We’re continuing to share a different story each week of how a past student has been able to significantly grow their freelance business by applying the concepts they learned from Double Your Freelancing (check out last week’s with Jennah Lear).
If you feel your story would be a good fit, share why.
“The biggest way my business and I have changed from Brennan’s material is a massive change of mindset from, ‘What a cool website/app I can build for you!’ to ‘What are the details and problems of your business? Because I’d really like to make your business leap forward by applying some of the tech strategies I’ve learned over the years. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a $20/month SaaS or if $20,000 of custom software best delivers that leap forward for your business; I want to help your business and your business’ customers.’ “
Josh Crews is a solo Ruby on Rails developer and consultant, who has been doing his own thing for the last six years.
What got you into freelancing? Was it what you expected?
I don’t like having a boss.
“I only want to be judged on my service/output/results, and not my hours with butt in chair.”
I want to be able to plan to spend next week in the mountains with my family without asking permission. I don’t want to be sitting around doing work planning, “How am I going to escape this place?”
What’s been most challenging thus far?
The most challenging part of my business life is trying to do it all while having a handful of young children.
Did you ever want to quit or give up?
Quit or give up?
No.
The 9-5 programmer job is probably always available if I ever need to fall back on it.
What were you struggling the most with when you ran into Double Your Freelancing Rate?
I’m not sure, but the title alone, Double Your Freelancing Rate, caused me to break out of my current thoughts on pricing and ask, “What would I need to do different to charge twice as much?”
What kind of impact have Brennan’s courses, newsletters, podcasts, etc. had on your business?
I purchased Brennan’s DYFR in its first edition, and at the time I was making $75 per hour. Three years later and I’m making $200 per hour.
What are some specific strategies, tactics or pieces of advice that helped you grow?
To swing my whole goal and perspective from being a “Ruby on Rails guy” to a solver of business problems with technology. That change in mentality affects everything– from marketing strategy, to the lines of code I write, to the lines of code I challenge clients shouldn’t be written.
One of Brennan’s examples I heard once on this was: “What if you could hit a huge home run for a friend/associate/client by telling them about Dropbox? Dropbox might save them $10,000/mo.”
So now in my work life I’m always looking out for “home runs” that I can hit for people. Bits of work or advice or even an introduction that produces lots of value for them.
What are you most excited about for your business in 2015?
I’m not sure. I feel like I’ve probably plateaued again, but this time at $200/hr, which is much nicer than being plateaued at $75/hr.
“It’s time to up my game yet again!”
Josh Crews is a Ruby consultant in Nashville, TN. He was an excel nerd and CPA before falling in love with programming and switching careers.
He is married to Stephie and they have three small children.