The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Organizational Freelancer by Tracey M. Batacan

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Organizational Freelancer by Tracey M. Batacan https://www.amazon.com/Organizational-Freelancer-Tracey-M-Batacan/dp/1968615636 The Organizational Freelancer is a funny and insightful spin on a collection of blogs about the work of an internal organizational freelancer who is responsible for supporting multiple clients digital media projects. It also offers some best practices that resulted from those experiences. Readers will learn about the opportunities and challenges of working outside the lines of a formal organizational structure to achieve tangible results. The Organizational Freelancer also serves as a guide to gaining new, resume enhancing skills, assembling a team to handle new projects, and networking. About the author Tracey M. Batacan is an innovative digital communications professional who leverages her talents for a variety of projects. Batacan is currently serving as an Adjunct Professor of Communications at Trinity University – D.C. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in leadership, communications, crisis communications, strategic communications, and more. In her spare time, she also writes blogs regarding organizational communications, strategic communications and leadership as well as photographs special events. Prior to her current role, she worked for two decades in digital media/public affairs for federal agencies and the private sector organizations. This includes career opportunities at the U.S. Coast Guard, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Federal Protective Service (FPS) Digital Media Program, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Verizon Communications. During her tenure, she was recognized at each organization for individual employee and team recognition awards. She is an expert in producing videos, scriptwriting, social media, web design and layout, media relations, community outreach and media monitoring. Moreover, Mrs. Batacan often consults on a variety of freelance digital projects.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, this Voss here from thecris Fos Show.com. Ladies gentlemen, the earliest things of that makes official. Welcome to the big show. As always, Chris Voss show for 16 years and 20 hundred episodes, has been bringing you the most amazing minds,

most amazing stories that uplift your life and make your life better and all that good stuff. Today, an amazing young lady on the show where we're talking about her book, Organizational Freelancer, out July 10th, 2020. by Tracy M. Batakan. And we're going to get into it with her and all that good stuff. And as we do, be sure for your family friends, relatives to the show and all that good stuff. You know the drill.

Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Faw show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not endorsement or review of any kind. She is an innovative digital communications professional who leverages her talents for a variety of projects. She is currently serving as the adjunct professor of communications at Trinity University, D.C.

She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in leadership. Clearly, I need some classes in pronunciation. Communications, crisis communications, strategic communications, and more are some of her courses as well. In her spare time, she writes blogs regarding organizational communications, strategic communications, and leadership, as well as photographs special events. Before her current role, she worked for two decades in digital media, Public Affairs for federal agencies and private sector organizations, including the U.S. Coast Guard,

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Federal Protective Service, Digital Media Program, FEMA, Verizon Communications, and during her tender, she was recognized at each organization for individual employee and team recognition awards. Welcome to the show. How are you, Tracy? Thank you so much, Chris, for having me. I'm doing well. How are you? I am doing excellent. It's wonderful to have you as well. Give us any.com. websites, social media, where we want people to get to know you on the interweb. Yes. So I am available on Instagram, X, Twitter.

Also on Facebook and LinkedIn. And it's under my name and organizational freelancer. All right. And so give us a 30,000 overview. What's in your book? Absolutely. So the organizational freelancer book is based on some blogs that I wrote to help me kind of process, innovate and create solutions.

to workplace challenges, everything from budget issues to resources and staffing to how do we turn something around on a dime and we have two people in the building. Turn something around on a dime. So what prompted you want to write the book? So I'm glad you asked me that question. One of the reasons I wrote the book is I ran into a variety of situations where the different organizations I worked for had great ideas and opportunities. to get things done, but they lacked a variety of things like budget, staffing, creative tools,

and they needed to get it done professionally and in a timely manner. And that made me think, okay, how do I solve these problems? What can I do about it? And as I was coming up with creative solutions, I said, okay, I'm just going to write a blog about it. And that turned into me actually writing a lot of those blogs and getting them published on the Federal Communicators Network. And so it's based on some of those published stories. Oh.

And one of these narratives are still relevant now. They're still relevant now because at the end of the day, the path forward for your career and for you to have life balance isn't what it used to be. Like in my parents' generation, it was a straightforward. You're with the same organization for 30 years. And then at the end of that time, you get this amazing retirement party. and you're on to your next adventure. And the time that I have seen in my career, it's one of those

things where you're looking at ways to go a different path. It's not always straight. Sometimes the investments that you need to make to actually do the biggest bang for the buck is also investing in yourself. That includes paying for your own training and educational opportunities and then bringing those lessons learned back to your team, back to your organization, to help them achieve their goals. Organizational freelancer. And was that the work that you were doing for some of the organizations? We mentioned your bio or are you working directly with them? How did you develop this concept of the freelancer, organizational freelancer?

All of the lessons learned in my book are based on the different organizations I worked for. And what ended up happening is that I belong to an established team, either in public affairs or community. However, as you may know, organizations have communication needs that go far and beyond the actual communications office. And so what I ended up doing is saying, okay, I hear that some people have needs. They don't have the staff to get things done. What can I do to help? That led to collaborations and creating new things. For example, one of the challenges that I was able to help out with is that one of the organizations I worked for didn't have a way to

enhance how they create content, create an editorial calendar, and then get basically their digital products out in a timely manner. Their turnaround time was somewhere between three months to four months before something got published. And so it wasn't in my job description, hence the organizational freelancer part, to do that. Somebody else was responsible for strategy. And I said, hey, let me go ahead and help out with this. I can help enhance how we can do editorial content, get content out within three to four days. If it's social media, we could do it in 48 hours,

and that includes leadership, approval, and buy-in in a timely manner. Leadership and buy-in. Now, you talk about leadership and stuff like that. Do you espouse some of those principles in the book? Absolutely. And one of the things that I talk about, in a book is that sometimes people believe that the only way you can be a leader is it's in your title. Your title should be this long and that means you're the leader.

You can lead from the middle. You can lead from the desk that's at the furthest part of the office. The goal is to make sure that you have ideas that help uplift everyone. But then also at the same time, leaders know that they have to, and I'm using a quote from one of my favorite mentors and former instructors, Phil Politano, check your ego at the door. Oh, I like that. Check the ego, your ego at the door.

I think that's what everyone tells me. So ego is not probably the best thing to have if you're a leader because why? Let's expand on that a little bit. Absolutely. So when you come into a project, especially as an organizational freelancer, where basically this isn't your primary responsibility. You have to do a few things up front. Make sure you get your leadership's buy-in that you're going to try something new

that's going to help out the entire organization. You find people who are willing to donate their time to help out with the understanding. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about them. It's not about an award at the end of the day. It's about how we can help the entire organization and the people rise. Rise.

So leaving the eagle at the door means that it's about the greater good, you, and you can still be effective. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, if people want to see more, I think what we now call servant leadership, I think, in a lot of organizations. Absolutely. And servant leaders are unique quality. There are some people who will think, and I also teach leadership for graduate and undergraduate students, and they'll ask me all the time, How do I become a servant leader? What do I need to do?

Is there a book I need to buy? Is there a class I need to take? And I said the very fact that you're asking means that you're not thinking about the end game focusing on how you'll get recognized. You're always thinking about what you can do to make the greater good in a better place. And that takes time. It takes resources. It takes commitment and focus.

And at the same time, you're doing all this hard work. Have a little fun along the way. The people who are going to follow you will do whatever they can to help you and have a good time and then come back to help you again on other projects. Yes, definitely. With leadership, you know, it's an interesting thing that's going on right now. And it seems like we're really kind of transposing to that leadership, a servant leadership, where people are focused on, you know, making the world better. Without poor leaders, when you have poor leadership in organization, people leave. I mean, it's the number one reason people leave in organization.

just because they don't have leadership. And what do you hope people gain from the book? Do you have people that maybe, you know, AI is kind of coming down the pike. There's lots of job losses maybe coming. It seems like the future is going to be that everyone's going to be their own brand and everyone's going to sell their own products and basically be an organizational freelancer in a way using AI prompts and different things. How do you see AI impacting leadership and stuff coming up?

So AI has its pros and its con that we can all agree to. And it's just like when, for example, the internet was first created, people are like, oh, my gosh, Darbinet is now the internet. What's going to happen? And people have the same feelings about social media. One of the things that I always find is important. And I talk about this in my book is take a risk. The best leaders take risks. And they understand that while there's...

a goal to be achieved at the same time knowing and understanding all new technologies will help them get to where they need to be with achieving goals. Ah, there you go. Let's see here. Now, what is your writing process that you use with the book? And I think I asked you two questions on that earlier. What do you hope people get from the book as they read it? So one of the things I hope that people get from the book is that they are basically in control. of what happens next. And that means that sometimes, for example, like I said, with my parents' generation, you know, some people think I can only be a communicator. I can only be a special agent. I can only be whatever was whatever they studied in college. And I always say, don't be a one-hit wonder. You know, there are other skill sets that you bring to the table that you should explore and see if that's the next path in your career as opposed to you can only fit into.

this one little circle because you studied something somewhere. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Is there anything next to you're working on? Any future books that are coming out? Yes, so I'm working on the next edition of the organizational freelancer, and it talks about basically looking at things more from a hard and fast leadership perspective, but then also thinking about exit strategies, because sometimes you've got to get prepared to move on, and not everybody does, and then also investing in yourself.

Sometimes we spend so many hours focused on getting work done. We don't remember to keep up on our skill sets, and you have to remember investing in your own skills. Sometimes if you have days off while resting is good, also think about what other skills you can learn, taking a few classes online, getting certified, and then, moving forward. So a good example of that is a few years ago I worked for ATF and they needed some help with their digital marketing and I did a pitch letter saying, hey, I understand that, you know, this university offers a digital marketing certificate program for graduate level. This is how much it'll cost and this is how I could turn those skill sets and that training into something to help

with some of the campaigns that they were working on at the time. I'll be honest with you, the first pitch, I got to know. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's okay, because sometimes it's about timing, sometimes it's about budget, sometimes it's about things that are outside of your control. So a few months later, I looked at my pitch letter, tweaked it, sent it back to leadership, and my leadership agreed and paid for it in full.

Wow. And I completed the course on time, actually a few days early, with a perfect grade. Nice. When I say finding ways to invest in yourself, there are going to be those opportunities where your job will be able to cover it through their budget. And then also when they can't, you could also do the same. I have a master's degree in communications. And when I worked at Verizon, I did a similar thing. I reached out to my manager.

I said, hey, I need to get a master's degree in communications. And this is how I get help with our branding and everything. And they agreed and paid for my master's degree in full. Wow. Geez, what a deal. That's pretty smart. You know, it was, you mentioned the one thing that always kind of,

I always find a wonderment when you, when you do talk to people about leadership, you mentioned a bit back about how they will always, they'll say, I don't have a management title. You know, I'm just a parent. I'm just,

I'm just somewhere in the middle of middle management. I'm not the CEO. So therefore I'm not a leader. And, you know, everyone's a leader. I mean, you can know, you can be a leader. you can be the guy who talks in the elevator.

You can be the parent. The parents are leaders. I hope they're leaders because if they're not, the teenagers, the lead. Exactly. And or the spoiled kids, I think I've seen enough of the,

what was the one show with the spoiled kids and the, the nanny would have to come in and train her. But yeah, it's basically like that. And yeah, you know, and exhibiting leadership, correct me from wrong,

but to my experience, you know, exhibiting leadership skills, even though you're not maybe officially the manager or the leader, that's got me, you know, when I was young working for other people, I got promoted over 18, or 18, I got promoted over three or four levels of management because people would see my leadership skills. Pissed a lot of people off,

but I exhibited better leadership skills than the rest of the staff and some of the managers and professionalism. And, you know, that usually happened to me. people will be like, this, this dude, you know, he leads. And, you know, when it exudes from you like that, you tend to get noticed. So would you agree? Absolutely. And part of that is people have to maybe rethink what leadership means.

Again, sometimes people think, oh, it's the title or maybe it's the salary. But if you are a great communicator, if you're excellent with your writing, as well as collaborating with people across organizations, both internal and external, and you're creative that problem solving and great organizational skills, that are the examples of leadership. And people just need to right size their mindset on that. Yeah. It's something where, I mean, if people don't see you as a leader, you know, and that's what leaders watch. I watch for people that exhibit leadership skills that can build teams, that can be lifters.

You know, you talked about, it was interesting when you talked about how when you You approach different people and stuff. You approach them with the attitude of how can I help your organization? How can I help you do better? I remember there was a story. God, who was? It was an old radio guy back in the day, but he was a motivational radio guy. He was one of the first of them.

And he used to tell the story about how during the Great Depression, everybody was, hey, I want a hand out. Hey, I want a paycheck. Hey, I want a paycheck. Hey, him, give me a job. Give me a job. He survived the Depression. by going to stores and going to places and businesses and being like, how can I help you?

Is there a way that I can help you and help you make more money to where you could possibly offer me a job? And he would focus on the service first. That's what a lot of entrepreneurs do. I mean, entrepreneurs, we look at a widget or a service widget and we go, I think I can make that better. And we build something better that maybe improves the quality of life better, far more than that original product did. and then we're paid in direct proportion to that. But we have to do the work. We have to do the service first.

We have to show people that there's going to be a benefit to their lives. But having that attitude, I think, in working for people or wanting to work with people and you approach them to interview and stuff as to how can I make your business better? And my focus is on doing that because I know if I do that, then usually, most times, not all times. You'll get paid usually in direct proportion to the service you give. And too many people just have this attitude. I just want to check, you know. I just want a job.

And that's a great thing that you brought up because it can't always be about the money. Yeah. Sometimes it's like, how can I help you? What do you really need? I had this old thing that I used to say at one of my jobs because every time I found a situation where I could help someone, they're like, okay, great, it sure is fix it. And I was, okay, I named it, I claimed it. And that's okay.

You name it? you claim it, you create solutions, but then at the same time, you're taking ownership of your leadership, but then you're also benefiting the organization. At the same time, you're expanding your network as well as your skills. And sometimes, and I have to say this, there are sometimes, and it happens to everybody, you're like, okay, I've been in this job for a few years. I'm just going to relax. I'm going to not be as proactive in doing all that I possibly can. But when you name it and you claim it and then you expand your network to help solve solutions creatively, there are things that you're enhancing your own skills and you're becoming a better person at the same time.

Yeah. And why does so many talented employees feel boxed in by their job descriptions do you think where they don't think they're leaders do? Is they just, Is it laziness or apathy or they don't feel empowered, maybe? So it's a variety of things. And some of them you just mentioned. Some people don't feel like they're empowered. Like maybe they try to reach out to their leadership with solutions and they get shut down. And so they kind of give up instead of trying it again versus something that I haven't mentioned before when I was trying to get that digital marketing certificate.

I got a no right up front. And I was like, okay, what do I need to change? How do I fix my approach? What worked? What didn't work? And let's try it again. But then also at the same time, it's about making sure that when you come up with solutions, you're saying, hey, I understand this is a problem. This is your pressure point.

Here's how it can be fixed. And here's a budget. And so one of the things I've always done is once I'm tapped to actually work on a project, I create a mini plan and I give it to leadership and I'm like, okay, it's less than two pages. Here's the budget. Here's the resources and here's a timeline. And then that way they know I'm being serious. So solutions back it up with a plan and it doesn't have to be 50, 60 pages long.

I love that. I mean, you're basically pitch-decking how to improve the organization from within the organization sort of thing. Absolutely. And pitch decking is one of those arts and skills that people need to practice on a regular basis. And it can be something as small as, hey, I came up with this idea and I know this project is going for it. I would like to have a seat at the table. I want to be a part of that team. Or if there's a video shoot that's going on and they don't have a script writer, put your hand up and say, hey, I have some script writing skills.

I'm an excellent writer. Can I take a stab at it and go from there? Oh, you know, I love how you bring the plan because everybody's here, I got some ideas. You know, I've been CEO all my life. And, you know, everyone always has a plan, especially when it involves them paying, you paying them your money. Everyone has a plan until, until they get punched in the face, as Mike Tyson would say. And he's the guy who can say that, right? Because if he punches you in the face, you're probably not going to have any more plans ever, really.

You're just going to be in a hospital of bed going. I can't feel my legs. Anyway, but yeah, I love how this approach that you have to this because you're really focused on service and you can see that. I mean, you're not just coming with a hand asking for a handout and going, can I get a job? And I've got some good ideas and people are like, what are these good ideas? And I'm like, you know, I'll tell you over time.

Absolutely. And part of that is also paying it forward because once you've had a successful track record of being an organizational freelancer, don't forget there are people who are coming up who need someone to help mentor them. And so I can honestly say I had great mentors along the way, but at the same time, I also mentored other people who are trying to find their footing in their career, whatever it looked like. And some of them, maybe they didn't want to be in communications, but maybe they were better off in public health. Maybe they were better off in some other industry. and having those hard conversations, mentoring people, and listening,

will find their path too. Yeah. I just tell people get the hell out. No, I'm just kidding. But no, it's, yeah, finding things that work. But I love how you present it to them because then it's easy to understand. And they can, I mean, imagine in your pitch deck

you kind of show them the value of the return on investment and working with you and having you run the project. Absolutely. So a SWAT analysis which talks about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are always part of the plan. Because if people only hear the good things that could come out of it, then they're not prepared for what ifs. And even if you have the best laid plans, what ifs sometimes find their way in there. So planning ahead for if there's a possible threat, if there's a possible weakness, some weaknesses could be you don't have

enough funny to get everything done with a 10-person team. Hey, can we do this video shoot with four people? Absolutely. Okay, what if we need to get something done, but maybe there's a shutdown going on? Let's prepare as much work in advance before the shutdown happens. Or like when I worked at Verizon, we would have strikes. What can we get done before everything stops? And then that way when we come back, we can pick up and we're already ahead of the game. Yeah. And so you're thinking about all these things. And, you know, the fact that you present this, I don't know, in all my years of business, no employee, I mean, I've had employees pitch me stuff. And it's kind of like a loose frame of, you know, if we do this, we'll do that. And, you know, sometimes

I've greenlighted those projects. But the fact that you're bringing like a whole pitch deck and a plan, I mean, it's, it, that's got to stand out so much as leadership and, and just having a professional, intelligent business acumen, it's got to really stand out because nobody does that. Right away, people would be like, this person is smart.

We need to, we need to, we need to do something with this person in the future coming up. Because no one does that. I mean, no one does that. But, you know, this is a future freelancing, I think, with what's going on with AI.

And we're seeing all these layoffs. We could be entering another, you know, turn. kind of like the 2008 recession crisis, what that's going on here in 2026. The economy is definitely happening, cratering, and we're seeing the layoffs from it. And usually what comes from times like this eventually are new ideas, new companies, new innovations, new businesses, new ways of doing things. We saw that in 2008, you know, 2008 inspired social media and all these different companies

that now rule the world, Facebook, Twitter, you know, all these things. And, you know, so we'll see where that goes from there and how it all turns out. But I love how you get people to do this because you can give them some tools to compete. And like I said, when you meet someone who's focused on your organization and results, that really helps. You know, I remember one time when I was young, this is before I really got good at business and successful. I'd done several startups. And I remember going to a, it was kind of had a big race. rent a center. I think it's one of those nationwide renter centers. It was the owner. He's, yeah, I personally hire everyone. I'm like, wow, okay. And he, he, I know, I came in and, and he wanted, you know,

someone who would eventually grow through his organization. And he's like, what do you want to work for me? And I go, I want to be like you. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to become successful. So I want to learn from smart people and grow. That was definitely the wrong answer because he looked at me and he goes, he was, I can tell you're an entrepreneur type. He goes, and I'm looking for someone who's going to come to work for me for life or something close to thereof, and somebody who's going to be a good worker, and you're focused on starting your own company, you're eventually going to leave me. So if that's your vision, and I think you can tell, he goes, you know, if that's your vision,

you need to go pursue that vision. So he had to be that thing. It kind of hard to get rejected, but it in the long run, right actually worked out well, because I don't know, probably still be slinging furniture there at the rent-a-center. As we go out, anything I haven't asked you about that you want to tease out about the book to get people to pick it up. Yes, I was going to say, everybody, if you want to spring in the action and get your path started on where you want to be with your career, check out my book on Amazon and Kendall today. And remember, one of the things that I talk about in my book is, when was the last time you had fun at work? What?

Yes, because work can be fun. And so, Chris, my question for you is, when was the last time you had fun at work? I have fun every day. I have fun when my guests come on. I make them laugh. I actually have fun with that. It's not like a professional. Okay, make the person laugh so that we have a good show.

I actually like entertaining people and telling good jokes and stuff. I mean, the podcast just fits right into how broken I am inside. So, you know, I love it. You know, I love hearing people's stories and their journeys of life, too. I find that endearing because, you know, people are interesting, the different paradigms they have. And I learned so much in the show. I always joke, I probably learn more in the show than maybe my audience does. Because I get to sit front seat and I get to ask the questions that I want to take and ask.

But, no, I find people fun. So for me, I think the funest part of my day is when we go live on air and I get to talk to someone and hopefully I write some good jokes and all that good stuff. And see, that's how you have fun at work. And you also make sure, I think you have mentioned before, how do you prevent getting stuck? You prevent getting stuck by looking at things and also trying not to take things so seriously while you get things done.

Yeah. Don't take it too serious. I mean, you know, and the big life of things, it's not going to matter. But, you know, pace yourself, you know, have a good time. So as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and all that good stuff. Yes, so check out organizational freelancer on Amazon and Kendall.

And remember, you have the ability to choose your path, and it's okay if there's curves. You have the ability to change the path, and it's okay if there's curves. I like that saying because I have a lot of curves, saying a lot of Big Macs in Mountain Dew. Don't do that, folks. It's been delightful to have you on and go through this with you, Tracy. Thank you very much for coming on. We certainly appreciate it. Do we have your dot-coms as we go out? Let's hit that one more time, I guess. Yes. So organizational freelancer and tracy.com. I'm on LinkedIn, X, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

And Chris, thank you so much. This has been fabulous. Thank you. Thank you for coming. We've really enjoyed it. And hopefully you give us some tools to people. You know, I feel for people that are getting laid off. Maybe they can find a way to freelance and start their own little companies. I think that's kind of the way we're going with AI. AI is going to take a lot of tasks. And I think we're just going to sell and service each other with coaching and consulting and sharing what we know, our knowledge base. And then hopefully we all survive, I don't know, whatever's going on these days in

2026. It's still early days. So there's still time, whatever that means. Thank you. That's why we're bringing entertainment. There's a war going on right now. And we're just, there's, so if you're watching this five to 10 years on, on YouTube from the Debs Center.

underneath the Terminator's roaming around like in the movie. That's what was going on. Anyway guys, order up for book, organizational freelancer, July 10th, 2025 and all that good stuff. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortresschus Christchristch, Chris Foss, 1 at the TikTokany and all those crazy places in the net. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made

to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult the doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right, Tracy.