How to find your creative match

In this session, you’ll cover:

1) Why collaborate as a freelancer: Understand the benefits and opportunities that come from teaming up with fellow creatives.

2) What to look for: Explore the importance of shared values, working patterns, and styles when choosing a collaborator.
3) Testing the waters: Learn how to assess potential partnerships and avoid problems before they arise.
4) Managing the relationship: Discover different ways to maintain a strong and productive working relationship.
5) Meeting your creative match: Get tips on where and how to find the perfect collaborator to enhance your freelance journey.

Date: Thursday, 29th August
Time: 11am AEST
Location: Zoom
Cost: Free for all Freelance Jungle members

Creative Match transcript

Hayley: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone. Instead of Bek running the show today, I’m running the show. So hold on to your hats. First of all, before we get started, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we live and work. I’m coming to you from Far North Queensland which is the home of the Djerbagai people, which are the longest rainforest dwelling, continuous rainforest dwelling people throughout the entire world, which is just an illustration of how rich and long lived the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is within our country.

And I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge, the Elders past, present, and emerging. And, acknowledge our respect for how, rich and lucky we are to live in a culture with such a long standing heritage. And we should learn from our Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people and do all we can to make them feel as though we, respect them, which isn’t always the case.

And certainly from Freelance Jungle’s [00:01:00] point of view, we do. Bek?

Rebekah: I’m coming to you from the Dharwal Nation where the mighty Wodi Wodi people have gathered for thousands of years. I have the privilege of being on the shores of Lake Illawarra, which is home to not one but two of the Dreamtime legends.

The story of the whale and how he was tricked by the koala and starfish to form Lake Illawarra As well as the story of the five islands and their formation after the sisters turned into stone. The official position of the Freelance Jungle is that sovereignty was never ceded, and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land, and therefore we support the treaty movement in full.

Jessica: And Jessica?

And it is my Northern Beaches great shame to say that we so decimated the Aboriginal peoples in this area that they are still in discussions as to what land the Northern Beaches actually is. [00:02:00] So even though we have some like gorgeous like art and we have a lot of footprint they, they are still in at discussions.

We did call it Guringai/Garigal land up until a point, but now the official line is to TBA. I would like to acknowledge that yeah, we shouldn’t have done that. It would be nice to know and hopefully they will get to a point where we do know who we are acknowledging. So we just give a general acknowledgement now.

Hayley: Okay. So why we’re all gathered here today is to, go through how Bek and Jess have sustained and built their creative collaboration process. You’ll see Bek is from the sort of word side of things, and obviously the founder of Freelance Jungle, FYI, and Jess with her artistic abilities they’ve created this really fruitful and great collaboration and creative process.

And so today we’re going to [00:03:00] talk to them and, start to understand how they matched up creatively, how they maintain that, how they sustain that, and the fruits that come from that. So I’m going to start off with some questions. Let me just get them up. Yeah, so I guess the first question is, how did you guys start?

Jessica: So I’ll take this one. Because , I basically, I mean I, I wouldn’t call it stalking, but like I did a lot of, when I first came into the jungle, I was really impressed by what Bek had built and what I could see. And basically for a little bit of time there I started to look at it and see that the art for me, didn’t look as creative as everything else that Bek had built. And I felt like it wasn’t servicing the product well enough. So we had a couple of small dealings. I’d actually been part of a team that did a website proposal [00:04:00] for her company, unashamedly creative, which was unsuccessful, but through that I could, from her feedback, I knew that

I wasn’t the reason that the proposal was rejected. So I got the feeling that she was interested in working more with me. And so I emailed her saying, look, hopefully we’ll have another opportunity in the future. And then the future seemed a long time away. So I was like, I’m going to create that opportunity for us to work together. And did an art assessment of the Freelance Jungle where it was up to and came to her and it was with a lot of caveats of I love what you’ve built. However, because I love what you’ve built so much, I have to be frank with you and tell you that the art isn’t representing, it’s not doing its service.

It’s not as good as it could be. But I also said to her maybe you’re happy with where it is. Maybe you don’t want my input. [00:05:00] So what I’ve done, I did is I gave her, I did a redesign of the logo and offered it to her and said, you’re welcome to take this logo and use it. And this is a, an indication of what I might be able to bring if you like what I’m saying.

And she did

Rebekah: Pretty much. And I just like to add, like when someone’s pitching to you, sometimes it can be, if you’ve ever gotten that spam on SEO and there was like, ah, your website’s not ranking and it’s broken. It’s fucked. It can be like, Oh, just get in the bin. But the way that Jess did it, you could just feel the heart behind it and that whole thing of coming to you and saying, I don’t want to just work with you, I want to elevate what you’re doing because I believe in it.

That’s what really got me. Yeah.

Hayley: Yeah, we can feel that she was inspired by what you’d already created.

Rebekah: Yeah, and the respect was there.

Jessica: And the logo that I designed used all the [00:06:00] elements that Bek was already using. I didn’t just like haul off and do something completely different. I took what she was using and said, Hey, this is how it looks now, but this is how it could look.

And this is how I feel like it should look. And Yeah. And I was really proud of it. And, but happy to let it go. Happy to, for you to just have it. If you were like, look, I don’t want to rock my boat. I’m happy where everything is. I would just just take it and run with it. You don’t need me to have it.

Yeah.

Hayley: Wonderful. And since this is started what are the benefits that you found working together?

Rebekah: I think one of the things that’s really helped me is that I have, you know how sometimes you feel like you’re competing with people in an environment, and it’s direct competition. With Jess, it’s this opportunity to go, I want to impress her.

I want to [00:07:00] be Inspiring her to do her best art. So it’s this whole thing of we’re running alongside each other, but we’re like that marathon runner chick in the U S who went I want to get better time. So I’m going to invite my competitors over to come and train with me and we’re all going to run together and see where we get to.

And everybody’s times got better rather than it being some other form of working together, which I really because it gives me the opportunity and the inspiration to be better than I probably would be than if I was just doing it by myself.

Hayley: Jess, do you have anything to add?

Jessica: Yeah yeah, I, yeah, I, I don’t know how to create a community that I don’t know how to create a community that people want to be a part of, and what Bek has done with the Freelance Jungle is amazing.

And so just the fact of getting to be a part of that is part of what, part of what I get out of it. Like I want to support what she’s done. I don’t know how to do that myself. So [00:08:00] the best thing that I can do is support what she’s already built. And that feels amazing.

Hayley: Yeah, a rising tide lifts all ships as they say.

Yeah, everyone gets to benefit. Wonderful. Totally. Okay, Jess, you introduced a whole new look and feel for the Freelance Jungle. How did you do that with this? like you spoke about how you came at it without wanting to rock Bek’s boat. What was your sort of approach? So

Jessica: I was very clear to Bek that this was her baby, that I was not trying to come in and steal her project or put my authority onto it.

That I basically, this was her baby, but I wanted to be the baby’s stylist.

And it was like [00:09:00] only ever about, FJ shining. The Freelance Jungle shining and looking as good as it could possibly be. It was never about I want to do this because I want to shine or I have an ego, like I have an agenda to put. It was nothing about that. It was just what can I do to support this?

How can we make FJ look as good as it sounds? And even though I had a lot of ideas, I was my first thing was just say to Bek, what do you want for it? What do you want me to do? I know what I want to do. And I’ll give you all of the concepts. I’ll give you all the ideas, but how do you, what do you want me to illustrate?

What do you want to achieve from this? So that, I really didn’t care what anybody else thought. I just wanted to please Bek. And I was like if it pleases you and I like it, other people are going to [00:10:00] like it too.

Hayley: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I think that was it.

Rebekah: I think from a functional perspective too, I think we there’s a really nice thing that happens.

It’s I, obviously think of an idea and I, because I’m concept driven, whereas Jess has no real interest in doing the concepts. There’s a little bit of excitement sometimes that comes through, like I sent her the articles for the Freelance Times and she sent me back 20 pieces of merch, which was like, fun.

I was like, cool, I’m going to do this more often. But it’s, this whole thing of I have a bouncing ball here and I throw it to the wall and I see where it goes and she picks it up and she goes, yeah, let’s do this and then bounces it back. So there’s a process that I think we go through to and fro.

And because of the way my brain works, I often will write out a concept and send [00:11:00] it to Jess and I’ll have this prescriptive thing where I say I want a pelican on a bicycle and I want three twirling things. And she goes, yep, all right, here’s your ice cream cone. And it fits better because what you were saying was actually about ice cream in the first place.

There’s a reading between the lines that happens. And I think there also has to be a bit of a safety that happens with people. because to be honest especially at the time where Jess and I crossed over with each other, with FJ. There were people that were pitching at me all the frickin time.

To do this, and to do that, and to do this, and to do that. But most of the people were coming to it from the, I’m going to fix you. You’re my next renovation project. If only you would listen to me, you will be able to do X, Y, Z. And she was the first person that actually said, Let’s just go to the playground and play and see what happens.

And we’ve carried that through in how we functionally collaborate. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve got a [00:12:00] Trello board or whether we’re gabbing on a Zoom, we use chat a lot more than anything else. We just chat to each other about ideas, get inspired, and then I’ll go, okay, I’ll go and write a brief about that, because we want to fix this problem that’s, happened.

And, do it that way. But whatever it is, it’s always safe to play. It’s always if we’re playing doctors and nurses and then all of a sudden there’s a dragon, we can easily go to space at the same time. There’s no judgment on where it all goes and I think that’s also part of the functional thing is to, first of all, develop the safety.

And second of all, just be open to the conversations and where it can go. And don’t be so precious about the idea is that when someone gives you an ice cream when you’re expecting a pelican, that you don’t see the value in what they’ve done and where they’ve come to from it as well. Yeah.

Hayley: Might be seeing something you’re not seeing that others will also see as well, [00:13:00] that’s where collaboration flourishes.

And so given you’re both you have distinct talents and and perspectives that you bring to a project, how do you establish those roles and responsibilities within a collaborative project?

Jessica: I think I very much am happy for Bek to lead for the most part of just like she said, she has the ideas for these initiatives and like concepts and projects and like I vibe off.

If she introduces something to me, then I’m happy to elaborate and I can run and I get a bunch of suggestions and ideas, but I am like, it doesn’t occur to me to start these things. And so I’m like eternally grateful that she does keep having all these ideas and keeps coming up with concepts.

And I don’t really ever [00:14:00] say no to any things.

I’m like I do to other people. I’m not saying no all the time, but like everything that comes up with, I seem to find some value in it. And I seem to see the value and I just trust that if she’s thought about it and she’s worked it through enough that she wants to suggest it to me or present it to me that it must already have value.

And then so how can I add more value? How can I help realize it? So I never, she, there’s never a time when she comes to me and I go, no, that’s a terrible idea. Like it just, it doesn’t ever happen. I she will say, and she can say anything, and this is what we’ve developed, is I want her to say like Mr.

Squiggle It, I, needed ice cream on a bicycle being held by a pelican but it can be as ridiculous as as like she wants to make it, and I’m like, we can make this work [00:15:00] like that we can do this and it was like she said if she comes and the brief is wild, I will sift through it and go, okay,

this is what you’re actually going for. And I say, so the responsibility is basically we, the only thing that we need each other to do is have a good time with it.

Rebekah: I would agree with that. And look I, do lead when it’s these sorts of projects and, the stuff that we’ve done in death literature with a good death and stuff like that.

But then there’s also, that. opportunity to when I’m, thinking of a concept, I’m thinking about how will Jess fit into this? How will she respond to this? How will she react? And we, the merch is a classic example. For example, like some of the ideas that we’ve had, haven’t made it to the red bubble, but that’s [00:16:00] okay because they were wild and they were wonderful and we got it out of our system and then we came back into other things.

I think it’s really important to, not have an all or nothing thinking that says a project needs to look like XYZ and delivered by Thursday. You need to give yourself enough freedom to collaborate, make mistakes, screw it up, play with it, jerk it around, and then come to where it’s meant to go. There’s a lot of unstructured stuff that happens within that safety that a lot of people don’t aim for.

We get it with our clients. They just want I just want this to look exactly like this and there’s no correspondence going to be entered into. If you’re truly collaborating with people, you have to learn from what actually happens in front of you at the same time.

And that changes minute by minute, day by day, moment by moment, depending on what you add to it.

And having that ability to know each other well enough to pivot and change with the work as it goes is extraordinarily powerful.

Jessica: And it was [00:17:00] also like, if we do something and it ends up not having legs or not going anywhere, we still love it. Like we still cherish it. We still treasure it and go that was a blast.

We had a really good time doing that. That one’s never going to say the light of day.

Rebekah: It’s the B roll and the B roll is going to be great to just look at occasionally.

Hayley: And the stuff you shelve can sometimes be the inspiration for something else later that is going to change. No, like absolutely. And we don’t get that with clients, do we?

No. So Bek, how would you describe working together?

Rebekah: I think it’s and I said this to Oliver Garside from Rounded to prepare him with the first time he collaborated with us, he was on our Trello board. And I said I just want to prepare you. It’s a bit like working with the Muppets after they’ve had a line of cocaine and they’re on tour.

So it’s a bit like that. Nothing is off the menu. It’s all very much a creative free for all. [00:18:00] But we also cheer each other on. There’s nothing worse than someone coming along and they’ve just poured their heart into something and you just trample on it. You have to be compassionate about how you give your feedback.

You have to be compassionate about, having those structures and doing what you do, because if you’re not having fun, what’s the fucking point? Most of these collaborative projects that we do, most of these sidewinder things, there are stress relief from the client work that the stress relief from obligations in life.

And I’ve seen it. Working in film, I’ve seen it working with musicians and stuff like that. I’ve seen it in all sorts of different formats where people take themselves too seriously and it just sucks the, not only the joy out of the working process. And creates animosity and all this sort of stuff, it just makes it really, boring work because you lose that ability to take [00:19:00] risks, because you get scared of getting smacked around or scared of being judged.

And then you can’t go maybe we should try this weird, wonderful idea and see where it takes us because everything becomes too precious.

So

I think that’s part of the process is actually just going. We’re here to play and if what we get after we finish playing is worthwhile, that’s the fucking bonus.

If you center on it and say this must be world changing by Tuesday, it never is.

Jessica: Yeah. I just find it, I find it really easy. We find it really easy to work with each other. There’s I am so inspired by Bek’s words that And it was what you said before about wanting to impress each other. It’s you’ve brought something to me that I’m like, Oh my God, that’s amazing.

And so then I get to take the next step and take it away. And like a lot of the time as you’re [00:20:00] describing a concept. I can see it in my head as pictures. And then it’s like almost okay, now I’ve got to get out of this chat so that I can go and make it so I can show it to you again. It’s and yeah it’s, a, it’s like a gift giving.

Like you give me the gift of words and then I give you the gift of art and and both of us together is there’s just a synergy where we’re like, Oh, that’s, that is exactly I love it when I show you something and you’re like, that’s exactly what I saw in my head.

Rebekah: And that’s it. And also the other thing is too, we’re lucky in the fact that.

The collaboration works because we’ve got the same pop culture interests. We grew up on the Muppets. We both really love anime. We love the heavier kinds of music. We, when, I feel shitty or angry or sad or defeated, Jess sends me a fucking YouTube and it’s, weird and it’s wonderful and it might [00:21:00] not be one I’ve ever seen and it’s, and it fits.

The values that we’ve got with the work, plus also that cultural reference, that literacy that we share makes it possible. So I can actually say to her, can you do this in an anime style that’s like this, or I can say, oh Studio Gribble gets this for me. Yeah. Give it a

Jessica: Metallica ish edge.

Yeah,

Rebekah: exactly. I was listening to this song and I want you to put it in. Most of the people would be like, Are you on crack? Whereas Jess can follow me down that rabbit hole. And I think that’s really important when you are creating together, because we don’t get that opportunity to work with people that have got the same love of art and the same love of music and the same books and the same voices that are out there.

But if you can find that person that share that, it’s easier to actually play in those fields and add to it.

Jessica: Yeah, that’s true. I would rather have you say [00:22:00] look at a layout and go, yeah, can it have a bit more heavy middle edge, but like with a Dash of Muppets. And then I know what you mean. Bring your

Rebekah: inner Fraggle.

Hayley: Speaking the same language. How often do we have, do we do work where that’s the brief at first and then everyone pulls back and they sanitize it. And that’s not, what’s happening with what’s coming out of the collaboration between you guys. You’re, understanding, you’re speaking the same language, you’re understanding each other and you’re rolling with it after the fact, which is.

a big difference to other situations.

Rebekah: Oh, totally. Totally.

Hayley: Yeah. Okay. So other than freelance Jenga, the jungle

Rebekah: freelance Jenga might be next

Hayley: for red bubble. Write it down, Jess, write it down. Thankfully this is recorded. So no, it’s not. No. What, other things have you both worked on together?[00:23:00]

Rebekah: We are taking on death literacy with agooddeath. com. au, plug. We’ve done two campaigns on that, which is the great last impression, which is talking about, you worry about the first impression you make in a room, why not the last impression you make on people, to raise awareness. the death care literacy, of course, but to get more people committing to advanced care plans within death literacy and to look out for each other.

The second campaign was an extension of that. And we’re now doing a third, which we’re demoing at Lifting the Lid in November. We also worked on a non alcoholic brand together. That was someone that approached me and then I brought Jess in to collaborate on. Do you want to speak to that one, Jess?

Jessica: Yeah, it was, they would not, as it turned out, Bex, cup of [00:24:00] tea. Hit it, catch, see ya! And but we were able to navigate that and go, okay, look we’ve both, you’ve brought me in. I’m going to keep working with them, but it’s like you, it’s okay for you to, bounce out of this. Like I, and I I messaged her and just said, Hey, I can feel your irritation with them.

And don’t feel that you have to stay for me. I’ll be all right. I can handle them. And then she was like you need to get out too. And I was like, it’s okay. I went to an all girls school and I worked in publishing with a bunch of females who are like these people and I can handle the, I can handle them.

And if it’s not gonna, and I I am, I’m still working. With, even though that business has gone through a few different iterations, I’m still working with [00:25:00] them. And you would still, be so irritated if you

Rebekah: were. So what we’re saying in summation with that is it’s good to know where you can your, partnership can have the limit.

Jessica: Yeah. And, but also still have no like resentment or on either side of you you need to leave with me or you need to stay with me. It was just like, okay, like we’re both feeling different ways about this project. So it’s okay for us to split and not do it together, even though we started it together.

Rebekah: Yeah, exactly. And look we’ve carried that through with other things that we’ve done and all the rest of it. I think working with Rounded, we’ve collaborated with them on the sponsorships that we’ve done for FJ as well, which is like a different way of working together within the things.

And we’re always talking about what we can do, because the death literacy stuff is something that we both care about, but [00:26:00] it’s also, we’ve talked about what we can do for menopause or what we can do for other parts of things. It’s about picking the change that we want to be in the world and coming together to create and work on those kinds of things.

And I think that’s the really nice part about it because it’s not just making art for art’s sake where, not that’s a bad thing, but we’re putting out different messages and saying what we need to say is our stress relief, our playground, but also doing a bit of good change.

Jessica: Yeah. And that’s one of the things where this is Bek’s initiative.

This is something that I have come to and said okay, I’m already supporting you in FJ, but let’s do some others. Like I’ve got other things that I realize I do want to say, but without me having to initiate the project. So that works well. It was even before I approached. [00:27:00] Back to work with it was one of one post that she had out where she was like, I’m going to speak at like a death.

I can’t even remember what she was doing but oh my god your dress that you wore was like, had like little like cats on it and like little cemetery bits and I was like okay like I love that fashion and I love that you’re in the death sphere and then I had the pleasure of working with Annetta, who is here with us, and we did a bunch of, I worked with her on a bunch of her death stuff, and then I was, like, inspired okay now I feel like I’ve got a bit of a background in it, so let’s do this, let’s hit up death, and doing The Lifting the Lid has been really Really fun because exactly what we were saying before about having that that sort of Gen X take on things and that Muppets vibe, like we bring a little bit of that to the death sphere, [00:28:00] which I think needs some levity.

Rebekah: Yeah, it could do with moving away from Boho gift shop.

Jessica: Yeah, it it the Annetta has a great take on it, but she’s one of the few, and a lot of the other people in the death sphere are just shy away from having any good vibes about it. It’s all very dark and somber and or light and, doves, very, dullsville beige.

Yeah. Death is very visceral. It needs something else brought to it. I think. Hopefully we’re doing. Oh, and I think with another thing that we did as well with the Wollongong grant that we worked on.

Rebekah: Oh yeah, The Wollongong podcast during the pandemic.

Jessica: Yes.

Rebekah: Which was about highlighting the suburbs and stuff.

So exploring Wollongong with your ears and your mind in a way that you couldn’t do during lockdown. So that was a really fun way of doing it. And [00:29:00] so translating that local knowledge into a cute little A to Z map, And, also the Get Your Gong On, which was the Zoom networking between businesses and freelancers.

They were two different ways of doing things. And the art for those are very different as well. So we’ve got the, Wollongong map with the pelicans and all of the fun places and the steelwork that you expect from Wollongong. And then you’ve got the Get Your Gong On, which was almost like that 80s crystal cylinders t shirts that everybody used to wear to the beach, to, get people together to have that sort of retro, let’s do networking, but on zoom where I got to be like the perfect match person and, go, Haley, meet Jess. You’re going to work together on a project and have the council pay for it, which was great.

Hayley: because everything Bex does is still speed dating.

Rebekah: Everything. You can take the girl out of the dating industry, but you can’t take the dating out of the girl. [00:30:00]

Hayley: All it’s going to happen when you don’t agree on stuff. How do you manage that sort of conversation?

Rebekah: Carefully, I think with respect, and also it doesn’t really happen that often because we’ve got the values down pat and we know how to talk to each other.

I don’t think it’s a, like a, top down relationship, so there’s, it’s like a flat structure. And everybody’s free to do what they want to do, kind of thing.

Jessica: We address it with suggestions. So it’s not so much that we say, I don’t agree with you or this isn’t working. It’s just I hear what you’re saying and I’m wondering if this might be a good way to approach it.

Yeah,

yeah. or I don’t know how to draw what you’re telling me that you want. So I’m gonna try something else.

Rebekah: Yeah, exactly. Or also be, willing to [00:31:00] cross over to the other person’s side of the fence. One of the things that I do, which has varying degrees of success, admittedly, is sometimes I’ll collage something for Jess.

I’ll cut elements off the thing and I’ll whack it together on a piece of paper with glue and then send her a photo and go, this is what’s in my head. Can you do something with it? That usually happens when if we’re short on time or we’re not quite in sync with each other and, we need to go the extra mile.

Part of that process isn’t for me to get exactly what I’m saying out into the world. Part of that process is also to ground me so I remember what it’s like for an illustrator slash designer to actually go through the process. So I’m not one of those people that forgets that a lot of work and a lot of time and energy has to go into that thinking to get to that point.

So I find that’s a nice little circuit breaker for me because it reminds me that It’s not just about taking out your crayons [00:32:00] and bing, it appears

Jessica: there’s some fucking work behind it. Push the Photoshop button and then it happens. Yeah,

Rebekah: exactly. Where’s, ChatGPT when you need them or where’s

Jessica: Yeah I think it’s not, like you said, it’s not a there’s no power structure, there’s no egos.

We just want the project to shine. So it’s it’s always a discussion about What’s best what’s the best thing to move this along or move this forward, not like, how can I assert my dominance or how can I make you, because if, either of us try to make each other feel small, then it’s just like a roadblock immediately.

It just wouldn’t happen. Yeah, they’re like we don’t disagree. We just come to things from a different angle sometimes.

Rebekah: And I think we care more about the project than we [00:33:00] care more than our egos. And that’s commonly what mistakes I see with other people when they’re collaborating. “And this could have won an award if so and so didn’t do this”. It’s Dude, you weren’t obviously present in the moment if that’s what you got out of that situation. Like the project has to come first. I say this to, to, to anyone, even if they’re not collaborating, if you’re putting your ego before the project then you’ve lost the battle already. So always take it back to what the project needs. And you’ll usually find that you can find your way back to each other because you’re thinking about something that’s not yourself.

Jessica: And because of that, there’s no time wasting. Like we don’t agree on something. We just say.

I don’t think that’s working for me or I don’t think that’s going to do the best thing. And so there’s no faffing about Oh, how do I say this? Or it’s just we just say it because we know that the other one’s going to be okay with it. And so it’s like a, [00:34:00] it’s like very relaxed.

Rebekah: Totally. And we’re not defending ideas because our ego’s involved or triggered instead of recognizing that the project’s at risk because we’re following it down the wrong path.

Hayley: And you can trust each other enough to say that if they’re, if someone’s giving that opinion, it’s for a reason, and you respect each other enough to listen to what that is, which.

Rebekah: Yeah, totally.

Hayley: Yeah,

Rebekah: exactly. 100%.

Hayley: What are your top three tips for collaborating with someone else?

Jessica: I wrote down three words,

GMT20240829-010149_Recording_640x360: trust,

Jessica: praise and listen.

So,

yeah, what goes back to what you were saying before is that we heap praise on each other. Like we are always telling each other how awesome, like not, it’s never, I think I’m awesome.

It’s always you’re amazing. How can I help you do what [00:35:00] you do so well? And listen. So we listen at more than we talk,

Rebekah: which is surprising anyone that’s ever met me.

Jessica: That’s why I had to pause because we talk a lot.

Rebekah: I think my three tips are similar to that, but just don’t take yourself too seriously.

Always have fun with it and pull it apart and not be so attached to it that it you’re gonna freak out if it starts changing into something that you didn’t expect it to. And and this is going to trigger the whole Fleetwood Mac song in my head again, but never break the chain. Like we don’t go weeks and months and days from not talking to each other.

It’s unheard of us. I’d say a week, if you’re on holiday somewhere, or I’m on holiday somewhere, or Like every couple of days we’re sending each other something [00:36:00] and it’s not about projects. It’s sometimes about projects. Sometimes it’s about ideas. Sometimes it’s about frustrations in the world that can become something.

Sometimes it’s about a song. Sometimes it’s about having a bad day or, whatever, but we’ve got this kind of nice little evolving conversation that has happened so that we don’t come to each other in five months time and then have to start cold. The engine’s still warm, the chain is linked and we’re sharing creative ideas as we go, even if they’ve got nothing to do with anything, they’re actually going to turn into anything.

Jessica: Yeah, and we will suggest anything and it doesn’t matter if we’re like in the middle of something if one of us has a really good idea for a future project or an idea of oh, we can extrapolate that or we do have a bunch of stuff going on at any one time so that all ideas can be put together.

Towards something.

Rebekah: Exactly. Like our cutting room floor is really nice and [00:37:00] interesting. It’s sometimes nice to just go up and go, Oh, I forgot about this idea. It’s cool. Which is nice.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And then if the worst comes to the worst, we just put it on a t shirt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

GMT20240829-010149_Recording_640x360: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: It doesn’t fit anywhere, we just match it.

Rebekah: We haven’t found a home for you, but fuck me, you look good. So you’re going over here.

Hayley: All right. And you guys have obviously managed to find each other. Where do you think people should be going to find their own creative match?

Rebekah: Honestly, I think like without stating the elephant in the room, the jungle is a good place to actually find people that share the same values as you. If someone else is standing up for [00:38:00] Palestine and you’ve been frustrated about Palestine and want to do something, grab that person and go, Hey, I do film, you do script writing.

Do you want to do something to stand up for Palestine? Those sorts of moments that you’ve got there are available to you by looking at the jungle. Every IMT thread that you’ve ever seen where you’ve gone, wow. That person’s take on XYZ really rocks my socks, who’s a potential collaborator for you.

I think also too, your values. Wear your values on your sleeve as a creative artist, with your downtime, with your maker stuff, with your things that you say, with your marketing, all the rest of it. Sure, your clients may not like it, or maybe they will. But there’s also that opportunity for that person to go, Hey, I really like your take on such and such.

I can redo your logo and impress you with it by showing you that I actually give a shit about what you’re saying. And do it that way, the way that Jess approached me. [00:39:00] And also just look for those opportunities to connect with people. One of the things that I found very interesting about freelancing is that everybody turns up to networking events

that are all peer related education stuff, or they’re peer related, I’m going to go and get business. And that’s where the blinkers come on. But very few people go, oh, there’s an inspirational talk about climate change, and I really believe in sustainable business. And sustainable design and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I’m going to go along to that with no expectation of meeting anyone. But if I happen to, that’s great. And using that as a networking, because the majority of the time, you’re far more likely to meet someone on a value space and get the client work and find the collaborators that you want. If you don’t.

If the focus is not on the business, if the focus is not on the writing for me, if it’s not on the whatever you do as the mainstay, because it takes the pressure off and you actually get to meet people that are real that you can work with because you’re having a real conversation with them and you get to know what their [00:40:00] values are.

Plus you’ve also got an icebreaker which is the film that you just saw or the presentation or the fact that you’re all just there for the architecture festival or whatever the situation may be.

Jessica: Yeah I wear my design on my sleeve and I look at it as like a public service. So if I’m speaking to anyone, it could be at like school pickup or it could be like at, just like my lunch person that I see every day.

If I, I will work it in if I feel like they need some design, I will shamelessly plug myself. And and it doesn’t, like it often happens like better with people who are not even in the industry because they’re not expecting it. They they and there is a, like you were saying I guess there is a way to do it that is not just that spammy LinkedIn, I can grow your business thing, but I guess it’s just like genuinely [00:41:00] okay, I already like you when we do this how, is another way that we can

spend more time together.

Rebekah: And reach out to people that you admire, talk to them. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people that are like nobody looks at my social media. Yeah, whose social media are you looking at? Are you saying to that illustrator that you really like, Hit the button, go for it, I really love the stuff that you’re doing?

Jessica: That’s, it goes back to the praise is not just for collaborating with you. It’s like praise people tell people like Iva does my taxes. I went back to him and said, Hey man, Nick really appreciate what you did on, did in our last tax return. I thought it was really creative and really really well done.

And he was blown away. He said, nobody ever tells me I do a good job.

So people want to hear praise like, and they [00:42:00] even if you don’t want to necessarily work with them, or if it’s just just let people know how awesome you think they are. And,

Rebekah: also share other people’s ideas around, and credit them.

Jessica: Yes. Yeah, totally.

Rebekah: But have a, friends on a Friday structure where you go, man, you should see this campaign that so and so has done and put it out on the LinkedIn.

Be the person at the networking event that doesn’t just look at the fact that everybody in the room is standing there like a wallflower, go up to them and go. Hayley, I’m not sure if you’ve met Jess before. Jess does this, and this, and I really admire this about her. Jess, this is Hayley.

This is what I like about her. Be that person that makes it okay for everybody else to be nice to each other and to play in the playground. Think of, and this is why Jess and I collaborate under the name of Unashamedly Six, think about six year old you, how they want to [00:43:00] play, how they want to collaborate, and also what it’s like for them sometimes to be in the playground.

You are the new kid on the block. Maybe you would like someone to introduce you around to other people. Maybe you would like someone to say, that’s a really cool Tonka truck, can I have a go? This is what we need to do with each other as freelancers, because the whole thing is, we always think that we’re siloed and isolated and all the rest of it, but we’re not reaching out to others and making their isolation go away as well.

Hayley: Yeah, and I think you’re right, like when you, reach out to someone who already has a shared value you, it’s like you’ve got a language already, that you can understand each other, just like you do, you guys do with the pop culture references and shared values, all that sort of thing, means you can connect with someone from day one, and that builds respect, it builds empathy, and you have a great, much better relationship for

Rebekah: it.

Exactly.

Hayley: So last one. What are you working on now? [00:44:00]

Rebekah: We are going to lifting the lid, aren’t we?

Yes. So we’re going to the International Festival of Death and Dying done by two lovely ladies in the UK. again. And we’re doing After You’re Gone, which is a campaign that sort of touches on the whole social aspect of what happens to your family and the people that you care about after you’re gone.

And how can you make that moment where you’re no longer at the dinner table, or you’re no longer physically there, so much better for everyone else with a little bit of pre prep and also remembering how you can seed that love before you take off.

Jessica: Yeah. And just not leaving everybody, like it’s giving them the freedom to grieve you and to create memory projects and do the things rather than having to sit there and do all of your admin that you didn’t do.

Rebekah: [00:45:00] Yeah. Making space for grief. So that’s debuting in November as part of the festival. So we’ll send out details about that and if you’re interested in the stuff that we’ve done on that’s agooddeath.com au. And for fj, we’re doing the merch stuff for the, Freelance Times article.

So I’m trying to, I came to Jess and I said. I can’t make this inflation crisis go away. I can’t help people find more jobs. I can’t help people get through this and I can see that they’re in pain. I want to make it a little bit easier some other way. And I said, I want to write these tiny little short articles.

That fits everyone’s attention span that might cheer them up about some of the satirical and shitty and crazy things that we face as freelancers, but in a different kind of world, what do you reckon? And I sent her like six of them [00:46:00] and she came back going,

Jessica: exactly like that.

Rebekah: And answered with merch. And so that’s where we’re going now.

Jessica: Yeah. And then the other one, the other merch that we’re doing is the, pet stuff that we started showing, which you’ve had like on the back burner for ever. Like the last time we did merch, you were like, I want to do pet stuff.

And we just, Think the infrastructure wasn’t really there so much a red bubble hadn’t got their act but now they are. And I think it’s a great way of advertising yourself, like having your pet do it for you. So your dog’s out for a walk and they’ve got a little thing on there. You think it says, hire my human.

That’s a conversation starter.

Rebekah: We’re trying to cater to the introvert networking marketing who are also a little bit nutty about their pets. So that you can walk around with your barketing manager or sleeping on, what is it? Sleeping on the job is my job is the blankets that we have for the [00:47:00] pets that are available.

Jessica: And also at the moment we are doing the survey with Rah.

Rebekah: Oh, that’s a very important thing to point out. Okay. So the other thing is too, thanks Jess. See she saves my bacon, my tofu, hide all the time. We’re doing a survey. We’re putting it out to workplaces. So send it to your clients. The missing piece of the puzzle with freelance client management is getting the clients on board.

I can teach and everyone else can teach that’s in the industry to say pick up your socks, have this template, do this terms and conditions, da. At the end of the day there’s a limited amount of things that we can teach freelancers if the clients aren’t playing the same game. So what we’ve done is we’ve actually set up a survey specifically for clients so they can outline what their worries are when they are dealing with freelancers. So we can get quantifiable information and then build stuff that tailors to what they need and raise [00:48:00] workplaces up so that we don’t get there and find that we don’t have an email, we don’t have a desk and the none of that. But they’ve insisted that we work with them or that we turn up and they still haven’t locked down the brief or it’s the agency pass the parcel where they just go, I’m just going to forward this email on and it’s completely different to what the project was that you’ve signed on for and stuff like that.

So that’s out in the wild at the moment. Please share it on your LinkedIn, encourage businesses, not for profits, governments, whatever to respond to that. Because for that, it is a test to see if they will respond and we can get the information and whether they are actually receptive receiving of education, if they will take it on board, if they will listen.

And I think this is a really important project because we can’t make our clients accountable if we don’t know what they’re struggling with. We can’t make them feel like, you should be doing this when we’ve never given them the opportunity to think outside the box or be heard or have some compassion as well.

So there’s a [00:49:00] lot of moving parts and we’re very thankful that we’ve grabbed Rah and stolen her from the fuck around and find out podcast and conference at a pivotal time to actually support us with this project. So the link is in the thing, thanks to Rah there as well.

Hayley: Wonderful. That’s the questions I have for you.

I really appreciate you guys taking us through it. Hopefully we can all be as lucky someday to have our own creative match. Is there anything else happening that you wanted to tell everyone about? Any, we’ve got upcoming Craft Noons with me in September 27th. There’s that one. Any other events we’ve got going on?

Rebekah: We’ve got the Lead Gen thing that’s happening at the moment and that’s nice, we’re meeting every week to do work on our Lead Gen, but I’m looking at this whole creative match thing, and I do miss the dating industry, so I want to get my accountability pod that I’m in with Marian, Grace, [00:50:00] Amy, and Rah has been really helpful for me for the last 12 months, I think we’ve been going longer than 12 months, in fact, and I’m finding that the iterations that have been the accountability pods before haven’t quite necessarily worked.

But now that I’ve experienced 12 months of it, I think I can go back to it. And I just really like to facilitate networking with people and have like creative match come out of that. So stay tuned to the Patreon because I’m trying to figure out how we can Two by two and put you all out there so that you can work together, but also have a bit of crossover with me so that there’s that extra support that you might need if things are starting.

So you’re not just drifting by yourself and that kind of thing. So I’m really looking at that.

Jessica: Makes me think that like you could do some sort of like FJ speed dating or something, Oh, don’t encourage me.

Rebekah: I’d be bang up for that.

Hayley: I suppose she’s mentioned it before.

Rebekah: [00:51:00] Look, given the opportunity I’d be matching you all left and center.

Most people may not be aware. I did actually spend seven and a half years in the dating industry and I was in product development. So my whole game was to find new and interesting ways to get people to talk to each other, including a brief period not a brief period of three years of running a thing that was astro matching where I’d go, Hey, you’re in Aries.

They’re a Leo. You would be like totally aligned with each other and then people would be like, Oh my God, what was that? But it gave them something to talk about. So I’m quite prepared to do any of those kinds of things if we can work out what format they go in. But did anyone have any quick questions?

Maybe? Maybe? Anyone? Nobody?

Hayley: Nothing in the chat. Just a whole lot of, fuck yeah, awesomes. Yeah.

If there’s nothing else then we’ll wrap it up here. Thank you so [00:52:00] much for coming. Thank you to Bek and to Jess for peeling into your minds and having a little look at how you guys work it.

Rebekah: Thank you so much. And oh, virtual co working for the Patreons will be on the 20th of September instead of the usual, because I’m in Melbourne.

And if you’re in Melbourne, come and have dinner with me, 10th of September.

Jessica: And thank you, Hayley, for moderating today. It was excellent.

Rebekah: Yeah, thanks for looking after us, Hayles. And thanks, Jess, for being amazing to collaborate with. I don’t probably say this often enough, but you, I say to people, they have to be reliable, adaptable, have the ability.

And the attitude, pick two, focus on that and you’ll be fine. She’s the rare one where she’s got all four. And I don’t say that lightly. I’m not, just blowing smoke up a butt. So if you’ve got the chance to work with Jess, she’s sixonions. com. au or com. Yeah. Hire her. She’s amazing. [00:53:00]

Jessica: Oh, thank you.

You already know how awesome I think you are, but I will tell you again many times. It’s all right. Just say

Rebekah: it to me and Merch and we’ll just keep going.

Hayley: With heart.

Rebekah: Thanks, everyone. Thanks,

Hayley: everyone. Bye bye. Bye. See you.