Double Your Freelancing Podcast

Welcome to Episode 31 of The Business of Freelancing Podcast. Today I’m very excited to bring on my good friend Mojca Mars. Mojca will be a speaker at the Double Your Freelancing Conference in September, and I will be working with her personally in the near future as well. Mojca had a quick start to her current consulting agency, Super Spicy Media, by getting those initial first customers via Twitter. Now she says that the majority of her customers actually still come from Twitter and the engagement she’s built there over time. Adding value is core to her approach to social media. Don’t spam people, don’t use automated tools to send massive amounts of posts, and don’t try to use hashtags to reach new people. Add value, answer people’s questions, and engage in a meaningful dialogue and you’ll also see the return on investment that Mojca has seen too. Almost all of us have personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. Should we have business accounts too? Mojca says it depends on the business, but for most fre

Today’s guest on the Business of Freelancing Podcast is Trajan King. I wanted to talk with Trajan because he has a consulting business built with a focus on having processes and procedures in place. As Trajan tells us, think about processes and standard operating procedures only if you want to be efficient and make money, if that’s not important to you, then don’t worry about having processes. Trajan starts by recommending two books to a new entrepreneur, E-Myth Revisited and The Goal. We talk about the importance of understanding all aspects of your business, even the parts you don’t really like. Understanding all aspects gives you credibility to your clients as well as any employees you may be hiring. When you are thinking about the processes of your business, Trajan says the lifeblood is the financial aspect. We discuss the financial details you should be looking at to to keep your business healthy. Trajan also takes us through the importance of a sales funnel as it goes from leads through the entire

This is the Business of Freelancing Podcast, Episode 29. Today we’ll discuss a number of thoughts related to hiring subcontractors. My guest is coach, advisor, project manager and author Marcus Blankenship. If you’ve ever found yourself in the position of needing to hire and manage others, then this podcast will definitely resonate. I’m very close to launching my new daily question and answer podcast/YouTube show, called Freelance Answers. This will be a great way to share the questions that a lot of you have asked and delve into a variety of topics that come up in my discussions with readers of the blog. You can find out more about the new show and submit your questions at doubleyourfreelancing.com/answers. Stay tuned to my newsletter to find out when the new show will be released. At one time I thought that when it came to hiring subcontractors all you really needed to do was hire smart people. It’s actually not that easy. The idea of a self-managing employee is a fallacy and puts very unrealistic e

Welcome to the Business of Freelancing Podcast. My guest today is Double Your Freelancing student Matt Olpinski. I’m very excited to announce that in addition to this show I’m going to soon begin producing a daily question and answer podcast, called Freelance Answers. This will be a great way to share the questions that a lot of you have and show the variety of topics that come up in my discussions with readers of the blog. Stay tuned to the podcast and my newsletter to find out more about the show as it prepares to go live. When we spoke, Matt was preparing for his last day of work at his job and his first day of full time freelancing. Matt designs custom web and mobile solutions that grow startups and small businesses. While he worked as a freelancer through college and beyond, Matt now finds himself in the position of a full time freelancer. Aside from his regular job, Matt has done a number of freelance projects through the years. He said he hit an eventual plateau with outside jobs. He then checked

Welcome to the latest episode of the Business of Freelancing Podcast. My guest is Jeff Steinmann, author of the book How to Quit Working which can be found, along with other services he offers, on his website howtoquitworking.com . First, a reminder to sign up for ticket information for my event, The Business of Freelancing Conference . The show will be September 16-18 in Norfolk, VA. Sign up now to be notified when tickets go on sale. I’m very excited about the speakers that are lined up for this event! Jeff Steinmann planned to quit his banking job in 2001, but rather than walk away, he went back to his desk. The idea of working for himself resurfaced and in 2012, he began working on his own as a marketing consultant. In two years, he turned his book and podcast into a 6-figure coaching business. In our interview Jeff talks about the mental steps he took to enable him to start his own business. He believes the key skill you need to go into a freelance opportunity is to be able to take what you do an

Welcome to another episode of the Business of Freelancing Podcast. First I'd like to recognize a few recent 5-star reviews for the show. Much thanks goes to: sporkitover, rickwolf, justin_mw, jeff at ecoommercewarriors, ourumov7, kellyIriye for their reviews in iTunes. Keep those reviews coming. It's a great way for me to know that the show is resonating with you and bringing you the resources that you're looking for. The Business of Freelancing Conference tickets will be on sale soon. The show will be September 16-18 in Norfolk, VA. Sign up to get notified when tickets go on sale. I am really excited and honored when I look at the speaker lineup. We have the best from several industries to come share their knowledge with you at the conference. Today I have John Sonmez on the show with me. John describes himself as a "Life coach for software developers". Starting a few years ago he built more than 7 days of course work on Pluralsight, which allowed him to quit his day job and ramp up his educati

Welcome to another episode of the Business of Freelancing Podcast. This week I am joined by my good friend Jonathan Stark. Jonathan is a mobile strategy consultant, having worked with flagship brands such as CVS, Staples, Time, and Nokia. Today Jonathan also focuses on helping other freelancers get the most out of their businesses by promoting the same value based approach to their agencies that I support. Today Jonathan and I get a chance to dig in to some of the details around how to approach problems of creating a culture of value based pricing within your agency and how to win with a fixed price model versus your competitors who will often be delivering lower priced bids than you. This is achieved through the risk mitigation of your proposal in the client's eyes. Finally, Jonathan and I talk through how to manage scope creep, change orders by customers, and seemingly micromanagement of customers in the details of your work. Jonathan was kind enough to offer an exclusive discount on his coaching services,

This week on the Business of Freelancing Podcast I am very pleased to welcome Ed Gandia to the show. Ed is the “go-to” guy when it comes to high end freelance writing. In a time where commoditized writing is far too frequent, Ed has mastered finding a niche for yourself and selecting only those clients who will receive immense value from your services. International Freelancers Academy is a podcast that Ed has created to help freelancers increase their value to the market and find higher paying clients. Ed also writes on how to specialize in High Income Business Writing at B2blauncher.com. You can reach out to Ed directly on Twitter @EdGandia or on his website at B2BLauncher.com. As a side note, I am putting together a conference for this fall that will be exclusively on freelancers. It will be a small, very focused conference. Details for the conference will be coming soon. To stay up to date with it make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter. If you enjoyed the show today, I would really appreciate

Today I talk with my good friend Kurt Elster on how he has 8x his Revenue by Niching Down into a specialized market. Kurt has turned from a generalized web developer into a Shopify specialist, and in the process he has catapulted his business to a whole new level. To begin with, Kurt lays out a framework he follows that is necessary to specialize. He believes you need 3 things to specialize in a market: Audience Benefit Technology To cater to a range of audience needs Kurt has created both a productized services business around Shopify optimization called Website Rescue, and a consulting business to help customers get the most out of their e-commerce stores named EtherCycle. Kurt has used this approach to be featured on the Shopify website as one of their official experts, and is currently writing a book that helps take people past their initial crowdfunding experience and into the world of e-commerce. You can find out more about Kurt and his services over at Website Rescues and EtherCycle. You can reach out

Today I sit down for a chat with Philip Morgan of Philip Morgan Consulting and My Content Sherpa to talk about positioning yourself appropriately as a freelancer in a market, and his new book, "The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms". Philip is an expert on helping freelancers position themselves in a niche that is a good fit for their skills, goals, and ambitions. In this show we talk all about what Positioning is, how to identify a good niche to Position yourself in, and how effective Positioning will allow you to charge higher rates, say NO to customers easier, and reach new levels in your freelancing business. A Few Memorable Quotes From This Episode: "You need to pick expensive problems if you want to pick a profitable niche" ~ Philip "No one else but you determines the price of your services" ~ Brennan To get more resources on Positioning and enter to win a Free copy of Philip's new book, "The Positioning Manual for Technical Firms", head over to bitly.com/pmc

TRANSCRIPT AND NOTES AVAILABLE HERE: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/productizedservices/ Have you ever wanted to get away from strictly selling your time for money? Is your long term plan to either escape consulting altogether (through something like bootstrapping your own products) or to remove yourself as a part of your "product"? Sooner or later, almost all of us get to this point. We want more control and creative input into the work we provide our clients. Productizing yourself is one of the best ways to do that. It allows you to dictate what you're selling, what your customers get, and what it costs in a way that traditional services companies aren't able to do. In this episode, I sat down with Brian Casel of Restaurant Engine and Productize.

TRANSCRIPT AND NOTES AVAILABLE HERE: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/100kprojects/ This week I sat down with Scott Yewell to talk about how he recently closed his first six-figure project. Scott’s a partner at Blackfin Media, who for the last 14 years has been building small ($1-10k) website projects. A few months ago, Scott joined my Consultancy Masterclass and made a lot of changes. He walked away with the class with a few pages of notes and a directive: change how and what you’re selling. Well, it worked. He just closed a 6-8 month project at $7,500 a week ($180-$240k) — which is a significantly more than the < $10k projects they used to field. In this interview, Scott lays out everything he did differently to make this change.

http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/followup/ We all know how important communication is during the sales process, but for a lot of freelancers knowing how and when to followup is often a mystery. After you first meet someone, when should you first contact them? How long should you wait before you followup with someone you've sent an invoice to? When and how should you pester clients over past-due invoices? In this episode, I talked with Kurt Elster, an ecommerce consultant from Chicago, and we chatted about some of the communication systems he uses when working with prospects, leads, and clients. (We have a sponsor! LessAccounting can help you offload a lot of tedious tasks and give you insights into the financial health of your business. Check them out and use the coupon "BrennansBeard" to grab 80% off for 3 months.) Things we mentioned: Kurt and his newsletter Follow Kurt on Twitter Boomerang for GMail Assistant.to for meeting scheduling ScheduleOnce (what Brennan uses to schedule stuff)

http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/funding/ A lot of freelancers — hell, just about every freelancer I've talked to — want to eventually create and sell their own products. But this is easier said than done. Usually something stands in the way: the immediacy of consulting revenue, lack of an idea, or the fear that they'll build something and it'll never sell. In this episode, I chatted with Mike Taber, the co-host of Startups For The Rest Of Us and the founder of AuditShark. Mike is a high-value consultant; he bills himself out a premium rate. Because of this, he's able to fund his lifestyle and the development of his software company through the money he makes consulting. (We have a sponsor! LessAccounting can help you offload a lot of tedious tasks and give you insights into the financial health of your business. Check them out and use the coupon "BrennansBeard" to grab 80% off for 3 months.) Things we mentioned: AuditShark Startups For The Rest Of Us The Single Founder blog

http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/referrals/ I recently sat down (literally!) with my friend Steli Efti, the founder of Close.io. For about an hour we talked about how freelancers and consultants can create more referrals for their business. Steli is a master of sales — you won’t want to miss this episode! Mentioned this episode: Steli on Twitter Close.io The B2B Referral Sales System DoubleYourFreelancing.com

In this episode, I sat down with Matt Inglot of Tilted Pixel. He started the company over 8 years ago, and went from being a solo freelancer to opening up a brick & mortar office in Toronto. After building up a successful team and building out an office, he decided to go 100% remote. We discussed the pros and cons of having an office, along with why he ultimately decided to shutter his location.

This week I’m joined by Dennis Field, who — like me — has struggled with burnout. Who am I kidding though? This affects ALL of us. Late nights, weekends, and being “on call” for your clients can cause you to regret ever starting your own freelancing business. Dennis’ website How to Fight Burnout as a Designer

This week I sat down with Jan Jones of Oozou, an agency based out of Bangkok, Thailand, and Jonathan Tarud of Koombea, another agency, this one in Colombia. We discussed what it’s like to run an agency when your clients are half a world away from you. Whether you’re in San Francisco, Topeka, or Saigon, you’re going to love this episode. Double Your Freelancing Rate Oozou Koombea

This is the Freelancing Minute for Friday, February 14th (Valentine’s day!) 2014. When you’re creating a proposal, it’s important to contextualize our offer (what we’re building or doing) with the problem and the solution. In this short clip, I seek to define the differences between the problem, the offer, and the solution. Subscribe to the Business of Freelancing Podcast with Brennan Dunn

This week I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Sherry Walling, a clinical psychologist and counselor and the wife of Rob Walling, who we talked with in Episode 12. Sherry gave a fantastic talk at MicroConf last year on ways that entrepreneurs can manage their own anxiety, and I wanted to bring her on to discuss how you can make sure that your life as a freelance consultants doesn’t end up hurting your health, your relationships, and your family. You can follow Sherry on Twitter at @zenfounder Subscribe to the Business of Freelancing Podcast with Brennan Dunn