happened would never happen probably. And the people who are in charge are likely making astronomically more than the interns and they are so far removed from the reality.

[00:20:58] And I think sometimes, yes, I don't regret the way that I handled that conversation. Do I cringe a little when I look back on it? Absolutely. And at the same time, I think, sometimes you just have to level with the people at the top and be like, look the reality of when this rate was set, who knows when it was set? It does not jive with the economic reality of living in New York City in 2015 at that point.

‍Austin

[00:21:25] Right. So you needed them to understand the situation they were putting interns in.

‍Wudan

[00:21:34] Correct. Yeah. And I think, and probably many different other industries that small business owners operate in, there is kind of this price of admission. And that's why nepotism is so big in journalism. But just people with privilege and the ability to work for so little, helps those people get in the door, whereas I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't have my parents willing to bail me out. There were so many types of financial privilege I didn't have. The only privilege I had was that I did not have loans, and so, I could kind of make it work. So I think, yeah, to an extent, it can be really exclusionary and some people at the top just don't see that.

‍Austin

[00:22:21] I think it's a separate conversation about self-advocacy, right? Because I think we're all coming from a different place and it's really easy for you or for me to give advice about how to negotiate. And we forget that there are some variables or factors that are on the table for this other person that can make some advice untenable, right?

[00:22:52] And it, it can go both ways. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee where the cost of living is still relatively low. So I might be willing to settle for a price that would simply be untenable, totally unrealistic for someone in New York City, not because they're greedy, not because they're money obsessed, but because it costs so much more to live in their city.

[00:23:20] So it it just the lesson I would take out of this for all of us is when any expert gives you a piece of advice, examine it and ask if there are variables and factors that make this advice much less effective or much less realistic for you, which you had to do. It's like, oh, maybe $10 an hour is realistic for someone else, but it's not realistic for me. After another quick word about our sponsor, I'll keep going with this.

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[00:25:37] So give us the sort of montage, where have you come from since, with negotiation, and how do you think about negotiation now? 

‍Wudan

[00:25:51] Well, I negotiate basically everything. I really encourage other people to negotiate. I mean, not every negotiation comes in the form of a contract. So for instance, I think this is a good example. Last week, one of my regular clients asked me to basically hop on a rush project And at the time, I didn't know it was a rush project. I didn't know how much time I would have between during the interview and having to submit a first draft. But then I learned that the turnaround time would definitely make it a rush project.

[00:26:27] And, I basically asked, “Hey, so this is a rush project. What can you accommodate for a rush rush fee?” And so I'm very aware of my needs as a business at this point because I've been doing this for a decade. And so I feel very comfortable. It's second nature to me to, on the fly, just be like, “Hey, so this one thing. Let's talk about it real fast.” And I know it's not scary. I know this client already values me because they're trusting me with an assignment that is fast turn-around, a little more higher stakes, and there are lots of stakeholders too that she needs to run it back by.

[00:27:00] So, yeah, inherent, I'm like, I know that she's not gonna fail on me or say no, the worst is that she can't afford my rush rate, and then we have to limit the scope in some other way. And so it turns out that she could not afford my true rush rate. And then we had a separate email conversation about how we can limit the scope of the piece, so that what they're getting is fair from me. So everything is a negotiation.

‍Austin

[00:27:27] I love it! Yes. You bring up a really good point, which is when you're in that conversation, name it. This is a rush project. This is an unusually tight timeline. So I think that's an easy thing that can get lost in the shuffle, which is when a client invites you into a conversation about a project, but then they change some aspect of the project that should change your compensation, you have to name it. You have to notice it when it's happening and then you have to name it. And I also really appreciate your phrasing. I don't know if I'll be able to recall it word for word, but it was something like, what kind of rush can you accommodate? Do you remember what you said?

‍Wudan

[00:28:21] Yeah, something to that effect. Yeah, this is a given the tight turnaround time. This would qualify for a rush project. What kind of rush rate can you accommodate?

‍Austin

[00:28:32] So I like how cordial and collegial that is, and that's another thing that you touched on, which is, this doesn't have to be combative.

‍Wudan

[00:28:43] Negotiating is a conversation. Negotiating, I think even my therapist would say this, is where you and I begin, and if both you and I are setting really hard boundaries around things, there's no meeting in between. And so I really think of these things as like a conversation. I mean, this is my approach with sending LOIs, sending tough client emails, everything isn't like throwing down the gauntlet so much as it is opening a conversation.

[00:29:18] If you're not asking questions from the other person to understand their point of view, I think that is a conversation ender. So many people I coach on navigating client relations, even starting a client relationship with the LOI, but I think, you know, when I send LOIs, I'm like, “Is there anything I can help with?” It's a question that invites a response and I do the same thing when I'm negotiating with clients.

‍Austin

[00:29:45] Ask questions that invite a response. I think that is a really helpful reframing because I have spoken with a number of freelancers and consultants who are struggling to break through to the next level or the next stage of growth in their career precisely because they conflate negotiation with confrontation. And they think it's always necessarily adversarial.

[00:30:17] And so I really appreciate your reframing. Negotiation is conversation. Where I stop, you start. Why couldn't it be cordial and collegial? Why does it have to be combative? And I have found that if I manage my own emotional response and keep my cool, I will often… I'm a sensitive person and I have a high value for justice, and there have been times I spoke too quickly and all I really needed to do was keep my mouth shut. And instead if I do keep my mouth shut, give the benefit of the doubt, reframe it as conversation, ask a question, show interest, things will often turn out in my favor. Has that been your experience too?

‍Wudan

[00:31:14] Yeah. I had a, I posted about this on my Instagram the other week, about asking a client for a raise, which I've never done before. Usually, I'm like, “Starting next calendar year, this will be my new rate. If this is okay, I'm gonna start invoicing. I'm gonna put this on my invoices.” And I haven't had any issues, but I think this year has been a very strange economic year and I frankly don't know what's going on with my clients and their budgets and whether or not they can give a raise or not. But I think in this conversational way that I'm talking about all these other interactions, I basically ask questions, and was like, “How amenable are you guys? What does budgeting look like? I'm happy to hop on the call.” Just getting really curious about my client's needs.

‍Austin

[00:32:10] I feel like we need like the Wudan cheat sheet for negotiation where it's just like bullet points of the words and phrases that you use. Because I think the big hang up for a lot of us is, “What do I say?” So aside from what you've already shared, can you think of any other specific words, phrases, logic, ideas, that have really helped you in these situations?

‍Wudan

[00:32:40] Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, so sometimes people want scripts because it's like the fake-it-till-you-make-it thing. If you know the right thing to say, then maybe over time it's less of emotional labor to say the thing because you can just copy and paste. At the same time, it's a lot easier to say things by email that are organic to us. This is something I'm working a lot with my therapist on is basically like, “How do I say or approach an interaction that feels genuine to me?” And what feels genuine to me may not feel genuine to everyone else.

[00:33:15] And so as an example, I worked with a coaching client a few years ago who wanted to basically be a more regular contributor with a client that they've worked with many other times in the past and also to get paid more. And I didn't tell her what to say. She basically expressed that saying anything by… She sent me the email that she drafted and she was like, “This feels really unnatural.” And I was like, “Okay, pretend this email doesn't exist, record a voice memo of yourself being in conversation or starting this conversation, transcribe it, copy, paste, edit, send.”

‍Austin

[00:33:53] Because it does become stilted when we open up that new email draft. And if we were seeing that person face to face, we wouldn't necessarily use the same packaging, right?

‍Wudan

[00:34:08] Totally. I mean, I think so many people conflate coaching with consulting or mentoring or something. But as a coach, I want people to learn how to think for themselves. They can't just copy and paste my career or copy and paste my email and have it work out necessarily. They need to figure out a system that is authentic for them. They need to learn systems, and ways of working, et cetera. And my job is to help them find those methods by asking questions like the one I shared

‍Austin

[00:34:38] I think his name is Jim Dethmer, but I heard him on the Knowledge Project Podcast, and he talked about the line and when you're below the line, you're closed to another person's point of view. And when you're above the line, you're open. And that's been a helpful little question to ask or almost like a rubric when I receive a hard email or I'm expecting to send an email and I built the story around the email in my mind, and even as I'm writing it, I'm probably infusing it with emotion and don't realize it. I may be below the line.

[00:35:23] And the reason I brought that up is one really simple trick for me, especially when I'm responding to an email, is saying, “I need to put more thought into this before I respond. I will email again tomorrow.” And then to compose my email in a separate email draft, or even just like a text talk on my desktop, but that helps me find myself. It helps me be above the line. It helps me not put emotion into it because a lot of the time when I email the next day, it's fine, it's all fine.

[00:36:08] And that story that I've told myself in my head wasn't true. So I love that advice that you gave just about finding the things that work for you. And also I love what you said about coaching where a coach's job is to empower and not to become a crutch.

[00:36:30] Okay, so closing down this conversation… I'm gonna call it a vitamin. If you could make every freelancer, and this goes against everything we just said about being a coach who empowers and doesn't just offer this prescriptive advice. But if you could make every freelancer believe or do one specific thing that would benefit them related to negotiation, what would it be?

‍Wudan

[00:36:58] Oh, gosh, I like this question, because you prepped me with them by email. And I think my response is time off. So even listening to what you're saying about responding immediately and being below the line, last year or the year before, I can't remember, I tried this experiment with myself, which is taking at least 24 hours to respond to inbound job queries.

[00:37:25] And the reason I began doing this is because I just started overbooking myself and it wasn't even out of scarcity or necessity really. It was just like, “Well, I guess I can do all these things,” and maybe I was experimenting to see how much I could take on or what my limit was. Sometimes I run these little micro experiments in my business, but then I was like, “Okay, I took too much on and I would like to think about these queries 24 hours later.”

[00:37:52] And so I have a whole system with my email. I starred the email, it ends up in my starred folder, my starred folder are all the emails I need to answer. And I basically would log off, think about the assignment, think about whether or not I had the bandwidth. Looking at my work roster for the coming months, I would kind of weigh how well this assignment aligned with my long-term goals. If it was even a service that I was offering or interested in getting more of, of the type of client who solicited me with somebody who I wanted to work more with, and leaving that buffer room, that at least 24 hour buffer room has been very useful in me making smart decisions on what to say.

[00:38:34] And so I think doing anything in service of generating that pause, that space to reflect and think logically and critically will make us better business owners and consultants and can help us even decide what it is that we need to negotiate for. And one thing I realized with that pause is like, nothing is a total yes and very few things are totally a no. I would do some things on a longer deadline. I would be like, yes, and I would also need the client to pay for like this transcription, because you're asking me to interview somebody overseas with a very heavy accent, and I do not have the language capacities to clean up that transcript. I would like to outsource that. Can you do this? It was very “Yes, and” and “No, and.” It wasn't, like, hard.

[00:39:35] And I found that fascinating and I could have only gotten that with stepping away from my desk. And I don't work Fridays. I usually log off at 3 pm on my work days. And so I think all of that is in service of me making better decisions in my business.

‍Austin

[00:39:55] So much good stuff there. I love just the idea of the pause and how that contributes to better decision making, and I especially appreciate the nuance. All this would be easy if it was, like what Derek Sivers talks about, “If it's not a hell yes, then it's a no.” I'm like, “Ahh, there's a lot more [inaudible] than that. There are a lot of “No buts” and there are a lot of “Yes ands.”

[00:40:29] And so I just appreciate you bringing the nuance in because decision making would be so much easier if there were only two buckets separated by this great distance. But in fact, there are like 20 buckets, and it's only by stepping away that you're like, “Which bucket does this really go in?”

‍Wudan

[00:40:48] Yeah, I love that I practice the pause and kind of realizing the pattern of my responses too because now, I still use the pause, but I'm a lot quicker to deploy it rather than taking 24 hours to think on it and pull my group chat or ask my husband. It's gotten a lot more intuitive and again, kind of like the confidence log we talked about, we have to come up with our own systems and figure out like what our own patterns are again, something I help so many people do in coaching. So yeah, very similar philosophy and thread.

‍Austin

[00:41:27] Some of that coaching needs to bounce back and hit us in the forehead when I find myself saying yes too often. I'm like, “Wait, am I not telling other people to be a little bit more stingy with the yeses?” But that 24 hour pause is huge.

[00:41:47] Okay! Two more questions. You don't have to answer the next one if you don't want to. But as I was thinking about a really fun way to thank you just for having this conversation with me, I thought, “Okay, if someone listening were in a position to contribute to your career, send you a referral, otherwise help you, is there anything specific in your mind that someone… anything specific that someone else could help with or contribute to right now?” Sorry, that was so wordy.

‍Wudan

[00:42:25] Yeah! I run The Writers' Co-op which I describe as a one-stop shop for freelance creatives. We have a podcast, we have monthly webinars, we have workshops. We just did a month-long…. why am I saying “we”? I. I did all these things. It's just me. I ran a workshop on updating your portfolio over the course of three weeks because it's such a mental slog for so many people. And I really just broke it down. We have an online community, and I would like to continue making this resource available. And as I think about the next season, I am looking for people to help fund it. And I have been very fortunate to have had grants to kickstart the podcast. I have also very smartly figured out different revenue streams to financially bolster it and also not spend too much time on it myself so I can get compensated fairly.

[00:43:29] But yeah, it is a labor of love for better or worse. I know people love the show. And yeah, I would be really grateful if anyone passed me leads, for people or companies who would be interested in investing for the next season. We're not hurting, and at the same time, I want to be able to make the best product possible for others because I see how it's benefited others so much. And like all good things, money is absolutely a must for people to create the best work for others to enjoy.

‍Austin

[00:44:04] Well said. I can remember a very specific run I was on and it was an older episode where you and Jenny were talking about, I think you all were actually going on a walk up a hill, or maybe you were just talking about how metaphorically, we don't always have to be chasing down some hard goal.

[00:44:31] And Wudan, it brought me to tears because you gave me permission to ease up a little bit, which is what I needed in my life. I can attest The Writers' Co-op is a terrific podcast, so any of you listening, if there is someone, a sponsor who wants to get in front of more smart, talented, hard-working freelance writers, connect with Wudan. I think that's a perfect segue. Where can people go to get more of your best thinking and ideas? And just go ahead and pitch people on the negotiation course. Let's just be overt in that, shall we?

‍Wudan

[00:45:24] Yeah. So where can people find me now? I email. Somebody messaged me on X (formerly known as Twitter), and it took me a while to get to it because I just don't open it anymore. It used to be a staple in one of my tabs and it's just every time I logged on this summer, people were writing eulogies, there were seven rounds of eulogies and I just couldn't keep up with what was driving it downhill.

[00:45:53] So you can email me. I'm at wudan.yan@gmail.com. You can find me on LinkedIn about once a week. I am on my Instagram every single day at @wudanyan. I actually do a lot on Instagram now because I'm realizing people engage with that there, and Instagram for better or worse, is the X replacement but not quite as cocaine as TikTok is my understanding. So I don't know if I'm gonna be on TikTok but so far Instagram has some of my best thinking and that's where I really download my brain about like, “This happened. I did this in my freelance business today. Was it weird? We'll find out in about 48 hours.”

‍Austin

[00:46:39] I think that Instagram should adopt that as their official tagline, “Not as cocaine as TikTok.” Okay, so it's @wudanyan, Instagram. Sometimes on LinkedIn. But if you really want to get a response, head straight to the inbox.

‍Wudan

[00:47:05] Yup, that that about sums it up.

‍Austin

[00:47:07] Okay, you are a delight. Thank you for having a conversation with me.

‍Wudan

[00:47:13] Thanks so much for driving it. This is super fun.

‍Austin

[00:47:15] It was fun. We'll do it again and I'll talk to you soon.

‍Wudan

[00:47:19] All right, talk soon. Bye, Austin.

‍Austin

[00:47:20] Bye.

[00:47:23] Hey, before you go, a quick reminder, be sure to check out the business redesign group coaching program. It's fundamentally about revenue design and lifestyle design and it's based on the $300K flywheel framework that I have developed over the last 15 years of trial and error and nearly $2 million earned as a creative entrepreneur.

[00:47:46] Instead of feeding more and more time into the business machine, you can join me and other like-minded freelancers and consultants as we learn how to think like a CEO, not a technician, stack up the right advantages, and find our income-lifestyle sweet spot. Go to freelancecake.com/coaching to learn more about business redesign and apply. My friends, the best is yet to come. See you in the next episode.