00:00:00:03 - 00:00:18:04 Speaker 1 Why don't we do this since we're again? I want to. There's so much to get through. So. So. Okay. With me cutting interest short, it's going to just get into good stuff. Well, I mean, and when you have a questionable kind of intro each other than to if you haven't got an injury yet, but I want to actually turn it over to Zach. 00:00:18:24 - 00:00:41:13 Speaker 1 New face, probably for many of you who have been with the brand for a while. Zach's been working with me really since. I guess it would be last autumn and we officially, I guess we'd been talking before that and he's been, he's been great. And I know many of you have talked to him over, you know, in the inbox so far and stuff like that. 00:00:41:13 - 00:01:01:12 Speaker 1 But I've realized that myself personally, many of you probably know I've got a lot of stuff going on, so I needed I needed some help. Somebody who had the domain expertise, the passion, the knowledge of the stuff, who kind of knows the brand and stuff and led us to each other. And he's been he's been kicking ass, so. 00:01:02:01 - 00:01:18:17 Speaker 1 Zach, do you want to just quickly intro yourself to the to the group and then and then I'll do my soapbox spiel thing I want to do about sales and wrapping and all that good stuff. And then we can just get into people's questions and just make this super conversational. And Jerry backed. 00:01:18:17 - 00:01:53:18 Speaker 2 So my background is as a web designer and then later developer and then later marketer. When I first started, I wanted to just do design and when I started my freelancing business, it was in 2009 and I was 19 and I had no skills and so as I've been talking with a lot of you who are side hustling right now and wanting to go full time freelance, it has me thinking a lot about the way that I started and the things that I had to learn the hard way along the way and the challenges that I ran into, starting without any technical skills. 00:01:55:16 - 00:02:20:04 Speaker 2 But in any case, I have been freelancing as a soloist. Mostly. I have scaled my agency a couple of times, and I've always found that I just really don't like managing people and where I landed with my freelancing is where I'll work like maybe ten or 12 hours a week on client work and then free up the rest of my time for building SAS products or doing music production or other hobbies. 00:02:21:08 - 00:02:48:23 Speaker 2 And so I think that what's kind of cool about my perspective within freelancing is that Brendan has this side that is the scaled agency side, and I think a lot of you want to scale agencies. And then my perspective is more on the time leverage, how to get my effective hourly rate high and work minimal hours freelance and get all the bills paid, save, invest, that kind of thing while pursuing other projects, which in my case is wanting to start like software businesses and stuff. 00:02:48:23 - 00:02:53:21 Speaker 2 So that's kind of my a little bit of my back story. 00:02:53:21 - 00:03:22:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Awesome. And just to carry on with what Zach was just saying, so my quick background myself is 26, started freelancing effectively full time at that at that point and then 2829 brought on people. Basically I was in the good position of got people asking, can I, you know, can I be hired in realizing that I'm already fully booked? 00:03:22:14 - 00:03:46:04 Speaker 1 So ended up scaling through contractors at first that worked well, got to this kind of inflection point where I realized I could either keep bringing on contractors and kind of play it safe or I could try to turn them into full time employees and basically hopefully make more money and also appear more legitimate because my initial agency was fully remote. 00:03:46:05 - 00:04:11:05 Speaker 1 This is back again, 2829. This is before like COVID and like remote work and all that stuff was is big. It is as it is today. So I kind of felt I needed a brick and mortar office with like a sea of IMAX in order to look legitimate. So I did that scaled up the company to 11 employees, and that's where a lot of the stuff that I talk about in my material really came into fruition, because before that I was selling myself. 00:04:11:05 - 00:04:35:12 Speaker 1 Technically, I was going after honestly, like most of my clients were San Francisco based, DC backed startups who didn't care about the money. So it was easy to just kind of do pretty well working with them. But then I started to get more SMB kind of clients who really realistically it was their money that they could be using to extract out of the businesses profits. 00:04:35:12 - 00:05:06:19 Speaker 1 And instead I had to convince somebody to spend it on me and my team to hopefully make them more money so they can have more profits. In the end. So that's where I really started to understand deeply that we weren't being hired for code. You're being hired for outcomes that I surround myself. I think with the right mentors who really got me thinking around, you know, what does that actually mean when it comes to how you position yourself in, how you when you get a new lead, how you actually closed them on hiring you, and how does it affect fulfillment and all that good stuff. 00:05:06:19 - 00:05:34:05 Speaker 1 So anyway, that that all worked well in 2011. I decided I while I loved working at the agency because I, you know, it was making decent money and I had a team and I felt kind of on top of the world in a way. I was I created a job for myself. I was commuting to my office and I had friends who were running SAS businesses, software companies who really didn't. 00:05:34:15 - 00:05:59:01 Speaker 1 They aren't beholden to any one company. They had thousands of people paying them 20 bucks a month. And I was like, That looks nice. So I ended up selling the agency to my director of business development. I had an ongoing stake that I was able to kind of create recurring revenue effectively for myself from that got into the whole software world, started and sold a company called Plan Scope. 00:05:59:01 - 00:06:33:16 Speaker 1 My first SAS from Plan Scope evolved to freelancing or freelancing evolved really since 2013 ish. It's hard to say because it was kind of part plan scope and then it's own entity. So grew that up, did a bunch of conferences which many of you or some of you might have actually been to. And it was just it was a you know, it's it's an incredible thing that I think that I was fortunate enough to kind of help create alongside all the great people who make up that up your freelancing community. 00:06:34:00 - 00:06:52:20 Speaker 1 So that's my long would it intro but what I want to talk about specifically before we get we had a ton of really in-depth questions that I want to make sure we get to because we have technically earmarked 2 hours for this if you need to leave early, totally cool. You want to jump in and never say anything totally cool. 00:06:52:20 - 00:07:15:15 Speaker 1 Like even now, this this isn't a lecture. This is more of a conversation. Hopefully. So feel free to do that. But I want to just start by talking about what I think most of us should be aiming toward. And as I went through your questions in advance, I kept seeing honestly a lot of similar themes that hopefully this kind of soapbox moment will be helpful. 00:07:16:03 - 00:07:33:24 Speaker 1 So when you get up, when you get a new client, when you get it, not a new plan, when you get a new project lead, I should say, or a new potential customer. If you're like me, when I first started, I was selling them like I think I forgot who it was. I think it was I think it was rural. 00:07:35:04 - 00:07:54:03 Speaker 1 Rail I'm also a Rails developer. That's my background. So, you know, I always thought, okay, cool, I'm here to build web apps. I'm here to like, that's why we're being hired. The client knows what they need, knows the importance of why they need it. They've already probably figured out, like all the features and stuff that they need. I'm just a builder. 00:07:54:12 - 00:08:18:22 Speaker 1 So like, my my thinking was they've already designed the house. They just needed the laborers to come in and do it. So that was my thinking early on. And then over time I started to really kind of realize, I guess, that most of my clients had no idea what they were doing. Now, they had they had deep domain expertise, but sometimes more often or not, sometimes more often. 00:08:19:18 - 00:08:37:19 Speaker 1 Many of them didn't really know what what it is they needed. They were looking to me without really often telling you or expressing that they were looking for advice because I, you know, work day in and day out in the world of startups and web apps and stuff like that. I had experience. I had I had my own expertise. 00:08:38:03 - 00:08:56:21 Speaker 1 They obviously know their industry, they know their business, they know their customer base. And it took me a while to get comfortable enough to say, look, I, I bring to the table one set of skills you bring to the table. Another set of skills we need to be doing is instead of me thinking, you know, your job is to throw requirements over the wall, I me just do it. 00:08:57:11 - 00:09:29:07 Speaker 1 What we should be doing is really figuring out how do we combine these two skills and sets of experiences and so on and define the right outcome, define the right thing. And that's what the technical is, what emerged from there. So I always wanted to do projects initially thinking what needs to be built. Okay, do they need like, you know, I would say those of you who are technical will probably relate to this, but I would always start thinking like, what's the database going to look like and what what fields are going to be in each table? 00:09:29:07 - 00:09:54:02 Speaker 1 And do we want to try this ruby jam or like this library or whatever else? And I would just immediately default to that whenever a new project would be on the table. So what I want to encourage those of you who have not made that transition from the kind of the safety net of our technical domain. So like I feel safe knowing that I geek out on code. 00:09:54:02 - 00:10:14:11 Speaker 1 I love greenfield new projects where I can just think of what's this app going to look like? How is it going to be built, getting away from that and really immersing myself in the businesses of my would be clients. So that's the thing that when I started doing that and I started to realize a lot of them really don't know what they need. 00:10:14:11 - 00:10:46:05 Speaker 1 A lot of them are desperately wanting our input on scoping their requirements of what it is they're looking to build. Only then could we, I think, graduate to the top tier of our field, and that's what enabled us to do all this stuff that is kind of wink baity that I talked about, like doubling our rates was we sold a better product because we sold a product that was more realistically going to make the client more money because we weren't just order takers. 00:10:46:05 - 00:11:07:14 Speaker 1 We were saying, look, we need to get to this is this is where we've agreed you need to be as a business. How do we get there in any, any additional scope, any hey, in the shower this morning, I thought it was a great idea. Any, anything like that needed to be judged against. Does it get us more efficiently and more economically to this end goal? 00:11:07:19 - 00:11:10:07 Speaker 1 If it couldn't, we didn't do it. Yeah, because. 00:11:10:20 - 00:11:33:05 Speaker 2 One thing I might add on this note that I've been thinking about as I've been looking through a lot of the questions is that I've noticed with my own business that there are almost, almost like two tiers of rate doubling. There's this aspect that we talk about a lot in your freelancing rate, which is the getting closer to the money aspect, being able to show the financial results of what you're going to do with the client. 00:11:33:20 - 00:12:11:16 Speaker 2 But some of the questions that came in which are that were quite good are questions that are more like, well, what if it's not so easy to tie it to a financial result? That's where things always get a little muddier. But something that I've noticed is that in my own freelancing business, even when I wasn't doing projects that are so close to the money, like, say, doing marketing for an email funnel or something, even when I was just a skilled technician who could interview the client, find out the fundamental goals and really drive the the scoping process and be like a trusted advisor for what we should build based on what their core goals are. 00:12:12:04 - 00:12:42:18 Speaker 2 That alone, even without illustrating an actual ROI, has been something that can get my effective hourly rate or just straight up hourly rate to the 175 $200 an hour range. And so they're almost these different tiers. And I guess all I'm trying to contribute here is that like I've noticed, at least for myself, being able to simply be an advisor who can do what Brendan's talking about, of digging deeper into the business and co-creating the scope with them rather than expecting them to lead you. 00:12:42:21 - 00:12:51:15 Speaker 2 That alone is a very rare and and valuable, and then the illustration of an ROI is kind of how you take it to an even further level than that. 00:12:52:07 - 00:13:32:08 Speaker 1 Just to sell that ad certainty. Right? Because I mean, the thing the thing that I like what you just said there, because it echoes what kind of the anecdotes that we've collected over the years. So one benefit of having done this now for some time, we have we have thousands of data points from past customers and past people have gone through our stuff that demonstrate that once people start to again, like you said, it's not it's not about having a perfect crystal ball that says we are guaranteed to help you increase profits by X and here's how. 00:13:33:01 - 00:14:00:15 Speaker 1 But if you instead just show the client that, look, I know you're not generally speaking, your business spends money for two reasons. They either want to make more money or they want to lose less money on overhead. Both of which yield higher profit. As long as you're saying I understand this, I understand that you didn't wake up today and say, I want to write a $20,000 check to Zach for code when when you can show that you appreciate that. 00:14:00:15 - 00:14:28:05 Speaker 1 That's what I'm getting at. That's what that's that different. That's the distinction between an order taker, a doer and and a partner. And the more you position yourself as this partner who is interested, interested and involved in the business, that's the distinction. Because you're able to present yourself as the lower risk, the higher the risk you are. And I don't just mean technical risk, I mean the higher the risk of project failure, the less somebody is willing to pay. 00:14:28:05 - 00:14:51:11 Speaker 1 If I think that somebody I hire an Upwork is going to botch up what I'm asking for, I'm going to try to minimize my exposure. But I spend. Whereas if somebody obviously knows exactly what I need and they're demonstrating that they know what I need my certainty in, that whatever they do for me is going to it's going to, you know, I'm more certain that whatever they do for me is going to work. 00:14:51:18 - 00:15:15:05 Speaker 1 So I'm willing to open, you know, open the pocketbook a bit more with them. And I've seen this to be true for myself. And again, like with the data that we've collected over the last decade at freelancing, this is something we hear time and time again from, especially newer freelancers who are just kind of getting starting out or just starting out, who finally have this kind of like light bulb moment. 00:15:15:09 - 00:15:34:20 Speaker 1 Sounds cheesy, but this light bulb moment of thinking like, I'm not being paid for my skill set, I'm being paid for the outcomes I deliver. So what does that mean practically in terms of what I say when I pitch somebody or have these early sales discussions, what do I say during the project itself? So I think that's that's the big thing. 00:15:34:20 - 00:15:58:14 Speaker 1 I wanted to make sure that like we kind of cover early on because that's something that permeates everything that we teach. Double your freelancing, but it's one of the things I've realized that does need to be said a bunch and eventually it clicks. So I'm hoping that that makes some sense. Just and again, what that means for each of us is going to be different because we all work in different fields. 00:15:59:05 - 00:16:34:17 Speaker 1 But ultimately, if you can find how what you do, even if it's like I forgot who it was, but somebody asked about how they don't always they're not that close to the financial medal in terms of like what it is they do doesn't always directly affect, you know, say, revenue. At the end of the day, if you are providing insurance and insurance could just mean like, you know, system administrators often say like, oh, how do I what do I do to make it so like, I have no impact on earnings, like, look, I'm I'm a server person. 00:16:34:17 - 00:17:06:19 Speaker 1 Like, what can I possibly do? At the end of the day, they're selling piece of mind. They're selling what would be reputational effect be if we had a data breach or what? What would it mean if we were down 6 hours? Like what effect with a have or if you and there's so many examples of this where mobile B2B relationships we're being hired because the client ultimately is somehow justified, that setting money on our side is going to it's going to benefit them in some way, shape or form. 00:17:07:02 - 00:17:38:01 Speaker 1 There are exceptions. There are things like in the example I like to give, as you know, the the agency that's hired by Coca-Cola to make the Polar Bear videos, like, can they really trace what it is they do to some financial ROI? No, but somebody saw there's somebody at Coca-Cola who is going to look really good internally when the agency does a really great video for that, that Christmas or something. 00:17:38:10 - 00:17:57:07 Speaker 1 And they're going to they're going to look like a rock star internally. And it's going to be due to that agency. And that's the why that's the making this department shine making and marketing department at Coca-Cola. Shine figuring out your allies is honestly of critical importance. And it's the thing that it's the bedrock of like everything we talk about here. 00:17:58:01 - 00:18:26:11 Speaker 2 And so to circle to Robert's question, to just clarify and try to distill like it is value, Yes. Okay. If a client knows you're going to make the money, it's the thing we say in the course a bunch of times, like who wouldn't spend $1 to earn $2? But there are other subtle nuances too. And I was able to get my freelancing business to the point where I was charging really high rates without doing all this stuff that Brendan teaches, like double your freelancing rate, teaches a lot of next level stuff that pushes things further. 00:18:26:11 - 00:18:54:03 Speaker 2 But I to go to Robert's question, is it just value? You know, is it just higher certainty? What kind of. But I think it's like certainty comes from either immense trust or in the absence of that certainty, risk mitigation. So like if somebody offers to make you a cheeseburger for $500 before you pay that $500, you got to be pretty sure this would be the best cheeseburger you will ever eat. 00:18:54:08 - 00:19:14:09 Speaker 2 But they offer to give you a free cheeseburger, assuming you don't think it's poisoned or something, which I guess that's a trust in a certainty thing. You're a lot more willing to accept a free, unpleasant cheeseburger, perhaps with minimal trust than you would be needing trust to pay for a $500 cheeseburger. I just came up with this on the spot. 00:19:14:09 - 00:19:44:07 Speaker 2 It's not very good metaphor, but yeah, I think that like a lot of what the freelancing rate teaches is risk mitigation. And Brendan talks about lowering your risk profile in their eyes and stuff so you can increase the client certainty that they're going to get an ROI by using things like case studies where you show a similar project to theirs, where your client spent $20,000 on you and made 50,000 makes it much easier to sell if the project is very, very close or. 00:19:44:21 - 00:19:45:00 Speaker 1 What. 00:19:45:00 - 00:20:05:04 Speaker 2 Worked really well for me is having like all my business for the past, I don't know, five, ten years has come. Not ten years. Like five years has come from word of mouth. And I was lucky enough to get to do some. I'm a web designer if I didn't say it. Yeah, I did see it and I was lucky enough to get to do some websites for really influential people in the spaces. 00:20:05:04 - 00:20:19:17 Speaker 2 So like the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast was probably one that did a really big impact. And what happened is because Entrepreneur on Fire is a figurehead within their niche, any other podcast who wants to start would see. 00:20:20:04 - 00:20:20:15 Speaker 1 Oh, they. 00:20:20:15 - 00:20:30:01 Speaker 2 Hire this dude to do the website. So obviously he's trustworthy, otherwise they wouldn't have hired him. And that's kind of where that certainty and risk mitigation comes in. 00:20:30:01 - 00:20:30:23 Speaker 1 What if a. 00:20:30:23 - 00:20:42:04 Speaker 2 Client provides the scope of project wants a quote and doesn't seem open to discussing project with me as a partner? I wonder if this will be covered in one of the Q&A is Brennan. Do you want to. 00:20:43:03 - 00:21:08:19 Speaker 1 Well, we could we could talk of that because I think that's important. And and this is this is kind of a common objection, which is this all sounds great. If you have a receptive client who is willing to even entertain this, this, this, say, web designer helping, you know, getting into the weeds, their business. I think a lot of this has to do with client acquisition. 00:21:08:19 - 00:21:29:19 Speaker 1 So like a lot of what we talk about in the blueprint is exactly about this, like how do we get the right kind of clients in the door who don't speak like this? If you're if, if you're getting leads through a platform, say, like Upwork, at the end of the day, Upwork is people who largely know what they need done. 00:21:30:13 - 00:21:55:08 Speaker 1 Look, they have a scope to find and effectively more often than not, they're looking for the lowest better. Right. And that's that's where a lot of the issues where you constantly see these problems of somebody who might be saying like, you know, in the United States and they're trying to compete when they're offering web design and then somebody in Pakistan is offering web design. 00:21:55:19 - 00:22:19:10 Speaker 1 But the person Pakistan's offering $5 an hour and they're trying to justify, say, 100 an hour and should we be surprised when a client saying, okay, well, give in to two options, both of which seemingly provide the same thing, Why should I pay 20 times more? Is the risk that much higher with a person in Pakistan that it's worth paying that much more? 00:22:19:10 - 00:22:50:22 Speaker 1 Probably not. And so my preferred way of getting around this is to get away from if you if you position yourself as a technical supplier. So I am a keyboard that can be thrown at a problem. And you go to I know there's a question about Toptal. If you go to the top tables of the world or you go to any of these kind of effectively flex services that say, Hey, you've got an organization, you need more keyboards, more developers of the problem, we've got HP developers, we can do that. 00:22:50:22 - 00:23:09:17 Speaker 1 You're going to really struggle to get anything I'm talking about here if if you're in that kind of arrangement, because these are clients who are saying, look, we don't have the time or the capacity to recruit a full time developer, maybe we don't actually it maybe it's more of a project thing, so we don't actually need somebody full time forever. 00:23:10:09 - 00:23:34:14 Speaker 1 There's h.r. Implications and annoyances and stuff. We just want to get somebody quickly who can just come on and augment our team. They're not going to be looking for any of this stuff. I'm talking about what i'm talking about is specifically something you do when you're when you're pursuing clients who i would say that needs to put it are more open ended, are less certain, less to find what they need. 00:23:35:04 - 00:23:52:23 Speaker 1 These are the kind of people that you're going to kind of hopefully organically meet who probably don't even know that they have a project, probably don't even know that they need you. And you're using your your influence and your authority. And if you again, if you I know not everyone here is gone through the blueprint, but if you go through that, you'll know what I'm talking about. 00:23:52:23 - 00:24:16:10 Speaker 1 This kind of idea of meeting people where they are now and then over time, largely through systems, getting them to the point of being receptive to having a project on the table with you that you define for them. But yeah, if you're if you're, you're going to really struggle with a lot of what we're talking about. If, if you're if your project leads are coming from like these marketplaces and such. 00:24:17:00 - 00:24:37:05 Speaker 2 Yeah. The way that I like to think about it is this I use this analogy of like cogs versus conductors. I think that there are some some prospective clients who just want a cog who is somebody who they can tell them what to do and they do the thing. And then others want a conductor who's like this partner that's going to advise them based on their goals. 00:24:37:05 - 00:25:05:10 Speaker 2 And I, I think it's difficult because I can't think of any times where I have converted a cog to sorry, I've converted myself from a cog to a conductor in somebody's eyes. I think that if you have, say, an existing client who you're doing cog work for, getting them to see you as a conductor might be really difficult and if you're using Upwork, you can be a conductor and it will set you aside from the COG competition. 00:25:05:22 - 00:25:29:16 Speaker 2 But because it's like a commoditized marketplace, it's just very difficult. Whereas what's really nice about lead sources like Brennan's approach with the blueprint, for example, if you hear somebody on a podcast or you read their blog post, you naturally see them as an authority figure and you're already coming to them for advice. Like by listening to a podcast with somebody, you are kind of opting in for their opinion. 00:25:30:03 - 00:25:43:15 Speaker 2 Whereas if you go on Upwork again, you create a job post, you're not doing that. You're just saying, I want keyboard smashers. So I think I do think lead source as well is a I'm saying I think lead source too is big. 00:25:43:20 - 00:25:45:04 Speaker 1 Or that lots. 00:25:45:04 - 00:25:48:19 Speaker 2 Of questions rolling in. I'm trying to read through them as they come. 00:25:48:19 - 00:26:10:00 Speaker 1 And it's one thing I do want to mention is it's not always cut and dry. I mean, you're going to have different personnel. We're dealing with people. So you're now some people who have are very, I would say, offers the wrong word here, but like very like headstrong and are like, I know what I want. Just do what I need. 00:26:11:21 - 00:26:31:20 Speaker 1 You're going to have people like that regardless of weeds or sometimes at the end of the day, I found what's worked best for me in my own consulting business is I'm very firm about how I work. And one thing I want to talk about we're going to get into Road Back thing in a second is because I never start with the project. 00:26:31:20 - 00:26:52:19 Speaker 1 I always start with road mapping. That's a very good indicator of whether or not this will be a good client to work with, because I'm not. I'm never people can't jump into project work directly. They jump into a paid discovery scoping session and if they're not willing to, to kind of go by that rulebook that I've established, then we're not a good fit. 00:26:52:23 - 00:27:08:18 Speaker 1 So that to me, it's, you know, there's so many benefits of road mapping which I'll get into in a bit later. But one of the one of the benefits is kind of it's a natural way of filtering out people you don't want to work with or you wouldn't work well with you. 00:27:09:22 - 00:27:19:23 Speaker 2 So here's a question that I'm going to pose to you, Brennan Rhetorically, let's say, because I think this speaks to Diana's question, and I think I didn't get a chance to read yours quite yet, but. 00:27:20:10 - 00:27:20:19 Speaker 1 I'm. 00:27:22:13 - 00:27:39:14 Speaker 2 And I'm thinking what my own answer would be if a client wanted to pay you. You're targeted. Let's say you you you factored in what you want your effective hourly rate to be. So they you want to charge your I think your weekly rate. Listen, financing rate is 20 grand, ten grams, something like that. So let's say your weekly rates ten grand or 20 grand. 00:27:40:04 - 00:27:46:08 Speaker 2 And let's say that a client wants to hire a $20,000 a week cog. Are you interested in that? 00:27:48:02 - 00:28:09:21 Speaker 1 Well, there's it would never be that clear cut because it's always going to be the end result of getting to that point where they were. That's even on the table is always focused on. I anticipate say this will be a 4 to 6 week long engagement. This is obviously that can expand if we mutually decide that it should expand. 00:28:09:21 - 00:28:44:19 Speaker 1 It could also contract depending on, you know, how efficiently we get to the end goal, the target. And they're always seeing the sales pitch that the sales letter. They're never seeing that in isolation because in isolation that sounds insane. Yeah, it's always anchored against an upside. So the only way like if I was if I were to deconstruct what they got for my weekly engagement and say it's a mixture of a lot of copywriting, some email automation, some maybe some JavaScript work, maybe screwing around with creating custom landing pages and stuff. 00:28:45:01 - 00:29:08:11 Speaker 1 Again, deconstructed. That still sounds ridiculous. So yeah, it was always focused on here's the here's given where you are now, here's a realistic path supported by these data points and here's how we can get to where you need to be, which would yield this much in the first year. And to do this all inclusive, this is what I would do it for, and that's where they'd see that. 00:29:08:11 - 00:29:29:15 Speaker 1 So, yeah, again, like that's why I think one of the questions about like was about somebody who was charging like 125 an hour out. Ryan asked about like, yeah, two clients, one on 125 an hour, one at 150 wants go to 200 to 250 an hour. Does that seem too high to unreasonable. My, my thinking as I read that is why why is there a ceiling like it's like there is no ceiling. 00:29:29:15 - 00:30:03:07 Speaker 1 There is no assuming that you can be confidently chart a course. And what I've tried to do in freelance specifically with quantifying the financial upside and like the risk mitigation stuff is to say, given the given the best data that we have on hand right now, here's a path forward to get you to this really great goal, and then you're then able to come in with something that's a lesson that obviously can't be like If the pay off is $100, you can charge 99 and expect to get away with it all the time. 00:30:03:24 - 00:30:38:07 Speaker 1 But as long as it's something, you know, reasonable, where you're saying, yeah, this looks high on paper, if you were to put this in isolation in a vacuum, yeah, this would look like a lot more than you would get quoted on Upwork. But here's the here's the safety net you're getting with it. Here's the, you know, the all the stuff that we're bringing to the table that if you because what I think a lot of us don't get I didn't get was that you can build it you can deliver a technically correct product that is an abject failure. 00:30:38:19 - 00:31:13:10 Speaker 1 So there's something like there's something called opportunity cost. There's something called you know, there's the opportunity cost, there's the cost of like fixing course that I think a lot of us discount where, yeah, they can they can go to a cheaper provider who's not focused on the business outcome and they can say I need a website and they can get a website that's technically a website, but it can completely bomb and then they need to think, Well, then, then there's that pain of like, okay, we're now closer to where we need to be, maybe even backstop to bet we've got something worse than what we had before. 00:31:14:22 - 00:31:38:07 Speaker 1 We now need a kind of like I'm sure a lot of us have dealt with rescue projects before where people come to us after screwing stuff up elsewhere, you know, before they find us. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to I think what we need to really do is it's not about the money. It's about thinking through what what do businesses largely care about? 00:31:38:08 - 00:32:08:17 Speaker 1 They care about being successful, especially smaller businesses where, you know, the person who's hiring you is probably the person who could take what they're paying you and have a really nice family vacation instead. So it's important for us to be custodians of our clients money and really think what my job here is, is to build it, be correct, the correct thing, not just a technically correct thing. 00:32:09:00 - 00:32:34:23 Speaker 1 And this is why I think like one thing I want to I want to also mention for your Googling journeys later on is check out if you haven't yet jobs to be done as a framework because one thing that you know, this is something that when I really started to get new, it it made so much sense. And the idea of jobs to be done is like every every action there's there's rationale behind everything, right? 00:32:34:23 - 00:32:50:11 Speaker 1 So like, if somebody is coming to you and saying, I need a new website, a lot of us don't think they're firing their old website. I like they're getting they're ditching what was there. So that what was their failed. So if we don't know why it failed, if we don't dig into why are you getting rid of the old website? 00:32:50:12 - 00:33:14:00 Speaker 1 Like, why are you risking putting something new in place if we don't do that, which a lot of us don't do, a lot of designers wouldn't do, we could end up providing another employee, another website that's just as bad or if not worse. So we need to be focused always on why are they like, what is the business case for this project? 00:33:14:00 - 00:33:36:13 Speaker 1 And when you start getting comfortable, it takes granted. It takes some time to get comfortable doing this, but once you're able to do it, it again. It's one of these like watershed moments where just, you know, you had your time freelancing before and then you had your first time freelancing after and afterward. That's where you're able to justify more of a premium cost. 00:33:36:24 - 00:33:44:06 Speaker 1 You're treated more as a partner, not just a doer. And frankly put, it's easier, I find, to to actually get the work. 00:33:44:21 - 00:34:18:09 Speaker 2 And I think something really important to keep in mind if you're getting started freelancing as well, is that sometimes it's not about like the value of what you're providing, but the stage of the business, who you're providing it for. If Brennan goes to Pat Flynn or if Brett, let's say this if Brennan goes to Amazon and does some really cool car abandon email marketing stuff that increases Amazon's value per customer by 1%, he's made them millions and millions of dollars if he increases like that burger restaurant. 00:34:18:09 - 00:34:39:05 Speaker 2 But the $500 burger, if he increases their customer value by 1%, he's added like, I don't know, I don't know, maybe 500 burgers or selling, but he's added like another couple of hundred bucks a month to their business. And so even though it's the same work and it's just as inherently valuable, the client that it was for like just wasn't in a position to get as much value from it. 00:34:39:05 - 00:34:58:18 Speaker 2 And I think one of the things that's the most frustrating probably when when you're getting started is delivering a good ROI and just not having really awesome clients yet. I feel like that's one of those things that having higher lead flow is really helpful with being positioned as an expert. Helpful with having word of mouth is helpful worth. 00:34:58:19 - 00:35:12:06 Speaker 2 But if you're I don't know if you guys are in the stage where you feel like you're delivering a good ROI and stuff, but you're just struggling with not having the right people to deliver it for. But I feel like it's one of those things that is a stage that you kind of have to get through. I don't know what your thoughts are on that. 00:35:12:06 - 00:35:39:17 Speaker 1 Brennan Yeah, no, I mean, I fully agree. And I think I think the the mental hurdle I had to overcome was being really receptive and willing to work with boring companies. So like, by that I mean the insurance firm whose turnover is 10 million a year and has a really drab location in our office park that isn't a sexy startup, but they have inefficiencies. 00:35:39:20 - 00:36:07:16 Speaker 1 They have processes, they have things that I as a, you know, somebody in that case running a you know, a software agency could come in and say, like, you are emailing Excel files around the office and this is crazy and stupid and you have like so many I mean, I remember one client here, they had a dedicated person whose job was to corral this kind of data passing, and it was so easy to sell on. 00:36:07:17 - 00:36:32:06 Speaker 1 Like, I mean, I hate I hate knowing that sometimes our job was putting people out of work or at least reassigning them. But, you know, it's like, what are you paying them fully loaded to do this? You know, compound that by five years. It's a lot of money. Right. And I think that's the kind of stuff where, yeah, like, I had to get into boring businesses. 00:36:32:06 - 00:36:55:08 Speaker 1 I had to realize that there's so many companies that were I think I put one example and were freelancing rate of the it wasn't my my customer or my client, but it was one of my students who had the like the rehabilitation clinic that, you know, just normal kind of care center place. And he was asked to do a website. 00:36:55:08 - 00:37:16:23 Speaker 1 At first I was just going to do a normal website for them and just say, Cool, you want to We want WordPress, not WordPress, blue, pink, orange, what do we want to look like? And then he he got talking to them and started to realize, like every time they get a patient that's 30,000 in revenue for them, like average and he can control that. 00:37:16:23 - 00:37:39:01 Speaker 1 He can change what they charge his. No, no, like that's not his thing. But he could say, well, okay, so what impact does the website have on getting patients? Well, it gets people to maybe fill out a lead generation form and then it goes to say like a salesperson, basically, which usually would just be a they wouldn't technically be a salesperson, but somebody at the clinic who would talk to people on the phone and stuff. 00:37:39:17 - 00:37:56:06 Speaker 1 And, you know, we talk to them and realize that one in one in ten people on average who came to their website and fill out the form ended up going in patient with them and it's like, Should I just a form is worth $3,000. Forms of it is worth $3,000. So what do I do to make it so? 00:37:56:06 - 00:38:22:05 Speaker 1 Like if I can get them one more, It's been a month. What does that mean materially? And that's the kind of thinking that we should all be trying to figure out again. And I know not all of us are doing conversion optimization web form stuff, but try to figure out where you fit into the overall picture of of of of how money happens for your clients. 00:38:22:05 - 00:38:52:15 Speaker 1 And that's the best advice I could give for when it comes to like figuring this stuff out and finding that starting point that makes sense to everyone. I mean, I see like there's just stuff happening in the chat, which is great. So hopefully this is all sounding good. One thing I want to get to that is so I know Pat asked about Road Map, and Pat admits that few people ask about road mapping. 00:38:52:15 - 00:38:56:04 Speaker 1 So one thing I want to talk about, which I hinted at earlier. 00:38:56:05 - 00:38:56:24 Speaker 3 Was. 00:38:57:24 - 00:39:21:18 Speaker 1 Getting away from just going directly to the project. So I want to I want to give an example of something my wife and I experienced very recently. So we we moved into this house about two years ago and the backyard or as they call here in Britain, the back garden is basically just a bunch of grass, big back garden, but grass and there's no shade, none of that stuff. 00:39:21:18 - 00:39:45:09 Speaker 1 We have a two year old, she likes to run around and we basically, you know, like it. I know Britain gets a reputation being rainy all the time and stuff like that, but in the summer can be pretty, pretty sunny, so there's no shade or anything like that. So we we went around to different landscaping companies and kind of builders and asked them to come over and look at it. 00:39:45:09 - 00:40:19:04 Speaker 1 And all of them would start by like expecting us again to, to know, to have it all figured out. Like, so yeah, we can build it. This is our, our day rates £200 a day. What do you what do you, what do you need? Do you have the materials yet? Do you have mortar Like that's, that's where we, that's, that's how it's been until I saw a Facebook ad for a local company called the Garden Design Company who offered a £3,000 road mapping service where they come out, spent a day surveying your entire back garden. 00:40:20:02 - 00:40:44:22 Speaker 1 They meet with you. They sent us a little package when we started right over there, a little wicker basket for like snacks and stuff. They do a lot of consultative stuff with us, basically road mapping. They they had this intake. We met with them, they did the survey and so on and so forth. And in about two weeks we're going go to their office and they're going to do a grand reveal of this 2D and 3D design of given our requirements. 00:40:44:22 - 00:41:07:04 Speaker 1 If we want an entertaining space, we want a place that may or may not have a hot tub, depending on cost. So, you know, show us both options. What would it take like electrical stuff for lighting? We want integrated lighting, all that stuff. We told them the outcomes. They're working on something now. They're going to do a grand reveal and basically their upsell I know already is going to be for them to do the project itself. 00:41:07:09 - 00:41:40:06 Speaker 1 So here they got somebody who dropped £3,000 already on a design and scoping and everything else. And what I'm what I'm going to be thinking when they hand that over to me is what is going to be the risk of by hand this off, this the statement of work, the spec to one of these random landscape companies, these builders who said, yeah, £200 a day, I'll do it, versus paying what their premium will be to let them just do it all because I've already tested with them as a client. 00:41:40:22 - 00:42:20:14 Speaker 1 They're super responsive, they're super good, they have processes and systems in place. They're not just some random person with, you know, might or saw and stuff who shows up at your house and does stuff. And that's the kind of thing that I think ideally, if you're not doing this yet, you should be seriously considering. How can you offer a initial fixed price, fixed scope product that you can fulfill and offer at any time, even if you're slammed, because the benefit is even if you're like when we when you know, when I sell road mapping, I can be crazy busy. 00:42:20:14 - 00:42:43:14 Speaker 1 But road mapping to me is a few hour ordeal. I can I can make time for that so I can get somebody when they're eager and really motivated to do you know, to get a get started. I can get them into this to be road mapped and then come up with a full scope of like what we're going to be doing given the data on hand risk analysis, figure out what needs to be done. 00:42:44:10 - 00:43:05:10 Speaker 1 All that kind of stuff like that can be done in advance before I have the time to actually slot them into to do any of the work. And anyway, that's something I want to kind of like lead to, hopefully. And I know a lot of you have actually asked about road mapping in your question, so it might make sense to kind of get deeper into that through answering some of these questions. 00:43:05:14 - 00:43:08:15 Speaker 2 In a biased aggregated sum. If you want me to recap them. 00:43:09:17 - 00:43:10:21 Speaker 1 Yeah, please. Yeah. Yeah. 00:43:11:11 - 00:43:16:14 Speaker 2 So I think that the three questions I picked out, they, they kind of, they all lead. 00:43:16:14 - 00:43:17:19 Speaker 1 Back all. 00:43:17:19 - 00:43:23:07 Speaker 2 Roads lead back to road mapping. So I'm going to go through these for you because I think they tie in nicely. 00:43:23:07 - 00:43:25:07 Speaker 1 So I asked. 00:43:25:17 - 00:44:02:16 Speaker 2 How do you avoid under charging for a project in the case where requirements might not have been clear enough and I'll have to check, but I believe Pat was the Q&A engineer often I'll double check these, but that was one. And obviously the the idea, if you guys haven't gotten to the road mapping module in your freelancing rate, the idea with road mapping is that the the road mapping session should be extremely in-depth, and that's part of why it's a paid engagement so that you can really it's not just a 30 minute phone call, unless that's enough time. 00:44:02:16 - 00:44:06:12 Speaker 2 When Brendan used to do it as an agency, it was like a whole day thing, right? 00:44:06:15 - 00:44:08:16 Speaker 1 But two thirds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:44:08:16 - 00:44:32:04 Speaker 2 So, so in Pat's case, road mapping done right is a perfect solution because the road mapping session would be inherently value for valuable for the client. In the case of a quality assurance engagement. Because simply knowing what all the moving parts are is extremely valuable because that's a lot of quality assurance in the first place is like knowing what the things are that might cause problems. 00:44:32:18 - 00:44:42:06 Speaker 2 Another question submitted was from John. I. John's question is not on the surface about road mapping and it's almost anti road. 00:44:42:12 - 00:44:45:12 Speaker 1 In my notes, my response was one word road mapping. 00:44:45:12 - 00:44:46:14 Speaker 3 But yeah. 00:44:46:14 - 00:45:08:03 Speaker 2 It's almost written as an anti road mapping. But I think I think that the solution is road mapping implemented well. So John, I'll just read John's question these days. We talk a lot about value pricing since really no one wants to hire you by the hour. You're not a high priced day laborer, are you? Do you have a formula or something, which we do in the course to guide you to your value pricing fee? 00:45:08:10 - 00:45:20:10 Speaker 2 We want the client to experience the transformation, our end goal, and have them envision what that might be like for them beforehand so we can price accordingly. IT But how do we get them to accept our fee first and then logically justify it. 00:45:20:19 - 00:45:20:24 Speaker 1 And how. 00:45:20:24 - 00:45:30:04 Speaker 2 We get them to that vision? I don't do proposals for the fact that it's a waste of my time. If it's not, if it's not accepted. And frankly, I don't do upfront work for free. So that. 00:45:30:04 - 00:45:31:17 Speaker 1 That there is. 00:45:32:01 - 00:45:32:20 Speaker 3 The whole deal. 00:45:32:20 - 00:45:48:06 Speaker 2 With road mapping is that it's this paid engagement where you get to go deep and do strategy and create some value that is like a lead in to your more expensive paid engagement that raises the ceiling of what you're paid engagement cost in the first place. Brendan You look like you. 00:45:48:10 - 00:46:14:01 Speaker 1 Got to think as those of us who do do proposals for free, I'd ask how many of us actually spend the time we need on those proposals? I mean, we're doing it for free. We're hoping that we get them in the door, right? And I this is where I think I was talking to use yesterday about this. This is where one of the one of the origin stories for road mapping for my agency was we had a client, they wanted a web app built. 00:46:14:09 - 00:46:34:23 Speaker 1 We got this superficial kind of land in terms of what they wanted. We ballpark something. We really just we wanted to get them as a client. So if if there were problems about like the scope, we get to that optimistically as we got into it. But, you know, I was at a point where I was just like, look, I'm not going to like to do this right. 00:46:35:12 - 00:47:07:19 Speaker 1 I knew take a lot of time. But if if we've got I can't pull a developer off the team and have them sit with this would be client for a day or two for free. You just I know there's, there's something to be said about a loss leader, but that's, that's a big loss leader. So The interesting thing about this example is we ended up getting the project from this like rushed proposal and they wanted group functionality. 00:47:07:22 - 00:47:30:06 Speaker 1 So, you know, it was like a thing that connected parents with teachers and parents could join groups. So me being a technical person, I thought, okay, cool. So you have users and a user can join a group. So cool. There you go. Don't shouldn't be that bad. So I factored that into my proposal. We get into the project and they actually want two groups to have moderation. 00:47:30:14 - 00:47:58:06 Speaker 1 You had to submit a group join request, kind of like Facebook style. If you join one of those groups on Facebook where you fill out a form and then a group moderator would have like an inbox full of group, like, you know, their requests and they can approve or deny them. And I'm like, Well, that's it. That's more than like the joining a a user record with a group record like that, which is how I naively kind of thought, which is what they wanted. 00:47:58:20 - 00:48:26:22 Speaker 1 And that's the kind of thing that that could have been mitigated had we been on the same wavelength going into this. But I didn't because I just wanted I want to you know, I didn't have the time to really get into the weeds. So I think road mapping is so important for a lot of reasons. So first off, for the reason I just talked about, which is this kind of like getting yourself in the client on the same wavelength as best as possible, but more importantly as a way to just test each other. 00:48:27:12 - 00:48:53:04 Speaker 1 What's it like working with them? What do they think about working with us? I'm doing that now with that gardening company. What's it like working with them so far? I'm super impressed because the jump from like if I were to the jump from having having paid nothing to spending tens of thousands of pounds on some random local landscape company to hopefully build me a deck that doesn't suck, that's that's a big that's a big jump. 00:48:53:10 - 00:49:12:00 Speaker 1 And it's a risky job. But I'm going to drag my feet. I'm going to hem and haw about it. Whereas I didn't think twice about spending a comparatively lower amount on this smaller engagement where I get to just test the company out, I get something in a value in return that's not just tied to them. It's not a glorified proposal. 00:49:12:00 - 00:49:33:01 Speaker 1 It's it's a it's a it's a blueprint, a plan that is portable. But that's the kind of thing like the testing of the waters to really be able to get on the same wavelength where they would be client, figure out what's at stake, what do they need done, really getting into the weeds of it and depending on what it is you do. 00:49:33:01 - 00:49:55:02 Speaker 1 I mean, for a lot of us, this is going to be I never finished a project that looked the same as it did the day it started. Things change, scope changes, requirements change. And that's why, though, when we did this upfront and we managed doing this upfront and I could figure out between me and my client like what? 00:49:55:06 - 00:50:18:17 Speaker 1 What is the goal? What is the target? We need to reach any change or derivation in scope. Had to be justified. Sometimes I would come to the table and say, Look, you don't need this crazy group moderation stuff. Like you don't even have users yet. Just start simple, make it make it basic. When you get loads of people using this platform, then you can spend the money on making it really fancy. 00:50:19:07 - 00:50:38:22 Speaker 1 But I kind of saw that as my job like, you know, pushback there. Likewise, I if they come to the table and say, hey, we need I talking to a friend and they said, we need to do this too, or we need to shift directions, then I push back and say, how is it getting us to that goal post better? 00:50:39:00 - 00:51:01:09 Speaker 1 Like if it is great, like let's do it. But if not like once we're on the same page, once we both have this expectation going into the engagement that this is the outcome we're looking for. Anything that, you know, any of the technical said, it's only their job is only to to get us there. You know, in one way, shape or form. 00:51:01:09 - 00:51:19:14 Speaker 1 So that's the thing that I think like that's why I'm so obsessive, if you will, about about doing this, because I see it all around me. I see like I was looking at hiring somebody to do help me with YouTube ads for somebody like me who doesn't know a damn thing about YouTube or any of that stuff, it's intimidating. 00:51:19:14 - 00:51:42:19 Speaker 1 Whereas here are somebody who Zack mentioned smaller things. This was a one hour call at the time. It was over Skype. This is predates zoom of it and he screen chart and he had a Google spreadsheet open with like all these data points already plugged in of like cost per click average click through rate, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:51:43:06 - 00:52:07:03 Speaker 1 And he was like, all right, let's let's plug in. What do you make on average for a cell when say you want to promote to be fluence great what do you make on average per cell what what is your profit on that? And so on and so forth. So what he did is he plugged all my numbers on, top of his expert level data and we together determined it should I even bother with YouTube ads. 00:52:07:17 - 00:52:31:08 Speaker 1 And I was very willing to spend I spent a year $290 on him for that one hour call. And for me that was a no brainer. Comparatively cheap. It's an impulse buy for my business. I got to see what it was like to work with this guy. He consulted with me and we ended up to term ring that YouTube ads weren't right for me, but he made a bit of money. 00:52:31:17 - 00:52:47:16 Speaker 1 He impressed me, and had we figured out that it was the right path, I would have gone with him. So this is the kind of thing that I think like having a steppingstone between nothing and tons of money spent on you, I think is a really good thing to endeavor toward. 00:52:48:10 - 00:53:11:16 Speaker 2 And I think you touch on something, something really cool about road mapping that I want you guys to keep in mind as you're planning on how to apply it. I the the idea of spending a little bit of money to avoid perhaps spending a lot of money on the wrong thing is inherently valuable, especially if somebody is not super duper knowledgeable about whatever the project is they're doing. 00:53:11:16 - 00:53:27:18 Speaker 2 It's like getting your home a potential home they're going to buy inspected before you buy it. Like, sure, you could save $1,000 by not having the home inspected, but you might have to pay $5,000 for a new foundation or whatever. So I think that's a nice little nugget to. 00:53:27:18 - 00:53:38:22 Speaker 1 Keep in mind. Yeah. Yeah. So we make sense to everyone. Like how many of you are actually actively road? Nothing, just a curiosity. 00:53:40:04 - 00:53:41:09 Speaker 3 So I know last week. 00:53:41:18 - 00:53:42:07 Speaker 2 I was going to say. 00:53:43:10 - 00:53:59:12 Speaker 3 Yeah, and then I had another meeting and so my questions about was I had another meeting and it just went off the rails and I kept trying to bring them back around to what your problem is. They were like, it was like deer in the headlights wasn't what we need done of my techniques to keep that from happening. 00:54:00:18 - 00:54:01:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. So yeah. 00:54:02:00 - 00:54:17:07 Speaker 2 I did have a thought on that one. And I'm kind of curious because I wasn't on the call. Diana So I've noticed that when I so I have arrived at something kind of similar to road mapping, but kind of executed differently than the way Brendan does it. And I like Brendan's better, so I'm not going to tell you my way as a recommendation. 00:54:17:07 - 00:54:34:12 Speaker 2 But what I've noticed is when I'm trying to do some strategy with a potential client and they're kind of compulsively trying to go over the what, sometimes it's helpful to give that air time, but to make because I have ADHD. So it's really easy for me to get taken down a rabbit hole and not come back if I'm not careful. 00:54:34:12 - 00:54:52:04 Speaker 2 So I'll like make little notes like I'm doing on this call of things that I want to circle back to so that I can give them a chance to vomit out all their desired features. And I'm like, All right, cool. That sounds good. But just to rewind a little bit, what is that? Blah, blah, blah? Like, did you give them a chance to do that? 00:54:52:04 - 00:54:56:08 Speaker 2 And then you tried to circle them back and they just weren't comfortable talking about what was the situation like? 00:54:57:16 - 00:55:10:21 Speaker 3 Well, it was, yeah. You asking the question like, let's get to the why of your problem, Let's talk about this. And they was just, like I said, deer in the headlights. They look at me and give me the answers of what they wanted and I was playing with them. Okay, that's great, because you don't want to cut them off. 00:55:10:21 - 00:55:29:11 Speaker 3 You want to listen to them. You want to make them feel like that their problems are being heard. So you sit there and you listen, but try to get them to focus back on. And it's like I said in my in my responses that I sent them an agenda. I sent them a confirmation email saying, we're not going to talk about you know, we're going to talk about the why, what your true problem is, all that stuff. 00:55:29:11 - 00:55:43:06 Speaker 3 And they just didn't get it. So how do you is that just a client that's not going to get it. It's not going to be a good fit. Just walk away right there? Or is there a way to salvage that? Because Mike, those meetings for me, those initial meetings where I run through the Socratic method is 30 minutes. 00:55:43:06 - 00:55:54:24 Speaker 3 This one went into an hour because I couldn't get them to start talking about how they wanted it done instead of what their true problem was. Is there a technique to to wrangle them that way or do you just walk away? 00:55:55:08 - 00:56:14:00 Speaker 2 I think I mean, it's hard to say without being there. But I so one thing I would say is that I have known a lot of other people who can do 30 minute sales calls or whatever. I have not been one of them. Like what I would call a sales call is kind of my road mapping session to usually I do a lot of pre validation of a leads potential before I even get on the phone with them. 00:56:14:00 - 00:56:30:12 Speaker 2 So by the time I jump on the phone to someone I know they're probably going to convert. And so my sales call is my road mapping session for how I've done it before. I like Brendan Brennan's method better, so I'm not going to do my method. But my thought is that not expecting the call to be done in 30 minutes would be one helpful thing. 00:56:30:21 - 00:56:52:04 Speaker 2 Second helpful thing would be having it be something that they paid for and they're going to try to get value from. And in terms of circling it back, I do, unless they're just really like a very high anxiety person who has some baggage around the project and they don't they don't want to think about the why. I do think that there could be a techniques you would have you could apply. 00:56:52:04 - 00:57:07:17 Speaker 2 So I would think if it were me and they kept reiterating the features instead of say, I don't know what you were verbatim saying, but you mentioned earlier you do teleprompter things. So if you were repeating something like I want to get to the why of the problem, that's kind of it's kind of like nebulous, like it's not really clear what that means. 00:57:07:17 - 00:57:24:15 Speaker 2 It sounds kind of scary and difficult, but you could get to the why of the problem by saying, okay, so you want this feature, What would it be like? Like what would be the bad things that would happen if we didn't build it? What are you worried about happening? Presumably they could talk about that and then based on that, you could dig a little deeper. 00:57:24:15 - 00:57:31:06 Speaker 2 So I would I would think of it kind of that way, imagining that you're a therapist at a therapy session and you're trying to just get. 00:57:31:06 - 00:57:32:05 Speaker 1 A little bit and a. 00:57:32:05 - 00:57:34:07 Speaker 2 Little bit and you pull the thread a little bit more. A little bit. 00:57:34:07 - 00:57:34:14 Speaker 1 More. 00:57:34:24 - 00:57:39:05 Speaker 2 I Did you try something like that or were you more kind of repeating the same questions? 00:57:39:18 - 00:58:01:14 Speaker 3 I tried exactly all of that for me is that that's the initial like because the one of the reasons I got involved in this program was because I was in a position where I've been doing three proposals with no response. It's also to find to learn how to to attract and find better clients, because I've dealt with a lot of great characters with small businesses because I focus on small businesses and I want bigger business. 00:58:01:14 - 00:58:33:14 Speaker 3 I want to not only improve my rate, but also to get better clients. So for me, it's the initial phone call because everybody wants to talk about their problem, right? Then an email exchanges or whatever initial phone call is the implementation of the Socratic method just to get them into a certain mindset. So the road mapping session and then the road mapping session is a 90 minute phone call that is preempted by a very, very, very detailed questionnaire so that when we get into the call, I can spend that time talking to them about their problems, not continue to ask them more questions. 00:58:33:20 - 00:58:54:08 Speaker 3 The question side of it's already over so that I can really get to what I'm going to do. And then the deliverable on that, of course, is a report wireframes, if it's a website, things like that. So is your question. Yes, I did all of that and it just didn't seem to matter. And the call went into like an hour and they just wanted to fix everything right then and trying to get them to, to understand the purpose of that particular phone call. 00:58:55:03 - 00:59:07:12 Speaker 3 I felt like I was cutting them off and I was having to just kind of tell them what we're going to do, and that's fine if that's what we have to do. It's it's, it's, you know, but you don't want to just talk over them. You want to listen to them to make them feel like they're being heard. 00:59:07:21 - 00:59:09:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. 00:59:09:03 - 00:59:09:12 Speaker 2 I mean, I. 00:59:09:24 - 00:59:21:06 Speaker 1 Was like, was their house on fire? Like, I mean, a real house of fire. Like, what were they? It sounded like they needed you. With what I'm hearing, it's like you were a bit of a Hail Mary. Throw them. 00:59:21:17 - 00:59:38:19 Speaker 3 In a sense, because it's a client that basically they're on a July they're on June one, and they didn't want to tell me the details. And of course, I offered the NDA, which I sent over and all that good stuff. But they they're in a position where they have to have a brand new membership website in place by August. 00:59:39:08 - 00:59:54:03 Speaker 3 So the House is kind of break down and they're desperate to get going. But it's also it was also probably I allowed more than one person to be there. There were two other people and those two people were also coders. And my first question is like, you guys are here. We already have website people. Why am I here? 00:59:54:21 - 01:00:13:22 Speaker 3 Because I'm not a coder. So part of my business is offering websites, but offering digital marketing along with that and making it one complete package and focusing on the marketing. Tell all my clients, all potential clients, you know, websites are the most powerful marketing tools you can possibly have. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about how your website, you don't start a website. 01:00:13:22 - 01:00:34:17 Speaker 3 You need a marketing tool. It's going to make you more money or get you to your goals. Conversions, things like that. That's how I that's what I focus on. So in a sense there the house was burning down and they were very desperate. But then there was like, you know, there was one person was like, Well, wait a minute, have to figure out they didn't even want to go to a road mapping session because we had one person, one cog in the wheel that was like, wait a minute, we have to figure out what we need. 01:00:34:17 - 01:00:43:04 Speaker 3 It's like, that's what I'm here for, is to help you figure out we need. So maybe just a bad client and I should just walk away. You know, one thing I would advise. 01:00:43:20 - 01:01:06:04 Speaker 2 One thing I would say and Brendan, I'll be interested to hear your point about one thing I've noticed in my own negotiations as sort of a psychological tactic or just something that's been helpful, is when negotiating. Whoever has the most willingness to walk away has the most power. And I think that most freelancers feel very desperate for clients. 01:01:06:04 - 01:01:24:23 Speaker 2 And that shows, you know, they don't want to step on that potential clients toes or do something that might push them away. And so that can be conveys desperation, which lowers this perceived exclusivity and independence and stuff. And with some of the clients who I've ended up working with, some of whom became clients, some of whom did get turned away. 01:01:25:05 - 01:01:43:21 Speaker 2 But when I've worked with people are doing things like not filling out the form that I say is mandatory and stuff. Sometimes I'll just send them an email that's like not quite dickish, but also not quite, not dickish, like just a kind of a stern email that's like, I'd like to help you, but if you want me to help you, I have certain things I need you to do. 01:01:43:22 - 01:02:01:11 Speaker 2 If you're not willing to do these things. I'm not going to be a good fit for you. And when you kind of like let them know you, you will walk away. Then it puts they have to kind of opt in for either doing things your way or doing things the way they want going to someone else. And that gives you authority and positions you as more of a conductor than a cog. 01:02:01:18 - 01:02:12:02 Speaker 2 And sometimes that can salvage this sort of psychological dynamics and other times it can't. And they wouldn't have been a good client anyway. 01:02:12:02 - 01:02:50:07 Speaker 1 You're a great. Yeah. I would also add to that Zach I love the conductor versus COG analogy because it's if I showed up on a train and the conductor was like, So what are we doing? Like, you know, like there wasn't a timetable there. It was so like, I'd be like, is it safe to be on? Right? Like, so I think like, I know for, like the thing that I've so my partner, my partner or she, she, she still does a good amount of consulting and she is so process driven, crazy, impressive. 01:02:50:13 - 01:03:12:17 Speaker 1 And one thing I've come to learn from how she works for her clients is she's not rude about it, but she's very much like, when this happens, this happens next. So this happens. They get this onboarding PDF fanciest thing she's designed that details how to work with her, how to get in touch with her hours of availability process for when they do get in touch. 01:03:12:17 - 01:03:42:13 Speaker 1 Like what she needs to know all this stuff. She she does this client portal things she gives them like their own client portal thing that has their original contract. All the our stuff. I talked about a link to like Trello, all this stuff, and she's super adamant to get people to fit into this mold. And what I've come to learn is that why her clients love working with her is people want to feel like they're they're being taught that you're in charge, right? 01:03:42:13 - 01:04:04:23 Speaker 1 Like there's kind of a weird internal aspect where I think a lot of them just want to feel comforted, like I'm safe. I am being led to where I need to be by somebody who knows what the track is. Obviously done this before because you only have these fancy PDFs if you've done this before. If this is obviously not like a you know, I'm just in time type thing. 01:04:05:03 - 01:04:29:03 Speaker 1 So I think like to to go along with what we've been saying, having like even if it's as simple as just saying when I have a new potential client, call the first very very first call. Having some agenda PDF with your logo on it and you send over like here, here's what we're going to discuss on the first call. 01:04:29:04 - 01:04:46:12 Speaker 1 Like here, here's what you can send me in advance. That would be helpful. Here's what we're going to discuss and then after that first call, something else, like here's a description of the road mapping thing I talked about. Here's that what you know, the outline, here's the costs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like having these assets. She does it so well. 01:04:46:12 - 01:05:09:14 Speaker 1 And it's so impressive to see, like the reception that she gets, the professionalism that is evident with something to me is as silly as sending a PDF, right? Like to a junior client. But I get it. Like when I worked with this garden company, they did the same thing. They got me like when I paid there was this that happened and they sent me a little gift basket. 01:05:09:14 - 01:05:23:21 Speaker 1 I got an invitation to their money.com account that they set up for me with like all the stuff that's going on in the project, all the intake stuff they needed. I know for a fact this random these random landscapers I was talking to, they don't do anything like that because I've worked with people like them before. They just like. 01:05:24:11 - 01:05:47:06 Speaker 1 Like, Yeah. What, what do you need for? Like, I've got skills I can, I can do it. So I think people, people want a product. People if, if the stuff we do for our clients could be bought off the shelf. I believe most of you know most of these transactions that happened between us and our clients would be just done that way because people want a I'm paying this, I'm getting this in return. 01:05:48:08 - 01:06:08:23 Speaker 1 And when you're saying I'm paying for a person or a team and I'm getting this a return, there's always a bit of ambiguity about like, well, actually get what I need in return because I'm hiring a human. So the more we can productize what we do by having these processes and procedures in place, we're mapping. I think it's a it's an essential start to this. 01:06:09:17 - 01:06:29:03 Speaker 1 The better. So again, that's kind of like building the arsenal, if you will, for your business of having these assets, having this process, having knowing you go from these initial calls to road mapping, from road mapping to delivery of road mapping report, deliver a road map report to the follow up that then upsells them on a bigger project. 01:06:29:16 - 01:06:58:05 Speaker 1 That's the kind of start to finish type thing. And beyond that, going from active engagement to some form of recurring revenue, their clients maintenance agreements, ongoing support, whatever that might look like, that's that should be that's not an immediate like day one goal, but that should be the end goal, I think for pretty much all of us for being the chair at work. 01:06:59:14 - 01:07:18:21 Speaker 2 So I'm wondering what the what the best way to cover road mapping covers some of the Q&A and then make the best use of the time. You're here, Brendan I can. What I can do. I don't have a hard stop like you do. So if I wanted to linger and answer some of the questions that I'm a good fit for answering, I can do that once you've passed off. 01:07:19:07 - 01:07:28:18 Speaker 2 Yeah, but it seems like with make the most of the time available, getting into road mapping and then moving on to some Q&A, probably, probably. Why don't. 01:07:28:18 - 01:07:54:02 Speaker 1 We? I mean, I think I'm not going to with the road mapping stuff. I mean, I've kind of covered the high level overview of it. The the fact of the matter is materially, when it comes to what does your road mapping session compose of and so on and so forth, that's something we're going to be trading at. Double your freelancing much more in-depth, you know, in the future. 01:07:54:02 - 01:08:11:22 Speaker 1 And there is some content on the blog. We used to have a course on it, but we've retired that because we're going to be doing something even better. And if you already had a course, you'll be getting the new one also with that. But anyway, so don't want to get too deep into the weeds of that because it would be we'd be here 5 hours. 01:08:12:18 - 01:08:31:09 Speaker 1 But I think at the end of the day, like really figuring out what you can do as an initial sale is a must. But yeah, why don't we do this? Why don't we? Let's get into the questions, make sure we cover everyone's. And then like, if we if I need to jump in 45 minutes and then if Yeah. 01:08:31:10 - 01:08:32:23 Speaker 1 If you're able to stay on, that's perfect. 01:08:32:23 - 01:08:46:20 Speaker 2 And just to close the book on the road mapping thing, for those of you who are not like super far into the course yet, there are lessons in your freelancing rate on road mapping that Brendan's exact process that he goes through and his like KPIs for. 01:08:47:04 - 01:08:47:14 Speaker 1 What. 01:08:47:18 - 01:09:10:21 Speaker 2 A good road mapping session should provide for the client and things like that. So you can help formulate your own from there. I'm going to make a few worksheets and stuff based on this call and having reviewed the course a bit more so you're not just being left with. That is what I'm saying over the course. And if you have questions or issues with it, just email me slash Brendan at the hell out of your freelancing and we'll dig into it more. 01:09:10:21 - 01:09:15:09 Speaker 2 But while we're alive will prioritize the community because that's harder to do not live. 01:09:16:06 - 01:09:20:19 Speaker 1 Yes. So Brendan. 01:09:21:07 - 01:09:26:01 Speaker 2 Do you want to like go from oldest to newest? Do you want to go from. I think you should prioritize. 01:09:26:01 - 01:09:27:07 Speaker 3 I have oldest to newest. 01:09:27:18 - 01:09:34:09 Speaker 2 Okay, but try to prioritize ones if you see any in there that you're like, I should definitely answer this instead of like, let's try to get those also. 01:09:34:17 - 01:09:35:00 Speaker 1 Okay. 01:09:35:07 - 01:10:00:06 Speaker 2 I like that Top ten 111 thing on the top table one that's interesting to consider that I want to surface on behalf of people. Do you think, dearest Brennan, that paid road mapping sessions would ever work if I were getting my clients from any kind of job board, be a top tower, whatever I am Ozark Probably not. But I'm curious what you think. 01:10:00:06 - 01:10:08:13 Speaker 2 Like, could someone ever successfully swing paid road mapping sessions from a job board? 01:10:08:13 - 01:10:16:22 Speaker 1 The only the only way I could see it actually kind of working might be on like a fiber type platform. 01:10:16:22 - 01:10:18:13 Speaker 2 Where is the thing you're paying for? 01:10:19:14 - 01:10:42:23 Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah. Because it doesn't I mean, despite the name, I hired somebody or fiber to do the first version of the garden design for like $200. And it wasn't as consultative. It was definitely throwing requirements over the wall and getting something back. But that that could be an option because it's more of a it really is a platform for selling productized services. 01:10:42:23 - 01:11:09:06 Speaker 1 So just effectively what a room mapping engagement is. But I think if somebody comes to you with like a very specific I need a keyword in a problem type situation or they've already got it scoped out. I mean, anything's doable, sure. But I think it would be much more difficult because they're going into they're going into the end of their relationship thinking you're a doer. 01:11:09:06 - 01:11:18:11 Speaker 1 I know what needs to be done. And I'm the same way when I go on Upwork. I'm not I'm not looking for consultants. I'm not looking for people to give me advice. I'm looking for stuff to be done. 01:11:18:23 - 01:11:37:16 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the tricky bit, especially because if you respond to this person saying, Hey, actually what you really need is this different thing than what you're asking for. They're getting that message from you without you having any authority and they're getting it alongside like 100 other people saying, Hey, I'll give you exactly what you're asking for. 01:11:38:01 - 01:11:44:13 Speaker 2 So it's not going to really resonate as something that they should listen to, I think is kind of the tricky bit. 01:11:44:13 - 01:12:07:00 Speaker 1 Like when needs said about, you know, somebody on our sub on Upwork selling fractional CO as a service 4000 hour I mean that's that's impressive but I get I don't know never sold myself on a marketplace so I don't know to be honest I don't know enough about it. But again I'm sure I'm sure that it works. I'm just so focused. 01:12:07:00 - 01:12:26:04 Speaker 1 I've always been so focused on the organic leads that are basically yours and yours alone that I don't know honestly enough about Upwork and marketplaces and so on. But yeah, so have heard though, a lot of people who don't like working on them. 01:12:27:05 - 01:12:48:15 Speaker 2 So here's another question on behalf of the imaginary audience member. And if you guys think these are off base, tell me. But Brennan Dearest Brennan, I don't have my first client yet and I don't really know how to get any. So I was thinking I might just get my first couple Upwork or whatever, get my portfolio a little bit build, get some case studies, and then I would get better ones. 01:12:49:06 - 01:13:03:15 Speaker 2 But how am I supposed do all this road mapping stuff if I my idea for getting clients is Upwork, but I can't really do road mapping Upwork like what would be what do you think a good trajectory would be for me, for how I should get my first clients and then do road mapping for clients and get better clients? 01:13:03:15 - 01:13:04:18 Speaker 2 Like what do I do? 01:13:04:24 - 01:13:28:05 Speaker 1 Brennan Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on the situation. So if you're doing it kind of if you're moonlighting like I did originally, where you've got a full time job that's giving you the defined income, then you have a the pressure is not as on right. Like you can you can do what I did which was hang around local networking groups and meet people and build up a network that way. 01:13:28:07 - 01:13:59:16 Speaker 1 And that's how I got my start. And then I was able to kind of graduate to quitting the job and going full time on that. Once once I hit that critical mass, putting out the name of the group was called Critical Mass. So, you know, that's one way. But yeah, if you're if you're actually full time freelance now and all your clients are coming in via say, Upwork or one of these things 100%, keep doing that because that's, I mean, that pays the bills right now. 01:13:59:17 - 01:14:26:22 Speaker 1 I don't think anyone should be, you know, kamikaze style like ditching what's working and going full force into this new approach. I mean, this new approach should be more of a gradual adoption, especially if if you're dependent on that work now. But I would start to I mean, there's nothing that can can't there's no reason why with Upwork even, you can start to be a little more business focused where the leads you get. 01:14:27:04 - 01:14:56:09 Speaker 1 I mean, that's one way to definitely set yourself apart from lot of the people you're competing against. You can start to even offered as a down sell. Like if somebody is a bit skittish about jumping, maybe they're getting cold feet about like moving forward. You could offer this as a down sell where it's like, well, you know, if you're not ready to go full on yet, one thing we could do would be to kind of a shore up what you need to get done and make sure you know, you know, exactly what kind of budget you should set aside and so on. 01:14:56:09 - 01:15:27:01 Speaker 1 We could do this, but I would just say again, like Nate mentioned, like you can do well on Upwork. You're just working with people. I mean, I've hired people through Upwork and outside of Upwork I'm still the same person, right? But I know when I go to Upwork and I type in, if I'm looking for a practitioner of a skill, I largely mostly know what I need done going into it, right? 01:15:27:12 - 01:15:49:04 Speaker 1 Whereas yeah, so yeah, hopefully that makes a bit of sense. Don't, don't be stupid and like think that you can go full on, on this and, and you know potentially upset things so much that you stop getting work that wouldn't do that. 01:15:49:20 - 01:16:04:14 Speaker 2 So you think the ideal for someone who's reliant on Upwork right now would be to essentially keep a base going from Upwork and then try to do some lead generation off. Yeah. And then build that and then have it replace their current one essentially. 01:16:04:14 - 01:16:35:01 Speaker 1 That's right. And that's what I see. Most of the people who have successfully gone through like, say, the blueprint in the past, that's exactly what they run they've had their whether it be their existing full time job or their existing like transactional work on Upwork, they would then slowly implement the authority building stuff that then brings in leads who are yeah, who don't yet know that they need to need a project or fit the right profile, their ideal client, but don't actually have a project on the table. 01:16:35:01 - 01:16:46:16 Speaker 1 And then they, you know, once you again really pursue that end up eventually not be independent in any way, shape or form on a marketplace. Cool. 01:16:47:20 - 01:16:50:01 Speaker 2 Now I'll let you go through the Q&A. I just wanted to ask that one. 01:16:51:03 - 01:17:23:02 Speaker 1 So again, and if anyone wants to jump in, feel free to I mean, I'm going through Typeform right now looking at all the responses I would like to follow up for the I'm currently freelancing on the side of Upwork. It's the Web development. And so there's not a huge pressure to go full time on it. But I would like to switch careers to full time development within a year or two. 01:17:23:23 - 01:17:54:16 Speaker 1 So if Upwork is more for like a hired gun, so how would they go about looking for clients of the platform? I mean, should I just target small medium businesses or go for specific reach? Although I think, well, what remind me. So you cut off or something? Cut off on my end when you were saying specifically what you did, what was that Again, a web development. 01:17:55:04 - 01:17:59:13 Speaker 1 Okay. So just like General web applications and things like that. 01:17:59:18 - 01:18:00:16 Speaker 2 If you want to do. 01:18:00:22 - 01:18:09:09 Speaker 1 Websites, I mean, because nothing that I'm learning the rails but the learning. 01:18:09:09 - 01:18:15:02 Speaker 2 Yeah. Do you want me to read off your your context just for Brennan to give him like I can just read it off Typeform since I've got. 01:18:16:10 - 01:18:16:12 Speaker 1 A. 01:18:16:20 - 01:18:29:11 Speaker 2 Good mike. All right. So he was saying that he started coding a little bit after COVID first struck. He started freelancing on Upwork a year ago, had some clients. 01:18:29:18 - 01:18:30:11 Speaker 1 Nothing big. 01:18:31:05 - 01:18:36:07 Speaker 2 His focus right now is on static site generators like Jekyll 20 and now bridge tech. 01:18:36:18 - 01:18:37:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm. 01:18:37:24 - 01:19:08:07 Speaker 2 His main focus is on learning coding skills. He decided to go in on Ruby on Rails and initially he wanted to focus on authors as a niche, but he realized that websites aren't like a really big priority for authors, and he's been invested into a lot of different courses, and so he's earning freelancing on Upwork, it sounds like, and he wants to use web dev as a like a foundation to build his own SAS. 01:19:08:07 - 01:19:08:11 Speaker 1 Okay. 01:19:08:23 - 01:19:23:03 Speaker 2 He wants to ramp up to three 2000, $5,000 website projects. And this is kind of where he was chiming in is like, so now he's doing this Upwork stuff. What should he do for generating clients outside of that? Is that am I representing you correctly? Right. Yes. 01:19:25:02 - 01:19:54:21 Speaker 1 Okay. Okay. So a few thoughts. You mentioned Ruby on Rails, the just the going market rate of a rails. FELBER is significantly higher than people building static sites, static websites. So if you're looking to do that, you know, I don't know if that's your monthly goal or just per project goal, but like, say you want to do 5000 a month on revenue, that should be easily doable as a Rails freelancer. 01:19:54:21 - 01:20:20:16 Speaker 1 So that's kind of the work you do. Now, the caveat to that, which goes against everything I generally teach is that I think the best position to be in is to do what my agency did, which was we actually did rails outs, but pretty much none of our clients newer cared that what Rails was they did when it came to the handoff, but they came in with it with the outcome that they needed. 01:20:20:16 - 01:20:45:04 Speaker 1 And they, you know, we used Rails to satisfy that. Having said, though, you mentioned the revenue goals, you mentioned what you've been up to. If you're talking about generating static sites with a platform like Jekyll. So Jekyll is a ruby race. For those who don't know, it's just a way to take flat files like markdown files and spit out HTML files that can then just be there on a server super fast because it's no database or anything like that. 01:20:46:04 - 01:21:10:24 Speaker 1 So that verse like a ruby or Rails app or Rails consulting, you're going to make more money 100% as a rail stepper than you would doing like one off statics sites generally. Now, long term, again, if you get back to what I was saying, if you if that static site is for that clinic I talked about where they're making $3,000 a form cement or lead. 01:21:11:18 - 01:21:50:24 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean that that's that's where you can really kind of go deeper. But I would think for now I would probably if I were nurses, I'd be focusing on the rails opportunity at the minute, maybe even augmenting existing teams who need additional rails. Developers. They tend to be in short supply and starting they're building up a nice, healthy financial backbone because good thing too, is a lot of the companies hiring rails, people are going to be funded startup types who are going to be looking for probably an ongoing long term commitment from you, which is going to give you that nice, steady, predictable income. 01:21:51:12 - 01:22:13:15 Speaker 1 And then from there, if you if you really want to like, you could either then decide to bootstrap your own sass while doing that. There's plenty of people I know who are doing remote work for startups, doing something like Rails, and then they could just on, you know, maybe they only work three or four days a week and then on the fifth day they build their own thing or the weekends do their own thing. 01:22:14:07 - 01:22:34:05 Speaker 1 That's probably honestly like if your end goal is SAS, that might probably be like, if I get if I were in your shoes, what I would probably be doing would be thinking, how do I get a nice cash rails opportunities that are in such high demand? Do that and then bootstrap my own SAS while I'm doing that. See this happen all the time. 01:22:34:05 - 01:22:53:22 Speaker 1 You wouldn't need to. I mean the stuff like for instance, covering the blueprint is all about like systematically building up a portfolio of, of, of clients who come to you exclusively, who don't care what rails is, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. That's great. If you want like consulting and freelancing to be a long term thing, maybe you want to build an agency and so on. 01:22:53:22 - 01:23:10:19 Speaker 1 But if you really just want to be able to use freelancing as a means to an end to build your own SAS in your shoes, I would probably be jumping on the the rails hotness to bring that in that then, you know, bootstrapping my own thing from there. 01:23:12:01 - 01:23:39:24 Speaker 2 I think one thing to perhaps circle back to though, because it's something that I wonder a lot about with messages that come into that freelancing inbox and stuff is like this idea of making that transition from subsisting on Upwork gigs to like full on blueprint style marketing, which for people who don't know the blueprint style, like it's, it's kind of like the kind of thing you typically see product based businesses or content based businesses doing to market their stuff like a new office. 01:23:39:24 - 01:23:40:07 Speaker 2 So what we. 01:23:40:07 - 01:23:45:12 Speaker 1 Did was instead of selling the digital products, you're selling services? Yeah. 01:23:45:12 - 01:24:23:16 Speaker 2 And so, you know, if an actor is in this new movie, they'll go on podcasts, they'll go on talk shows, they do all these different things to promote their new thing. And so the the question I might cement to you, Brendan, here, if I can again put words into your mouth, greatness is how do you how do you make the determination like if you're wanting to do freelancing as kind of a cushy gig to make some money so that you can later start a software business, how do you determine if it's worth it to, you know, go on podcasts, do blog posts, do all these things that really commit you to this freelance business and 01:24:23:16 - 01:24:28:18 Speaker 2 solving these clients problems when it's not even what you want to do. Like, how do you decide if that's worth it versus. 01:24:29:01 - 01:24:29:12 Speaker 1 I don't know. 01:24:29:12 - 01:24:29:21 Speaker 2 Just do an. 01:24:29:21 - 01:25:01:06 Speaker 1 Upwork? Yeah, it's a very good question. I think if you if you I think a lot of it well, there's a few things I'd look at. First off, if historically you're getting clients who are demanding and know exactly what they want and not treating you as a partner and so on and that really great. So on you, if you if you're not okay with that, then I would try to think, what can I do to get out of that ASAP, which would be building up that, that, that foundation work that we talk about in the blueprint. 01:25:01:06 - 01:25:30:12 Speaker 1 Even if it's not your end goal, just so you can get out of those kind of more toxic scenarios where you're just you're always fighting for the project you're always you're always need to justify your cost. You're always needing to like, you know, like some people are just really against that. And I get why. So if that's if that's where you are, then that's one good reason to do this, even if it's not a long term ambition. 01:25:30:24 - 01:25:56:08 Speaker 1 But I would say the bigger thing, I think and I've seen this firsthand from people have gone through the blueprint, You follow what I teach in the blueprint, it is basically me marrying together, my experience, having built this agency and systematized lead generation with what I've learned now, selling quite a few million dollars in products online and the thinking is, well, it's really just a difference of scale, right? 01:25:56:08 - 01:26:33:00 Speaker 1 Like you're selling a service, it's going to cost a lot more than, say, a self-study video course. But at the end of the day, like the marketing and sales lessons that you'll learn by thinking, how do I bring somebody to the point that they are ready to buy through an evergreen thing like, you know, automated email campaigns and stuff that is 100% transferable to the stuff you'll need to do when you're trying to market your SAS or when you're trying to market your own digital products or whatever, because that's usually that's where I feel like I was really good at agency stuff. 01:26:33:00 - 01:26:52:02 Speaker 1 I started this plan scope thing and I built the thing because I knew how to build it because that's what we did as a company. I had my team built it with me and then the first thing that I had to figure out, which is something I never had to figure out as an agency owner who built like I always build software for my clients, but I never had to figure out how to get how they get customers. 01:26:52:02 - 01:27:15:13 Speaker 1 That was their thing. Like their their job was once we gave them the product and put it up on online, it was their job to market it. We didn't do the marketing, but now I had to do the marketing and I was very unprepared because all the all the my experience was all selling consulting through local networking, through, you know, all that kind of stuff. 01:27:15:13 - 01:27:50:22 Speaker 1 And not like I didn't have a lot of experience with like the self-serve drive sales model, if that makes sense. So if you follow the blueprint that it's going to set you up where basically the closest approximation you can get to how you do sales marketing for SAS or digital products, but for your services, your time. And so I think I think there's that that's one big benefit, even if it's more of a short term thing, if that makes sense. 01:27:51:21 - 01:28:09:18 Speaker 2 And one thing I might add too is like with my own I don't know if I mentioned at the beginning for you guys, but with my own consultancy, I as, I said I started in 2009 and I got to the point where I could have enough leads coming in to carry me and a team of a couple contractors profitably. 01:28:09:18 - 01:28:28:15 Speaker 2 And now as a soloist, I have enough leads coming in that I can make my targeted like $80,000 a year while just working a handful of hours a week. And that's fine. It kind of generally works word of mouth alone, no clever marketing. But the thing is, it took me almost a decade in business to get to that point. 01:28:28:15 - 01:28:46:19 Speaker 2 I don't have any control over it and it's like it's leaving my entire fate to chance. And the thing that I think about a lot is that it sounds like a lot of work to implement a lot of these lead gen systems. But at the same time, it's it's like the classic eat your marshmallow now versus eat two marshmallows later. 01:28:46:19 - 01:29:12:03 Speaker 2 Like you're you're investing more time now, but as a result, you're not wasting time on low quality sales calls and that's each of those hours saved is an hour that could have gone into writing a blog post or doing podcast outreach or something like that. So I think that's another angle to look at it, too, is that it sounds kind of like a pain in the back to do this stuff compared to just submitting a proposal on Upwork. 01:29:12:07 - 01:29:35:18 Speaker 2 And it is, but it also compounds and gives you more value, whereas Upwork proposal responding is just kind of spinning your wheels. And even if you apply all of these great freelancing techniques, you're still in this saturated marketplace where you're surrounded with commoditized competition in an audience of people looking for commoditized work. So I think that's I guess it's just interesting, interesting to consider if. 01:29:35:18 - 01:30:13:01 Speaker 1 You think, you know, I just thought about there's a few scrappy things I might even try to do, too. Like, say you're getting work on Upwork and you want to maybe eventually do something like let's talk in a blueprint well, there's nothing keeping you from putting together a handful of like notion docs that you make public that are like how I work or my process or something like that, that when you get a inquiry on Upwork, you write back and say, Hey, you know, thanks so much already and blah, blah, blah, you might be interested in this business that I've, you know, that that kind of guides you through what it's like working together and 01:30:13:01 - 01:30:36:21 Speaker 1 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's the kind of material that largely will go in to a lot of the automated email stuff should you go down that path in the future. Because like you said, a lot of us, we probably are always tackling the same common questions from would be clients about how we work, how we work, what we do, blah blah, blah blah blah. 01:30:36:21 - 01:30:57:09 Speaker 1 Like a lot of the what I teach and, and the blueprint is just like offloading a lot of that stuff, a lot of that trust building stuff to an automated system that can just drip out and paste that out on autopilot so that by the time they do come to your, you know, by the time they are ready to get on a call with you, they already know you're the real deal. 01:30:57:18 - 01:31:39:12 Speaker 1 They know how you do stuff like they trust you. They they largely trust you in your process and your your experience. So that really it's just a matter of negotiating details about, you know, like, you know, the stuff about the project that the unique stuff. But there's nothing like you can extrapolate some of that content now into, like I said, a public notion notion sign up for an account if don't have one yet, create a page, add some cool stuff to your format it nicely, make it public, and then just start dropping this stuff into your, you know what what happens when you when you get a new project inquiry on on Upwork or something 01:31:39:12 - 01:32:08:16 Speaker 1 like that's the kind of stuff that marks you out as a professional. You've Got your shit together. It looks like you've got like a thing on like what to expect working together. Like that's kind of stuff that if I see that and I'm hiring, you know, looking at hiring somebody, that immediately impresses me because it shows like if they're that methodical Now, my expectation, even though it might be false, is that they're going to be really on top of their on top of the game when it comes to actually working with me. 01:32:08:16 - 01:32:23:06 Speaker 2 So I have a couple of things that I know I want to try to get your take on before you get off. Do you have before I blow you up with questions from the chat and from Typeform, do you have any Brennan that you called out to yourself and Typeform that you want to be sure you specifically address before I ask you this? 01:32:23:07 - 01:32:46:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, so let me go through this. So we already talked about like that. I want to get into John Walter's question, but I think we kind of did that one. We were I was on my road mapping soapbox because he was asking about the Do you proposals waste of time if they're not accepted and so on. One thing I do want to talk about, which is Jason's question about managing the inherent sting rejection. 01:32:46:00 - 01:33:15:10 Speaker 1 So Jason asked about how do you manage the inherent sting rejection, which basically if you if you're too expensive for potential clients, that comes to charge charging higher prices, especially with something with a less financial ROI like executive coaching. So it's a good question. And one to be honest, I don't know if I really thought through all that much, but I want to try thinking it through now, which is I've always seen it as like a in a way, a badge of honor. 01:33:15:10 - 01:33:38:13 Speaker 1 If like I go so upmarket that I can't help everyone, Like not everyone kind of can afford what is I do. I've always seen that, I guess in a weird way is like that should be a natural thing we want to get to, right? Like we want to be that premium provider who doesn't want to be the luxury product. 01:33:40:03 - 01:34:24:10 Speaker 1 But but I kind of read between the lines what Jason said. I think I think there's something be said about like, we want to help people. You know, I think most of us are inherently really good people who want to help whoever, whoever we can. And my thinking around this has been and this is how I've kind of expressed it, you know, over time has been now that I've written a lot that I've made publicly available online, I found myself when in a position where somebody wants to work together in some way, but either I'm not bring on clients or I think they just I know it wouldn't work out financially for them. 01:34:24:10 - 01:34:56:12 Speaker 1 I love like just linking people to stuff I've done and like articles I've written in depth guides and so on and saying, hey, like, you know, probably realistically not going to be able to help you on this, but I don't want to leave you in the cold. So like, here's some stuff I recommend. So like recommend reading this, this is basically a lot of the consulting gigs I do are effectively dramatic blog post readings of things I've talked about in the past where I implement what I've publicly talked about elsewhere, like what you should be doing. 01:34:56:20 - 01:35:13:11 Speaker 1 So use this as a way to kind of figure out what your scope needs to be, what you should be doing. And then I'll also sometimes recommend a few people who might be able to help them. So freelancers who I know and trust and I don't know, I think like that that puts you in a really good position where you're rejecting them. 01:35:13:11 - 01:35:53:09 Speaker 1 But it's a really good rejection because you're not just saying like, go away. You're saying, I appreciate that you came to me. I really respect that and I thank you for that. I don't think it'll work, but here's some alternatives for you. So I think if you can figure out what that is for you. Jason, like maybe a really good I don't know, like, I don't know some some really good course or something or maybe a few books on like being a great executive that you might recommend people that could be something good and maybe, maybe in a year they are ready to engage with you because they can't afford you at that point, and 01:35:53:16 - 01:36:17:07 Speaker 1 they're more likely then to come back if how you left them, then if and this is why it's also good to do the whole authority bill and stuff, because you can you can get these people now on your to be on your weekly newsletter or whatever, and they're now like, you're not just ditching them, you're giving them value, just not maybe the kind that they needed or wanted upfront. 01:36:17:07 - 01:36:21:08 Speaker 2 Do you have any others you want to be sure you answer. Can I ask you a couple that I. I want to be sure. 01:36:21:11 - 01:36:27:03 Speaker 1 Ask me a few. I'll need to leave in probably 5 minutes till just I don't have to prepare for this. 01:36:27:13 - 01:36:37:11 Speaker 2 So the two I want to be sure to get your take on, because I think I'm qualified to answer a lot of these. Once you're off though, my opinion is not quite as nice to get as yours probably, but. 01:36:38:14 - 01:36:39:01 Speaker 1 A couple. 01:36:39:01 - 01:36:55:19 Speaker 2 That I think would be really good to get your take on. Are these ones in the chat right now about difficulties with testimonials because I think that's really interesting. My girlfriend's a copywriter and I know that in the copy industry it's it's a common thing to like. People aren't so keen to say I had my sales page written by somebody else. 01:36:55:19 - 01:37:10:20 Speaker 2 And so copywriters struggle with this. So I think that one would be really good to get your take on and then someone else ask a question in the type form about niching and picking a good niche. I don't feel as qualified to do that. I have found myself in a good niche, but I don't know that I could really pick one so confidently. 01:37:10:20 - 01:37:21:15 Speaker 2 So. So those are two. I'd like to certainly get your take on. Hopefully while I've been rambling, you've read these chats and you're now feeling like you can chime in. But basically the question is. 01:37:22:10 - 01:37:23:12 Speaker 1 If yeah, I have. 01:37:23:13 - 01:37:25:09 Speaker 2 Clients. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's hear Brennan's. 01:37:25:09 - 01:37:47:24 Speaker 1 Take Bob's question about the well, let's, let's tackle the testimonial one for Bob. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. So my thinking here echoes a lot. Well, I want to echo what Nate said about, like, you know, there's two type. In a perfect world, a great testimonial is going to be a micro case study that's like, higher. Brennan This is a position we were in. 01:37:48:04 - 01:38:12:24 Speaker 1 He did X, Y, Z. Now we're like this much better. Like, that's, that's, that's a that that shows money was spent more money was made. That's that's the ideal not so perfect testimonial as Brennan was really great to work with because again like again I've worked with nice people but I haven't always succeeded. Nice people that make sense. 01:38:13:23 - 01:38:52:02 Speaker 1 So I'm always looking for testimonials that reflect outcomes. So what you could do, because I think especially like you mentioned Zach here with your partner being a copywriter where, you know, Remy said he doesn't want to, I think he said this publicly so I can say it. I was talking to him once about how he was saying that he's like, so of these emails that are sent to my list that are about like, you know, what it's like to be brought up as a as a young, geeky Indian kid were written by a Kansan woman, like a woman from Kansas. 01:38:53:12 - 01:39:17:14 Speaker 1 And like, that's the kind of stuff that I think you were getting at. Zach with the sales line. I think I think I think it's I think it's enough to say, like you obviously should be privy to some outcome based data. You obviously know why they came to the you know, to to begin with. You can be ambiguous, I think as long as you you can have a nice story and say like, you know, you don't need a name, obviously a logo and a name. 01:39:18:07 - 01:39:38:06 Speaker 1 It's going to be great. But, you know, I think I think we're all aware that sometimes there's sensitivity around that. So you might not be able to get that. So I would just say like, can I can I still capture this? But I won't attribute it to you because what people want to see is the process at play. 01:39:38:08 - 01:39:58:13 Speaker 1 They want to see, well, you know, what was like What was life before you hire Zach? Zach does his thing. What's life like now? And that's what people are. They want to see themselves in somebody else's shoes. And yeah, the believability thing is much better when it's an actual person that has like a LinkedIn profile you can check out. 01:39:59:07 - 01:40:22:08 Speaker 1 But when all else fails, the story works too. So I would I would say that I'd also point you to series A has a really good I don't know if it's an e-book or if it's a just an article or something on testimonial gathering. It's probably the best resource I've seen for getting testimonials. What to make sure you put you ask for a testimonial. 01:40:22:15 - 01:40:42:06 Speaker 1 A lot of it is, I think like. I think, Nick added, which is sometimes you could just instead of just saying like waiting for the testimonial to come to you, you can preempt the testimonial and then just sign off from your client too. And I definitely check out Shawn D'Souza's. I forgot the name, but it's something about testimonial. 01:40:42:06 - 01:40:42:13 Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll. 01:40:42:13 - 01:40:49:04 Speaker 2 Gather this up, guys. Send this after. 01:40:49:04 - 01:40:52:21 Speaker 1 Okay. So the other one was about positioning or niching, right? 01:40:53:03 - 01:41:10:07 Speaker 2 Yeah. Let me ask you the broad niche one, if I could, and then we'll zoom in to Arena, since I think the broader one would be good to start with. So Priya had asked, how do I zero in on a profitable niche that clients will happily pay for? I've had some success with helping clients with content creation, landing page development and email marketing and had multiple five months. 01:41:10:07 - 01:41:30:16 Speaker 2 But I've been able to sustain that because when a client goes from 2000 to $4 month payment, they get restless and discontinue. I've not been able to find one service the clients will pay good money for on a continuous basis. So there's kind of two questions, but I think that the broad that I'd like to surface is like, how do I pick a niche for my presenting business? 01:41:32:01 - 01:41:32:17 Speaker 2 Because that I've seen. 01:41:32:20 - 01:42:04:08 Speaker 1 I'm really I'm against picking ish. The reason I'm against it is I think a lot of people misconstrue it as a transformative business. It's altering. The way I look at it is you thing I think is inherently a marketing thing. So what that means is practically, let's go back to the blueprint method since it makes more sense. Explain. 01:42:04:08 - 01:42:30:18 Speaker 1 There you have you have you have a channel. You have like people come to you with this problem. They fit into this profile, they're in this industry, whatever that leads to you, that leads to working with you, Zac or me, Brennan or whoever. There's zero reason why you can't have multiple roads that reach you. Each of these roads could be fully independent of each other. 01:42:31:23 - 01:42:49:07 Speaker 1 Back in the plans couple days, I actually had a side website that made plan scope that was plan scope for agencies that all led to the exact software project. The reason it did is because an agency owner once told me point blank, anything that works for a freelancer is not going to work for us, even though it's project management. 01:42:49:07 - 01:43:16:17 Speaker 1 I mean, it's just a difference of maybe you have more users than the freelancer. It's pretty much the same product. But I realized I had to have two separate marketing funnels that were finished. This one targeted agencies, this one targeted freelancers, this one spoke freelancer, this one spoke agencies. This one had agency testimonials. This one had freelancer testimonials and they were didn't because a freelancer, if all they're seeing is stuff from like giant teams, they're going to think I'm at the wrong place. 01:43:17:03 - 01:43:42:10 Speaker 1 So my thinking is, instead of thinking in terms of to think in terms of disparate marketing funnels and each of these funnels is effectively a niche because again, it's what is missing. I think when it comes to like selling services, I think it's front loading. What happens in our proposals when we say roadmap proposal, we're nation down, We're saying, here's the problem, here's how we're going to solve it. 01:43:42:10 - 01:44:10:21 Speaker 1 This is why we're good at solving it. That's all the stuff of niching. And when we incorporate that into getting clients, we're just frontloading all that. So that usually materializes in our sales discussions and our proposals into the stuff that leads imminent. So my big thinking around this is you don't need it, say as of Monday next week, I am only working with this kind of client, this kind of need and doing this kind of thing that's risky. 01:44:10:21 - 01:44:32:10 Speaker 1 Like why, why do that unless it really makes sense. Instead, start thinking in terms of clients Come to me this way. That's what they see. But we can also have the general purpose just looking for, you know, normal rails. Freelancer Why retire that too? Like we can have both channels. And anyhow, eventually maybe this one is going to be more profitable. 01:44:33:12 - 01:44:54:14 Speaker 1 We amplify that, we really focus on that and then we start to retire. Maybe the ones that aren't our is performing. But I don't think that we need to drastically reshape how we identify as business owners. I think instead it's just a matter of having these really focused marketing funnels, if that makes sense. 01:44:55:02 - 01:45:16:07 Speaker 2 Yeah, I suppose like if you go on a podcast and you talk about how to achieve X, Y or Z desired end result, you didn't shout from the rooftops, This is my new niche. You just provided some value about a subject. And so anyone who liked that and found it valuable and wants to hire you to help with it, you are the best fit for that thing for them. 01:45:16:13 - 01:45:27:02 Speaker 2 You didn't say this is my niche. You didn't necessarily build a whole website for it, or maybe you did if it has a certain amount of viability, but you effectively niche down without niching down. 01:45:27:07 - 01:45:48:09 Speaker 1 In that kind of context. Yes, that's exactly it. Exactly. And that's that's I think because again, I think I think it's intimidating for a lot of people I've heard over the years, like the idea of an easy down as I can. It's it's the same question of like do I give up the good thing I've kind of got with Upwork to go all in on this authority based regeneration thing. 01:45:48:09 - 01:46:25:06 Speaker 1 It's like you don't need to like, you can safely do that. You can safely transition away from Upwork to your own needs. When you hit that critical mass could safely get away from like these low ball, like not making as much money. Ways of expressing yourself to clients when this channel where you're selling Brennan's productized massive moneymaking things like when that would that's really doing well and people are coming in that's super process driven and you've got it all dialed in yeah then then decide to willingly retire everything else. 01:46:25:06 - 01:46:49:00 Speaker 1 But I think I think a lot of these people think I'm ending the work week Friday as a general practitioner of my, of my skill. And I'm starting on Monday as a specialist and oh my God, that's scary because what if I don't? I can't find enough people or something like that who need me. And that's really intimidating and it causes a lot of people not to actually ever, you know, move forward. 01:46:50:14 - 01:47:23:05 Speaker 2 So I would say that if you're trying to think of what niche to target, I one of the hardest things is that you get into this brain space where you have to like, plan and decide. And I think Brennan's going to have to jump in a second. But I think that if you can look at your past projects and the ways that you've helped past clients or close to what you're doing now, future projects and ways you might help clients, that's kind of like a way to tease out what a good service offering that is Niched might be like if if there's a certain type of work that was closer to the money and easier 01:47:23:05 - 01:47:44:11 Speaker 2 to sell or easier to demonstrate the ROI of your service, that's the kind of thing that would be good to play with or a certain type of client who, by them hiring you, saved them a lot more money or it was just a lot more important to their business. Like my example with podcasters, it's hard to have a podcast without a website versus authors might not need a website so much. 01:47:44:11 - 01:47:59:12 Speaker 2 And so that might tell you, okay, maybe authors are going to be the best fit. So not so much identity driven, but getting to play with service offering. So let me put it back to you, Brendan, since you have go in a second, how do you want to how do you want to go from here in terms of talking Segway, etc.? 01:48:00:21 - 01:48:24:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, well let me I just saw Nate's follow up. Let me jump on that real quick. I am going to go in about a minute. But Nate, to your point, yeah, you can absolutely have slash for accountants or something that that's you know, dial is in your value prop and maybe something some special service you have just for accountants or something. 01:48:24:00 - 01:48:47:04 Speaker 1 I mean, that's a crappy analogy, but you know what? You can you can do it that way. You could have a separate site. I mean, absolutely. Just have it on a have it on a landing page, have it on a sub site slash accountants slash process, slash, whatever, pricing, slash, whatever you want. But yeah, I think that that's perfectly fine. 01:48:47:04 - 01:49:06:11 Speaker 1 But yeah, no, I do need a jump early. Well I guess on time but kind of earlier but I just want to thank you all so much. I know I didn't get through everyone's questions, but we're going to be doing more of this that Zach and I've been talking about having kind of a regular powwow type thing like this hopefully was helpful. 01:49:06:18 - 01:49:25:00 Speaker 1 I used to do these a lot way back years ago with my wife and I always loved them. And it I honestly, Zach, it's so much easier doing this to the cast. So thank you. And now Zach's been awesome. I know so many of you have already, like I said, met him. Now you've put a face and a voice to name, but you've probably met him in your inbox. 01:49:25:00 - 01:49:45:07 Speaker 1 We've got a lot of things that we're going to be doing this year, so thanks for the support and this has been a lot of fun and I'm sorry, I need to go early. But you know, it is getting late here in England, but I will. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the next one. And Zach. Yeah, if you're if you're cool with hanging out of hang hangout kind of getting through the rest. 01:49:46:02 - 01:49:53:00 Speaker 1 Yeah, but Art, Evan is good seeing you. And I'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye bye. 01:49:53:12 - 01:49:57:02 Speaker 2 So I, want to dig a bit more into Nate's point up, but by Brennan. 01:49:57:10 - 01:50:01:05 Speaker 1 I need to see you as the. Oh, yeah. And really assign you as the host. 01:50:02:16 - 01:50:32:13 Speaker 2 Well, hopefully he did can. You guys can still hear me. Am I the host now? Okay, so a couple of things for Nate for your point. Something that Laura, I actually first heard it from her as like a common thing Laura done. She'll often do vanity URLs for things, and so she'll just buy up like free design course dot com and how that redirects to her specific landing page and the cool sort of side benefit of you doing this. 01:50:32:13 - 01:51:06:03 Speaker 2 If like to Brennan's point of having something that is targeted towards agencies versus freelancers, even if it's the same product, like for those of you who follow Brennan broadly and outside of freelancing, you know that his whole thing is personalizing the user experience and stuff. And so by having a landing page that is specific to somebody whose needs you now have a lot more segmentation information about them so that you can like even if the service offering is identical, you're able to have custom tailored messaging on their needs, which will obviously increase your conversion rates quite a bit. 01:51:06:03 - 01:51:34:18 Speaker 2 So there's some definitely cool things that you can do with that as well. Looks like John is popping off CAGR and I'm so yeah, I guess I can run through the the Q&A here. I have a few. Do you guys does anybody have burning things that's fresh in the mind. That was not submitted? Because my thought is that for what we don't cover today that was submitted, I can just go through and record video responses and I can put them on the blogs and meet you privately whatever you want to do. 01:51:34:18 - 01:51:58:09 Speaker 2 But if there's anything that's like fresh and really relevant, we should prioritize that for today. So anybody want to put that in the chat or just unmute? Otherwise, I'll just go through the Typeform ones. All right. No one has unmuted, so I will Typeform. There will be a more stagnated or choppy cadence since there aren't two of us and I can't read while Brendon's talking. 01:51:58:19 - 01:52:36:10 Speaker 2 So let me just go from the bottom up again. Choppy, choppy cadence. That's what's happening right now. So I've actually got quite a few of these answered. Diana, are you feel or Diana Sorry? Are you feeling more clear on those kind of road mapping challenges based on the back and forth we did earlier here muted, by the way? 01:52:36:10 - 01:53:05:16 Speaker 3 I think so. Pretty much comes down to some recall, like who was it, Zach? Eight years ago, someone had a really good suggestion of doing a Zoom video that walks the client through what they can expect or think. When someone is asking about having more on camera, that's a really excellent opportunity because I am also a client of Laura's and she does I suppose she sends out those PDFs ahead. 01:53:05:16 - 01:53:25:02 Speaker 3 Her whole process is laid out. Since I met your clients, I can't remember which product she sent that out with. And that can possibly an opportunity for you guys to bring on Laura to talk about her processes and how she does it, because it is very laid out and it is very clear and perhaps I incorporate that with the program somehow that would be a great asset to I think a lot of people that are here right now. 01:53:25:19 - 01:53:33:08 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a great idea. I'll put that down. 01:53:33:08 - 01:53:38:22 Speaker 3 Yes. Into your question. I think that we all talked it out and I got some answers from there. Thank you. 01:53:38:22 - 01:54:02:19 Speaker 2 Cool. All right, then. I'll keep scrolling through these. So and John earlier asked and that we kind of cover this, but it'll just be a quick recap. He has a strong specialization on a technical niche. He's a real time systems expert, which if you're still here, John, I tried to Google it. I don't know what a real time systems expert is. 01:54:02:19 - 01:54:09:00 Speaker 2 I couldn't determine from googling, but the main thing is that it it doesn't necessarily have like. 01:54:09:17 - 01:54:10:07 Speaker 1 A. 01:54:10:20 - 01:54:36:09 Speaker 2 Financial consequence, and this is kind of that. qa1 as well, Like if you can't tie it to a financial takeaway. But the the thing to try to draw these sorts of situations back, if you can't easily tie the closeness to the money, I think comes to looking at the cost of having something go wrong or at piece of mind from knowing that the first person you hire is going to execute it successfully. 01:54:36:09 - 01:54:51:03 Speaker 2 I think that a lot of the time if somebody wants a project done and they have a few months to do it and it's going to take a few months to do, then that project being a failure the first time through means that all of their business for. 01:54:51:03 - 01:54:51:17 Speaker 1 The year. 01:54:52:13 - 01:55:21:03 Speaker 2 Have been derailed and the cost of that is very high. And so having having somebody who they can trust to do a really good job is always going to be inherently valuable. Even if you can't get really elevated by attaching it to close to the money things. But the other kind of deeper thing that I wanted to touch on that I think is really important to consider as you're going through freelancer great is that and if you're not interested, that's cool. 01:55:21:03 - 01:55:29:02 Speaker 2 Don't feel like you have to do this. But I think it's important to consider that if you really want to have your rate go way high to the point. 01:55:29:11 - 01:55:30:00 Speaker 1 You could do it. 01:55:30:17 - 01:55:51:00 Speaker 2 Unimaginable things like Brennan's weekly rate of 20 grand, right? Like, I think you have to embrace the idea that the scope of your work is going to have to change in order to get there and that it can't be you doing whatever it is that you're doing now with some sort of marketing verbiage, layer layered on to it. 01:55:51:13 - 01:56:15:00 Speaker 2 And that that alone will get you to the point where you're charging 20 grand a week and instead the type of work you do for your clients is probably going to morph. And that doesn't mean that if you're doing what was it, real time? Real time. If you are a real time systems expert, knowing you do about real time systems, it doesn't mean that you have to totally ditch that and become some Internet marketer. 01:56:15:09 - 01:56:33:17 Speaker 2 But what it might mean is that you look at all of your knowledge as a real time systems and ask how it is affecting the bottom line of your clients and how you can kind of lean more into the part that is closer to the money and if you want to stick to being a real time systems expert, you don't want to be close to the money. 01:56:33:17 - 01:56:35:24 Speaker 2 And and that's like very specifically what you want. 01:56:36:12 - 01:56:37:02 Speaker 1 Then fine. 01:56:37:21 - 01:56:40:23 Speaker 2 But it might mean that there is. 01:56:41:05 - 01:56:42:03 Speaker 1 A lower. 01:56:42:03 - 01:56:58:20 Speaker 2 Ceiling to what you can charge. And I've experienced this with myself, like when I first started my freelancing business, I just wanted to be a web designer. I didn't want to do development. I just wanted to make pretty designs. And then over the years, I kind of had to morph because I was solo. People want their websites built. 01:56:58:21 - 01:57:21:09 Speaker 2 Obviously you got to build them. And then more recently, the kind of work that I'll do for clients is often more marketing related. And so I will run the marketing for a launch for a client and make 50 grand from this one project. Whereas if I were just designing a pretty sales page like I did before, maybe it would have been a $10,000 project if I had been really sternly saying, I just want to do design. 01:57:21:09 - 01:57:55:01 Speaker 2 I don't want to morph the scope of what I'm doing. It would be really hard to to raise the rates that way because you kind of have to get to that example Brendan gave being the one who does the the bears for Coca Cola. But even then that's, that's close to the money in a different way because Coca-Cola is gigantic and so some really nice bears increase conversions by 1% for drinking more Coke or whatever you know so that's just one little aside that I kind of wanted to share this as I've been going through your freelancing rate to sort of see what my my thoughts are on it and how I want to improve 01:57:55:01 - 01:58:10:23 Speaker 2 it and stuff. That's been something that kind of stuck out to me. Are there of you here who the idea of that, the idea of morphing your scope to be closer to the money sounds bad. Like it sounds like it would take away the thing you like about freelancing or that you like about. 01:58:11:14 - 01:58:16:17 Speaker 1 Your work, your job. 01:58:16:17 - 01:58:19:20 Speaker 2 I will take the silence to mean now. They all think it's a great idea. 01:58:20:19 - 01:58:24:24 Speaker 1 I think I think I'm an economy. 01:58:24:24 - 01:58:57:03 Speaker 3 The challenge is that I feel like to do that I need to have a better productized services that are like really confident I'm going to like deliver that ROI and just building that that confidence and seeing that it's going to be there is I think, the gap and maybe it's just a mindset thing, right? But I am starting to see it in some of the businesses that I work for in terms of content marketing in the form of like SEO, like really bringing in new traffic, bringing in new leads, etc. and then it's easier to calculate that ROI for for those clients. 01:58:57:20 - 01:59:01:02 Speaker 2 Can you remind us of Peter, what you, what you do? 01:59:02:22 - 01:59:28:07 Speaker 3 Yes, I do content marketing sort of as an agency model. I'm starting to bring on freelancers to help me with with all my clients. But that really ranges everywhere from, you know, blogs and SEO to email and marketing automation and even like Google Analytics app implementation and Facebook marketing or advertising. So I really runs the marketing gamut right now. 01:59:29:16 - 01:59:29:21 Speaker 1 Well. 01:59:30:03 - 01:59:57:18 Speaker 2 It's interesting to hear your take on this because your your job is so close to the money anyway. Something something that I think a lot with that mindset point about is let's say, let's say I just design a pretty sales page for a client, but it does increase conversions. It's a conversion oriented sales page. And let's say they pay me, let's say they pay me more even in this hypothetical, let's say they me more for this design than it generated beyond the norm. 01:59:58:19 - 02:00:19:12 Speaker 2 So let's say they paid me $15,000 and it only increased their launch revenue by $10,000. It could be easy to look at and say, okay, well, this is a failure. It didn't increase. Like they didn't pay me less than it generated. Here's the thing. They have the sales page forever. Now, this sales page increases all of their future launches. 02:00:19:12 - 02:00:48:15 Speaker 2 And this applies to things like funnels to if you build out a funnel for them and that funnel doesn't increase revenue beyond what they paid for it within a month or a couple of weeks or whatever, like they they're going to be generating leads from this funnel for just kind of indefinitely. Like I have clients whose funnels are still generating just kind of like money on a printing press for like a decade if it's the right kind of evergreen content. 02:00:48:15 - 02:00:57:03 Speaker 2 So I don't know. I don't know if I don't know if you can think of any situations where you those limiting beliefs, do you have any come to mind where you're like, not sure that the ROI would be them? 02:00:57:03 - 02:01:21:07 Speaker 3 I think with the marketing automation funnels, it's a little bit harder to sometimes it feels to give them a clear answer Why? Although honestly, even there I could say like, Hey, like whatever you had before that was a conversion as best as we can tell. And now we're seeing a higher conversion. So you're going to be able to see that, you know, our live for a long time to come with like SEO production. 02:01:21:07 - 02:01:41:04 Speaker 3 We're the way I always present it is, you know, I say, Hey, I built out this content marketing plan for you. You know, if we create three or four new blogs per month, this is how much extra traffic you can bring in based on like your your product value or lifetime customer lifetime value. You know, this is how much extra money you're bringing in every month. 02:01:41:04 - 02:01:54:20 Speaker 3 And that's actually my easiest ROI presentation because I can show to somebody within like an investment of like a thousand or $2,000 per month that they could be getting, you know, $10,000 extra per month going forward for every thousand that they put in. 02:01:56:08 - 02:02:01:02 Speaker 2 And so what you said that the one that you're struggling with more than the one is the funnel one. 02:02:03:08 - 02:02:29:23 Speaker 3 Yeah. Just because I haven't, uh, I guess long term had that as a consistent product and sell it as a service. Okay. Because normally I have like engagement instead of just bring in like, hey, I need marketing support, right? And so I want to transition from being the hourly hire to, you know, someone who can be like, Look, if you help me, this is the service I'm going to offer you and the conversions that we're going to create. 02:02:29:23 - 02:02:34:02 Speaker 3 And that's why I'm worth 10,000 a week or a month or whatever. Okay. 02:02:34:14 - 02:02:35:17 Speaker 1 Well, something don't. 02:02:36:06 - 02:02:50:18 Speaker 2 Tell me if it was to you. Oh, Peter, but something I was recommending to somebody via the inbox recently, because it sounds like what you're experiencing is kind of maybe imposter syndrome, but like, if it's not imposter syndrome, because that kind of implies a limiting belief system. It might just. 02:02:50:18 - 02:02:51:16 Speaker 1 Be, you know. 02:02:52:01 - 02:03:09:24 Speaker 2 Being kind of new and not knowing for sure and wanting to make sure that the client gets good ROI. I'm with this client that I run the launches for. When I did the first one for her, I kind of was in the same shoes as you. I had been on the periphery of doing conversion oriented stuff, but I didn't have like a track record. 02:03:09:24 - 02:03:25:16 Speaker 2 I didn't have enough experience that I felt like I could just say, Yeah, for sure, I'll charge 20 grand a week and I can definitely provide an hour away. And I'm super confident about that because I've done it a million times before. Instead, it was a client who I had done things like sales page design for where it's like you peripheral stuff. 02:03:25:16 - 02:03:48:13 Speaker 2 It's not her saying, Zach run my entire launch. And in her case, what I did is I charged a lot of my rates as a percentage of performance and that was mostly for me and my own insecurity and my desire to make sure she got an ROI. And of course, I'm in a pretty comfortable financial situation. So if it totally bombed and I didn't get paid, it wouldn't like it wouldn't ruin me. 02:03:49:02 - 02:04:11:16 Speaker 2 So it's a very high risk thing. But maybe you could think of a way if you're struggling with confidence, to still charge a flat rate, but to have a lot of your payment be incentivized by performance. And this is contingent like there's a big ass asterisk, which is that you need to be in a in an industry where you can where you have performance based metrics. 02:04:11:16 - 02:04:32:14 Speaker 2 This is really easy for both, Peter, because we're talking about like literally conversion increasing or decreasing things, but that is something that's been helpful for me with my own mindset is find a way where you can charge a flat rate, get paid, but then also find a way to to charge a little bit based on performance. And that doesn't necessarily even have to be increase conversions. 02:04:32:14 - 02:04:49:05 Speaker 2 It could be the fact that, you know, you've built this thing out and it is converting where something didn't before. If they didn't have a funnel before, then it's kind of easy to demonstrate the extra money in their pocket. But I don't know. I don't know if you have any thoughts on how this would be helpful or if it sounds more intimidating and risky. 02:04:49:22 - 02:04:50:19 Speaker 2 What are your thoughts? 02:04:52:08 - 02:05:09:23 Speaker 3 No, I could definitely see ways to to do that. And I think the the I think the biggest business hurdle I have right now in any case, would just be finding more clients that are not coming from a platform like market or higher or TOMS. Our you know because they're I'm always limited to like a per hourly basis. 02:05:10:08 - 02:05:26:19 Speaker 3 I was definitely some upper limit like marketer hires trying to get me to decrease my rates. So I'm like, hell no. Yes, we're not doing that. So so yeah, I mean, and that's that's why I'm here to figure that out. And I think I'm on a path to, to do that. 02:05:26:19 - 02:05:49:00 Speaker 2 And something that might work really well for you is with the clients you're working with now. You can do what you're doing for them. Keep of the impact it has on performance and the case study that you might create from that can be the basis for content marketing. And so if you do some SEO for somebody, you build out a funnel for somebody and it works. 02:05:49:14 - 02:06:04:02 Speaker 2 You can create blog posts and go on podcasts and create videos around why I did this and what the results were and how you can do it too. And then it kind of builds this like feedback loop where you're doing more of the same work that you were talking about, getting more of those kinds of results, that sort of thing. 02:06:04:07 - 02:06:06:15 Speaker 2 So that might work well as you make this transition. 02:06:07:16 - 02:06:21:15 Speaker 3 Absolutely. Yeah, that's I agree that's sort of on the game plan now, especially like I do have several clients where I'm looking results for. And so just monitoring that and see what happens is going to be the the case study. 02:06:22:04 - 02:06:22:13 Speaker 1 Cool. 02:06:23:10 - 02:06:48:13 Speaker 2 All right. I'll keep scrolling through these. Thanks for being open to being on this hot seat. So so Gunter has asked some interesting ones about like the state of the world. And I and I know that in like copywriting, a lot of people are concerned about AI, but I think that so here's the exact question How does A.I. change our value proposition? 02:06:49:02 - 02:07:17:08 Speaker 2 Do you have recommendations or experiences with being compared to what I could deliver? And the context is that as a business and technical consultant, the value proposition and potentially the niches might change quite a bit once A.I. technologies are used often on a daily basis. So I personally have used AI quite a bit. I've used it. I do music production, so I have used the the painting AI is to create like album art for my songs. 02:07:17:08 - 02:07:36:00 Speaker 2 I've used Chad GPT to try to aid some of my development and even use Chad CBT to try to give me some ideas for stuff to make on Thanksgiving. And I've not been especially impressed in any of these contexts because the I think it's the way that I usually describe it as it is now, which is not going to be for very long. 02:07:36:00 - 02:07:52:01 Speaker 2 It's going to get obviously exponentially better. And that's the concern isn't where it is now, it's where it will be. But the challenge that I've had with it now is that I will be very confidently delivered wrong information. It will it will say, here's what you should do. You should set the oven to this temperature and cook over this long. 02:07:52:01 - 02:08:09:21 Speaker 2 And I'm like, this is how right turkey should cook for longer than that, surely. And then I'll like, go fact checking. It would be wrong. But I think that as it develops and that's less of an issue, the issue that will probably be remaining for a long time and the last one to solve is that of like creativity. 02:08:10:15 - 02:08:37:23 Speaker 2 Right now, all of these artistic eyes are creating an approximation of what looks really freaking cool. But then you'll have things like someone's head is missing. But if you squint at the painting, it looks really, really good. And I think that if you're a developer, it could feel threatening that that any I could code up a really good app or if you're a copywriter it could feel threatening that an I could write a really nice blog post or sales page. 02:08:38:04 - 02:08:58:19 Speaker 2 But I think that the application of AI strategically employing AI to kind of line up to your big vision that you're helping the client create, I think that that's going to be the last domino that falls. I don't know what happens if that domino falls, I would think that that would be quite threatening for not just freelancers, but just it would destabilize kind of the status quo of the world. 02:08:58:19 - 02:09:25:08 Speaker 2 But I think that, at least in my opinion instead of being threatened by AI asking yourself if there are ways that you can enhance the value delivery that you're offering with the use of AI and kind of try to put yourself less in that cog place and more in the conductor place, I think that that's probably the best way to to not have it threaten you, but feel worth that you do is copy and paste work a lot of the time. 02:09:25:08 - 02:09:26:08 Speaker 2 Or a cog type. 02:09:26:08 - 02:09:27:20 Speaker 1 Work like that. 02:09:27:20 - 02:09:52:23 Speaker 2 Is probably under threat at some point, but I'm not an expert on the topic, but it is a couple of sense that I wanted to throw into the run. Let me add to that. So let's see what's up next. And if anybody has questions you want to submit, I'm just going through the list, but feel free to type them in or unmute yourself while I go, okay, so I think this is a good one. 02:09:53:05 - 02:10:19:20 Speaker 2 So Marius, I'm getting to your question now. I see you there. So Marius asking, he said he has some past projects and clients, but nothing fancy. How could I demonstrate expertise without showing previous client work and testimonials? Are side projects a solution context for him? He's had only small clients in the past, like employees that wanted to launch an app or small startups. 02:10:19:20 - 02:10:44:14 Speaker 2 A couple of the apps he's built didn't even launch, so he doesn't feel great about putting those in a portfolio. And he only has a couple of testimonials, I think from smaller people is what you mean here, and that you'd like to work with larger companies that are looking to develop educational apps. So because past clients of projects are not representative where I'd like to be in the future, I'm trying to figure out how I can approach a perfect client and demonstrate expertise without a portfolio and testimonials. 02:10:45:03 - 02:11:18:06 Speaker 2 So it's a good question. I think that the probably the way I would look at it would be, well, there are two routes. There's kind of an iterative route where you say, I have my end goal, which you said educational institutions, right? Larger, larger companies that are looking to develop educational apps. And so you could do iterative where you have this big end goal and you try to gradually get yourself to be more and more relevant to that that end client, who is not currently accessible to you? 02:11:18:06 - 02:11:38:06 Speaker 2 Or you can try to go straight after it and maybe do things like side projects. I think that the end of the day when somebody who is in your target market is looking to hire you, as we talk about in the course and as we talked about today, there are a few different components. One of them is risk minimization. 02:11:38:06 - 02:12:00:06 Speaker 2 One of them is showing that you can deliver value. One of them is showing that you're an expert. So if it were me, I would probably break down what I believe my needs. Sorry, what I believe the needs are from this type of client. So if you want to unmute and tell me you could. So Morris, can you describe for these larger companies that what educational apps could you describe? 02:12:00:06 - 02:12:03:09 Speaker 2 Like what that kind of project your dream project would be like? 02:12:04:05 - 02:12:46:05 Speaker 3 Yeah, I feel like the educational apps part of it's like Nation Down because it's like mobile development, right? So iOS specifically and like I feel the needs are kind of the same everywhere. Like they need the road mapping thing, which is like a discovery process and then they need the development. And you know, some companies go about it one way, some companies go about it the other way, but it's I don't know that they have some some weird needs or specific needs other than the needs of all the other companies that do or like want to build an app. 02:12:47:13 - 02:12:55:18 Speaker 2 But you specifically want to work with them. Or if there was another company who wanted a similar app, you'd be happy to do that. One. Like, Well, I'm. 02:12:55:18 - 02:13:06:04 Speaker 3 Not at the point of like turning down plans, so I'll do it if you look at it that way. Okay. Yeah, that's just that preference of like apps. 02:13:06:13 - 02:13:17:23 Speaker 2 Okay then I would say if it were me, what I would do is try to reverse engineer either the well, in your case I'd say the type of work. So if you want to be doing educational apps for people. 02:13:18:18 - 02:13:18:23 Speaker 1 And. 02:13:20:04 - 02:13:53:19 Speaker 2 If you can get into the shoes of what someone who is hiring for that is looking for and what they're wanting to hire based on or what their problem and pain would be. And if you can also reverse engineer that large project and decide what are the kind of components that go into this and what would I need to be an expert on in order to be an obvious authority figure for this That can kind of give you some scope, like I think that the if you think about this content authority approach to marketing that Brendan talks about in the blueprint, the thing I often ask myself is like, what could I go on a 02:13:53:19 - 02:14:17:18 Speaker 2 podcast and talk about? And if you're going to go on a podcast and talk about something or write a blog post on something, you have to be an expert to some degree. But I think it can be kind of daunting because if you're if you're make if you're like kind of at zero or one and you feel that you have to be a 100% expert on everything in order to be able to work with this type of client, that's really intimidating. 02:14:17:18 - 02:14:37:00 Speaker 2 And it feels like you're never going to get there and that there's a really long runway. But what you can do is if if you know that your sort of dream client has one thing that's top of mind for them that they care about, and you can become an on that thing, you can, you know, you can talk authoritatively about that thing. 02:14:37:00 - 02:14:49:08 Speaker 2 So I'll try to I'll take a second to shut up because the problem is as the presenter, I feel a certain pressure to keep talking so you don't have to hear silence. But let me take a minute to think of an example and then I'll list it. 02:14:49:08 - 02:15:16:19 Speaker 3 All right, I'll add some new ones in the meantime that like, I feel like technically speaking, I'm able to to deliver pretty much anything. Another client, my needs, right? Because I've been doing it for a while now. I feel like where imposter syndrome comes up is like where I would go to to larger companies and be like, Yeah, I can help you develop that. 02:15:16:19 - 02:15:42:05 Speaker 3 Or I can, you know, me and contractors or man with a team or something like that. So that's, that's where I'm at right now. And I identified that as being something that blocks me from going to people. So what I'm thinking is like, how can I, can I demonstrate expertise to like larger companies, you know? And it's like. 02:15:43:06 - 02:15:43:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. 02:15:44:09 - 02:16:04:12 Speaker 2 Well, so here's the question for you. Let's say that I booked you a meeting with a larger company. I was like, Yo, later today you're going to be talking with these guys looking for an app. I told them you're really good at making apps. They're like, Oh yeah, cool. I want to talk to him. What do you need in your own heart to feel like like you would be a good fit? 02:16:04:12 - 02:16:07:06 Speaker 2 Because that's kind of what this is in your case a little bit about. 02:16:07:12 - 02:16:08:00 Speaker 1 Yeah. 02:16:08:07 - 02:16:30:21 Speaker 3 I feel like I could take it from there because if I, if I already got the introduction like, my first thing is the paid discovery, like the road mapping. And I feel like from there it's, I've never had it like where it's when self right. So my, my thing is how do I show up when I have to approach somebody else and like show up on their radar? 02:16:31:02 - 02:16:31:08 Speaker 3 Okay. 02:16:31:14 - 02:16:36:18 Speaker 2 Well, I think that's kind of the easy part. It's the easy part and the hard part. Like in this case you're saying. 02:16:36:18 - 02:16:37:17 Speaker 3 In my head is the hard. 02:16:37:17 - 02:16:38:13 Speaker 1 Part. Yeah. 02:16:39:17 - 02:16:50:00 Speaker 2 But it sounds like what you're saying is that you don't doubt that you'd be able to give them a good ROI. I do the thing you said you would do. It's just that you're not really sure how to actually get in front of them or how to pitch yourself. 02:16:50:00 - 02:17:00:07 Speaker 3 Right, right, right. And, and yeah. And if I don't have the intro for somebody, right, Because you said, hey, if, if I introduced you, then how do I demonstrate that? Right. 02:17:00:24 - 02:17:22:02 Speaker 2 So I think that if you, if you're going to go the the blueprint style content marketing style route, I would just say like if you think about your dream project and the type of thing that they would want done, what is it that that person's wanting to learn about? What are the problems are having that they're researching, and how can you become an expert on one of those products and just talk about it publicly? 02:17:22:02 - 02:17:39:23 Speaker 2 So for example, if you're building an educational app, can you give me just I don't want this to go to specific or whatever, but can you just give me when you say educational app, you mean like like Duolingo is an educational. You mean something where like people are going through educational content in the app? Yeah. Yeah. 02:17:40:02 - 02:17:53:06 Speaker 3 Okay. Yeah. And basically I could develop any app, but I have a passion for for education. I would like to contribute to that cause. Okay, so that's why I said educational apps. But like you said, it could be anything in the past has been, you know, different stuff. 02:17:53:14 - 02:18:08:10 Speaker 2 So but I think this is great. This is a really thread. So if it were me, then you have a passion about education. Awesome. I would dig a little bit into what's behind that and like where you get angry and where your passion like what are the things about educational apps that wrong that would get you a bit angry. 02:18:09:14 - 02:18:09:21 Speaker 1 And. 02:18:09:23 - 02:18:32:17 Speaker 2 Then the content that you might create becomes a little bit more obvious. So a generic example could be ten things people do wrong when building their apps or like user experience patterns that suck in educational apps that you could talk about these kinds of things. And then it's kind of a matter of finding about where it's appropriate to talk about them. 02:18:33:08 - 02:18:51:09 Speaker 2 And so them I a guest post on a, I don't know, like a learning a learning management system site. This is a bad example because it wouldn't actually be a good place to do it. But like if you know what the problems are that you could talk about that would appeal to the type of person who wants to hire you for the type of work that you want to do. 02:18:52:05 - 02:19:09:12 Speaker 2 That's kind of the process. And I think that the part about it that's difficult is, is the finding it. And I think that whenever I try to think about niching down and I try to think of the the what like education funnel apps for people in X, Y, Z niche, I think the X, Y, Z niches where it gets a little bit difficult. 02:19:09:12 - 02:19:20:04 Speaker 2 But if you if you know the general type of work you want to do or so in this case, building educational apps, thinking about content ideas and trying to immerse yourself in. 02:19:20:13 - 02:19:20:24 Speaker 1 The. 02:19:21:20 - 02:19:27:16 Speaker 2 Spectrum of like doing research as a member of that audience, trying to reach a certain result. 02:19:28:03 - 02:19:28:23 Speaker 1 Will make. 02:19:29:14 - 02:19:32:01 Speaker 2 Places that you could write a little bit more straightforward. 02:19:32:15 - 02:19:32:24 Speaker 1 And. 02:19:33:20 - 02:19:41:01 Speaker 2 And I think that might be a good place to start. But I'll just again, shut up and think if if I can give better insights, if I stop. 02:19:41:01 - 02:19:45:03 Speaker 1 Talking. Yeah. Now that's. 02:19:46:02 - 02:20:12:12 Speaker 3 That's a good idea. And I also like I think the blueprint has a good approach where it says go after the people and interview them. And I think from that you would get the insights that you were talking about. My idea was to actually start Mastermind with book publishers because I feel like if I help them, you know, get value, I don't need to be an expert in their domain adjusting to facilitate the meeting. 02:20:12:23 - 02:20:21:16 Speaker 3 I think there's value in that. And then I can get into the conversation and go and find out from, you know, true from them, from the horse's mouth. 02:20:21:16 - 02:20:22:04 Speaker 1 Like. 02:20:22:19 - 02:20:25:03 Speaker 3 What they need, what they look for, stuff like that. 02:20:25:15 - 02:20:48:22 Speaker 2 So I think for next steps on this one, we're going to do some Blueprint hangouts with Brennan. So I think explore this a bit and then add a blueprint one. Let's dig into this a bit more because I feel like where my knowledge is strongest is in leveraging my time working with clients conversions, that sort of thing. And where I don't feel like it's as strong as with like blueprint style lead generation. 02:20:48:22 - 02:21:09:02 Speaker 2 So let's dig into that one bit more then we'll thanks. I'm sure I'm going to keep coming through, but I feel like I've scrolled through. But there are still more of you here, which means people want to hear things. Does anyone want to type in some questions or thoughts that they're having or things they want addressed? And I'll just scroll through until I see things in the chat. 02:21:09:06 - 02:21:21:12 Speaker 2 And again, you can unmute yourselves. Buiter I could address your other question if you like it. Was it. Gunter Am I pronouncing it wrong? 02:21:21:12 - 02:21:26:14 Speaker 1 No, it's pretty good. Gunter Gunter I just if you want. 02:21:27:18 - 02:21:49:12 Speaker 2 So you asked about how the recent changes in the world economy change or impact the course content and recommendations. How does it change the value proposition we have as consultants? This is with regards to the recent layoffs and the market being flooded with people trying to sell consulting services or software development, freelancing, any recommendations on how to deal with that. 02:21:49:23 - 02:22:20:01 Speaker 2 So I think this one is honestly kind of straightforward. Like, I think that I think that more people starting freelancing is going to mean more cogs, and I think that there's always going to be like a dearth of conductors. And if you doubt me, go on to Upwork and create a job post trying to hire for something and look at the responses that come in, because most people are not taking the time to ask themselves what your business is trying to accomplish, how they can tie into that. 02:22:20:10 - 02:22:55:23 Speaker 2 They're just trying to be somebody who can, you know, tap on a keyboard for money per hour. So to I think that all, all the more people becoming freelancers and Ms. is going to do is create more competition at the bottom and make make the stuff in the course even more important. So I don't think I've never like I'm in a lot of say WordPress developer Facebook groups where people about how hard it is to be a WordPress developer and how there's so much competition and how everyone just wants cheap sites in element or and that has never been my experience. 02:22:56:04 - 02:23:22:08 Speaker 2 I even like even before I did marketing stuff for clients, a big one of my niches is financial advisors and I just make brochure sites for financial advisors and they pay me like 15 grand to make a brochure site. And so when I see these posts about people talking about how no one wants to pay for a brochure site, like it's just not true, but it's about certain types of people never wanting to pay for a brochure site, but other people will. 02:23:22:08 - 02:23:57:00 Speaker 2 And in the case of, say, somebody like a financial advisor, if I build a website, a brochure site for a financial advisor and their typical client is worth $18,000 a year to them, it's really easy for them to justify the importance of my website. And if they view a website as integral to their business and they want a website done right and they don't know anything about building websites, so they just want to find someone who know has done who will do a good job, then it's really not that hard to be a good fit for them, even without being cost to money, even without doing a lot marketing stuff. 02:23:57:00 - 02:24:13:23 Speaker 2 So I think like there are a lot of things that I haven't done very well as a freelancer and. I think that there if I had done the stuff that Brendan teaches in your freelancing rate, if I'd done the stuff he teaches in the blueprint, I would have been able to cut out a lot of years of struggle from my freelancing journey. 02:24:15:06 - 02:24:19:05 Speaker 2 But one thing I have done well is kind of gotten to the point where I can be. 02:24:19:20 - 02:24:20:04 Speaker 1 That. 02:24:20:13 - 02:24:48:07 Speaker 2 Conductor strategic consultant for the clients, where I'm I'm collaborating with them, I'm directing things, I'm not showing up asking them what they want me to do, but instead I'm doing the Socratic questioning. Brendan teachers and freelancing rate to like get at the goals of the business, get at what their core priorities are, and telling them how I think we should go about that and that there are like subtle, subtle psychological things that come into play here where if, if someone asks me for a feature that I don't think makes sense. 02:24:48:14 - 02:24:49:04 Speaker 1 For. 02:24:49:04 - 02:25:11:16 Speaker 2 Their goals, I'll just tell them. I think it's a bad idea and I'll tell them why. And I think that there are things like that, like being confident enough that you know how to help people based on their goals. With your skills. That alone is highly valuable. And I don't think that a bunch more people who are, you know, able to have a keyboard is really threatens that if anything. 02:25:11:16 - 02:25:17:06 Speaker 2 It makes it even more viable to do that. I don't know if this is a cop out answer, but I wouldn't be too worried about it. 02:25:19:03 - 02:25:19:09 Speaker 1 Yeah. 02:25:20:22 - 02:25:36:09 Speaker 3 I, I also think that that it's quite relates to the question of mind any question because also what what I heard and I think that's kind of right is that that in the future it's. 02:25:37:10 - 02:25:37:16 Speaker 1 Quite. 02:25:37:18 - 02:25:43:19 Speaker 3 More important to be someone brings value where. 02:25:44:01 - 02:25:46:02 Speaker 1 Your unique perspective. 02:25:46:02 - 02:25:46:23 Speaker 3 Is relevant. 02:25:47:18 - 02:25:50:00 Speaker 1 And compared to. 02:25:51:18 - 02:25:55:18 Speaker 3 Works that you do that that's easily comparable to others. 02:25:56:23 - 02:25:59:10 Speaker 1 You can say. 02:25:59:10 - 02:26:04:02 Speaker 3 Which come comes down to two questions or having a cock shop. 02:26:04:02 - 02:26:09:12 Speaker 1 Or or a conductor. 02:26:09:12 - 02:26:17:04 Speaker 3 Because being conducted essentially means your perspective is your unique perspective perspective or your. 02:26:17:10 - 02:26:26:20 Speaker 1 Unique mixture of experience is helpful. So to say yeah, and it, it just. 02:26:27:12 - 02:26:28:10 Speaker 3 Combined with. 02:26:29:24 - 02:26:31:00 Speaker 1 How the world plays. 02:26:31:00 - 02:26:32:21 Speaker 3 Out in the last years and. 02:26:33:06 - 02:26:45:00 Speaker 1 Air coming up, I think it's just that this just level might get thinner and thinner maybe. 02:26:46:01 - 02:26:48:23 Speaker 2 Yeah I mean I think that's the question on everyone's but. 02:26:49:23 - 02:26:50:02 Speaker 1 But. 02:26:50:02 - 02:27:07:18 Speaker 2 In so far most of the air like I don't know if any of you guys were around for article spinners back in the day, but back in the day that was something that happened. I bet Peter was around for it. Back in the day, there were these things called article spinners where you like give the thing a URL that you wanted, spun and. 02:27:07:18 - 02:27:16:15 Speaker 2 It would like swap out adjectives and so you'd get all these like terribly written things. But the experiences that I've had with air so far are kind of like the modern version of that. It's like a. 02:27:17:05 - 02:27:17:15 Speaker 1 Big. 02:27:17:17 - 02:27:40:17 Speaker 2 It gets its data from combing through everything, and so it's kind of regurgitating stuff that exists versus creating new thoughts. But I guess to your point, like maybe it will get to the point where maybe the guys are doing the, the curation. And I it can also have its own unique take and its own special I guess that's that's the question And it coming back to how. 02:27:40:23 - 02:28:10:07 Speaker 3 Can I chime in on this one. Yeah let's hear it. Yes so I used I've been using Jasper I which is sort of like predated Chad GPT in it and a similar functionality, very different workflow but and what I'm what I'm finding and in Chad it's great but like you guys are saying most of the content that is going to be automatically created is going to be of what you already or what's already out there. 02:28:10:23 - 02:28:56:20 Speaker 3 However, how you can use these tools to really differentiate yourself and stand out is, let's say in the case of making a case study or for the blueprint you are going if you feed in your own unique perspectives and your own unique data points and your own unique way of looking at things and just telling it how to write it with the right prompts, you will get your own and unique output from those tools and I in my content production process, I am teaching my content writers, my freelancers to learn how to use these tools based on their own unique research that they're doing for these articles. 02:28:56:20 - 02:29:24:07 Speaker 3 So they're going really heavy in finding statistics, unique points of use, quotes from other people, etc. And Then using Chappy or Jasper to create a very unique article that nobody else has, but then being able to do it a lot faster. So basically leading really heavy into the research or your own learnings and then using these tools to get over the hump of looking at the blank page. 02:29:25:16 - 02:29:50:03 Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes sense. I guess the fear. The fear could be if you're able to inject your own personality and values and stuff into it and produces very high quality and unique sounding stuff, then the fear could be what if it gets to the point where somebody can just co-opt and, already proven to be successful, unique personality and take instead of belief systems? 02:29:51:17 - 02:30:18:21 Speaker 2 And I guess, you know, it probably is maybe only a matter of time until that happens. And then and then what? And that's something I don't know. Maybe we should make a specific. Do you hang out sometimes. But Peter, if you want to add thoughts or go interview on our thoughts on this, you can I'll try to circle back to broader things so we don't get down too much of an eye rabbit hole over here. 02:30:18:21 - 02:30:43:02 Speaker 2 All right. And I'll keep scrolling through these questions, but I kind of feel like maybe we've answered them all. Anybody have some stuff they want to add in questions about conversions, questions about low paying clients, questions about how to apply your freelancing rate if you're just getting started, questions about side hustling. 02:30:43:02 - 02:30:47:02 Speaker 3 Maybe again for me, sorry. 02:30:47:02 - 02:30:47:08 Speaker 1 But. 02:30:47:15 - 02:31:01:24 Speaker 3 As as I'm also working on a product on the side or basically from side to side with or being a consultant. 02:31:01:24 - 02:31:02:07 Speaker 1 What. 02:31:02:07 - 02:31:06:05 Speaker 3 Is your recommendation or what are your thoughts there in. 02:31:07:17 - 02:31:09:05 Speaker 1 Not being able to. 02:31:12:15 - 02:31:24:09 Speaker 3 To fully commit to full week 2 to 1 client, for example, or two weeks in a row or three weeks in a row, because Sometimes people have this impression or really. 02:31:25:19 - 02:31:27:07 Speaker 1 Want to want to. 02:31:27:07 - 02:31:29:00 Speaker 3 Have one on their side. 02:31:30:06 - 02:31:36:09 Speaker 1 Like the whole day or something like that, that so you have data. 02:31:36:09 - 02:31:49:11 Speaker 3 Points from from other people doing the courses, how that worked out or Yeah, any recommendations for how to, how to market that in the different way or. 02:31:49:11 - 02:31:49:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. 02:31:50:07 - 02:32:02:08 Speaker 2 So just to clarify, you're saying that you're, you're having trouble pursuing the idea of a weekly rate because you necessarily be able to carve out a whole week for a client, is that right. 02:32:03:14 - 02:32:08:22 Speaker 3 Yeah, kind of so. So at the moment I have a consulting gig. 02:32:08:22 - 02:32:10:01 Speaker 1 Like for eight. 02:32:10:01 - 02:32:18:11 Speaker 3 Hours a week plus doing my own company and that that's working out pretty good. 02:32:18:21 - 02:32:21:03 Speaker 1 Actually. But I. 02:32:21:03 - 02:32:35:04 Speaker 3 Have this impression that the amount of potential clients being willing to pay high rates plus being willing to to only take a few hours per week or whatever is even not. 02:32:35:24 - 02:32:39:03 Speaker 1 Sitting out there. So yeah, just to. 02:32:39:05 - 02:32:42:16 Speaker 3 Want to hear or interested in opinions in. 02:32:42:24 - 02:32:45:02 Speaker 1 That regard. Okay. Well. 02:32:45:14 - 02:32:52:19 Speaker 3 I know definitely that it's possible, but I'm not so sure right now how that impacts my marketing. 02:32:53:10 - 02:33:15:03 Speaker 2 Okay, I hear that I 100% understand. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to answer. And then if you think I'm off base, you tell me so. And I so something to establish this context for those who don't have it yet, is that the main reason we're even talking about weekly rates is that Brennan and I had a convo about them about this with him recently. 02:33:15:05 - 02:33:44:13 Speaker 2 To get some good context. Brennan is a big advocate against charging by the hour and he'd much rather charge by the week not because the effective hourly rate or something like that, but because of the psychological shift when you charge by the hour there's a certain amount of pressure to spend your time doing the more sexy tasks that a client wants to see on their itemized invoice, but that there are a lot of tasks that aren't so sexy, but that are really important for project success, that people just don't really want to get billed for. 02:33:44:13 - 02:34:00:15 Speaker 2 People don't necessarily want to spend time for a phone call. They don't want to spend hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars for phone calls, even if those phone calls were vital, and that by charging by the week, you obfuscate that a little bit, you make it. You put less visibility on the exact tasks you did and more focus on the result you get. 02:34:01:02 - 02:34:05:16 Speaker 2 So the answer I'm going to give that's maybe not what you're looking for and tell me that's not. 02:34:06:09 - 02:34:06:17 Speaker 1 Is. 02:34:06:17 - 02:34:34:03 Speaker 2 That I have had a lot of success in my own consultancy with doing day rates. And for me the success wasn't just financially, it wasn't just in terms of sales conversions, but it was also in terms of my peace of mind. I noticed that the thing that I like the least about freelancing is all the open loops. I think with my ADHD, I don't particularly like spinning a lot of plates at one, so I don't having to be accountable to a lot of different clients. 02:34:34:03 - 02:34:54:09 Speaker 2 I'd much rather just focus on one thing, get it done, move on. And so it has worked really well for me is I have done this process where like I'll ask the client to block off an entire day to be available on Slack or whatever, and I'll not work on any other clients that day, just only this one client and. 02:34:54:09 - 02:34:54:24 Speaker 1 They. 02:34:55:09 - 02:35:21:00 Speaker 2 Aren't going to work on anything else. And for me as a web designer, the process has all these like little roadblocks that happen along the way where projects usually get stuck, like approving a design. And then once the design is done approving the thing, like the build and then getting the content, getting the photos. And so by taking this approach where they would book me for a certain number of days, I would frontload the stuff that could be frontloaded, like if they're writing their own text, have them write that before we work together. 02:35:21:00 - 02:35:40:20 Speaker 2 They're getting their own photos done from a photographer, have them book the photographer session before we work together, like get it so that once we are alive and working together, we can just knock it out and are some downsides to this process. But in any case, the idea of a day rate and having these daily intense sprints works quite well. 02:35:40:20 - 02:36:03:01 Speaker 2 And so the thought that I have for you is that if you have these ongoing commitments and that you feel a little bit conflicted about selling weekly bookings because you know that weekly booking might only encompass like, I don't know, 10 hours of work or something or 15 hours of work. Maybe you could find a way to rearrange your schedule in a way where you could charge a day rate. 02:36:03:15 - 02:36:28:05 Speaker 2 Or if you can't do that, you could charge for shorter sprints like you might charge for a half day. And like, let's say you have a day job that has you working from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every day. And so the time that you could work with clients would be 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. or you want to do each of those five hour chunks could be sold as a sprint and you're doing your bid based on the amount of sprints it'll take. 02:36:28:16 - 02:36:47:08 Speaker 2 And that's still kind of Brennan's point of of not delineating all the hours you're spending and that if they're booking you for one sprint and the purpose of that for a sprint is to determine the strategy. It doesn't matter what you do to get this valuable thing done. The main thing is that it is essential to the project. 02:36:47:08 - 02:37:06:05 Speaker 2 So the idea behind being best is because it's a larger block of time. Like let's say you're selling a four hour sprint. And the purpose of that sprint is strategy. There's no getting around the fact that that whole sprint was spent on strategy rather than building cool features. Whereas if it was. 02:37:06:05 - 02:37:06:18 Speaker 3 A week. 02:37:07:09 - 02:37:15:20 Speaker 2 That 4 hours of strategy would be kind of lost in the larger picture of all the other stuff you did, So does this ad all answer your question? 02:37:15:22 - 02:37:20:04 Speaker 1 Go to and if no? 02:37:20:04 - 02:37:21:07 Speaker 3 Yes, a bit, because. 02:37:21:18 - 02:37:21:24 Speaker 1 To. 02:37:23:17 - 02:37:38:11 Speaker 3 Guess a bit, because the open opens up again to the with charging by the day, which might be kind of easier. Also I can do a few days per week which, which might be easier. 02:37:39:08 - 02:37:41:00 Speaker 1 I'm not too sure right. 02:37:41:00 - 02:37:49:07 Speaker 3 Now still how that changes my my marketing strategy there still sort of how to get to those clients. 02:37:50:19 - 02:37:51:07 Speaker 1 But yeah. 02:37:51:08 - 02:38:19:24 Speaker 3 It gave direction. Thanks. Can I jump in a bit? Sure. I use a daily rate as well and it works great for me. And I also then I don't sell like four hour sprints, but it's like a fractional like 0.5 days, right? So you're just inverse like that. But what do you mean, like changing your marketing? Because I feel like the way you I feel like it's how you set expectations with the client, right? 02:38:20:09 - 02:38:38:02 Speaker 3 You can communicate from from the get go. Like you're marketing is going to stay the same and it doesn't matter if on the back end do you invoice hourly or daily or weekly, it's not going to change. Your marketing is just like, no, the initial conversation with the client would be like, Yeah, so this is the pay rate, blah blah. 02:38:39:02 - 02:38:42:11 Speaker 3 No, that's not the. 02:38:45:13 - 02:38:45:15 Speaker 1 And. 02:38:45:15 - 02:38:53:21 Speaker 3 Changing the marketing side is it's not about charging hour a day or per week. 02:38:53:21 - 02:38:59:13 Speaker 1 But the thought is if I market. 02:38:59:20 - 02:39:01:00 Speaker 3 Myself as a. 02:39:01:08 - 02:39:05:10 Speaker 1 As a way or in a way to. 02:39:05:10 - 02:39:23:02 Speaker 3 Have the expectation that are that I'm with the client the whole week for example, or for all the time for a certain amount of time. So kind of kind of should I address the fact that I'm. 02:39:24:14 - 02:39:26:24 Speaker 1 Doing I'm. 02:39:26:24 - 02:39:39:14 Speaker 3 Working on my own product on the side and only have a portion of the week for that, or should I reorganize that? So you're kind of doing the whole week's for one client. 02:39:40:00 - 02:39:41:24 Speaker 1 Then whole week on my own. 02:39:41:24 - 02:39:50:03 Speaker 3 Product and then kind of shifting there. And it would be it would be interesting to to share experiences. 02:39:50:13 - 02:40:10:15 Speaker 2 So I think your question kind of ties in with Peter. So for the recording sake, but Peter was asking, can we build weekly based on an equivalent of ten or 20 hours per week? Obviously we can. Just wondering if it's a good idea. And that's kind of what I'm hearing here in terms of is it better just to switch off like do one full time week on this thing, one type, full time week on this thing? 02:40:10:15 - 02:40:27:18 Speaker 2 I think that's kind of up to you, your brain. Like like I said, for me, I get a lot of value out of day blocking. If I have a day or I'm trying to do a bunch of different types of tasks, it there's like that that cost of context switching. Whereas if I have a day that's a dev day, I designed a writing day. 02:40:28:05 - 02:40:32:13 Speaker 2 It's really easy because I can just get my hand in that space. 02:40:32:13 - 02:40:33:07 Speaker 1 Where it's harder. 02:40:33:18 - 02:40:42:21 Speaker 2 Is, you know, I got, I answer frickin emails every day and if I put off emails until the email day, then that means that that thing fell through the cracks. 02:40:42:21 - 02:40:44:07 Speaker 1 So I think. 02:40:45:00 - 02:41:07:22 Speaker 2 That one is kind of up to you. And then in terms of the having a weekly rate that's based on less hours, I think that's fine. I know that in the course Brennan advocates for not expecting to be working full time every day and that a weekly rate doesn't mean that you're working five days a week, 8 hours a day, and that it's kind of based on this assumption of of having maybe a Friday off or whatever. 02:41:07:22 - 02:41:28:11 Speaker 2 Like I think getting your head too attached hours is it's I don't know what the right word is for it. But like it's it's kind of it's missing the point a little bit because the point is to be focusing on the value you're delivering and what that value is going to cost. But I do think it's important to not feel like you're being deceptive. 02:41:28:11 - 02:41:37:06 Speaker 2 And I think if you're marketing, has you positioned as having this client buyer for frickin big priority number one, not doing anything else. 02:41:37:17 - 02:41:38:03 Speaker 1 And then. 02:41:38:03 - 02:41:39:04 Speaker 2 They learn that you were. 02:41:40:03 - 02:41:40:16 Speaker 1 I don't know. 02:41:40:23 - 02:42:04:17 Speaker 2 Kayaking in the lake for 4 hours on a Wednesday. That might be kind of upsetting. So I think that the the trick would be to if you have a weekly rate like just set the expectations correctly. If you let's say that you're talking with them and it becomes clear that the project is roughly a 40 hour project and you say, I think this is about a four week engagement and it'll cost this much. 02:42:04:17 - 02:42:30:08 Speaker 2 And so I, I don't think it makes sense to tell them that it's four weeks because I'm going to spend 10 hours a week. And so it's going to cost $4,000 because then they're going to do the math and they determine what your hourly rate is. I think it's more if Brennan would have charged $20,000 a week when he was working 30 hours a week, but now he's going to do 15, maybe his weekly rate is 10,000 now. 02:42:30:22 - 02:42:57:21 Speaker 2 And so it's is kind of for your own internal calculus. But the the thing that's most important is that the client is getting an ROI that you don't feel like. You're deceiving them about your time commitment and that you don't have some expectation that you should always be working. So I think the way to have a weekly rate expectation with part time, I guess you would you'd have to indicate the hours sometime because a weekly rate kind of innately implies that they're booking it for the week. 02:42:57:21 - 02:43:17:20 Speaker 2 So probably what I would say if it were me is say I have some existing obligations that take my time every day. And so the way I like to work with clients is I book I book on a weekly basis and I work about half my working hours on my existing obligations and about half my hours on the client. 02:43:18:11 - 02:43:35:21 Speaker 2 And so it's going to cost blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it adds up to be something that's not it's not a price that you're like, Well, how the hell are you charging this if you're only working five or 10 hours a week? So I guess I would do a mix. I would I would set the expectation that this is not something I'm doing full time. 02:43:35:21 - 02:43:58:09 Speaker 2 I think that is really important because I think if it goes unarticulated, people would probably expect it to be full time and I would ensure that the, you know, the price I'm charging is something that will produce an hour. I think that as long as they go into it with the expectation that like the way I said it before, I think kind of key if you you say I spend roughly half my time on this, I spend roughly half of my time on this. 02:43:58:23 - 02:44:05:04 Speaker 2 I, I actually had this with the client. So the the client who I did those launches for where. 02:44:05:04 - 02:44:05:10 Speaker 1 I. 02:44:05:20 - 02:44:29:06 Speaker 2 Charge the flat rate and I charge a percentage of revenue, she was booking me like the way I structured the deal with her was that she kind of booked me for a retainer and it was compensated. So like, the deal I made with her is I'm in a turn away clients to prioritize your stuff, but I'm also growing my own businesses and that is a time priority. 02:44:29:06 - 02:44:49:06 Speaker 2 So what I'm going to do is I'm going to guarantee you that you are a main priority, but I'm still going to prioritize my other stuff. So roughly about half the half of my working time I'm going to spend on your project, half my time I'm going to spend on other projects. And we negotiated like a monthly base pay where it was. 02:44:50:10 - 02:45:12:06 Speaker 2 I have to go back and check what it was, but I think it was like a few thousand dollars a month base and then revenue for performance on top of that. And so if you have a retainer where you're not actually guaranteeing like a consistent prioritization of the work, it would kind of feel crappy from the client because like, what are they paying you for? 02:45:12:06 - 02:45:31:16 Speaker 2 So I think approaching it from something where you articulate the rough time distribution. So I'm spending about half my time on my obligations, half my time on you or whatever that looks like for you without being too specific and saying, I'm spending 20 hours a week on you, 20 hours a week on my obligations, I think that's probably the best, best way to approach it. 02:45:32:10 - 02:45:44:00 Speaker 2 I don't know if you guys disagree. I don't have context for this, so I should run this one by Brendan and see if we can get some some other by community members who've tried this besides just me. 02:45:44:00 - 02:45:54:01 Speaker 3 No, I think that's great. Plus, the only other thing that I can think of is you can give them options like, Hey, I can be here for you like one day a week or two days a week and like, different pricing. 02:45:55:08 - 02:45:57:01 Speaker 1 Yeah. So, you know, then. 02:45:57:01 - 02:46:09:17 Speaker 3 They have more control over how much this band and other feel. And then you can also communicate with when you're going to be available for like instant messaging, like Slack or whatever. 02:46:10:08 - 02:46:11:15 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. But I. 02:46:11:15 - 02:46:15:22 Speaker 3 Know also I think that the accommodation of concentrating more. 02:46:16:06 - 02:46:17:02 Speaker 1 On the value. 02:46:17:14 - 02:46:23:22 Speaker 3 And not so much on the time is important and, and at the same time also what you decide. 02:46:25:24 - 02:46:29:22 Speaker 1 Now also communicating. 02:46:29:22 - 02:46:44:19 Speaker 3 Or setting expectations in terms of availability, not too much in terms hours that kind of availability. So so maybe make it a combination of being available plus concentrating. 02:46:44:23 - 02:46:45:13 Speaker 1 On value. 02:46:46:05 - 02:46:47:16 Speaker 3 Because this really. 02:46:50:07 - 02:46:50:17 Speaker 1 I think. 02:46:50:22 - 02:47:04:03 Speaker 3 Those are the things our clients are really interested on. They want to get value and when they have questions or whatever they want you, they want to know at least when you are. 02:47:04:03 - 02:47:09:09 Speaker 1 Available and maybe that that's a good combination. 02:47:09:09 - 02:47:18:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, and I noted this one down. I'm going to run this one by Brendan because I want to get his take on it too. I think I'll have some interesting perspective. 02:47:18:12 - 02:47:19:10 Speaker 1 Let's see if. Thanks. 02:47:20:22 - 02:47:39:02 Speaker 2 I'm getting tired. I'm in Estonia and so I know one of you guys is in the same time. Don't get to complain that much, but maybe that person left already. Let me let me run through a couple more. I'll bounce in a few minutes. But while I read through this, if anybody wants to unmute and ask a, I'm happy to. 02:47:39:02 - 02:47:43:14 Speaker 3 Answer what are GMT plus three plus two, I. 02:47:43:14 - 02:47:45:15 Speaker 2 Think. Plus two. It's almost ten. 02:47:45:15 - 02:47:46:17 Speaker 1 Yeah, I got. 02:47:46:18 - 02:47:48:24 Speaker 3 That. Yeah, we're on the same time. Time. So. 02:47:49:14 - 02:47:52:08 Speaker 1 Okay. 02:47:52:08 - 02:48:01:21 Speaker 3 I think just, just one for me. Yeah. Going through is only close to nine to. 02:48:01:21 - 02:48:03:11 Speaker 2 I think I found a good one actually. 02:48:03:11 - 02:48:03:19 Speaker 3 Nice. 02:48:04:24 - 02:48:05:10 Speaker 1 Thank you. 02:48:06:03 - 02:48:07:12 Speaker 3 I lived a bit in Vienna. 02:48:09:01 - 02:48:09:18 Speaker 1 I think. 02:48:09:18 - 02:48:13:04 Speaker 3 The. Same for the most important word. 02:48:13:14 - 02:48:18:13 Speaker 1 The word awesome. Of course. 02:48:18:13 - 02:48:46:14 Speaker 2 So one that I want to throw out that I think is good on this topic of what Gunther was asking is Wilfred, who's no longer here, asked if it's better to market yourself as an individual, freelancer, consultant, or as an agency or firm when you're trying to command higher rates. And his context was the as a software developer with full time job as a software dev consulting business where he occasionally does side projects, he's looking to grow the business so he can eventually quit his full time job. 02:48:47:02 - 02:49:09:12 Speaker 2 So have strong opinions on this. When I was younger, I tried to position myself as an agency when I wasn't yet because I felt insecure about the fact that I was just some guy. But if you flip flop this and you imagine that Flynn hiring Brennan and paying him like 100 grand to come do some, some consultation, that's smart passive income. 02:49:10:08 - 02:49:53:05 Speaker 2 If Brennan doesn't need to position himself as more than Brennan because he has his expertise and stuff, I think that we are in an era where people are frankly fatigued by working with big, faceless companies, being an individual is extremely valuable. And in my own experience, even as an agency, I learned that. So giving that entrepreneur on fire example, when people learned that Zach made the website for entrepreneur on Fire and they see entrepreneur on fire as kind of like a celebrity in their eyes, they don't want to work with Zach's agency and whatever random person is, respond to them Just as frankly, when you guys send emails into your fancy inbox, you don't want 02:49:53:05 - 02:50:22:22 Speaker 2 to get a response from Zach. Random guy freelancing who you've never heard about. You want to hear from Brennan, you know. And so I think if you're in a position where you can be an individual who is relating your clients like that is actually an asset. It's not a weakness. I think that that question usually comes from some imposter syndrome where you don't like as an individual, you know enough and that you need to be more than just some guy slash gal. 02:50:23:13 - 02:50:40:23 Speaker 2 But if you are good at what you do, you are good at helping the client find what they want. You can produce a good right. That's all you need to do. And people, if they hear you on a podcast or read an article of yours and then they learn, they get to talk with you, not just some random person at your company, but you. 02:50:41:19 - 02:51:01:12 Speaker 2 That's really, really valuable. And even when I was running my agency found that what worked really well is that I would do the initial sales call, I would do the initial road mapping, and then I would introduce them to my team who's going to help with. I had a designer and a developer. So I'd say like, Leo's going to help you with the design, and then Gina is going to help you with the build. 02:51:02:02 - 02:51:18:24 Speaker 2 But I'm going to be here to help with the strategic stuff and make sure everything works well. And that the challenge I ran into wasn't so much like people wanting more than just me. It was in fact mitigating the disappointment that they are not going to get to work for me for the whole thing. So that's how I would address that one. 02:51:20:21 - 02:51:34:18 Speaker 2 I think that seems like a good stopping point. I feel like I've gotten through most these. I'd say at this point, if anybody has any burning questions you want to ask before we jump off, do it now. Otherwise, this seems like a good place to call it. 02:51:34:18 - 02:51:35:07 Speaker 1 All right. Well. 02:51:35:21 - 02:51:50:10 Speaker 2 Thank you guys for being here. It's great to hang out with you. Put faces to the other end of the inbox for some of you that I've been chatting with and I'll send a recap on this and I'll get Brendan's take on some of the stuff and we'll we'll go from there chat soon. Thanks, guys. 02:51:51:01 - 02:51:52:17 Speaker 3 Thanks. 02:51:52:17 - 02:51:58:08 Speaker 1 Thanks. Thank you very much. Sure. See?