Ayushi: Turning Passion Into Dreams & Dreams To Reality

Proud of her freelancing decision, Ayushi is a content & copywriter who turned her passion into a profession. She enjoys the freedom & the love that her career choice allows her. Freelancing since 2018, she says her journey has been “a roller coaster ride that took her beyond clouds”.

The three best words to describe her are ambitious, passionate, extravagant. As a freelancer, she suggests having good communication skills and focusing on personal branding. She lays emphasis on choosing a niche for a positive impact on personal branding. For lead generation, she highlights the power of social media. Her advice to newbies is to plan your goals, make strategies, and keep growing.

Considering freelancing as a blessing in her life, she wishes to build an empire & leave a legacy behind to inspire people. Her biggest learning in life is that if you truly are good at something, give it a chance and your life could turn around in a success story you always wished to read. We wish her success as she aims for new heights in the industry.

Read her inspiring story:

Table of Contents

1. Introduce yourself to us?

Hey there, I am Ayushi Somani. I am a Freelance Content & Copywriter, Content Strategist, and a Coach. I did my graduation in English literature from Manipal University Jaipur and turned to writing right after. I live in the majestic city of Jaipur, Rajasthan with my beautiful family. My ambitions and love for my art are the two things that are keeping me going and growing each day.

Apart from the services I offer to others, I am also a Content Creator with 83k+ Followers on LinkedIn. I have just stepped into creating content on Instagram to help freelancers scale their businesses.

Also, I love baking and adding cheese to everything I cook.

2. Why did you choose the field of writing? How did you get introduced to this field? What fascinates you the most about your career choice?

Ever since I was 10 years old, I knew I had immense love for writing. This love led me to explore the infinities with my writing. I was a 10 years old girl who had her world preserved in her journal. The loss of a parent at an age of 15 dragged me into writing even more. My journal became my partner and writing became the only way to express my sorrow.

Graduated with a degree in English literature, I found my direction to content and copywriting right after college ended. I have achieved goals I never knew I could attain. Worked for a digital marketing company as their content writer for 1.5 years and learned a treasure load of things. I finally decided to break free of the monotony of a job and started working for myself as a freelance content writer. My career gives me the liberty to be who I am and to love what I do with an open heart. It does not feel like a job, it feels like a vacation.

3. Why did you choose to freelance? When did you begin to freelance? Were you planning it, or how did it happen?

I have been freelancing for over 3 years now. I would take up freelance projects while working my job and it would give me immense joy. I was unhappy with my job since I was stuck in a never-ending loop of work that did not give me creative freedom or the opportunity to explore. One day I suddenly decided to quit my job and jump into freelancing full time and I haven’t looked back since. I wasn’t planning on it to happen. The doors opened up for me, the opportunities flew in, and I grabbed them. It all turned out to be the greatest decision I have made.

4. Throw some light on the importance of choosing niches and working on personal branding for freelancers.

When I began, I was working in every niche I can get a hold of. I was exploring my options and you can only niche down when you are aware and have worked in most of them. I still work for different niches to explore my potential as I learn more with each project. However, choosing a niche helps you in being an expert in one or two rather than being mediocre in several niches.

Choosing a niche also makes a positive impact on your personal brand. Your potential clients and audience will be able to relate more to you when you write about a particular niche that has relevance with them.

LinkedIn has been my greatest strength and a blessing. I started off unaware of the power this platform holds. Displayed my work and my potential on the platform. In no time people started to recognize me and I started receiving tons of leads. I also started leveraging the power and reach of Instagram. Social media reaches millions of people who you cannot physically approach. With the right strategy, there is no way something can be a barrier to lead generation.

6. How to negotiate your deal with clients? What are the important points and techniques to keep in mind?

Negotiation is a huge part of the process of onboarding a client. To escape the entire process, be confident and make it very clear that negotiation is something you do not entertain. In case you wish to provide a discount to your client, say it out loud.

Talk about the project on the discovery call; show your client your knowledge and how you are able to provide more than what they need. Let your client know they cannot afford to miss the chance of working with you. One can only make this work with the right confidence and enough faith in their work.

7. What according to you are the most essential skills that anyone interested in this area of work should develop?

I receive this question a lot in my 1:1 consultation calls with content writers. Newbie freelancers as well as some experienced ones struggle to find this out, so here it is.

Being a freelancer involves a lot of jobs all at once. It is a show run by a single-person army. With the same, a freelancer is a lead generator, a marketer, a salesperson, a branding head, a relationship manager, a financial manager, an HR, a team leader, and a lot more.

Apart from the expertise of the services, one is being paid for the most essential skills to have as a freelancer are Marketing & Personal Branding, and Top Notch Communication Skills. These two skills if aced at, can take any freelancer’s career up with a boom in no time.

8. What do you do to polish your skills as a freelancer?

I have trained over 40 freelancers in my Personal Mentorship Program. Most of them struggled with the right marketing skills, communication skills, or skills needed to make sales even after being terrific at their primary job.

Polishing your skills takes a lot of effort and a clean process. Most people fail to do it because they fail to take the first step.

The first step to polishing your skill is to analyze which skills need polishing. Once done with analyzing, follow these.

Make a schedule and work on your skills.
Ensure discipline (No one can accomplish anything without it).
Practice your skills each day.
Involve yourself in actionable tasks.
Seek help.
Find a mentor and follow them.

When it comes to being a Content Writer, I believe there is no end to practicing and evolving. Reading up and then experimenting with your writing styles is the only way to polish your writing skills. Never stop doing that no matter how successful you may think you are.

9. As a freelancer, what were the biggest obstacles you overcame? What were your worst mistakes?

I started my journey as a full-time freelancer on LinkedIn. The online community I made was showering me with love, support, and respect. They put me on a pedestal and I was under the limelight. In less than 5 months, I had 50,000 people following me, my work, and my journey.

This kicked in my imposter syndrome and I started questioning my skills. It brought a major turn in my performance as a content creator. I stopped showing up online. This affected my personal brand and the number of inbound leads fell to the ground.

After months of being missing from all social media channels, I finally pulled enough courage to get back after defeating the imposter syndrome. This has been the biggest obstacle in my journey so far.

The worst mistake I made as a freelancer is when I neglected personal branding for several months after already establishing myself as a brand. I ghosted my audience completely and that impacted my lead generation, viewership, and engagement. I am grateful to my audience who supported me and saved me from starting from 0 again. I am never falling into the trap of neglecting personal branding in life again.

10. What is the one major pro and/or con of freelancing, according to you?

The free in Freelancing is the one major pro. Free freelancing implies freedom. A freelancer is not bound by restrictions. They enjoy massive freedom for growth, freedom for experiments, freedom of scaling massive financial goals, freedom of working with whoever they wish to and whatever they wish on, and a lot more.

One major con of freelancing according to me is loneliness. If a freelancer is not actively networking, they may get professionally lonely.

Rest, if done right, freelancing will be a blessing that can change your life. It changed mine and I cannot be proud enough of my decision.

11. What mission and vision do you have? How do you want history to look at you?

My mission is to build an empire I can be proud of. Freelancing opens up so many doors of possibilities for a person and I am willing to leverage all those opportunities to change the dynamics of the industry.

When it comes to history looking at me, I wish to leave behind a legacy that can inspire people to grow. I am working every single day to become an example of no matter how big your dreams are and how small you start, you will reach your dream if you work for it.

12. What would do you differently if you had to begin your career again? What would you focus on once you restart?

Networking is the one thing I will emphasize more on if I could restart my career. In the initial stage of my career, I did not understand the importance of networking and building a community around you. There are so many amazing people out in the world who have tons of knowledge, experience, and at times puns to make you laugh really hard.

I saw other people connecting with each other well, being friends, and supporting and cheering for each other. I wanted that too and so I started reaching out to people I never thought I could be friends with. Surprisingly, all it took was one text and I found a community I can fit right in with. They understand my job, my passion, the dynamics of the industry, and help me grow as a writer each day.

Ayushi can be reached out on Refrens, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

If you, as a freelancer are looking towards financial growth, read our article on How to raise your price as a freelancer? to figure out some key strategies for the same.

Want to become a copywriting superstar? Check out our blog for some insider tips and tricks to kickstart your journey!