We recently connected with Allison Kay Bannister and have shared our conversation below.
Allison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
It was summer of 2016 and I was at a gathering with current and former colleagues at my former boss’ house. I was chatting with someone who recently left the company where I was still working and he was strongly encouraging to pursue freelance writing. And I kept objecting, telling him it wasn’t for me, that I couldn’t handle the discipline, that I didn’t have any potential clients, that I just never saw myself that way. It was true. I never even entertained the idea of going out on my own. I was mostly comfortable with my four-day workweek and 20+ days of vacation. But I was in a place where there wasn’t anywhere else to go or grow at my current company and I couldn’t imagine taking another corporate position—or what that would even look like.
That conversation with my former colleague planted a seed. And, within a month, I was turning in my resignation to become a freelancer. I felt like I just had to jump—so I did. But I still had no clients, no discipline, and no idea whatsoever how I was going to pull it off. It didn’t matter. Suddenly something that seemed impossible became the only logical solution to “what’s next?”
My plan had been to give my employer time to phase me out; closer to a month’s notice rather than two weeks. I knew they could just tell me to leave right then and I would be pretty screwed. But I trusted that we needed each other equally at the time and I was right.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My name is Allison Kay Bannister. I’ve been a professional writer since 2001/2002 and a freelancer since the beginning of 2017. I realized pretty late in my college studies that I enjoyed writing, so I ended up taking on an English minor and extending my four year stint at GVSU to six years. I didn’t pursue writing after graduation. I really got off to a bumpy start to any career, in part because I was kind of computer and word-processing illiterate and all the good jobs expected skills in Wordperfect and Lotus 1-2-3 as a minimum. (I also still can’t type very well, which is about the silliest thing imaginable for a writer.)
I bounced around managing a fabric store, working as a costume designer, and eventually taking a temp position at a mortgage company where I was able to get to experience working on a computer, first in a DOS program called PC Docs (Windows 3 had just come out, if you can wrap your head around that. My recollection is that this was the first version to allow toggling between DOS and Windows.). I eventually got myself mired in middle management and hated it. There was So. Much. Drama. And being in the mortgage industry wasn’t what I wanted and here I was climbing their ladder.
The upside of that position was that I worked with a woman named Ellen who was really driven to self-teaching. She figured out how to use some of the more complex functions in Word and Excel, and then she shared that knowledge with those of us who wanted to learn. She really changed my perspective about learning and instilled in me a sense that anything was learnable.
I also got to take a weeklong 7Habits leadership training, and that really changed me on a fundamental level.
I talked about this in my last article, so I’ll just jump forward a little and say that I started over again and slowly, over about 15 years, I took different writing positions until I had amassed experience in software technical writing, proposal writing, and copywriting. Blog writing came later and I found that was my true passion. I blogged at work. I wrote a personal blog about my shoe collection. I started a new personal blog and wrote a post every day for a year. That was hard!
That first writing job as a technical writer for a software company was also transformational. I went from being a complete dud with PCs just a few years earlier to someone who could fix my own problems. I had to teach myself to learn the software and then write about it for the user manuals. I tested for bugs, I worked in translated interfaces, I created online help. I became someone who was really curious about how things work and it really shaped me as someone today who looks for patterns in every aspect of my life.
Over the past almost six years as a freelancer, I’ve done it all, but I’ve finally become confident and comfortable enough to take only the work I want, versus taking everything that’s offered. I have been able to focus almost entirely on long-form content writing, and that’s the majority of my workload today. I write for several magazines and I love it.
I think what sets me apart is that I really care. I mean REALLY. About the quality of the work, the accuracy, the client’s satisfaction…everything. I was recently offered some blog writing work and the person who wanted to hire me lowballed me on the pay and justified it by telling me the writing didn’t have to be that good. I was floored. That’s just not me. And I declined. Caring this much isn’t always profitable, but it’s a part of my personal brand. I can’t do less than I expect of myself.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
My source of clients has always been my pool of past colleagues. I built my entire business on the relationships I made while working in corporate world and the reputation I had as someone who would deliver. My first clients were past bosses and referrals from coworkers. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had to pursue work that much. It most often comes to me, and I think that’s a testament to how important reputation is. I’ve mentored a couple of young people who wanted to get into freelance writing and it was hard to give them practical advice. My success story was working in the field for 15 years and making tons of connections over that time. That’s a recipe for success, but it’s not something everyone can or wants to do to get there.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
This going to sound a little hyperbolic, but I really started to feel like a caged animal working in a 9-5 office. I really wanted freedom to do the work I love on my terms. For me that meant being able to do things people don’t get to do in a M-F gig. Go strawberry picking or make jam in the middle of afternoon. Tend to my garden. Take a walk or hike any time of day. Stay in my jammies until noon. That’s more to the question of what’s rewarding about being a freelancer, but the reality is, not every career choice leads to the opportunity to be your own boss and make your own schedule. The creative arts does. And the flexibility to balance my work with other things I love really fuels my creativity—and that’s cyclical.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllisonKayBannister
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-kay-bannister/
Image Credits
Snap Studio – Photography