Previously, we covered how you could pre-qualify 10 ideal clients that you’d like to work with (missed that post? Read this first.) Now, I’m going to introduce a strategy that will help you get in front of the people on your list, and maybe even walk away with a client or two. The biggest single…
We all have ideal clients. They might be companies we admire, companies that have projects that are completely different than anything we’ve ever done before, companies that can be stepping stones to getting bigger fish, and so on. Back when I ran my consulting company, I took on a job (that even then, and especially…
Most of us bill by the hour. In fact, a quick database query of Planscope shows that 81% of my customers bill hourly. Billing for your time is foolproof. Your clients can inflate their projects as much as they’d like and you’re protected. In fact, more stuff to do = more money for you, so you’re actually…
Have you ever thought about what you call yourself? If you’ve been following my blog, there’s a high likelihood that you’re a “freelancer.” But if you’ve been around a while, you know I favor “consultant.” Along the way, I’ve also heard “independent”, “contractor”, and “supertemp” thrown around. And development-centered teams are generally called “consultancies” and design…
Exactly a year ago I started my newsletter. Though it didn’t really start out as a newsletter. At the time, I was writing my first book, Double Your Freelancing Rate. I decided that instead of just collecting email addresses, I’d presell the book for 20% off. Well, it worked. And I netted a few thousand…
So if you’ve been reading my work for a while, you know I’m pretty gung-ho about what I like to call the “financial upside” you deliver to your clients. The ROI. The real reason they hire you in the first place. etc. But over the months, I’ve got a lot of really good feedback and…
Today I’d like to, once and for all, answer a question that I’ve been asked hundreds of times. “Brennan, how should I bill my clients?” Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, per feature, per project. There seems to be a limitless number of ways to charge your clients. In this post, I’ll outline the pros and cons of…
In this episode, I talked with Marcus Blankenship of CREO Agency. If you don’t live in a tech hotbed like SF or NYC and you worry that your location will hinder your ability to recruit clients, you won’t want to miss this episode.
Trent asked a great question last week that outlined his fears on digging too deep for the pain behind a project: I can’t just keep asking, “Why?” Eventually I’ll reach the issue they don’t want to talk about – their point of shame – and the prospect will get uncomfortable and the conversation is over….
Today I talked with Nick Hance of Reenhanced about ways of setting yourself apart from your competition. If you’ve ever wondered how you, as say a Ruby developer, are any different than me (a Ruby developer) or thousands of other Ruby developers, you’ll want to listen to this discussion. I also opened the show by talking about my upcoming…