If you’ve been following along, you know that I left running a million dollar consulting firm to try my hand in building and selling my own products. In 2012, I started a number of new projects: I launched a SaaS, wrote my first book, taught my first online workshop, and hosted my first podcast. It…
This week my special guest was Rob Walling. He’s known for the following… Drip HitTail Startups for the Rest of Us Start Small, Stay Small Software by Rob MicroConf Micropreneur Academy DotNetInvoice Apprentice Lineman Jobs And I thought I did a lot! We chatted about how you can move — either partially or fully — from…
I was browsing through Hacker News and saw that Patrick McKenzie had mentioned me in a thread where “adyus” asked: “However, one thing that I still haven’t figured out is this: how would I find say, that small insurance company in Kansas who has $100k to spend on a solution I could offer to their…
This is a guest post by Josiah Choy from KickoffLabs. KickoffLabs provides landing page and email marketing solutions. The hardest part for many freelancers and consultants is generating new business. Most freelancers would rather focus on perfecting their craft than go out and get new leads. Unfortunately, how good you are doesn’t matter if no…
I saw an interesting discussion in the Guild. Balint was incorporating his freelancing business and is looking for naming advice. I’ve been asked this question at least a half dozen times in the last year, and struggled with this when I incorporated my company. You see, in the US it’s tantalizingly easy to set up…
Sooner or later, we all get asked to switch up the way we bill for a client. We might be asked to sacrifice revenue in exchange for equity (this is usually accomplished by painting a very rosy picture of the future.) Or maybe defer payment now until our client can afford to pay us back…
We’re all subject to doubt. Whether it’s asking Lindsey W. to the senior prom or preparing for our first marathon, self-doubt is a staple of the human experience. But when we face doubt within the context of our business, the implications become a bit more… severe. I can avoid going to prom and I might…
I want to talk today about fear. A few weeks ago, I began planning how I’d release my newest product, the Freelancers Guild. And even though I’ve sold millions of dollars of consulting services and hundreds of thousands of products, I was still gripped by the fact that I’d be asking people to pay me…
I hosted a training seminar to teach local businesses how to improve the number of leads & sales driven by their Web sites. I charged the 5 attendees $250 each, for an effective hourly rate of $312.50, and I delivered outstanding value to them. Best of all, this something I believe any freelancer or consultant…
OK, so let’s talk about cold contacting! So over the last two posts, we’ve established a framework for getting ideal prospects and went over exactly how you’ll break the ice with new contacts. Today, I want to focus on logistically how you’ll make the first contact. In a perfect world, you’d have referrals. Someone you trust (and who trusts you)…