Podcast

The Business of Freelancing, Episode 40: Julia Kelly On How She Charges $300 an Hour To Draw Cartoons

By Brennan Dunn

Today we’re having a crazy interview, but in the best way. We’ll be talking to Julia Kelly, she’s a caricature artist, and the first one we’ve had on the show. She also has a degree in Accounting, so she loves the numbers side of things.

We go through how she and her team charge hundreds of dollars an hour for caricature art, and all the ins and outs of her work and business strategy. She’s applied everything I cover on the website and podcast when it comes to value based pricing and price anchoring, and has now applied it to her craft and company.

Today’s topics include:

  • Julia’s transition from BC sales to BB sales
  • Why selling the outcome to your clients is so important
  • How she discovered being a booth caricature artist
  • Her pricing strategy
  • How she’s a lead generator for businesses
  • Julia’s business growth plan of action

Basically, Julia is a bridge between a potential prospect at a trade show and the customer, and through her testimonials and how she pitches herself, she helps to serve as an investment to their business. So essentially, she’s selling outcomes. It’s about getting results. It’s not about your qualifications or your education, it’s about what you provide for the customer.

We explain why it’s important to communicate that you’re a professional by explaining the outcomes they’ll get by working with you, and delve into the challenges she faced when changing her type of work events and shifting the focus to her clients instead of herself.

Julia actually works with a team, where the work is divided into about 50/50. More than anything, Julia realizes the importance of making it more about the business and less about the fun in itself, because the business side of things is what keeps it all afloat.

Make sure to visit Julia’s gorgeous website at www.jkexpressions.com, and if you want to contact her, feel free to e-mail her at julia@jkexpressions.com.

Personally, I’ve recently been in heads down mode in the second edition of my annual class: “Double Your Freelancing Clients”, where it’ll be launching in November and kicking off in February. We work with masterminds and mentor led students, every six weeks for 6 months, to help each memory student stay accountable and get tailored advice about how to apply the course contents to the business. We’ve had incredible results with our pilot class, and it’s only once a year. So if you’re interested, head on over to www.doubleyourfreelancing.com/clients and check us out.

If you liked today’s podcast, please leave a review for the show in iTunes.  Your reviews are what keep me up-to-date on how to improve the show so you can have the best listening experience possible.

It’s almost the new year — have you thought about your health care?

I know first-hand what it’s like to deal with getting health care when you’re self-employed. Before I went to work for myself, I’d never had to worry about insurance, it was covered for me. But when I did go out solo, I had to figure out how to get insurance, which wasn’t hard when it was just me. A lot of plans were tailored for larger companies than my solo shop. I ended up hiring a broker and shopping around for weeks until I found something that was affordable and would actually work for my family and I. Hopefully you haven’t had a similar experience, but with the way signing up health insurance goes, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had!

Luckily, Stride Health is changing the game. They instantly compare every available health plan to help freelancers find their perfect match, factoring in prescriptions and favorite doctors. You can sign up for a plan in 10 minutes (that’s 90 minutes faster than healthcare.gov!). And from what I’ve been told, they save their members over $400 a year on health insurance by helping them pick the right plan.

Check out Stride Health at http://stridehealth.com/double. From there you can create your free account and find the perfect plan for you and your family. Even if you already have health insurance, create an account and add your plan to get access to all kinds of year-round savings, like prescription discounts and tools that unlock your health plan’s free benefits. You’ll also get a personal support team for any of your health insurance questions.