Meet Our Founders: Jess
The Doers all started with just two people, Jess & Laura. Their creative ideas, marketing expertise, and brand values are what created this collective of marketing freelancers, and of course our Inner Circle. Grab a cup of tea (or something stronger) - it’s time to catch up with them both and find out a little more about them.
Let’s start off with Jess, our creative genius and marketeer with over 12 years’ experience…
Hi Jess, Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do and how long you have been doing it?
I co-founded The Doers having been working freelance for almost a year and waking up at 3am with a brainwave to somehow bring all the talented freelancers I knew together in some way. The name came to me in the middle of another night and the rest is history.
I very much consider myself a generalist marketeer - my skillset lies within being able to see the big picture and how everything works together within a business. I started my career off freelancing in the world of TV production but was too young and inexperienced to handle freelance life back then. I then started at a PR agency (where I met Laura) and honed my passion for digital marketing at a time where brands didn’t really know what social media was and the word ‘influencer’ hadn’t yet been utilised in the way it is today. I like to think I was ahead of the times back then and that’s held me in good stead for what I do now. I still remember having to vehemently convince the brands I was working with that Instagram was going to be a thing and they needed to invest time and energy into it - brands that are now heavily reliant on the platform to drive sales, which always makes me smile. The opportunity arose to jump ship to American furniture giant Williams Sonoma Inc (the parent company to west elm, Potterybarn, Williams Sonoma + more). I was part of the founding team for their venture to the UK and helped launch and scale them on these shores. It was a dream role that allowed me to spend extensive time in the US and build my network far and wide. But working within corporate America isn’t for the faint hearted and I soon realised that it wasn’t for me long term, knowing full well that soon enough I wanted to start my own venture. And when the time was right, I did just that.
I love to learn new marketing tricks and add to my skillset. As well as strategy, I am able to build and code websites, have a strong visual and creative eye, and pick up new technologies pretty quickly. My work is as much a hobby as it is a job and there’s something quite lovely about being in a position where I truly LOVE what I do.
How and why did you start The Doers?
Having worked both in house and agency side, it was clear to me that there was a shift happening in terms of what businesses needed and what agencies could provide. Typically (though this isn’t the case for all), agencies bring clients on through an account director who then passes the bulk of the work to a more junior team. That junior team typically rotates often, so consistency is skewed. Not only that, the fees an agency would charge and the retainer structure were too limiting to work cohesively with the ebbs and flow of a typical business. So many of my network were going freelance - people with a wealth of experience and talent, and I wanted to create a midway service between agency, in-house, and freelance. We wanted to make marketing more value-driven for the people we worked with and bring them the very best freelance marketing talent out there to help bring to life our ideas and strategies.
“The day I kissed goodbye to office politics, corporate culture, and feeling the need to climb a career ladder, was one of the most freeing experiences.”
Share your perks - what do you enjoy most about working for yourself and why?
It’s the flexibility for me. The structure of working a 9-5 never really worked in my head and my productivity schedule. I’m a night owl for the most part and most creative in the evenings. I struggle early in the morning to get my brain into gear and I go through a mid-afternoon slump almost daily. Weaving that into a typical office set up wasn’t easy. With The Doers, I make my work fit into my schedule and have the flexibility to change it up as and when I need to. I like being able to go to the gym in the middle of the day or hit the shops when the crowds aren’t there. I like to travel with my laptop wherever I’d like to, knowing I can work from just about anywhere without having to gain anyone else’s approval. It’s a lifestyle shift I desperately needed. The day I kissed goodbye to office politics, corporate culture, and feeling the need to climb a career ladder, was one of the most freeing experiences.
Share your struggles - what do you find hardest about working for yourself and why? How have you found ways to combat these parts of working for yourself?
Nobody warns you just how much there is to juggle when you work for yourself. You never stop learning and every day you encounter something else new to you. I enjoy that learning process but there’s never an off switch. If I wanted to, I could work 24/7 and still have more work left to do. It’s really important to be strict with yourself here and give yourself proper downtime. Because I work mainly from home, I’ve set quite strong boundaries here. For example, I won’t ever take my work into my bedroom because it impacts how I sleep and that needs to be my sanctuary. And at the weekends, unless I really want to or have to, my laptop stays shut and put away. There are of course times where this isn’t possible, but sticking to it 85% of the time, gives me the switch off I need to recuperate.
Loneliness was tough at the beginning too. We’ve been hellbent on making sure none of Doers feel lonely. It was a big part of what we wanted to achieve with the business. So we built in our monthly We Don’t Do Lonely days - a chance for freelancers or remote workers to gather together and work alongside one another - for free. I learned to lean on my network. People are always open to having workdays together and similarly, if you find yourself working from a cafe or co-working space, don’t be afraid to say hello to other people with their laptops. They’re likely to be remote workers too who are feeling equally as lonely and you never know who you might meet along the way!
The finances of working for yourself take some getting used to too. If I could go back and start again, I’d allow for at least 6 months salary safely stored away as a contingency before plunging into working for myself. This gives you security for months where work might be a little quiet but similarly gives you security if you need to take time off, either necessary (e.g. for medical reasons) or voluntary (e.g. for an extended holiday). We’re now set up as a limited company and salaried but this was a big adjustment at the start of my journey that I really struggled with.
What are your top tips for anyone thinking about working for themselves?
Set a routine that works for you and don’t be afraid to adapt it when you need to to make it work with your lifestyle. Shifting your headspace away from a 9-5 mindset isn’t easy and if that work schedule works for you, stick with it but for most freelancers I know, they adapt their days to work for them.
Get your finances sorted before going freelance - remember you’re kissing goodbye to paid leave, pension contributions, and healthcare benefits, etc when you work for yourself. There will be months of uncertainty or months you need to take time out and you need to make sure you’re financially stable to be able to do that. I recommend putting aside at least 3 months’ salary to act as your security blanket. I also recommend setting up a pension from day 1. I use Penfold (disclaimer: they are also a client but would use them regardless) who makes it very easy to set up. You can pause payments at any time and it’s easy to adapt your contributions to work with the ebbs and flows of your business.
Always make time for growing your network - it’s easy to push this to one side but making time each week to connect with others will be crucial as your business grows. I am an active user of social media but will try and meet regular online connections offline as much as I can. This has massively supported business growth for us and opened up a wealth of opportunities as well as helping us find new Doers to join our team.
Prioritise your health and wellness above all else - if you don’t have a team behind you, you need to be responsible in taking care of yourself - mentally and physically. When your body says it needs a time out, really listen to it or you’ll burn out hard and be out of action for even longer. Lean on your network to support you here if you need someone to pick up some workload for you. Similarly, if you can afford to do it, I highly recommend working with a therapist. Your mind needs to stay clear and calm to cope with working for yourself and therapy is a great way to make that happen. Carve out time for exercise. I’m religious about going to spin classes (at Psycle London) and put it into my calendar as a non-negotiable meeting slot. It helps clear my mind during stressful periods and gets me out of the house regularly too.
What is the best project you’ve worked on at The Doers?
I couldn’t pick a single project but I love the set up we have with our clients. I get the most from our Power Hours and strategy sessions because we’re able to really get under the skin of a business. We often call these sessions business therapy and knowing we can really impact the mentality around marketing for a business through this time together, fills me with all the feels. I really enjoy campaign driven work like our recent campaign with Scope and past campaigns with Penfold because we get to put together a really rounded, fully formed team to make them happen.
What does next year look like for The Doers?
Having built out our Inner Circle of Doers (aka a dedicated team of cross-functional freelance marketers), we’ll be heavily growing our business together with their support. This will include working with more varied clients, working on more impactful projects, and bringing them more actively into every client that comes our way.
Similarly, our offering to clients has grown. We’ve made it easier and more impactful for clients to work with us with the addition of our strategy sessions and Power Hours. I’m really excited about bringing this to life even more and helping to use them to build the brands we work with more efficiently than we already do.
