Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Sarah Levinger
Helps DTC brands increase their ROI with psychology-based creative

How To Become a Freelancer in DTC/ECOM

In this episode of ROAS, we go over how to become a great freelancer in the DTC/ECOM space in 2002 #ROAS

Notes & Links

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Transcription

Sarah Levinger (00:00):

U GC is one of the most powerful marketing forms I've ever come across. And I've had a lot of years of practicing and, and kind of delving into a ton of different things. U GC though, is, is amazing. <laugh>, it's hard to explain mostly because to the layman person, it looks so natural. It's just somebody on camera, but there is no better way to help a human understand and realize for themselves what a product will do without seeing it on somebody else's face. So yeah, use it. If you haven't tried it, use it. U GC is so, so big for sure.

Rabah Rahil (00:40):

Episode 26 people. I can't believe we've made it this far and we have a special one for you coming straight from Fort Collins, Colorado, Sarah Wenger, the queen of the DTC, the freelance creative. How are you, Sarah?

Sarah Levinger (00:55):

I'm doing great. How are you?

Rabah Rahil (00:57):

Uh, I'm fantastic. I'm home in Austin. I'm starting to get a little bit in my routines. We're got the south by the city's vibe in life is good. Life is good.

Sarah Levinger (01:06):

<laugh> that sounds fantastic. I, I kind of wish we were in Austin cuz the weather in Colorado changes so quickly last week. We're like freezing snow everywhere this week. It's 65. People are in shorts outside. It's that's Colorado for you. It just changes constantly. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (01:22):

I I gotta tell you though. It's one of my favorite states. How, how have you, are you born and bred there or how long have you been out there?

Sarah Levinger (01:27):

My husband says that I cannot call myself a native cuz I wasn't born here. <laugh> okay. I was born in actually Huntsville, Alabama, but I've been here since I was six, six or seven. Okay. So I'm long enough like a native

Rabah Rahil (01:37):

That's a native. Yeah. That's I've been out for

Sarah Levinger (01:39):

A time.

Rabah Rahil (01:41):

I think Texas, the requirements are uh, 10 years. Um, some shit kickers in a gun and then you're officially Texan.

Sarah Levinger (01:47):

Then you're actually a Texan. You guys have like a legit criteria for it though in Colorado. It's just, you're either born here or you can't stay here. So Ooh, brutal how it goes. Brutal. We're you guys have

Rabah Rahil (01:56):

That cool little, that little triangle's pretty dope though with, uh, you guys get Fort Collins. Um, Denver, um, geez. I'm blanking Boulder. That kind of little cool little triangle. Yeah. That's it's cool. It's beautiful out there again. I love it. Um, what made you come from? Uh, the south?

Sarah Levinger (02:13):

Uh, well, I mean my family just moved here. Yeah. Cuz I was six, so I didn't really have a choice. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but yeah, my, my parents came out here when I was younger just because my dad's job and from there we just never left and really we've been, we've been sticking pretty close. My husband actually, his in-laws live right next door to us <laugh> oh wow. So he didn't go far. They purchased a house 35 years ago and he born, raised, grew up all in the same house. They still live there. And then obviously we went super far. We went right next door. <laugh> so clearly we're like Fort Collins forever cuz yeah, we didn't. It's hard to leave this town. Once you get in here. It's really hard to leave

Rabah Rahil (02:48):

<laugh> I love it. Well, it takes a village too, right? Cuz you got two little ones. So that, that, that is probably pretty helpful to have the, the extra hands around as you were raising the kiddos.

Sarah Levinger (03:00):

Yeah, a hundred percent, especially right now with everything that happened with COVID and being in quarantine, it was like life saving to have grandparents next door, cuz they were just like a part of our bubble. So they could at least go to grandma's house every day and we could get some like rest and breaks and yeah. Oh it was so necessary. It's it's just helpful in general to have people around like I, I just to the mamas who do it all themselves, I'm like how, how you guys are so much stronger than I am. I's just like it it's intense parenting right now in the world. So got it. Grandparents. Thank you.

Rabah Rahil (03:30):

<laugh> shout out grandparents. Let's go grandparents. Um, so take me a little bit about, or like how did you get into DTC? How did you get into the creative space? You have kind of a very unique journey. So kind of colored in for the listeners.

Sarah Levinger (03:43):

Yeah. So I actually started, uh, my freelance journey when I was pretty young, like way before it was actually cool to be an entrepreneur <laugh> um, I tried to go to college and it just did not work for me. I, I enjoyed the classes, but it just moved too slow. I'm I'm a fast paced person, really fast paced learner. So when I got into college, I started doing classes specifically for graphic design and I had a professor that said, you don't really need a college degree to be a graphic designer. <laugh> if you have some talent in it and if you have a lot of good drive and dedication to it, you can basically just go get clients and you won't have to get a full degree. So that's what I did. I just went and I actually got an internship right out of like my, I think it was my sophomore year in college.

Sarah Levinger (04:24):

Um, and the only reason they hired me was because I dressed up for the interview, which is kind of funny. It was like bring hip kids because I was a good designer. That's fine. All dress up for every interview <laugh> so they hired me and it was a giant, huge, huge company. They made water testing instruments. And so my job was basically brand strategy. I had to make sure that everything that went out the door said the correct message that they wanted to push forward to, to their audience. So a large portion of what I was doing for them was just graphic design straight and you know, cut and dried graphic design, but a huge part of it was just making sure that everything looked the same, basically. So it was a really good lesson in learning brand. From the beginning, from there, I worked just about two summers for them and then they decided to cut my position, which kind of sucked cuz I really loved it. But they, the uh, the creative director at the time came to me and said, you don't really need to work as an employee. You could just go start your own business and then you can come back and we'll just hire you as a contractor. And at the time I was 22. So I was like, I almost know how to do that.

Rabah Rahil (05:26):

Yeah. Yeah. So I

Sarah Levinger (05:27):

Was like, okay, I'll give it a Valiant effort. I'll try my hardest to create, how do you create a business? I don't know. So back at that time, there was no like legal zoom was just starting to get popular. So I just went online and was like, how do you create a business? And then from there it just like exploded for the next 10 years straight. I worked in everything. I mean, I did all kinds of email marketing and I did WordPress websites for a while and I did wire framing and I did lots and lots of things. Like I did SMS. I did all kinds of stuff. I even ran a whole bunch of my own little businesses. So I had an Etsy shop and I did Amazon B and I did just all kinds of crazy stuff. So it was really fun. But man, it taught me a lot about freelancing in particular for one is, is a tough industry.

Sarah Levinger (06:11):

It's really interesting to get into you gotta be very organized, um, to be a freelancer. But then it also taught me a lot about marketing using different channels because I did a ton of different stuff. So I kind of segued into social media, um, kind of mid twenties and I was doing social media management for a long time. So lots of Pinterest, lots of blogs, lots of SEO content from there, I kind of just stumbled into managing Facebook ad accounts for, uh, specifically lead gen. Um, primarily in Jackson hole area. There was a lot of hotels up there that needed people to just bring in customers basically, um, specifically for their like large group sales. So I started running the ad accounts for that. And over the course of the last, like two or three years, I just sort of accidentally segued into e-com. And from there it was like, I am hooked as soon as I got in e-comm I was like, this is where I wanna be. <laugh> cause this is the fastest paced industry I think I've ever stepped foot into. And I have just been going hard ever since. It's so fun. It's like the most fun I've ever had marketing anything is in DTC. So that's kind of the background. It's real weird. <laugh> real back

Rabah Rahil (07:22):

Get here. Oh, I love weird journeys. And I always find too that the, the weirder, the journey, if you make it out is the stronger the person where you, you get to experience all these other things. And one, for me, it eliminates the FOMO where, um, you can always have this weird, like grass is always greener kind of view where it's like, dude, it ain't <laugh> yes, I've been there. It ain't <laugh>

Sarah Levinger (07:44):

Is hard, hard work with some tough clients and some fantastic clients. And then yeah, the whole thing is you, you are the bookkeeper and the accountant and the marketer and you're doing the work and you're doing sales. I mean, you're doing all of it, all of it at one time. So yeah, it's been a good journey. I love it. I, I would never leave freelancing to go to a real job. I don't think, I don't know. I haven't <laugh> I haven't decided on that one yet, but for the most part it's, it's been fun. I've enjoyed it.

Rabah Rahil (08:09):

That is that's really cool. And I think freelancing, I mean, it is a feature and a bug, but being able to, uh, work with the different clients and then especially in, in DTC, it's really nice because it's really cut and dry. Um, I've, I've come from some lead gen some app install stuff, and like just, it just gets into complex businesses and like how on a show, your efficacy and like, yeah, just hard where it's like, DTCs like, did we make more money today or not? We did good job. Exactly. Sarah. You know what I mean? Or

Sarah Levinger (08:36):

I

Rabah Rahil (08:36):

Know I'm like do better Sarah. Like it's, it's exactly. It's just much easier to have that clean line into that. Um, when you were doing all this stuff. So I, I, it sounds like you leveraged the, the GOs pretty heavily, but were there any like resources or frameworks or like how, how did you go from basically, you know, know, being, let go and then spinning up your shop. That's still vibrant today.

Sarah Levinger (09:01):

Oddly enough, I am a, a huge learner, even though I started out not loving like the college route <laugh> so the majority of what I learned was all through Google, but a ton of it through the library, oddly enough, um, I use my library card way more than I probably should. Awesome books on books, on books. And it's really interesting because I, I found a very small subsection of people who actually go to the library and like read large scale books. But I, I, I don't know. I can synthesize information much better if it's in a bulk form, I find the internet to be too truncated. Like it's just chopped so much chopped information and it's very difficult to get like a good grasp on things unless you're reading like a textbook <laugh>, which sounds funny, the irony,

Rabah Rahil (09:47):

It's the funny where like academia wasn't for me, but yet you went to the library to find the academic books, which

Sarah Levinger (09:53):

Is amazing. Yeah. I'm like a self-motivated person though. I just, I would much rather gimme the book and I'll read it in the three days and then I'll tell you everything you need to know. So that was a huge portion of where I started learning, but another one was my, my in-laws actually owned a boutique hotel in Fort Collins called the Armstrong hotel. They don't own it anymore. They actually sold it about five years ago, but they owned it for 13 years. So it was like, they, it was a family business. They, they went hard at it. <laugh> and all of us worked there. My husband, his two brothers, I worked there like the whole family worked there at one time and I learned a ton from them that they're the type of people that are just like everything they touch is entrepreneurship gold. They just, yeah, I can't even, there's some people that just are like that.

Sarah Levinger (10:33):

Everything you do is amazing. So they had this business for a long time and they hired me on to do marketing, directing market, like sort of doing the, like directing of marketing <laugh> and the social media management. And they had a very different way of looking at, uh, inbound and outbound customer, like acquiring they, their entire business was based off of what is the basic things you need and how can we make those basic things better? And so I took interesting that marketing framework and just applied it to everything like anything I could put it into. I did. And it worked, it worked extremely well. And it's interesting cuz I didn't know at the time, but what they were doing was using some very base level psychological needs and applying it to every experience in the entire hotel. Um, and they, they did so, so well, I mean their, their, their rates for, for occupancy were upwards like 96, 90 7%, which is pretty unheard of for hotels. Yeah. Especially boutique hotels. It's hard to book sometimes in those towns, they were lucky enough they were in Fort Collins. <laugh> so that helped 'em a lot, cuz this town is pretty popular. Uh, tourists, destination. Yeah. But yeah, so, so the library and my in-laws really their business helped a lot.

Rabah Rahil (11:48):

Well that, that is the most unique answer. I, I love that and yeah, I have a, a soft spot for libraries as well. So my dad actually, uh, didn't know any English when he came over here, he is from Algeria. So he came over around 18, 19, and basically just taught himself English. Uh, and by going to library and I'm gonna date myself cause I'm old, I'm 36 going on 37, but I still remember going to the library and they'd have these newspapers on these big wooden sticks. The kids will never know these days, but yeah, yeah. You know, it's up. And I just remember, and it was just so like perplexing me, like why aren't they sticks? So they don't steal the sun. It was, yeah, it was, it was incredible. But uh, yeah, I, I hate taxes, but I don't mind my taxes going.

Rabah Rahil (12:28):

We have actually a beautiful in Austin. Uh, the central library just got built two or three years ago and it's, it's absolutely magnificent. I, I have a soft spot for libraries. Yeah. Yeah. Dope, dope. Uh, central libraries or well done. Libraries is something. Um, and I, I take your point too. I think there is a little bit of, um, not click baby, but I think truncated is a good, is a good descriptor of, uh, sometimes, you know, if you do wanna get all of the, the info, it can be, um, a little more challenging. Um, sometimes versus, um, somebody that just put a tree this in their book and it's like, okay, cool. You can read it from cover to cover and stuff like that. Yeah. But mm-hmm <affirmative> um, you also said something really interesting too is, um, you're, self-motivated where, um, I know a lot of talented people that are not and freelance ain't for you, baby. If you can't be your own boss. Oh my goodness. That ain't the path you'll triple on the bond very quickly.

Sarah Levinger (13:23):

Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (13:25):

Um, speaking of that, what advice would you give to aspiring freelancers that you wish you had?

Sarah Levinger (13:31):

Well, I just, I just saw this actually on Twitter the other day. And the advice that I would give is understand that the path that you think you're gonna take is not the path that you're going to take because the majority of people give advice on just keep going or find a good mentor, yada yada. But I want everybody to know if you're going into freelance understand that you're gonna fall into things that fit you better than what you think will fit you. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yep. Because I, I thought for sure that I was like built for logos. I just wanted to design logos all day long cause I loved them. And what I actually ended up falling into was, you know, running ads, U GC creative for DTC brands. And I love it way more than I ever loved doing any sort of graphic design work. So yeah, it, the journey you're gonna take is not what you think it's gonna be, but it will be better in the end. It, it, it's gonna be phenomenal no matter what happens. So,

Rabah Rahil (14:21):

Ooh, I love that. Yeah. Jobs has a great Steve jobs has a great line. You can't connect the dots, um, forward only backward. I think you're absolutely right.

Sarah Levinger (14:29):

1%. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (14:30):

Um, especially too, as you're younger, I think the, the path you took of experiencing all these different business models and um, I think, I think that's really helpful for people. Uh, especially if you, you can, you know, take it economically because you're gonna come out with such a robust understanding of like there's a expression, the map's not the territory. And so people will tell you like, oh, this, that the other, and then you like experience, it's like there's theory land. And then there's actual what the world's like. Yeah. And very often they are so far apart. And so understanding that is, uh, it's beautiful. I love how you put that. Uh, okay. Two more questions. And then we'll wrap up the first segment. Um, how do you balance being a mom and a freelancer?

Sarah Levinger (15:12):

Oh, <laugh> um, <laugh> my gut reaction is to say I don't <laugh> um, let me get a better reaction. Um, yeah, this one's a tough one. And, and I I've found this with a lot of moms who are, especially in the direct to consumer space, anybody in e-comm who is a mom struggles heavily, because this is one of the only industries I have seen that is 24 7, 365 days a year. There's no breaks. There's no holidays. It's forever. And in fact it gets worse at the holidays. So like get ready. I think you have to create a lot of structured time blocks in your day. That's the only way I've been able to manage it so far. Especially if you don't have any sort of childcare assistance help, you're gonna have to set down times where you do the same thing every time at the same time of the day.

Sarah Levinger (16:03):

Um, so for me, I always get up at 6:00 AM. It's early and I hate it, but I always work out for an hour, no matter what, cuz it will not get done for the rest of the day. Yeah. And then I'll get the kids up, get 'em ready for school, get 'em out the door, come home. Then I'll usually run through emails for 30 minutes and you know, so on and so forth. But it's the same every day, even on the weekends, no matter what, I just continue to keep doing it. Cuz anytime I get off, yeah. Anytime I get off balance, I, I fall hard and then it takes a week to get back on. And it's just by that time I have clients who are like, where's my stuff. Like I need you to get this to me. Why are you late? Like, yeah. It's it's structure. It's all about creating some sort of calendar structure for yourself.

Rabah Rahil (16:44):

Ooh. I love that. Um, I'm a big time blocker myself and there's a great app called AKI flow that anytime I star something to my Gmail, bookmark something in, um, slack or have a task assigned to me in as sauna, that's kind of our tech stack here at triple. Um, it goes into this little app and then I can then drag it into my calendar because I have found the same thing. Like I die in a vacuum. Like if you, if you tell me like, oh, what are you gonna do today? Oh, I'm just gonna figure it out. Like I, I will literally just waste my day. I ha like I just die in a vacuum. And so I, I, my day is literally from when I get up to, when I go to sleep, like I even, you know, um, this sounds very cold, but I book time for, with my significant other cuz if not, I'll just work and I need to make sure that I'm showing up in that relationship as well. Yeah. Um, I, I love that idea. I know some people aren't super on the structured train. I am three tickets with you. I, I, I

Sarah Levinger (17:37):

Can't, it's so unnecessary

Rabah Rahil (17:38):

So necessary for me. And honestly, in a weird way, the structure gives me freedom and it kind of sounds like oxymoron. Thank you. But like, like it really helps when I don't have to make decisions. I just have to check boxes or complete tasks. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I'm just, just a happier guy versus, I mean, again, going back to jobs, like he wore the same thing every day. Not every day. Yeah. As a flex or anything like that, but it was just to remove the choice from his life. Yeah. So he could use that cognitive, um, firepower and other things that were more higher value tasks. Uh, I absolutely love that. Yeah. Okay. Sarah, last one for the main segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Sarah Levinger (18:12):

Oh my gosh. There's so many nice people. This is gonna be a hard one. Um, I think the nicest thing someone has ever done for me is ask me how I'm doing. Aw. Yeah. Like I could, I could talk about like all the gifts and things people have given me, but it really, for me, it comes down to like, ask me how you're doing in a real sense. Not just like, how's your day, you know? Cuz it's very different. Yeah. Yeah. But my husband and in particular ask me very often, like how are you today? Like checking in where what's your mental state like, and that it just helps a ton because some days I forget to think about myself, you know? Yep. Cuz I'm a mom and I've got clients and I've got all these things to do. But yeah. So note to everybody ask somebody how they're doing today from a real standpoint, how are

Rabah Rahil (18:54):

You? Yeah. And a sincere actually wanna hear from them. I love that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> all right. Shout out. Sarah's husband hubby points here. Here we go. One for the guys. I love it. <laugh> um, okay. Let's jump into the value add segment. This is why the people bought the ticket. We'll get kind of nerdy here. <laugh> um, what are the best parts and hardest parts of being a freelancer?

Sarah Levinger (19:14):

Uh, best parts is you get to create your own schedule, which is obviously everybody talks about that best part. For sure, for me is the fact that I am in control of my destiny. I can make as much or as little money as I want, you know, any month, if I need to take more time off, I can. I also get to choose who I work with, which is fantastic. Um, that those two are very, very important to me because sometimes you'll meet somebody and you think they're a good fit and they just aren't and you have the capacity to say I'm a contractor freelancer. It's kind of my prerogative. And I get to choose who I do business with hardest parts. <laugh> um, we've talked about this a little bit obviously, but like keeping yourself on track, always producing, always making sure you're delivering on what you're promising to deliver on mm-hmm <affirmative> is very hard.

Sarah Levinger (19:58):

<laugh> cause it does take a lot of self-motivation, like I said, so if you're the type of person that's motivated, like from outside sources, it's gonna be a little bit more difficult than if you're just motivated internally. One of the other things that's extremely hard about being a freelancer is it's very inconsistent. Yeah. Even if you have consistent clients, sometimes they just don't have the work. Or for instance, like at the end of the year, as soon as we hit into black Friday, I am like 60, 70 hour work weeks just constantly going, going, going. And then as soon as we hit January, unless you're in the health industry, you don't really have a whole lot going on <laugh> so yeah. Good and bad. It balances out.

Rabah Rahil (20:36):

Yeah. That's beautifully put, I'm glad you touched on the, the economics of it because, um, I did a little bit of freelancing in my younger years and that was the biggest challenge because when I was younger, I really didn't have a, um, uh, let let's just say nicely, a good grasp on solid economics for personal finances <laugh> and so there would be, um, these feast and famine periods, right. Where you're just like everybody wants you. And then there's like two months of just like, how the hell am I gonna pay for stuff? Like nobody needs work. Does anybody, am I gonna

Sarah Levinger (21:07):

Right.

Rabah Rahil (21:07):

Pick me, pick me. Um, so I think that's something is definitely really, um, astute to bring up because it it's a real thing. And um, it's kind of that feature and a bug, right? Where, because you are kind of this really easy, amazing person to plug into the system. Sometimes it can be, you know, um, the first to go. And so I think that's, that's a really great point. I love that. Um, speaking of really great point. I also love the point about, um, saying no. And so this is obviously like, you know, for me that was one of the big inflection points is the ability to say no. And obviously you take work when you need it kind of thing. Like there's that, that is a privilege and a luxury to get to that point. But once you get to that point, it can be transformative. Um, what do you look for when you're evaluating a client as a good fit or maybe not, not the fit?

Sarah Levinger (21:56):

Yeah. Well, for me, I think it's a little bit different than most people. Most people have kind of a checklist that they go down, how much, you know, how much money you're bringing in as a DTC brand. What kind of margins do you have on your product? Do you already have a good spend every month for Facebook ads? Um, I do check all of those things just to make sure that we're a good fit from a technical standpoint, but it, for me, it's, it's more of a vibe. Yeah. Like if we get on the phone and it's just like a little strange <laugh> then usually I, I, I have enough. Um, yeah, I have enough bandwidths to be like, let, let's give it a few days and I'll get back to you. And usually I send my portfolio just so they can look at it. But for the most part within those two days, I can tell from a gut feeling like, I just don't think that we're a good fit. Not that they're like not a good client, but they're just not a good client for me. You know? So I love that. Yeah. Most time.

Rabah Rahil (22:44):

Is there any kind of red flags or anything like that? Like the red flag tweet where you're like, cause to your point, like this isn't a judgment on, on these clients or these prospective clients mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's just, um, to your, like when you get to a certain place, like you're at the ability to choose who you partner with yeah. Is really important because not only is it helpful to you, it's also helpful to a client cuz you're gonna do better work. And so again, this isn't a judgment, but exactly. It's kind of poking the bear a little bit of a gossipy. Is there any red flags where you're just like, Ooh, this one's not for me.

Sarah Levinger (23:15):

Yeah. The biggest red flag I've seen, I guess there's two sides to the red flags. There's red flags from customers that are coming in that you don't already work with. And then there's red flags from people that you do work with. Ooh,

Sarah Levinger (23:25):

Red flags from people I don't work with yet or like prospective clients are almost always, if you are messaging me a lot, if it's just like, Hey, can I, can I work with you? I have a need for this. Can you contact me? Like yada yada, yada too much contacting makes me go, Ooh, <laugh> mostly because like, I'll get to you. I promise. I'm gonna get to you. It's just, I have 1,000,000,001 things to do. And I have, I have a time block. I have a time block for answering messages back and we're not at that time block yet. Um, yeah, for, for people that I work with, sometimes it gets a little difficult when they start asking questions about things that I have already explained.

Rabah Rahil (24:05):

Mm.

Sarah Levinger (24:05):

And that, that tends to happen sometimes. So I there's a little leeway there, but it, if I start hearing the same questions over and over to me, that's a value prop issue. Like I either didn't explain it well enough to begin with, which I try really hard not to do <laugh> or you don't understand the value of what I'm providing, which is a red flag. We have, we have a communication issue. So

Rabah Rahil (24:28):

Yeah. Good. Those are great. Those are absolutely great ones. I, I, I think that's exactly spot on where, um, I found that the exact same thing when I was in my freelancing career where, um, if you start getting one to the former, when people are just pestering you, it, there's just that joke of like, you know, I'm gonna give you a thousand dollars a month and I want you to sign this contract in blood. And I want you to know that. And then you get like the $10,000 month client. They're like, Hey, payment sent, let me know we can meet. Yeah. You're just like, so I think that is a really great point where there's, there's some really thirsty people that, um, and quite frankly, too, if you're a small shop, one bad client can scuttle the ship, man. Like they pay late, they bitch about everything. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they're gonna be bad reviews. Like it's just, just every over asked they get outta scope so quickly. Like it's a lot, every single bad client I've had. I wish I would've said no to like

Sarah Levinger (25:20):

Flat those bad clients, I think are probably the majority 80% of the reason people get burnt out is cuz they work with bad people

Rabah Rahil (25:28):

Hundred percent.

Sarah Levinger (25:29):

Cause you don't get really burnt out on things that you enjoy. Cuz for the majority of us, like we are multifaceted humans, we have different hobbies that we bring into our lives. And so work is one of our hobbies for a lot of people in the E eCom space. So I don't notice people getting burnt out if they're working with good projects and good clients, it's when you bring on someone that just kind of sucks. You dry that you're like, I don't wanna energy being anymore. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (25:52):

Yeah, yeah. I totally would. That's big one and I think that's actually really another great point is um, when you are working with a really vibrant, awesome person, it's almost like energy giving. Yeah. It's like you're waking up and you're excited hundred percent to great work versus like the there's that distinction between get to and have to mm-hmm <affirmative> right. You want, you wanna get away from the, have tos as much as possible and then get into the, get tos where it's like, man, get to work with this client. I get to build this strategy out. I get like, yeah, the, the excitements there. I love that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, what do you think the biggest mistakes people make when hiring freelancers are, or like what are, what are kind of some, some mistakes you've seen in the past?

Sarah Levinger (26:29):

I would say some of the bigger mistakes that I've seen is people expecting that a freelancer to be a one person entire marketing department. Yeah. And this has happened to me multiple, multiple times where just because I have experience in it doesn't necessarily mean I'm the best person for this job. And that's really interesting from a freelancer's perspective to say I'm not good at everything. <laugh> I wanna say I'm good at everything because it gets more clients into my books, but I'm, I'm just not like I, I have over the course of 10, 15 years, I've figured out what I am good at. And now I'm to the point where I've been able to tell people like, I'm really sorry, that's just not in my wheelhouse. I don't know how to do that. Or I'm just, I'm skilled at it, but I'm not an expert. And I think we need to be very careful about hiring people because in a business sense, we don't hire a CEO. Who's also the janitor, you know, <laugh> that doesn't necessarily make sense. Now that doesn't mean the CEO shouldn't know how to do a Jan's job. Sure. But that's a whole nother topic conversation, but freelancers, you know, they have their one specific thing that they're just so, so passionate about. Give them the creative freedom to do it. Cuz man they'll do it extremely well.

Rabah Rahil (27:40):

Yeah. I love that. Get that tattooed on me. That that's another, well, I just, I dealt with it all the time and um, just because you can do it shouldn't mean you should offer it as a service. Yeah. And I found myself that, um, because the other thing is a lot of people want it don't wanna pay for it. <laugh> exactly. So you're like, okay, you want me to, do you want me to basically be this mini CMO? Yeah. But you wanna compensate me? Like, you know, uh, paid strategist, it's fine.

Sarah Levinger (28:02):

Oh my gosh.

Rabah Rahil (28:03):

Like I'm not gonna do all this stuff. And then you're gonna pay me like that. Like the compensation and the responsibilities need to be aligned. And so I always found that it was like the, um, I'd never tell like family members or any, not immediate family obviously, but like extended family. That I'm really good at tech because you, you are always like, if something breaks, you're the first phone call.

Sarah Levinger (28:24):

You someone's gonna call you before.

Rabah Rahil (28:25):

Like I did you turn it on and off again? You know, it was just like, why don't don't gimme this stress man. And so exactly.

Rabah Rahil (28:32):

I had a, a friend of mine he's, he's a brilliant nutrition guy. He's a PhD nutrition, blah, blah, blah. But everybody like, nutrition's always like a kind of hot topic. He's in the fitness space as well. And when he golfs, he actually speaking of Jan, he tells people he's a Jan because if not, it ends up being like consulting game where he's like, dude, I'm just trying to F in golf here and you guys are talking about like, and there's a certain aspect of like, people pay me money for this. And you're trying to get it out of me for free. It gets into some weird spaces.

Sarah Levinger (29:00):

I can't imagine. Yeah. How bad it is for the medical field. But it's bad in marketing. I mean, if I tell anybody I'm in marketing, they're like, oh my gosh, I need to sit down and talk with you. Which makes sense. They're just trying to build their business, but I'm like, I'm gonna start telling people that I am a mom. I'm a mom. <laugh> you can talk to me about diapers and naps time.

Rabah Rahil (29:22):

Exactly. Uh, but yeah, I, I experience that as well where there's a, a lot of take and a very little gig. <laugh> um, how do you find clients? What's your best acquisition strategy?

Sarah Levinger (29:34):

Oddly enough, for a long, long time. About, uh, seven, eight years. I had a really hard time. Like we talked about feasted fame and it was up and down, up and down, down all the time. Yeah. Until I did something that I hear other people saying you should do, but I never did. Which is start putting your work out there.

Rabah Rahil (29:49):

<laugh> yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sarah Levinger (29:50):

Yeah. Shocker. When you start sharing people start noticing. So I, for a long time, I didn't have a website. Didn't have an Instagram, didn't have a Facebook. I was like, I don't know why I can't find clients. Yeah. It just, Ugh. Oh, yay. Yay. And then oddly enough, it was just early last year. I was like, I'm just gonna get on Twitter and see what's on there. It was the one platform I had never really given any thought to because it wasn't a part of my clients, roster of places to market. So I got on Twitter and I just started really I, the first person I followed was Nick Shaka for like, let's be honest.

Rabah Rahil (30:24):

Oh, shout out. Shack attack. He's he? I love that bro. To the moon.

Sarah Levinger (30:27):

I so excited. I need to meet him pretty soon cuz he's fantastic. He's like the nicest guy you can just tell.

Rabah Rahil (30:31):

He really is. I'm going, I'm actually speaking at geek out in San Diego. It's it's a, should you should go to one of the GeekOuts

Sarah Levinger (30:39):

I wanna go. So that

Rabah Rahil (30:40):

It's the best DTC conference. It's very good. Oh my gosh. He's the best

Sarah Levinger (30:44):

I need to get a ticket. One of date. Great people. I, everything I see from him is just so nice. He's just so genuine. Just a genuine human hundred percent. And that man, there's a reason good marketers are usually genuine humans cuz that Nick, yeah, he's, he's a good guy. Um, but he, he was the first person that I followed on Twitter and I just noticed, just kind of kept track of like, who was also commenting on his stuff. And so then I started following people like Cody with Jones road and then I'd follow, you know, more

Rabah Rahil (31:10):

People's like gem of a human.

Sarah Levinger (31:11):

Yes. Oh my gosh. They're so nice. I'm like stop it. You guys are so great. Um, but I just started following the roster of like the greats that were on there and I, I could just name like hundreds of, but from there I was like, I'm just gonna start commenting. Like I have nothing to say cuz I'm, I'm just, I'm doing lead gen. These guys are in e-comm we're in totally different worlds, but I just started commenting every single day. I was just, if I had something to say, I said it beautiful. And then I started kind of sharing the stuff that I was already creating specifically the creative part of it. So a lot of the stuff that I was doing last year was static related because UGC actually wasn't all that big last year. Mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, it just started getting big kind of towards like the end of the summer of black Friday into there.

Sarah Levinger (31:54):

And then it just exploded. But what I was doing was mostly statics. So I just posted one or two at a time and people started commenting and then from there it was really nice. I, I had a lot of people from kind of the guru crowd started to follow me and it just kind of snowballed like just more and more and more and more. And it was super fun to watch, but also very terrifying cuz I had, I had never put myself out there ever ne I had never shared anything that I had designed mostly cuz like as an early young freelancer, you're not sure what's allowed. Can I share this? Sure, sure. Cause I am I allowed to cuz it's technically owned by that company. Yeah. So this was a first for me, but man, it just exploded. Yeah. Share what you

Rabah Rahil (32:32):

Got. I love that. Yeah. I love that. And I, I I'm similar vein where I I'd always been kind of a little social butterfly, but I never actually gave Twitter kind of any kind of yeah. And then, uh, I came on like two years ago and it has been just, that's how I got my job at triple that's. How I've met, like all these incredible people. It's kind of the, what was the joke like Facebook was the people that you went to high school with and Twitter is the people you wanna hang out with honor. It's absolutely true.

Sarah Levinger (32:58):

Oh gosh. I love that.

Rabah Rahil (32:59):

There, there is. There's just so much, especially I think the problem and the way you approach it is perfect. And this is obviously a Twitter problem, but it is an active network. Like it's very hard to be passive on there. Like you have to follow people, you have to comment, you have to like and feed the algorithm to curate for you. But once you do, man, it'll just serve you up heat after heat, after heat. It's it's it's incredible. And then yeah, and then there's all sorts of different pockets too, which is great. There's finance, Twitter, there's DTC, Twitter. There's all these other like little pockets of success that, um, and it's even crazier too. When you find it's almost like when you find that incredible song on Spotify that has like a hundred listens, you'll find somebody drop like just an absolute banger of a thread. And you're like, you have 50 people flying you. How, how, you know what I mean? Like, like there's so many nuggets on there. There's so many nuggets on there and I

Sarah Levinger (33:48):

Love that. Share more people. Yes. Ugh. That's amazing.

Rabah Rahil (33:51):

Yeah. I, I think that's a fantastic way to find more clients that's phenomenal. Um, okay. Let's see. Two more questions. Um, when you're kind of measuring your success for your business, is that just monetary? Is it kind of how it impacts your life? How, how do you think of like your business in terms of success?

Sarah Levinger (34:10):

I'm kind of a strange person because it wasn't, it wasn't, it originally started about the money cuz I needed to pay rent <laugh> yeah. Yeah. So I was freelancing as fast and as hard as I could for 67 hour work, uh, for a long time. And then as soon as I got into my mid twenties, um, I'm lucky enough, my husband works in tech. So he was like, you just do whatever you want. If you wanna be a stay-at-home mom, if you wanna work, like you just decide what you wanna do. So it became more about, okay, what do I actually wanna participate in from a marketing standpoint? Cause I always knew that I loved marketing. I just can't get away from it. Every time I try a different job. I mean, I've been every, a librarian, a dog room, like all kinds of crazy things.

Sarah Levinger (34:47):

Every time I tried something else, it just wasn't for me, I always came back to the marketing piece of it. So I'm lucky enough, very blessed. My husband is like, whatever you want to do, just feel fulfilled and kind of go live your dream. So it became about building something and contributing to something bigger than myself and to do that, I had to come to a place of like, you have to be okay with running in circles that are much bigger than you. Cause I live in like, you know, Midtown, Fort Collins, like I, I drive like, you know, a normal car. Like it just, I, I feel like I'm a normal person, but I have to start getting comfortable with being known. And that's very difficult, I think for a lot of freelancers, uh, because you imposter, syndrome's a real thing. Like we all get really nervous about like, ah, is this okay?

Sarah Levinger (35:36):

Like, are people accepting me? We're super concerned about it. Very normal human behavior. But for, for me, that's what it's come down to. I wanna contribute to something bigger than myself. And I also need to be comfortable with being known because I haven't been for a long, long time. So those two things are kind of the biggest on my roster. I, I don't really care whether or not I'm influential. I just kind of want like, I wanna be best friends with Nick. I wanna be best friends with you. I wanna be best friends with Cody. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (36:01):

Love it. Just

Sarah Levinger (36:02):

Because like, just in case you guys need something like, oh yeah. Talk to Sarah. And that helps my business as well. You know? Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (36:09):

Yeah. I think that's brilliant. I mean, it it's beautifully put in the, the faster you can unlink from the economics. I think the better, obviously, you know, you do what you need to do when you need to do it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but when you can decouple the economics from, um, kind of your goals, I think it's, it can get into some really interesting places

Sarah Levinger (36:27):

For sure. Yeah. Hundred percent.

Rabah Rahil (36:29):

Oh my gosh. You made it to the rapid fire, Sarah. You know, I love you, but it's it's game time. Are you ready?

Sarah Levinger (36:35):

Okay. I hope so. Yes.

Rabah Rahil (36:37):

Okay. The Dewey decimal system, overrated. Underrated.

Sarah Levinger (36:41):

Oh my gosh.

Rabah Rahil (36:42):

You're you're a librarian. You, I didn't know. You're a librarian.

Sarah Levinger (36:44):

Oh. I, I used to be a librarian for a long time for like three or four years. Oh, incredible underrated man. Everybody should have some sort of Dewey decimal system for everything in their house. Everything like put a number on it and categorize it and stick it where it's supposed to go. I can't tell you how many times I get frustrated looking in the library line and finding a number out of place. It just like instant anxiety

Rabah Rahil (37:09):

Nails on the chalk board

Sarah Levinger (37:10):

Nails on chalk

Rabah Rahil (37:10):

Underrated. Well, let's go. Do we? Kids won't understand it, but we get it. We get it. Um, freelancing, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (37:21):

Oh, it depends on the person. I'm gonna say overrated. Ooh. I love it. Um, unless you're a very specific type of person. I hope that doesn't come for us as bad, but yeah, no,

Rabah Rahil (37:31):

No. I love I'm just a witness in your world. These answers are sensational. <laugh> uh, Gardner of the gods overrated. Underrated.

Sarah Levinger (37:39):

Oh my gosh. Underrated. Have you ever been there?

Rabah Rahil (37:41):

Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm a, I love, I'm a big outdoors guy. I love Colorado. I love uh, uh, yeah. I'm I'm all about the camping and getting out and uh, hiking and yeah, it's, it's really pretty. And if

Sarah Levinger (37:51):

You're gonna go

Rabah Rahil (37:52):

There though, it's fairly accessible.

Sarah Levinger (37:53):

Oh it is. It's like a super quick drive from Denver. At least from here, it's like four hours. But if you're gonna go there, you also have to go to the cave of the winds giant.

Rabah Rahil (38:01):

Oh, I have not done that. Whoa,

Sarah Levinger (38:03):

Go to the cave of the winds. Oh man. Giant, giant caves. They you in there, it's so deep that they have a section of it that they'll turn off the lights and show you what the dead silence and dark sounds like in there. If you don't like tight spaces and dark, don't go <laugh> but it is like the most silent silence you'll ever hear.

Rabah Rahil (38:20):

It's so, oh my gosh.

Sarah Levinger (38:22):

It's very deep.

Rabah Rahil (38:23):

<laugh> oh my gosh. I got, I gotta do this. There is actually, um, speaking of silence, there is a Thermo Thermo. I can't remember what the barometric, I can't remember the fancy word, but basically a really big thing underneath in Minnesota that so, uh, for people that don't know your hearing is actually, um, it attenuates the sounds around you. Whoa. And so if there's less sound, it gets more sensitive. Yeah. And so I think people, the longest somebody's been in there is like three or four minutes because it's so quiet that you end up being able to like hear your blood flow and like your heart be like all this kind of creepy stuff.

Sarah Levinger (38:57):

There's just no way. I don't know, cave the

Rabah Rahil (38:59):

Wind. I need to do that. Okay. It's on the list. It's on the list. Um, working from home, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (39:05):

Oh, underrated. Oh gosh. Everybody should work from home. Even

Rabah Rahil (39:08):

With the kiddos,

Sarah Levinger (39:09):

Even with the kids because your home life is a part of your business life. Like what you feel at home, you're gonna put into your business. So if you can spend more time cultivating what's here, it's gonna leak into and increase the viability of what's out there. Underrated

Rabah Rahil (39:25):

Dropping heat, dropping heat. <laugh> uh, U GC overrated, underrated. Oh,

Sarah Levinger (39:29):

Underrated, underrated, underrated. This is all of these are gonna be underrated. U GC is one of the most powerful marketing forms I've ever come across. And I've had a lot of years of practicing and, and kind of delving into a ton of different things. U GC though, is, is amazing. <laugh> it's hard to explain mostly because to the layman person, it looks so natural. It's just somebody on camera. Yeah. But there is no better way to help a human understand and realize for themselves what a product will do without seeing it on somebody else's face. So yeah. Use it. If you haven't tried it, use it. U GC is so, so big for sure.

Rabah Rahil (40:07):

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Uh, TikTok. Overrid underrated.

Sarah Levinger (40:10):

Ah, I wanna say overrated. Oh, we

Rabah Rahil (40:17):

Got it's hot, sir. Ture hot take overrated. Huh?

Sarah Levinger (40:21):

I think it's a little overrated because it's new. Every single platform that pops up, people are like, this is the platform. And you're like, well, that's what you said five years ago about Instagram. You know? So I'm gonna say overrated for now. I do think I'm a huge, just, I'm just a consumer of TikTok, like a couple hours a day. So, but yeah, it it's a good resource for anybody, a freelancer, especially if you wanna learn how to make EGC, go to TikTok and see what the actual creators are doing, like what the people are doing because that's, that's where you learn. Go to where the source is.

Rabah Rahil (40:55):

IG reels, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (40:58):

Ooh, these are underrated actually. Ooh. Okay. Everybody kind of moved to TikTok because it was so new and it's kind of the hip thing to do nowadays. But IG reels, they they've, they've done a pretty decent job about understanding where their place in line is. You know, they kind of stay in their own lane and once you nail it on IG reels, you can see some insane results from that thing. So yeah, go to, I reels.

Rabah Rahil (41:23):

I love it. Yeah. I, I found myself, uh, it definitely boosts my usage where, uh, you know, they slide him into the main feed and then you fall down kind of almost that TikTok rabbit hole, but on Instagram you're like, oh yeah, I'm still on. Instagram is crazy. But like you're watching stuff. Yeah. They've done a decent job of that. That's awesome. Uh, favorite DTC brand.

Sarah Levinger (41:42):

Oh my gosh. Oh, you put me on the spot right now. My favorite DTC brand is probably magic spoon. I've been posting a lot about this on Twitter right now. Just cause I'm a cereal buff, any food, if you're a DTC brand and you're looking for someone to do UGC for food, I am your girl. Cause I love food in, in just ridiculous amounts. Um, and magic's food is really interesting too because they, their product is just a really good product, but their ads are like next level. Oh yeah. They're so fantastic. They're doing a great job over there.

Rabah Rahil (42:16):

They're branding is sensation. I'm a big magic swing guy as well. Favorite thing to do in Colorado.

Sarah Levinger (42:21):

Oh man. There's so many. Um, I'm I'm a hiking girl. I mean you could go skiing. You could yeah. Do all kinds of different things. Snowboarding, you know, snowshoeing we've yet to try, which is sad. Cuz I've lived here for so long and I still haven't tried it hiking though. There's really, really good hiking here. There's a lot of fourteeners that you can climb up that are pretty, pretty intense ones, but there's some good ones for families as well. So yeah. All about the hiking then we're so close mountains. Why not? <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (42:47):

Love it for the, for the people that don't know fourteeners is a reference to the altitude. Um, so you're gonna bag a 14,000 or higher peak,

Sarah Levinger (42:56):

Big mountain men bay one

Rabah Rahil (42:57):

Big, big. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Uh, favorite way to take coffee.

Sarah Levinger (43:01):

I don't drink coffee.

Rabah Rahil (43:03):

You don't drink coffee, Albany. Kill my assistant. She's throw she's killed me. I have uh, her stock, uh, all of my, uh, guests and oh unbelievable. That's

Sarah Levinger (43:14):

Unbelievable. I do not drink coffee. Um, for summer even, even decaf coffee gives me like the jitters. I don't know what it is. I'm like super sensitive caffeine tea. I drink uh, green tea with usually like two tablespoons of soy milk and some Tevia.

Rabah Rahil (43:28):

Boom, boom. There you go. People. There you go. No coffee. Unbelievable. Selena. Unbelievable. She's gonna get a talking to <laugh> uh, favorite meal and why?

Sarah Levinger (43:36):

Oh gosh. Um, I'm a big pasta person. Hmm. So we actually make homemade pasta. We don't do like PO box pasta anymore because mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's so easy to once you know how to make it. It's so easy to make. So, and my, my four year old loves to make it cuz he gets his little press thing and like squish it all down in there. So usually homemade POS and meatballs is a go-to I'm an Italian sounds solid hundred percent town sounds

Rabah Rahil (44:01):

Solid. I love it. Uh, favorite place travel to and why?

Sarah Levinger (44:06):

Oh, New Zealand a hundred percent. Ooh. If you have not been to New Zealand, go to New Zealand, you will feel like you're in the Lord. That rings everywhere you go.

Rabah Rahil (44:14):

Did you like Auckland to more of the south island?

Sarah Levinger (44:17):

We went the, the whole thing we did north island and south island in two weeks. And it was rush like you had to keep traveling fast. So we started at Tutu Kaka up at the top, which was some amazing snorkeling and scuba diving. If you guys like scuba diving, that's the place to go. We went down through Auckland. Auckland has some amazing like vegan, vegetarian restaurants. Okay. That city is super vibrant. I, everybody in Auckland, I love you. Like please invite me back then we went down from there into, gosh, I can't remember the name of the town, but they have those absorbs things. There's these giant inflatable ball

Rabah Rahil (44:46):

Climb into

Sarah Levinger (44:47):

And they shove you down a hill. Ah, it was so expensive to do it, but it was so much fun. We did it twice that I was like, can I buy one? Where do I get one of these?

Rabah Rahil (44:57):

Oh

Sarah Levinger (44:57):

My gosh, it was so fun. And yeah. Then we ended up in Queenstown and we got to go see, uh, Milford sound.

Rabah Rahil (45:03):

And that was, yeah, that's supposed to be the move.

Sarah Levinger (45:05):

Right? Like changing you

Rabah Rahil (45:06):

Can't fi Georges and

Sarah Levinger (45:08):

Just your eyes just go like, this is a postcard. It's not real. Um, yeah,

Rabah Rahil (45:13):

New Zealand. It's amazing. Go if you could it together. Small, small, tiny digression, cuz I don't wanna derail your rapid fire, but um, we have absorbing out here in Texas. It's kind like out in the middle of there. Do you really? Um, yeah. Well it's two, was it the double with you guys with the absorb or is it one person? Yeah, it was a double one. So it, oh my gosh. So it's, this is terrible that I'm making fun of this, but it's just such a hilarious story. So there was a guy and the girl and we were sitting there actually went with my sister and for people don't know or are just listening likeor is basically this huge inflatable ball and they basically strap you in looking at each other and you just kind of roll and roll and roll. They

Sarah Levinger (45:46):

Just, this guy was there,

Rabah Rahil (45:48):

His girlfriend or seeing other, what have you is just basically having a nervous breakdown. Like no, no, no, I don't wanna do it freaking out, blah, blah, blah. And then he finally convinces her. He gets there, they get him put in there and then they have a gate. Right. Cuz it's on down the hill and they have a gate when they push the orb. Somehow it catches a piece of the gate, deflates it and like three turns. They're just like smashing on each other. So I shouldn't be laughing. Nobody got hurt, hurt, but like it was like, this girl is absolutely petrified. She's gonna, and then like the worst thing that could have happened, happened to her. Uh, anyways, it was every time I hear absorbing, I, all I can think about is that we just could not stop laughing. It's terrible.

Sarah Levinger (46:27):

Poor

Rabah Rahil (46:27):

Girl. Everybody was okay. But it was just, uh, the irony of like

Sarah Levinger (46:31):

That's like you promised it was gonna be okay. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (46:35):

Oh, it's too good. It's too good. That's okay. A few more questions and we'll wrap up, uh, favorite way to spend your time

Sarah Levinger (46:40):

Reading a hundred percent reading every all day long. Yep. I, I feel bad library. I'm a very like exciting person. People always ask. What do you do for fun? I read and read and read most of the time. It's a textbook. Uh, something about neuroscience psychology or behavior consumerism.

Rabah Rahil (46:56):

<laugh>. Ooh, I love that. Those are all my jam as well. That's fantastic. Uh, two peas in the pod. You and I <laugh> favorite follow on Twitter.

Sarah Levinger (47:05):

Favorite follow like favorite follower. Like

Rabah Rahil (47:07):

No, no favorite follow the favorite person you follow on Twitter.

Sarah Levinger (47:10):

Oh. Oh gosh. Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. Honestly, gosh, there's so many that I follow. I really, I keep bringing up Cody's name, but I really like Cody from Jones road because he, he's not afraid to get like a little like aggressive with things

Rabah Rahil (47:28):

<laugh> oh, east he's Jersey. Boy, I east coasters. I don't know if you know east, east coast

Sarah Levinger (47:32):

People, but cause you, I mean, he always comes back and he's like, I'm sorry if it came across weird, like I just thought that this is what you meant. Like he clarifies a lot. The guy's got great communication skills. He's the only one I see though. That's like, uh, you're wrong? And this is why. Yeah. You know, and it's people are trying so hard nowadays. Not to, I just don't wanna like rock the boat. I don't wanna shake things, especially for somebody who's very new in this space, but he's, he's very polarizing and I like that about him. He's he's super into what he does. Very smart man. So yeah, Cody, I really like, I like what you're doing. Cody. Keep

Rabah Rahil (48:02):

Doing it. Shout out Cody P and has a test newsletter as well. Will drop a link in there also there. Yeah, he's a, he's a good dude. Fantastic. He he's actually, he's a friend, a triple friend of mine. Um, great guy. We actually have a, a podcast together. Uh, me, him

Sarah Levinger (48:13):

Another one. Okay. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (48:15):

Yeah, yeah. Another one

Sarah Levinger (48:16):

I need to meet Cody another

Rabah Rahil (48:17):

Uh, he's good. He's I'll intro. I'll DM. You guys we'll I'll hook you up. He's he's a really good dude. Really? Yeah.

Sarah Levinger (48:23):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (48:23):

That'd be great point. Just like so affable and like yeah, really good. Dude does have a little bit of the Jersey boy and where he'll come. He'll come across a little. No, I do too. I do too. But some people can kind of, um, have a little bit different barometer, but he, he really is just the sweetest human. He's a really good dude. <laugh> um, okay. Last question. And then you'll make it through the rapid fire gauntlet. If you could have dinner with three people dead or live fictional non-fictional who would they be? So you, you had a four person table you're sitting at the head. You can invite three people to dinner. Who would they

Sarah Levinger (48:50):

Be? John Stewart. Oh, um, yes. Love it. Oh gosh. John Stewart. If I can just, I wanna sit and talk to you for like 10 minutes. Cause you're just so cool. Um, John Oliver shocking

Rabah Rahil (49:02):

Two Johns. Oh my gosh. This is this the daily show alum here.

Sarah Levinger (49:05):

Probably Barack Obama. I just wanna see what his experience was like. Yeah. Um, mostly because like, you know, there's a ton of different people, P presidents, but like his was very unique, you know? So yeah. A president and two people from the daily show.

Rabah Rahil (49:19):

<laugh> two term president. I love it. Sarah, you made it. I should know you, Colorado girls are tough. Well, well adopted Colorado girl, but from Bama, the south is also still tough. I knew you were gonna make it through the rapid fire. You did amazing. That's

Sarah Levinger (49:34):

Fun.

Rabah Rahil (49:35):

This time is yours. Tell people how to follow you. How can they get more involved? How can they work with you? Let us know. Yeah,

Sarah Levinger (49:40):

Right now, currently I'm doing a ton and ton of research in behavior consumerism. So if you're like a DTC brand, if you're in the E eCom industry, if you're working with anything that goes to consumers, I am your girl. If you want to find out what your consumers are actually thinking from a psychological standpoint, and that goes deeper than just social proof or anything about authority, I'm going into things that are much more suited to finding out what drives your people from like an interior perspective. Are they into things that are, I don't know about their safety things that are about finding love, things that are about feeling accepted. These are the type of things that I'm kind of drawing up in my research. A lot of stuff that I'm doing is related to creative and UGC specifically. So I am still focused on the E eCom industry, but I, I like behavior consumerism. So if that interests you at all, I am over on Twitter all day long. Um, that's the one thing that I do teeny tiny little blocks all day long for <laugh>. Yeah. So I can answer people's questions, but yeah. Hit me up on Twitter, um, at Sarah lavender. Um, yeah. And let's work together.

Rabah Rahil (50:44):

I love it. Sarah. Thank you so much for taking the time. This is just such a fun pod. Thank you. Came for the wins. I gotta the wins gotta people. Haven't never even done that. It's incredible. This I'm losing my, uh, outdoorsman badges here. <laugh> um, well folks, that's 26 in the books. Thank you so much for stopping in. If you do want to get more involved with triple well, we are tri triple well.com. We are triple well on the bird app and then we also have a sensational publication that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called whale mail. Um, you can sign up right on our Twitter profile at triple whale. Uh, Sarah, again, thank you so much. Keep on keeping on you. You're one of my favorite follows right now and you're just, just really taking two Twitter and it's been, it's been really cool to see how you've blossomed on there, especially too. I didn't, I didn't realize you were such a, a, a young up and comer in terms of Twitter, so that that's fantastic. And uh, if you guys wanna work with her more, do it, she's a killer and, uh, we'll drop some links in there so you can get in touch with her or just, uh, slide into them DMS on Twitter, 26 in the books. Everybody. Thanks so much. Thanks again, Sarah. We'll see everyone on the flip.

Podcast

How To Become a Freelancer in DTC/ECOM

March 18, 2024

51:58

Hosted By

Rabah Rahil
CMO at Triple Whale

Guests

Sarah Levinger
Helps DTC brands increase their ROI with psychology-based creative

Episode Description

In this episode of ROAS, we go over how to become a great freelancer in the DTC/ECOM space in 2002 #ROAS

Notes & Links

📧Subscribe to Whale Mail for exclusive industry insights and in-depth marketing breakdowns: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tripl...

🐦 Follow us on Twitter for Industry insights https://twitter.com/triplewhale

Follow the people featured in this episode here:

- Rabah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rabahrahil
- Sarah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahLevinger

Transcription

Sarah Levinger (00:00):

U GC is one of the most powerful marketing forms I've ever come across. And I've had a lot of years of practicing and, and kind of delving into a ton of different things. U GC though, is, is amazing. <laugh>, it's hard to explain mostly because to the layman person, it looks so natural. It's just somebody on camera, but there is no better way to help a human understand and realize for themselves what a product will do without seeing it on somebody else's face. So yeah, use it. If you haven't tried it, use it. U GC is so, so big for sure.

Rabah Rahil (00:40):

Episode 26 people. I can't believe we've made it this far and we have a special one for you coming straight from Fort Collins, Colorado, Sarah Wenger, the queen of the DTC, the freelance creative. How are you, Sarah?

Sarah Levinger (00:55):

I'm doing great. How are you?

Rabah Rahil (00:57):

Uh, I'm fantastic. I'm home in Austin. I'm starting to get a little bit in my routines. We're got the south by the city's vibe in life is good. Life is good.

Sarah Levinger (01:06):

<laugh> that sounds fantastic. I, I kind of wish we were in Austin cuz the weather in Colorado changes so quickly last week. We're like freezing snow everywhere this week. It's 65. People are in shorts outside. It's that's Colorado for you. It just changes constantly. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (01:22):

I I gotta tell you though. It's one of my favorite states. How, how have you, are you born and bred there or how long have you been out there?

Sarah Levinger (01:27):

My husband says that I cannot call myself a native cuz I wasn't born here. <laugh> okay. I was born in actually Huntsville, Alabama, but I've been here since I was six, six or seven. Okay. So I'm long enough like a native

Rabah Rahil (01:37):

That's a native. Yeah. That's I've been out for

Sarah Levinger (01:39):

A time.

Rabah Rahil (01:41):

I think Texas, the requirements are uh, 10 years. Um, some shit kickers in a gun and then you're officially Texan.

Sarah Levinger (01:47):

Then you're actually a Texan. You guys have like a legit criteria for it though in Colorado. It's just, you're either born here or you can't stay here. So Ooh, brutal how it goes. Brutal. We're you guys have

Rabah Rahil (01:56):

That cool little, that little triangle's pretty dope though with, uh, you guys get Fort Collins. Um, Denver, um, geez. I'm blanking Boulder. That kind of little cool little triangle. Yeah. That's it's cool. It's beautiful out there again. I love it. Um, what made you come from? Uh, the south?

Sarah Levinger (02:13):

Uh, well, I mean my family just moved here. Yeah. Cuz I was six, so I didn't really have a choice. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but yeah, my, my parents came out here when I was younger just because my dad's job and from there we just never left and really we've been, we've been sticking pretty close. My husband actually, his in-laws live right next door to us <laugh> oh wow. So he didn't go far. They purchased a house 35 years ago and he born, raised, grew up all in the same house. They still live there. And then obviously we went super far. We went right next door. <laugh> so clearly we're like Fort Collins forever cuz yeah, we didn't. It's hard to leave this town. Once you get in here. It's really hard to leave

Rabah Rahil (02:48):

<laugh> I love it. Well, it takes a village too, right? Cuz you got two little ones. So that, that, that is probably pretty helpful to have the, the extra hands around as you were raising the kiddos.

Sarah Levinger (03:00):

Yeah, a hundred percent, especially right now with everything that happened with COVID and being in quarantine, it was like life saving to have grandparents next door, cuz they were just like a part of our bubble. So they could at least go to grandma's house every day and we could get some like rest and breaks and yeah. Oh it was so necessary. It's it's just helpful in general to have people around like I, I just to the mamas who do it all themselves, I'm like how, how you guys are so much stronger than I am. I's just like it it's intense parenting right now in the world. So got it. Grandparents. Thank you.

Rabah Rahil (03:30):

<laugh> shout out grandparents. Let's go grandparents. Um, so take me a little bit about, or like how did you get into DTC? How did you get into the creative space? You have kind of a very unique journey. So kind of colored in for the listeners.

Sarah Levinger (03:43):

Yeah. So I actually started, uh, my freelance journey when I was pretty young, like way before it was actually cool to be an entrepreneur <laugh> um, I tried to go to college and it just did not work for me. I, I enjoyed the classes, but it just moved too slow. I'm I'm a fast paced person, really fast paced learner. So when I got into college, I started doing classes specifically for graphic design and I had a professor that said, you don't really need a college degree to be a graphic designer. <laugh> if you have some talent in it and if you have a lot of good drive and dedication to it, you can basically just go get clients and you won't have to get a full degree. So that's what I did. I just went and I actually got an internship right out of like my, I think it was my sophomore year in college.

Sarah Levinger (04:24):

Um, and the only reason they hired me was because I dressed up for the interview, which is kind of funny. It was like bring hip kids because I was a good designer. That's fine. All dress up for every interview <laugh> so they hired me and it was a giant, huge, huge company. They made water testing instruments. And so my job was basically brand strategy. I had to make sure that everything that went out the door said the correct message that they wanted to push forward to, to their audience. So a large portion of what I was doing for them was just graphic design straight and you know, cut and dried graphic design, but a huge part of it was just making sure that everything looked the same, basically. So it was a really good lesson in learning brand. From the beginning, from there, I worked just about two summers for them and then they decided to cut my position, which kind of sucked cuz I really loved it. But they, the uh, the creative director at the time came to me and said, you don't really need to work as an employee. You could just go start your own business and then you can come back and we'll just hire you as a contractor. And at the time I was 22. So I was like, I almost know how to do that.

Rabah Rahil (05:26):

Yeah. Yeah. So I

Sarah Levinger (05:27):

Was like, okay, I'll give it a Valiant effort. I'll try my hardest to create, how do you create a business? I don't know. So back at that time, there was no like legal zoom was just starting to get popular. So I just went online and was like, how do you create a business? And then from there it just like exploded for the next 10 years straight. I worked in everything. I mean, I did all kinds of email marketing and I did WordPress websites for a while and I did wire framing and I did lots and lots of things. Like I did SMS. I did all kinds of stuff. I even ran a whole bunch of my own little businesses. So I had an Etsy shop and I did Amazon B and I did just all kinds of crazy stuff. So it was really fun. But man, it taught me a lot about freelancing in particular for one is, is a tough industry.

Sarah Levinger (06:11):

It's really interesting to get into you gotta be very organized, um, to be a freelancer. But then it also taught me a lot about marketing using different channels because I did a ton of different stuff. So I kind of segued into social media, um, kind of mid twenties and I was doing social media management for a long time. So lots of Pinterest, lots of blogs, lots of SEO content from there, I kind of just stumbled into managing Facebook ad accounts for, uh, specifically lead gen. Um, primarily in Jackson hole area. There was a lot of hotels up there that needed people to just bring in customers basically, um, specifically for their like large group sales. So I started running the ad accounts for that. And over the course of the last, like two or three years, I just sort of accidentally segued into e-com. And from there it was like, I am hooked as soon as I got in e-comm I was like, this is where I wanna be. <laugh> cause this is the fastest paced industry I think I've ever stepped foot into. And I have just been going hard ever since. It's so fun. It's like the most fun I've ever had marketing anything is in DTC. So that's kind of the background. It's real weird. <laugh> real back

Rabah Rahil (07:22):

Get here. Oh, I love weird journeys. And I always find too that the, the weirder, the journey, if you make it out is the stronger the person where you, you get to experience all these other things. And one, for me, it eliminates the FOMO where, um, you can always have this weird, like grass is always greener kind of view where it's like, dude, it ain't <laugh> yes, I've been there. It ain't <laugh>

Sarah Levinger (07:44):

Is hard, hard work with some tough clients and some fantastic clients. And then yeah, the whole thing is you, you are the bookkeeper and the accountant and the marketer and you're doing the work and you're doing sales. I mean, you're doing all of it, all of it at one time. So yeah, it's been a good journey. I love it. I, I would never leave freelancing to go to a real job. I don't think, I don't know. I haven't <laugh> I haven't decided on that one yet, but for the most part it's, it's been fun. I've enjoyed it.

Rabah Rahil (08:09):

That is that's really cool. And I think freelancing, I mean, it is a feature and a bug, but being able to, uh, work with the different clients and then especially in, in DTC, it's really nice because it's really cut and dry. Um, I've, I've come from some lead gen some app install stuff, and like just, it just gets into complex businesses and like how on a show, your efficacy and like, yeah, just hard where it's like, DTCs like, did we make more money today or not? We did good job. Exactly. Sarah. You know what I mean? Or

Sarah Levinger (08:36):

I

Rabah Rahil (08:36):

Know I'm like do better Sarah. Like it's, it's exactly. It's just much easier to have that clean line into that. Um, when you were doing all this stuff. So I, I, it sounds like you leveraged the, the GOs pretty heavily, but were there any like resources or frameworks or like how, how did you go from basically, you know, know, being, let go and then spinning up your shop. That's still vibrant today.

Sarah Levinger (09:01):

Oddly enough, I am a, a huge learner, even though I started out not loving like the college route <laugh> so the majority of what I learned was all through Google, but a ton of it through the library, oddly enough, um, I use my library card way more than I probably should. Awesome books on books, on books. And it's really interesting because I, I found a very small subsection of people who actually go to the library and like read large scale books. But I, I, I don't know. I can synthesize information much better if it's in a bulk form, I find the internet to be too truncated. Like it's just chopped so much chopped information and it's very difficult to get like a good grasp on things unless you're reading like a textbook <laugh>, which sounds funny, the irony,

Rabah Rahil (09:47):

It's the funny where like academia wasn't for me, but yet you went to the library to find the academic books, which

Sarah Levinger (09:53):

Is amazing. Yeah. I'm like a self-motivated person though. I just, I would much rather gimme the book and I'll read it in the three days and then I'll tell you everything you need to know. So that was a huge portion of where I started learning, but another one was my, my in-laws actually owned a boutique hotel in Fort Collins called the Armstrong hotel. They don't own it anymore. They actually sold it about five years ago, but they owned it for 13 years. So it was like, they, it was a family business. They, they went hard at it. <laugh> and all of us worked there. My husband, his two brothers, I worked there like the whole family worked there at one time and I learned a ton from them that they're the type of people that are just like everything they touch is entrepreneurship gold. They just, yeah, I can't even, there's some people that just are like that.

Sarah Levinger (10:33):

Everything you do is amazing. So they had this business for a long time and they hired me on to do marketing, directing market, like sort of doing the, like directing of marketing <laugh> and the social media management. And they had a very different way of looking at, uh, inbound and outbound customer, like acquiring they, their entire business was based off of what is the basic things you need and how can we make those basic things better? And so I took interesting that marketing framework and just applied it to everything like anything I could put it into. I did. And it worked, it worked extremely well. And it's interesting cuz I didn't know at the time, but what they were doing was using some very base level psychological needs and applying it to every experience in the entire hotel. Um, and they, they did so, so well, I mean their, their, their rates for, for occupancy were upwards like 96, 90 7%, which is pretty unheard of for hotels. Yeah. Especially boutique hotels. It's hard to book sometimes in those towns, they were lucky enough they were in Fort Collins. <laugh> so that helped 'em a lot, cuz this town is pretty popular. Uh, tourists, destination. Yeah. But yeah, so, so the library and my in-laws really their business helped a lot.

Rabah Rahil (11:48):

Well that, that is the most unique answer. I, I love that and yeah, I have a, a soft spot for libraries as well. So my dad actually, uh, didn't know any English when he came over here, he is from Algeria. So he came over around 18, 19, and basically just taught himself English. Uh, and by going to library and I'm gonna date myself cause I'm old, I'm 36 going on 37, but I still remember going to the library and they'd have these newspapers on these big wooden sticks. The kids will never know these days, but yeah, yeah. You know, it's up. And I just remember, and it was just so like perplexing me, like why aren't they sticks? So they don't steal the sun. It was, yeah, it was, it was incredible. But uh, yeah, I, I hate taxes, but I don't mind my taxes going.

Rabah Rahil (12:28):

We have actually a beautiful in Austin. Uh, the central library just got built two or three years ago and it's, it's absolutely magnificent. I, I have a soft spot for libraries. Yeah. Yeah. Dope, dope. Uh, central libraries or well done. Libraries is something. Um, and I, I take your point too. I think there is a little bit of, um, not click baby, but I think truncated is a good, is a good descriptor of, uh, sometimes, you know, if you do wanna get all of the, the info, it can be, um, a little more challenging. Um, sometimes versus, um, somebody that just put a tree this in their book and it's like, okay, cool. You can read it from cover to cover and stuff like that. Yeah. But mm-hmm <affirmative> um, you also said something really interesting too is, um, you're, self-motivated where, um, I know a lot of talented people that are not and freelance ain't for you, baby. If you can't be your own boss. Oh my goodness. That ain't the path you'll triple on the bond very quickly.

Sarah Levinger (13:23):

Exactly.

Rabah Rahil (13:25):

Um, speaking of that, what advice would you give to aspiring freelancers that you wish you had?

Sarah Levinger (13:31):

Well, I just, I just saw this actually on Twitter the other day. And the advice that I would give is understand that the path that you think you're gonna take is not the path that you're going to take because the majority of people give advice on just keep going or find a good mentor, yada yada. But I want everybody to know if you're going into freelance understand that you're gonna fall into things that fit you better than what you think will fit you. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yep. Because I, I thought for sure that I was like built for logos. I just wanted to design logos all day long cause I loved them. And what I actually ended up falling into was, you know, running ads, U GC creative for DTC brands. And I love it way more than I ever loved doing any sort of graphic design work. So yeah, it, the journey you're gonna take is not what you think it's gonna be, but it will be better in the end. It, it, it's gonna be phenomenal no matter what happens. So,

Rabah Rahil (14:21):

Ooh, I love that. Yeah. Jobs has a great Steve jobs has a great line. You can't connect the dots, um, forward only backward. I think you're absolutely right.

Sarah Levinger (14:29):

1%. Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (14:30):

Um, especially too, as you're younger, I think the, the path you took of experiencing all these different business models and um, I think, I think that's really helpful for people. Uh, especially if you, you can, you know, take it economically because you're gonna come out with such a robust understanding of like there's a expression, the map's not the territory. And so people will tell you like, oh, this, that the other, and then you like experience, it's like there's theory land. And then there's actual what the world's like. Yeah. And very often they are so far apart. And so understanding that is, uh, it's beautiful. I love how you put that. Uh, okay. Two more questions. And then we'll wrap up the first segment. Um, how do you balance being a mom and a freelancer?

Sarah Levinger (15:12):

Oh, <laugh> um, <laugh> my gut reaction is to say I don't <laugh> um, let me get a better reaction. Um, yeah, this one's a tough one. And, and I I've found this with a lot of moms who are, especially in the direct to consumer space, anybody in e-comm who is a mom struggles heavily, because this is one of the only industries I have seen that is 24 7, 365 days a year. There's no breaks. There's no holidays. It's forever. And in fact it gets worse at the holidays. So like get ready. I think you have to create a lot of structured time blocks in your day. That's the only way I've been able to manage it so far. Especially if you don't have any sort of childcare assistance help, you're gonna have to set down times where you do the same thing every time at the same time of the day.

Sarah Levinger (16:03):

Um, so for me, I always get up at 6:00 AM. It's early and I hate it, but I always work out for an hour, no matter what, cuz it will not get done for the rest of the day. Yeah. And then I'll get the kids up, get 'em ready for school, get 'em out the door, come home. Then I'll usually run through emails for 30 minutes and you know, so on and so forth. But it's the same every day, even on the weekends, no matter what, I just continue to keep doing it. Cuz anytime I get off, yeah. Anytime I get off balance, I, I fall hard and then it takes a week to get back on. And it's just by that time I have clients who are like, where's my stuff. Like I need you to get this to me. Why are you late? Like, yeah. It's it's structure. It's all about creating some sort of calendar structure for yourself.

Rabah Rahil (16:44):

Ooh. I love that. Um, I'm a big time blocker myself and there's a great app called AKI flow that anytime I star something to my Gmail, bookmark something in, um, slack or have a task assigned to me in as sauna, that's kind of our tech stack here at triple. Um, it goes into this little app and then I can then drag it into my calendar because I have found the same thing. Like I die in a vacuum. Like if you, if you tell me like, oh, what are you gonna do today? Oh, I'm just gonna figure it out. Like I, I will literally just waste my day. I ha like I just die in a vacuum. And so I, I, my day is literally from when I get up to, when I go to sleep, like I even, you know, um, this sounds very cold, but I book time for, with my significant other cuz if not, I'll just work and I need to make sure that I'm showing up in that relationship as well. Yeah. Um, I, I love that idea. I know some people aren't super on the structured train. I am three tickets with you. I, I, I

Sarah Levinger (17:37):

Can't, it's so unnecessary

Rabah Rahil (17:38):

So necessary for me. And honestly, in a weird way, the structure gives me freedom and it kind of sounds like oxymoron. Thank you. But like, like it really helps when I don't have to make decisions. I just have to check boxes or complete tasks. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I'm just, just a happier guy versus, I mean, again, going back to jobs, like he wore the same thing every day. Not every day. Yeah. As a flex or anything like that, but it was just to remove the choice from his life. Yeah. So he could use that cognitive, um, firepower and other things that were more higher value tasks. Uh, I absolutely love that. Yeah. Okay. Sarah, last one for the main segment. What's the nicest thing someone's done for you?

Sarah Levinger (18:12):

Oh my gosh. There's so many nice people. This is gonna be a hard one. Um, I think the nicest thing someone has ever done for me is ask me how I'm doing. Aw. Yeah. Like I could, I could talk about like all the gifts and things people have given me, but it really, for me, it comes down to like, ask me how you're doing in a real sense. Not just like, how's your day, you know? Cuz it's very different. Yeah. Yeah. But my husband and in particular ask me very often, like how are you today? Like checking in where what's your mental state like, and that it just helps a ton because some days I forget to think about myself, you know? Yep. Cuz I'm a mom and I've got clients and I've got all these things to do. But yeah. So note to everybody ask somebody how they're doing today from a real standpoint, how are

Rabah Rahil (18:54):

You? Yeah. And a sincere actually wanna hear from them. I love that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> all right. Shout out. Sarah's husband hubby points here. Here we go. One for the guys. I love it. <laugh> um, okay. Let's jump into the value add segment. This is why the people bought the ticket. We'll get kind of nerdy here. <laugh> um, what are the best parts and hardest parts of being a freelancer?

Sarah Levinger (19:14):

Uh, best parts is you get to create your own schedule, which is obviously everybody talks about that best part. For sure, for me is the fact that I am in control of my destiny. I can make as much or as little money as I want, you know, any month, if I need to take more time off, I can. I also get to choose who I work with, which is fantastic. Um, that those two are very, very important to me because sometimes you'll meet somebody and you think they're a good fit and they just aren't and you have the capacity to say I'm a contractor freelancer. It's kind of my prerogative. And I get to choose who I do business with hardest parts. <laugh> um, we've talked about this a little bit obviously, but like keeping yourself on track, always producing, always making sure you're delivering on what you're promising to deliver on mm-hmm <affirmative> is very hard.

Sarah Levinger (19:58):

<laugh> cause it does take a lot of self-motivation, like I said, so if you're the type of person that's motivated, like from outside sources, it's gonna be a little bit more difficult than if you're just motivated internally. One of the other things that's extremely hard about being a freelancer is it's very inconsistent. Yeah. Even if you have consistent clients, sometimes they just don't have the work. Or for instance, like at the end of the year, as soon as we hit into black Friday, I am like 60, 70 hour work weeks just constantly going, going, going. And then as soon as we hit January, unless you're in the health industry, you don't really have a whole lot going on <laugh> so yeah. Good and bad. It balances out.

Rabah Rahil (20:36):

Yeah. That's beautifully put, I'm glad you touched on the, the economics of it because, um, I did a little bit of freelancing in my younger years and that was the biggest challenge because when I was younger, I really didn't have a, um, uh, let let's just say nicely, a good grasp on solid economics for personal finances <laugh> and so there would be, um, these feast and famine periods, right. Where you're just like everybody wants you. And then there's like two months of just like, how the hell am I gonna pay for stuff? Like nobody needs work. Does anybody, am I gonna

Sarah Levinger (21:07):

Right.

Rabah Rahil (21:07):

Pick me, pick me. Um, so I think that's something is definitely really, um, astute to bring up because it it's a real thing. And um, it's kind of that feature and a bug, right? Where, because you are kind of this really easy, amazing person to plug into the system. Sometimes it can be, you know, um, the first to go. And so I think that's, that's a really great point. I love that. Um, speaking of really great point. I also love the point about, um, saying no. And so this is obviously like, you know, for me that was one of the big inflection points is the ability to say no. And obviously you take work when you need it kind of thing. Like there's that, that is a privilege and a luxury to get to that point. But once you get to that point, it can be transformative. Um, what do you look for when you're evaluating a client as a good fit or maybe not, not the fit?

Sarah Levinger (21:56):

Yeah. Well, for me, I think it's a little bit different than most people. Most people have kind of a checklist that they go down, how much, you know, how much money you're bringing in as a DTC brand. What kind of margins do you have on your product? Do you already have a good spend every month for Facebook ads? Um, I do check all of those things just to make sure that we're a good fit from a technical standpoint, but it, for me, it's, it's more of a vibe. Yeah. Like if we get on the phone and it's just like a little strange <laugh> then usually I, I, I have enough. Um, yeah, I have enough bandwidths to be like, let, let's give it a few days and I'll get back to you. And usually I send my portfolio just so they can look at it. But for the most part within those two days, I can tell from a gut feeling like, I just don't think that we're a good fit. Not that they're like not a good client, but they're just not a good client for me. You know? So I love that. Yeah. Most time.

Rabah Rahil (22:44):

Is there any kind of red flags or anything like that? Like the red flag tweet where you're like, cause to your point, like this isn't a judgment on, on these clients or these prospective clients mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's just, um, to your, like when you get to a certain place, like you're at the ability to choose who you partner with yeah. Is really important because not only is it helpful to you, it's also helpful to a client cuz you're gonna do better work. And so again, this isn't a judgment, but exactly. It's kind of poking the bear a little bit of a gossipy. Is there any red flags where you're just like, Ooh, this one's not for me.

Sarah Levinger (23:15):

Yeah. The biggest red flag I've seen, I guess there's two sides to the red flags. There's red flags from customers that are coming in that you don't already work with. And then there's red flags from people that you do work with. Ooh,

Sarah Levinger (23:25):

Red flags from people I don't work with yet or like prospective clients are almost always, if you are messaging me a lot, if it's just like, Hey, can I, can I work with you? I have a need for this. Can you contact me? Like yada yada, yada too much contacting makes me go, Ooh, <laugh> mostly because like, I'll get to you. I promise. I'm gonna get to you. It's just, I have 1,000,000,001 things to do. And I have, I have a time block. I have a time block for answering messages back and we're not at that time block yet. Um, yeah, for, for people that I work with, sometimes it gets a little difficult when they start asking questions about things that I have already explained.

Rabah Rahil (24:05):

Mm.

Sarah Levinger (24:05):

And that, that tends to happen sometimes. So I there's a little leeway there, but it, if I start hearing the same questions over and over to me, that's a value prop issue. Like I either didn't explain it well enough to begin with, which I try really hard not to do <laugh> or you don't understand the value of what I'm providing, which is a red flag. We have, we have a communication issue. So

Rabah Rahil (24:28):

Yeah. Good. Those are great. Those are absolutely great ones. I, I, I think that's exactly spot on where, um, I found that the exact same thing when I was in my freelancing career where, um, if you start getting one to the former, when people are just pestering you, it, there's just that joke of like, you know, I'm gonna give you a thousand dollars a month and I want you to sign this contract in blood. And I want you to know that. And then you get like the $10,000 month client. They're like, Hey, payment sent, let me know we can meet. Yeah. You're just like, so I think that is a really great point where there's, there's some really thirsty people that, um, and quite frankly, too, if you're a small shop, one bad client can scuttle the ship, man. Like they pay late, they bitch about everything. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they're gonna be bad reviews. Like it's just, just every over asked they get outta scope so quickly. Like it's a lot, every single bad client I've had. I wish I would've said no to like

Sarah Levinger (25:20):

Flat those bad clients, I think are probably the majority 80% of the reason people get burnt out is cuz they work with bad people

Rabah Rahil (25:28):

Hundred percent.

Sarah Levinger (25:29):

Cause you don't get really burnt out on things that you enjoy. Cuz for the majority of us, like we are multifaceted humans, we have different hobbies that we bring into our lives. And so work is one of our hobbies for a lot of people in the E eCom space. So I don't notice people getting burnt out if they're working with good projects and good clients, it's when you bring on someone that just kind of sucks. You dry that you're like, I don't wanna energy being anymore. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (25:52):

Yeah, yeah. I totally would. That's big one and I think that's actually really another great point is um, when you are working with a really vibrant, awesome person, it's almost like energy giving. Yeah. It's like you're waking up and you're excited hundred percent to great work versus like the there's that distinction between get to and have to mm-hmm <affirmative> right. You want, you wanna get away from the, have tos as much as possible and then get into the, get tos where it's like, man, get to work with this client. I get to build this strategy out. I get like, yeah, the, the excitements there. I love that. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, what do you think the biggest mistakes people make when hiring freelancers are, or like what are, what are kind of some, some mistakes you've seen in the past?

Sarah Levinger (26:29):

I would say some of the bigger mistakes that I've seen is people expecting that a freelancer to be a one person entire marketing department. Yeah. And this has happened to me multiple, multiple times where just because I have experience in it doesn't necessarily mean I'm the best person for this job. And that's really interesting from a freelancer's perspective to say I'm not good at everything. <laugh> I wanna say I'm good at everything because it gets more clients into my books, but I'm, I'm just not like I, I have over the course of 10, 15 years, I've figured out what I am good at. And now I'm to the point where I've been able to tell people like, I'm really sorry, that's just not in my wheelhouse. I don't know how to do that. Or I'm just, I'm skilled at it, but I'm not an expert. And I think we need to be very careful about hiring people because in a business sense, we don't hire a CEO. Who's also the janitor, you know, <laugh> that doesn't necessarily make sense. Now that doesn't mean the CEO shouldn't know how to do a Jan's job. Sure. But that's a whole nother topic conversation, but freelancers, you know, they have their one specific thing that they're just so, so passionate about. Give them the creative freedom to do it. Cuz man they'll do it extremely well.

Rabah Rahil (27:40):

Yeah. I love that. Get that tattooed on me. That that's another, well, I just, I dealt with it all the time and um, just because you can do it shouldn't mean you should offer it as a service. Yeah. And I found myself that, um, because the other thing is a lot of people want it don't wanna pay for it. <laugh> exactly. So you're like, okay, you want me to, do you want me to basically be this mini CMO? Yeah. But you wanna compensate me? Like, you know, uh, paid strategist, it's fine.

Sarah Levinger (28:02):

Oh my gosh.

Rabah Rahil (28:03):

Like I'm not gonna do all this stuff. And then you're gonna pay me like that. Like the compensation and the responsibilities need to be aligned. And so I always found that it was like the, um, I'd never tell like family members or any, not immediate family obviously, but like extended family. That I'm really good at tech because you, you are always like, if something breaks, you're the first phone call.

Sarah Levinger (28:24):

You someone's gonna call you before.

Rabah Rahil (28:25):

Like I did you turn it on and off again? You know, it was just like, why don't don't gimme this stress man. And so exactly.

Rabah Rahil (28:32):

I had a, a friend of mine he's, he's a brilliant nutrition guy. He's a PhD nutrition, blah, blah, blah. But everybody like, nutrition's always like a kind of hot topic. He's in the fitness space as well. And when he golfs, he actually speaking of Jan, he tells people he's a Jan because if not, it ends up being like consulting game where he's like, dude, I'm just trying to F in golf here and you guys are talking about like, and there's a certain aspect of like, people pay me money for this. And you're trying to get it out of me for free. It gets into some weird spaces.

Sarah Levinger (29:00):

I can't imagine. Yeah. How bad it is for the medical field. But it's bad in marketing. I mean, if I tell anybody I'm in marketing, they're like, oh my gosh, I need to sit down and talk with you. Which makes sense. They're just trying to build their business, but I'm like, I'm gonna start telling people that I am a mom. I'm a mom. <laugh> you can talk to me about diapers and naps time.

Rabah Rahil (29:22):

Exactly. Uh, but yeah, I, I experience that as well where there's a, a lot of take and a very little gig. <laugh> um, how do you find clients? What's your best acquisition strategy?

Sarah Levinger (29:34):

Oddly enough, for a long, long time. About, uh, seven, eight years. I had a really hard time. Like we talked about feasted fame and it was up and down, up and down, down all the time. Yeah. Until I did something that I hear other people saying you should do, but I never did. Which is start putting your work out there.

Rabah Rahil (29:49):

<laugh> yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sarah Levinger (29:50):

Yeah. Shocker. When you start sharing people start noticing. So I, for a long time, I didn't have a website. Didn't have an Instagram, didn't have a Facebook. I was like, I don't know why I can't find clients. Yeah. It just, Ugh. Oh, yay. Yay. And then oddly enough, it was just early last year. I was like, I'm just gonna get on Twitter and see what's on there. It was the one platform I had never really given any thought to because it wasn't a part of my clients, roster of places to market. So I got on Twitter and I just started really I, the first person I followed was Nick Shaka for like, let's be honest.

Rabah Rahil (30:24):

Oh, shout out. Shack attack. He's he? I love that bro. To the moon.

Sarah Levinger (30:27):

I so excited. I need to meet him pretty soon cuz he's fantastic. He's like the nicest guy you can just tell.

Rabah Rahil (30:31):

He really is. I'm going, I'm actually speaking at geek out in San Diego. It's it's a, should you should go to one of the GeekOuts

Sarah Levinger (30:39):

I wanna go. So that

Rabah Rahil (30:40):

It's the best DTC conference. It's very good. Oh my gosh. He's the best

Sarah Levinger (30:44):

I need to get a ticket. One of date. Great people. I, everything I see from him is just so nice. He's just so genuine. Just a genuine human hundred percent. And that man, there's a reason good marketers are usually genuine humans cuz that Nick, yeah, he's, he's a good guy. Um, but he, he was the first person that I followed on Twitter and I just noticed, just kind of kept track of like, who was also commenting on his stuff. And so then I started following people like Cody with Jones road and then I'd follow, you know, more

Rabah Rahil (31:10):

People's like gem of a human.

Sarah Levinger (31:11):

Yes. Oh my gosh. They're so nice. I'm like stop it. You guys are so great. Um, but I just started following the roster of like the greats that were on there and I, I could just name like hundreds of, but from there I was like, I'm just gonna start commenting. Like I have nothing to say cuz I'm, I'm just, I'm doing lead gen. These guys are in e-comm we're in totally different worlds, but I just started commenting every single day. I was just, if I had something to say, I said it beautiful. And then I started kind of sharing the stuff that I was already creating specifically the creative part of it. So a lot of the stuff that I was doing last year was static related because UGC actually wasn't all that big last year. Mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, it just started getting big kind of towards like the end of the summer of black Friday into there.

Sarah Levinger (31:54):

And then it just exploded. But what I was doing was mostly statics. So I just posted one or two at a time and people started commenting and then from there it was really nice. I, I had a lot of people from kind of the guru crowd started to follow me and it just kind of snowballed like just more and more and more and more. And it was super fun to watch, but also very terrifying cuz I had, I had never put myself out there ever ne I had never shared anything that I had designed mostly cuz like as an early young freelancer, you're not sure what's allowed. Can I share this? Sure, sure. Cause I am I allowed to cuz it's technically owned by that company. Yeah. So this was a first for me, but man, it just exploded. Yeah. Share what you

Rabah Rahil (32:32):

Got. I love that. Yeah. I love that. And I, I I'm similar vein where I I'd always been kind of a little social butterfly, but I never actually gave Twitter kind of any kind of yeah. And then, uh, I came on like two years ago and it has been just, that's how I got my job at triple that's. How I've met, like all these incredible people. It's kind of the, what was the joke like Facebook was the people that you went to high school with and Twitter is the people you wanna hang out with honor. It's absolutely true.

Sarah Levinger (32:58):

Oh gosh. I love that.

Rabah Rahil (32:59):

There, there is. There's just so much, especially I think the problem and the way you approach it is perfect. And this is obviously a Twitter problem, but it is an active network. Like it's very hard to be passive on there. Like you have to follow people, you have to comment, you have to like and feed the algorithm to curate for you. But once you do, man, it'll just serve you up heat after heat, after heat. It's it's it's incredible. And then yeah, and then there's all sorts of different pockets too, which is great. There's finance, Twitter, there's DTC, Twitter. There's all these other like little pockets of success that, um, and it's even crazier too. When you find it's almost like when you find that incredible song on Spotify that has like a hundred listens, you'll find somebody drop like just an absolute banger of a thread. And you're like, you have 50 people flying you. How, how, you know what I mean? Like, like there's so many nuggets on there. There's so many nuggets on there and I

Sarah Levinger (33:48):

Love that. Share more people. Yes. Ugh. That's amazing.

Rabah Rahil (33:51):

Yeah. I, I think that's a fantastic way to find more clients that's phenomenal. Um, okay. Let's see. Two more questions. Um, when you're kind of measuring your success for your business, is that just monetary? Is it kind of how it impacts your life? How, how do you think of like your business in terms of success?

Sarah Levinger (34:10):

I'm kind of a strange person because it wasn't, it wasn't, it originally started about the money cuz I needed to pay rent <laugh> yeah. Yeah. So I was freelancing as fast and as hard as I could for 67 hour work, uh, for a long time. And then as soon as I got into my mid twenties, um, I'm lucky enough, my husband works in tech. So he was like, you just do whatever you want. If you wanna be a stay-at-home mom, if you wanna work, like you just decide what you wanna do. So it became more about, okay, what do I actually wanna participate in from a marketing standpoint? Cause I always knew that I loved marketing. I just can't get away from it. Every time I try a different job. I mean, I've been every, a librarian, a dog room, like all kinds of crazy things.

Sarah Levinger (34:47):

Every time I tried something else, it just wasn't for me, I always came back to the marketing piece of it. So I'm lucky enough, very blessed. My husband is like, whatever you want to do, just feel fulfilled and kind of go live your dream. So it became about building something and contributing to something bigger than myself and to do that, I had to come to a place of like, you have to be okay with running in circles that are much bigger than you. Cause I live in like, you know, Midtown, Fort Collins, like I, I drive like, you know, a normal car. Like it just, I, I feel like I'm a normal person, but I have to start getting comfortable with being known. And that's very difficult, I think for a lot of freelancers, uh, because you imposter, syndrome's a real thing. Like we all get really nervous about like, ah, is this okay?

Sarah Levinger (35:36):

Like, are people accepting me? We're super concerned about it. Very normal human behavior. But for, for me, that's what it's come down to. I wanna contribute to something bigger than myself. And I also need to be comfortable with being known because I haven't been for a long, long time. So those two things are kind of the biggest on my roster. I, I don't really care whether or not I'm influential. I just kind of want like, I wanna be best friends with Nick. I wanna be best friends with you. I wanna be best friends with Cody. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (36:01):

Love it. Just

Sarah Levinger (36:02):

Because like, just in case you guys need something like, oh yeah. Talk to Sarah. And that helps my business as well. You know? Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (36:09):

Yeah. I think that's brilliant. I mean, it it's beautifully put in the, the faster you can unlink from the economics. I think the better, obviously, you know, you do what you need to do when you need to do it. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but when you can decouple the economics from, um, kind of your goals, I think it's, it can get into some really interesting places

Sarah Levinger (36:27):

For sure. Yeah. Hundred percent.

Rabah Rahil (36:29):

Oh my gosh. You made it to the rapid fire, Sarah. You know, I love you, but it's it's game time. Are you ready?

Sarah Levinger (36:35):

Okay. I hope so. Yes.

Rabah Rahil (36:37):

Okay. The Dewey decimal system, overrated. Underrated.

Sarah Levinger (36:41):

Oh my gosh.

Rabah Rahil (36:42):

You're you're a librarian. You, I didn't know. You're a librarian.

Sarah Levinger (36:44):

Oh. I, I used to be a librarian for a long time for like three or four years. Oh, incredible underrated man. Everybody should have some sort of Dewey decimal system for everything in their house. Everything like put a number on it and categorize it and stick it where it's supposed to go. I can't tell you how many times I get frustrated looking in the library line and finding a number out of place. It just like instant anxiety

Rabah Rahil (37:09):

Nails on the chalk board

Sarah Levinger (37:10):

Nails on chalk

Rabah Rahil (37:10):

Underrated. Well, let's go. Do we? Kids won't understand it, but we get it. We get it. Um, freelancing, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (37:21):

Oh, it depends on the person. I'm gonna say overrated. Ooh. I love it. Um, unless you're a very specific type of person. I hope that doesn't come for us as bad, but yeah, no,

Rabah Rahil (37:31):

No. I love I'm just a witness in your world. These answers are sensational. <laugh> uh, Gardner of the gods overrated. Underrated.

Sarah Levinger (37:39):

Oh my gosh. Underrated. Have you ever been there?

Rabah Rahil (37:41):

Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm a, I love, I'm a big outdoors guy. I love Colorado. I love uh, uh, yeah. I'm I'm all about the camping and getting out and uh, hiking and yeah, it's, it's really pretty. And if

Sarah Levinger (37:51):

You're gonna go

Rabah Rahil (37:52):

There though, it's fairly accessible.

Sarah Levinger (37:53):

Oh it is. It's like a super quick drive from Denver. At least from here, it's like four hours. But if you're gonna go there, you also have to go to the cave of the winds giant.

Rabah Rahil (38:01):

Oh, I have not done that. Whoa,

Sarah Levinger (38:03):

Go to the cave of the winds. Oh man. Giant, giant caves. They you in there, it's so deep that they have a section of it that they'll turn off the lights and show you what the dead silence and dark sounds like in there. If you don't like tight spaces and dark, don't go <laugh> but it is like the most silent silence you'll ever hear.

Rabah Rahil (38:20):

It's so, oh my gosh.

Sarah Levinger (38:22):

It's very deep.

Rabah Rahil (38:23):

<laugh> oh my gosh. I got, I gotta do this. There is actually, um, speaking of silence, there is a Thermo Thermo. I can't remember what the barometric, I can't remember the fancy word, but basically a really big thing underneath in Minnesota that so, uh, for people that don't know your hearing is actually, um, it attenuates the sounds around you. Whoa. And so if there's less sound, it gets more sensitive. Yeah. And so I think people, the longest somebody's been in there is like three or four minutes because it's so quiet that you end up being able to like hear your blood flow and like your heart be like all this kind of creepy stuff.

Sarah Levinger (38:57):

There's just no way. I don't know, cave the

Rabah Rahil (38:59):

Wind. I need to do that. Okay. It's on the list. It's on the list. Um, working from home, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (39:05):

Oh, underrated. Oh gosh. Everybody should work from home. Even

Rabah Rahil (39:08):

With the kiddos,

Sarah Levinger (39:09):

Even with the kids because your home life is a part of your business life. Like what you feel at home, you're gonna put into your business. So if you can spend more time cultivating what's here, it's gonna leak into and increase the viability of what's out there. Underrated

Rabah Rahil (39:25):

Dropping heat, dropping heat. <laugh> uh, U GC overrated, underrated. Oh,

Sarah Levinger (39:29):

Underrated, underrated, underrated. This is all of these are gonna be underrated. U GC is one of the most powerful marketing forms I've ever come across. And I've had a lot of years of practicing and, and kind of delving into a ton of different things. U GC though, is, is amazing. <laugh> it's hard to explain mostly because to the layman person, it looks so natural. It's just somebody on camera. Yeah. But there is no better way to help a human understand and realize for themselves what a product will do without seeing it on somebody else's face. So yeah. Use it. If you haven't tried it, use it. U GC is so, so big for sure.

Rabah Rahil (40:07):

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Uh, TikTok. Overrid underrated.

Sarah Levinger (40:10):

Ah, I wanna say overrated. Oh, we

Rabah Rahil (40:17):

Got it's hot, sir. Ture hot take overrated. Huh?

Sarah Levinger (40:21):

I think it's a little overrated because it's new. Every single platform that pops up, people are like, this is the platform. And you're like, well, that's what you said five years ago about Instagram. You know? So I'm gonna say overrated for now. I do think I'm a huge, just, I'm just a consumer of TikTok, like a couple hours a day. So, but yeah, it it's a good resource for anybody, a freelancer, especially if you wanna learn how to make EGC, go to TikTok and see what the actual creators are doing, like what the people are doing because that's, that's where you learn. Go to where the source is.

Rabah Rahil (40:55):

IG reels, overrated, underrated.

Sarah Levinger (40:58):

Ooh, these are underrated actually. Ooh. Okay. Everybody kind of moved to TikTok because it was so new and it's kind of the hip thing to do nowadays. But IG reels, they they've, they've done a pretty decent job about understanding where their place in line is. You know, they kind of stay in their own lane and once you nail it on IG reels, you can see some insane results from that thing. So yeah, go to, I reels.

Rabah Rahil (41:23):

I love it. Yeah. I, I found myself, uh, it definitely boosts my usage where, uh, you know, they slide him into the main feed and then you fall down kind of almost that TikTok rabbit hole, but on Instagram you're like, oh yeah, I'm still on. Instagram is crazy. But like you're watching stuff. Yeah. They've done a decent job of that. That's awesome. Uh, favorite DTC brand.

Sarah Levinger (41:42):

Oh my gosh. Oh, you put me on the spot right now. My favorite DTC brand is probably magic spoon. I've been posting a lot about this on Twitter right now. Just cause I'm a cereal buff, any food, if you're a DTC brand and you're looking for someone to do UGC for food, I am your girl. Cause I love food in, in just ridiculous amounts. Um, and magic's food is really interesting too because they, their product is just a really good product, but their ads are like next level. Oh yeah. They're so fantastic. They're doing a great job over there.

Rabah Rahil (42:16):

They're branding is sensation. I'm a big magic swing guy as well. Favorite thing to do in Colorado.

Sarah Levinger (42:21):

Oh man. There's so many. Um, I'm I'm a hiking girl. I mean you could go skiing. You could yeah. Do all kinds of different things. Snowboarding, you know, snowshoeing we've yet to try, which is sad. Cuz I've lived here for so long and I still haven't tried it hiking though. There's really, really good hiking here. There's a lot of fourteeners that you can climb up that are pretty, pretty intense ones, but there's some good ones for families as well. So yeah. All about the hiking then we're so close mountains. Why not? <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (42:47):

Love it for the, for the people that don't know fourteeners is a reference to the altitude. Um, so you're gonna bag a 14,000 or higher peak,

Sarah Levinger (42:56):

Big mountain men bay one

Rabah Rahil (42:57):

Big, big. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Uh, favorite way to take coffee.

Sarah Levinger (43:01):

I don't drink coffee.

Rabah Rahil (43:03):

You don't drink coffee, Albany. Kill my assistant. She's throw she's killed me. I have uh, her stock, uh, all of my, uh, guests and oh unbelievable. That's

Sarah Levinger (43:14):

Unbelievable. I do not drink coffee. Um, for summer even, even decaf coffee gives me like the jitters. I don't know what it is. I'm like super sensitive caffeine tea. I drink uh, green tea with usually like two tablespoons of soy milk and some Tevia.

Rabah Rahil (43:28):

Boom, boom. There you go. People. There you go. No coffee. Unbelievable. Selena. Unbelievable. She's gonna get a talking to <laugh> uh, favorite meal and why?

Sarah Levinger (43:36):

Oh gosh. Um, I'm a big pasta person. Hmm. So we actually make homemade pasta. We don't do like PO box pasta anymore because mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's so easy to once you know how to make it. It's so easy to make. So, and my, my four year old loves to make it cuz he gets his little press thing and like squish it all down in there. So usually homemade POS and meatballs is a go-to I'm an Italian sounds solid hundred percent town sounds

Rabah Rahil (44:01):

Solid. I love it. Uh, favorite place travel to and why?

Sarah Levinger (44:06):

Oh, New Zealand a hundred percent. Ooh. If you have not been to New Zealand, go to New Zealand, you will feel like you're in the Lord. That rings everywhere you go.

Rabah Rahil (44:14):

Did you like Auckland to more of the south island?

Sarah Levinger (44:17):

We went the, the whole thing we did north island and south island in two weeks. And it was rush like you had to keep traveling fast. So we started at Tutu Kaka up at the top, which was some amazing snorkeling and scuba diving. If you guys like scuba diving, that's the place to go. We went down through Auckland. Auckland has some amazing like vegan, vegetarian restaurants. Okay. That city is super vibrant. I, everybody in Auckland, I love you. Like please invite me back then we went down from there into, gosh, I can't remember the name of the town, but they have those absorbs things. There's these giant inflatable ball

Rabah Rahil (44:46):

Climb into

Sarah Levinger (44:47):

And they shove you down a hill. Ah, it was so expensive to do it, but it was so much fun. We did it twice that I was like, can I buy one? Where do I get one of these?

Rabah Rahil (44:57):

Oh

Sarah Levinger (44:57):

My gosh, it was so fun. And yeah. Then we ended up in Queenstown and we got to go see, uh, Milford sound.

Rabah Rahil (45:03):

And that was, yeah, that's supposed to be the move.

Sarah Levinger (45:05):

Right? Like changing you

Rabah Rahil (45:06):

Can't fi Georges and

Sarah Levinger (45:08):

Just your eyes just go like, this is a postcard. It's not real. Um, yeah,

Rabah Rahil (45:13):

New Zealand. It's amazing. Go if you could it together. Small, small, tiny digression, cuz I don't wanna derail your rapid fire, but um, we have absorbing out here in Texas. It's kind like out in the middle of there. Do you really? Um, yeah. Well it's two, was it the double with you guys with the absorb or is it one person? Yeah, it was a double one. So it, oh my gosh. So it's, this is terrible that I'm making fun of this, but it's just such a hilarious story. So there was a guy and the girl and we were sitting there actually went with my sister and for people don't know or are just listening likeor is basically this huge inflatable ball and they basically strap you in looking at each other and you just kind of roll and roll and roll. They

Sarah Levinger (45:46):

Just, this guy was there,

Rabah Rahil (45:48):

His girlfriend or seeing other, what have you is just basically having a nervous breakdown. Like no, no, no, I don't wanna do it freaking out, blah, blah, blah. And then he finally convinces her. He gets there, they get him put in there and then they have a gate. Right. Cuz it's on down the hill and they have a gate when they push the orb. Somehow it catches a piece of the gate, deflates it and like three turns. They're just like smashing on each other. So I shouldn't be laughing. Nobody got hurt, hurt, but like it was like, this girl is absolutely petrified. She's gonna, and then like the worst thing that could have happened, happened to her. Uh, anyways, it was every time I hear absorbing, I, all I can think about is that we just could not stop laughing. It's terrible.

Sarah Levinger (46:27):

Poor

Rabah Rahil (46:27):

Girl. Everybody was okay. But it was just, uh, the irony of like

Sarah Levinger (46:31):

That's like you promised it was gonna be okay. <laugh>

Rabah Rahil (46:35):

Oh, it's too good. It's too good. That's okay. A few more questions and we'll wrap up, uh, favorite way to spend your time

Sarah Levinger (46:40):

Reading a hundred percent reading every all day long. Yep. I, I feel bad library. I'm a very like exciting person. People always ask. What do you do for fun? I read and read and read most of the time. It's a textbook. Uh, something about neuroscience psychology or behavior consumerism.

Rabah Rahil (46:56):

<laugh>. Ooh, I love that. Those are all my jam as well. That's fantastic. Uh, two peas in the pod. You and I <laugh> favorite follow on Twitter.

Sarah Levinger (47:05):

Favorite follow like favorite follower. Like

Rabah Rahil (47:07):

No, no favorite follow the favorite person you follow on Twitter.

Sarah Levinger (47:10):

Oh. Oh gosh. Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. Honestly, gosh, there's so many that I follow. I really, I keep bringing up Cody's name, but I really like Cody from Jones road because he, he's not afraid to get like a little like aggressive with things

Rabah Rahil (47:28):

<laugh> oh, east he's Jersey. Boy, I east coasters. I don't know if you know east, east coast

Sarah Levinger (47:32):

People, but cause you, I mean, he always comes back and he's like, I'm sorry if it came across weird, like I just thought that this is what you meant. Like he clarifies a lot. The guy's got great communication skills. He's the only one I see though. That's like, uh, you're wrong? And this is why. Yeah. You know, and it's people are trying so hard nowadays. Not to, I just don't wanna like rock the boat. I don't wanna shake things, especially for somebody who's very new in this space, but he's, he's very polarizing and I like that about him. He's he's super into what he does. Very smart man. So yeah, Cody, I really like, I like what you're doing. Cody. Keep

Rabah Rahil (48:02):

Doing it. Shout out Cody P and has a test newsletter as well. Will drop a link in there also there. Yeah, he's a, he's a good dude. Fantastic. He he's actually, he's a friend, a triple friend of mine. Um, great guy. We actually have a, a podcast together. Uh, me, him

Sarah Levinger (48:13):

Another one. Okay. Yeah,

Rabah Rahil (48:15):

Yeah, yeah. Another one

Sarah Levinger (48:16):

I need to meet Cody another

Rabah Rahil (48:17):

Uh, he's good. He's I'll intro. I'll DM. You guys we'll I'll hook you up. He's he's a really good dude. Really? Yeah.

Sarah Levinger (48:23):

Yeah.

Rabah Rahil (48:23):

That'd be great point. Just like so affable and like yeah, really good. Dude does have a little bit of the Jersey boy and where he'll come. He'll come across a little. No, I do too. I do too. But some people can kind of, um, have a little bit different barometer, but he, he really is just the sweetest human. He's a really good dude. <laugh> um, okay. Last question. And then you'll make it through the rapid fire gauntlet. If you could have dinner with three people dead or live fictional non-fictional who would they be? So you, you had a four person table you're sitting at the head. You can invite three people to dinner. Who would they

Sarah Levinger (48:50):

Be? John Stewart. Oh, um, yes. Love it. Oh gosh. John Stewart. If I can just, I wanna sit and talk to you for like 10 minutes. Cause you're just so cool. Um, John Oliver shocking

Rabah Rahil (49:02):

Two Johns. Oh my gosh. This is this the daily show alum here.

Sarah Levinger (49:05):

Probably Barack Obama. I just wanna see what his experience was like. Yeah. Um, mostly because like, you know, there's a ton of different people, P presidents, but like his was very unique, you know? So yeah. A president and two people from the daily show.

Rabah Rahil (49:19):

<laugh> two term president. I love it. Sarah, you made it. I should know you, Colorado girls are tough. Well, well adopted Colorado girl, but from Bama, the south is also still tough. I knew you were gonna make it through the rapid fire. You did amazing. That's

Sarah Levinger (49:34):

Fun.

Rabah Rahil (49:35):

This time is yours. Tell people how to follow you. How can they get more involved? How can they work with you? Let us know. Yeah,

Sarah Levinger (49:40):

Right now, currently I'm doing a ton and ton of research in behavior consumerism. So if you're like a DTC brand, if you're in the E eCom industry, if you're working with anything that goes to consumers, I am your girl. If you want to find out what your consumers are actually thinking from a psychological standpoint, and that goes deeper than just social proof or anything about authority, I'm going into things that are much more suited to finding out what drives your people from like an interior perspective. Are they into things that are, I don't know about their safety things that are about finding love, things that are about feeling accepted. These are the type of things that I'm kind of drawing up in my research. A lot of stuff that I'm doing is related to creative and UGC specifically. So I am still focused on the E eCom industry, but I, I like behavior consumerism. So if that interests you at all, I am over on Twitter all day long. Um, that's the one thing that I do teeny tiny little blocks all day long for <laugh>. Yeah. So I can answer people's questions, but yeah. Hit me up on Twitter, um, at Sarah lavender. Um, yeah. And let's work together.

Rabah Rahil (50:44):

I love it. Sarah. Thank you so much for taking the time. This is just such a fun pod. Thank you. Came for the wins. I gotta the wins gotta people. Haven't never even done that. It's incredible. This I'm losing my, uh, outdoorsman badges here. <laugh> um, well folks, that's 26 in the books. Thank you so much for stopping in. If you do want to get more involved with triple well, we are tri triple well.com. We are triple well on the bird app and then we also have a sensational publication that goes out every Tuesday, Thursday called whale mail. Um, you can sign up right on our Twitter profile at triple whale. Uh, Sarah, again, thank you so much. Keep on keeping on you. You're one of my favorite follows right now and you're just, just really taking two Twitter and it's been, it's been really cool to see how you've blossomed on there, especially too. I didn't, I didn't realize you were such a, a, a young up and comer in terms of Twitter, so that that's fantastic. And uh, if you guys wanna work with her more, do it, she's a killer and, uh, we'll drop some links in there so you can get in touch with her or just, uh, slide into them DMS on Twitter, 26 in the books. Everybody. Thanks so much. Thanks again, Sarah. We'll see everyone on the flip.

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