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This is a great question because I’m all about doubling down on what’s working.Making word of mouth more predictable though is key here. You want to create opportunities that make word of mouth easy for those spreading the word.Even though this was a question that came from my newsletter, I wanted to share it here, because I’m sure that word of mouth is your #1 lead generator.I’m going to share with you 2 specific strategies to help you make your word of mouth more predictable.Follow up sequenceWhen you are getting word of mouth, you are building your trust by proxy. That’s the warmest of leads because they are getting a personal recommendation from someone they already trust. The next step for you is to get them sold by presenting your solution.In order to access that trust by proxy, then once someone becomes a past client, put them into a queue for a follow-up sequence.This can be super simple and not complicated at all.30 days after offboarding60 days after offboarding90 days after offboarding120 days afte

Someone from my list had asked this question when I asked “what are you struggling with right now?”What’s great about this question is that it’s smart. Smart because a “contracting resource” is someone who’s hired out by presumably another business to fill the gaps in their own business.For example, development shops hiring a developer to help with their overflow work.Whereas a “solo business owner” is someone who has a specific customer that they go after and serve a specific solution towards. They may be a developer who can write PHP, but they stay to a specific kind of customer because of the service they provide.For example, they only work with SaaS companies providing onboarding development within their application.I had this exact question back in 2011. I had most of my client work coming by way of other agencies. I purposefully did this due to me working in agencies for close to a decade. So I understood their pain, but also knew that I didn’t have to do the sales end, which at that time I was not very

This was asked from someone who’s on my email list, which by the way I love interacting with folks there. So many amazing conversations are sparked from it.This person admits that SEO works well, and is in their words “very targeted” but they are often leads with low budgets.Here's the thing, the tire-kickers aren't good leads and that don't pan out to become clients are a complete drain on the business.It’s critical to have the leads understand the full picture before you push them into your pipeline. That means budget needs to be addressed further up the chain.Optimization of the top of funnel Assuming that SEO is working for inbound, and you are collecting names and emails as a request for your services, put a few more fields on that form. Budget being one of them.Obviously SEO is working to bring folks in. So for your business  inbound strategy works. Next is to optimize your content accordingly to bring in the better, non-tire kicker leads.[Josh Doody on Live In The Feast](https://rezzz.com/podcast/josh-

I get asked this question so much and I always answer with the same thing, “yours.”But I was thinking about giving this question some thought, especially with regards to Day 1 of being a freelancer.I want to go ahead and preface this with that I’m not going to be giving you a long list of sites to create profiles on away you go.Sites like Upwork and 99designs and alike are all races to the bottom. Some other sites like Codeable and Toptal are hand-curated and at least have some sort of bar for you to hit before getting in.I’m a firm believer in that no matter what you do, these sites will always put a ceiling on your income and clients. People posting gigs want bottom dollar and the site itself takes a piece of that, leaving you as a commodity and not in any sort of control of your own business.With that being said, Fiverr to me seems like a good place to start, especially if you are just starting out.Here are 3 reasons why I say this.Your service is a productWhen people look at Fiverr it is with a very speci

I want to share with you 4 statistics and I think you’ll get the answer to today’s question from them. Then I’ll share what I do and why I do it.Why is follow-up vital80% of sales require 5 follow-ups after the first meeting or conversation.44% of sales reps give up after 1 follow-up and the average give up after 2.50% of leads that enter a sales pipeline are not ready to buy in the near term.On average, decision makers consume 5 pieces of content before being ready to speak to a sales rep.Do you see a trend yet? At a bare minimum you need 5.For me, I keep following up until I get a “No.”Standing outI’ve heard stories from sales people who have landed their White Whale with 50+ follow-ups. It’s about persistence and making yourself stand out that often times wins the project.Why re-marketing ads work so well? No doubt you’ve been followed around the internet like myself a few times and then gone ahead and bought that product or service.In episode 188 - What do you do to position yourself as an expert to leads

The end of the year always has us looking at revenue numbers doesn’t it. It’s also a great time of year to reevaluate our prices.January 1 is a great time to also create deadlines and launching pads for yourself and clients as well.Inside of the Sustainable Freelancer FB group, Meg asked this questions.I can only presume that she’s done what so many of us business owners do this time of year.Because it was such an awesome question, I thought that I’d share it with you in today’s episode, in case you have thought about this too.I'll answer the latter first. Double it! Especially if you are sub-100 per hour. Chances are that you are under charging and under calling your work. Years ago when I was told to double it I thought "no way" but I trusted them since they were where I wanted to be and did so. Best decision I made. If you get push back from all clients you can back away without too much issue saying "since you are a great customer, I can do 1.5X and then next year the 2X rate will go into effect."To answe

Everyone’s businesses are different and unique. Just like them as a person.Some freelancers I’ve spoken with grow agencies, others stay solo.Some have aspirations of hiring a large team or scaling a product.It’s very different and that’s why when someone asks me “why don’t you grow your business?” I often respond with “why?”See I like being comfortable in my own lane. Having a few select clients on the roster that supports my family and allows us to live the life we want is perfect.It also allows me to do things like this podcast, coaching, and build products.I left the world of managing teams of developers when I quit the 9-to-5.As my business matured though, I dabbled in the hiring process and bringing on people. I quickly realized that it wasn’t something I wanted to do.Took a few failed attempts at growing a team on my part to realize that staying solo and being responsible for consistent income for my own family to live off of was what I wanted.There is a pretty big focus in various communities that you

With the holidays fast approaching, one of which here in the U.S. just passed, there are bound to be parties to go to. Ones where you will meet folks who haven’t a clue as to what you do.Don’t you love those folks who find out that you are a designer or developer and automatically want you to solve their home Wifi issues or their printer problems?Well let’s solve that by coming to the table with something that helps them understand what specifically you do.In episode 146 - Should I call myself a “freelancer”? I shared my thoughts on this topic (or debate really) and that it’s really about how you conduct yourself that matters.This though is how you present yourself to the industry and market, not while holding a drink with holiday music in the background.This is often called the elevator pitch.I have a template for this that is:“I help <ideal client description> get <big result>. So they can <benefit of big result>.”Here’s the thing, when you ask someone what it is that they do and they resp

How do I know Steve Folland?Steve Folland is a creative video and audio freelancer and host of Being Freelance podcast.This was an awesome experience chatting with Steve because I’ve been a listener of his podcast for quite a long time. So I felt a bit like “long time listener, first time caller” at first. Which for me is a bit strange because I don’t normally feel that way.I was having a chat with him through the comments of one of Steve’s vlogs on YouTube and asked him if he had any room for a guest and he graciously invited me on.In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the following:“I’ve reached my goal, what’s next?”In case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the [full episode](https://www.beingfreelance.com/season-6/freelance-web-developer-jason-resnick) for all the details.In the episode, I shared a variety of things including:The number one reason for me to freelance in the first placeHow I learned HTML back in the 90s that I don’t recommend any one ever doing3 stories of

It’s Thanksgiving here in the US today. Happy Thanksgiving to you if you are celebrating today.My family and I are spending some time together and eating way too much.I want to take this opportunity to thank you for listening to the show.There are a ton of podcasts out there that you could be listening to today, but you chose mine and for that I’m grateful and very appreciative.I’m humbled by you continually supporting the show by asking your questions, listening, and sharing.So I thank you so much for that. I do have some plans for the show in the future to make it even better for you, but more on that at as it gets closer.So before I sign off today, take a minute, even if you aren’t in the US where it’s Thanksgiving, to think about someone you are grateful for and let them know.

There’s so much to learn and as business owners, we love to absorb as much as humanly possible.But that’s where the pitfall happens. We consume and consume and consume. If we applied half of the actionable information that we consume, we would have zero time in the next 10 years for anything else. (And yes, that figure is statistically backed by science ;) ).Seriously though, like myself, I would assume that you have had periods where you are reading, watching, listening to amazing and valuable information, taking notes and making countless todos for days on end. Especially around the end of the year when all the sales and marketing kicks into overdrive we get teased with all these shiny objects that seem to be the answer to all our questions.Financial Aspect to think aboutIf you haven’t already listened to A184 - How to budget as a freelancer? where you will learn that if you are buying something for $100 and you bring in 20% profit, you need to bring in $500 of revenue, not get another $100.Marketing tactic

This question came by way of a Twitter DM. Yup, my DMs are open and love engaging with folks there.TLDR;If you need to keep the lights on, then offer the services you know that you can deliver.Then after you are settled in, take a look at what you've done and for who. From that see if you can then start to specialize you business somehow.Do what you know firstKeep things simple. When starting out, you need to give yourself the best chance of success. The only way to do that is by providing services you know you can fulfill.When starting out, there is so much that you don’t know about. Billing, client management, delivery, onboarding, support, marketing, sales, that you will need to learn about and get better at. Don’t complicate it any more.Specializing is really just marketingOnce you have a few projects under your belt, then reflect back on what you’ve done and who you’ve done it for.Are there any similarities? Anything common in the clients? Anything common in the solution you are providing?Then on the oth

In the last 5 episodes I shared with you a course called Stop the Cycle where Curtis McHale and myself to be delivered to you on November 30th at 3:30 PM EST. A few people who have registered, jumped in and shared some feedback they had, well because we asked them what is it that they hope to get out of the course. What sparked you in deciding to join us. We want to make sure whoever joins us, gets the most value from it.This came by way of some feedback from one of those people.So with anything in business, it comes down to who you are, who you work with, and most importantly what’s working right now.The great thing about the Stop the Cycle course is that you will get 2 people’s point of view on running a business that is quite similar.What’s worked for me hasn’t for Curtis and vice versa. We are going to give you our best strategies and techniques that has landed us great work over the past decade, and still does to this very day.What I want you to do right now is to think about what’s working for you today

This is part 5 in a 5-part series called Stop The Cycle where I ask you a question and you’ll get an actionable item to take away with you at the end of the show to help your sales and marketing so that you are on the way to stop having the feast and famine killing your business. Positioning is simply marketingWhat if you only talked with high-quality leads that viewed you as an expert?You want people to respect you, right? You want to be valued as the expert in the conversation, right?What are you as the expert doing to facilitate that?Experts ask the right questions, they try to ask the right questions early on in the process. So that they identify who they can help as well as those they can’t.Respect is earned, it’s not given. If you aren’t asking the proper questions and the lead or client doesn’t recognize them as questions that lead them to their transformation with you, they won’t respect you.Are you talking budget? Are you talking timeline? Are you setting expectations? Are you asking questions about

This is part 4 in a 5-part series called Stop The Cycle where I ask you a question and you’ll get an actionable item to take away with you at the end of the show to help your sales and marketing so that you are on the way to stop having the feast and famine killing your business. Make the time, don’t wait to find itWhat if you had the time to keep marketing while doing great work for your clients?When I started my business, I sat on my couch every single Tuesday night doing lead generation tactics and then again every Thursday night filling up my queue to share relevant and valuable resources.This is what I had to do in order to get this one-man show off the ground. Why Tuesday? Why Thursday? Because that’s what I choose to do.If you aren’t going to market yourself, no one will. How I got referrals was because I was sharing colleagues content and resources. By doing that, I put myself on their radar which then started building the relationships I have today.Don’t overwhelm yourself with what it means to do ma

This is part 3 in a 5-part series called Stop The Cycle where I ask you a question and you’ll get an actionable item to take away with you at the end of the show to help your sales and marketing so that you are on the way to stop having the feast and famine killing your business. Level up the experience you provide to your leadsWhat if you could give your leads an experience that positions you as an expert?I ran a highly scientific and analytical poll on Twitter and the results can back with an overwhelming 79% of people do not have a follow-up process in their sales.This is a shame, because it’s so simple, and powerful when done right.I’m going to paint a picture for you and tell me if this is you?When you get a new lead, you have a call, and then send a proposal. A few days go by and they you send another email saying “Just wanted to check in and see if you had any questions about the proposal?”Is this you? If so, you did exactly what everyone else does. Proven simply by the stats.You want to be respected a

This is part 2 in a 5-part series called Stop The Cycle where I ask you a question and you’ll get an actionable item to take away with you at the end of the show to help your sales and marketing so that you are on the way to stop having the feast and famine killing your business.Always be sellingWhat if you could have your sales process running 24/7 scouring the web for opportunities?Yesterday we talked about a simple share as being a part of your marketing and awareness to the world. That was about being out there when someone is looking for you.The second part of that equation though is that you need to have a process in place for you to jump on opportunities when they happen.This is a much more proactive approach.Still, to this very day, I have my very own sales bot that scours Twitter for certain keywords and then pings me in my Slack when a tweet with that word comes up.I don’t need to be on Twitter all day long, but when something interesting happens, an opportunity arises, I can jump into the conversat

Going to do something a little different over the next 5 episodes where I ask you a question.This is part 1 in a 5-part series called Stop The Cycle where you’ll get an actionable item to take away with you at the end of the show to help your sales and marketing so that you are on the way to stop having the feast and famine killing your business. Don't let the client work always trump your ownWhen you are deep in project work, it’s so easy to let your marketing slide. We’ve done it, those client problems you’re solving mean money right now.You need to have something in place at all times to have your marketing going. It’s not today or tomorrow that will hurt when you are heads down on a project and not marketing your business. It’s next month or 3 months from now.See when you don’t market yourself today or tomorrow or the day after that, you fall behind quickly. The fall you take is much further than if on the fourth day you do market yourself. Consistency above all else matters.It’s not just because of an al

You hear a lot about niching down on this show. Many different actionable takeaways for you to be able to work through defining your specialty.But one thing I found myself to be beneficial is to hear how others do it. Especially others that I feel may not be too much further down the road than me. Which is why for me it’s important to always be in the freelance services side of things so that I can provide you with the best content possible that works for today’s market.If you are interested in hearing stories about someone else’s journey, head on over to [Live In The Feast](https://rezzz.com/podcast). Season 4 is such an amazing season for some many reasons.If you aren’t a listener to Live In The Feast podcast, it’s a seasonal show. Each season has a theme, Season 1 is Getting Clients, Season 2 is Marketing, Season 3 is Origin Stories, and Season 4 is Niching Down.Then in each episode, there will be a deep dive into a specific strategy, question, tip, or storyline for about 30-40 minutes. At the end of the s

Get your clients to payTo budget means that you need to know (or at least be relatively sure) when your clients pay you.You obviously can’t reach into their pocket and pull out the money they owe you, so there’s some trust there you need to have, but there are systems that you can use and put into place that will help you nudge and remind clients.Don’t be afraid of doing this. No business can run without money so if you are doing work, make sure you get paid.Track your expensesYou have to stay on top of your expenses. Taxes being your biggest. Remember it’s not your money, but here in the U.S. you will need to take a percentage of what you bring and put that away. Pretend it doesn’t even exist because it’s not yours anyway.Aside from that, you have to be mindful of the phrase “it’s for the business and I’ll just get more revenue in to cover this.” It’s a deadly phrase and here’s why.If you have a 20% profit margin on your services and you buy something for $100, that means you need to bring in $500 in revenue