Ask Rezzz

First, you want to create a page on your website to send folks you are talking to who are looking to you for your specialized service.On this page it’s important to put 4 sections:Who the service is for?What problem you are solving for them?How you solve that problem?Social proof of the problem and solutionKeep it simple and make a call-to-action to reach out with their request. This can even be to your email address if you want.The idea is to test the market, not build something complex that you don’t even know will work.Making funnels and ad campaigns and email automations will come much later on. The time here is best spent talking with potential customers and gauging your new market.Second, review your existing footprint online, and if your niche market is essentially a re-vamp of your pricing and such, you may want to consider removing your pricing from your website if it’s there.Just so that there isn’t confusion for your new lead should they find your old pricing.Keep in mind that you are running your

This is something I hear asked quite often. Sara Dunn asked me how I did it after the first time she appeared on Live In The Feast in fact.Sara has embarked on her journey to publicly share her journey on specializing her agency’s business. As you can see, everyone is trying to figure out the answer.It’s important to put some context around this question. Your journey is your own. I can’t answer this question with a foolproof plan for you. This is something that you need to be able to go on yourself.## Your fears of niching downI understand that it is scary because you may be feeling like it’s an all or nothing deal. What happens if you go all in and it doesn’t work. Then you are left sitting there wondering what happened and how can I recover from this.There’s another fear here that is the real reason you may not want to jump in. You’ve built up a reputation in the market, have great clients and are getting referrals for new work. Losing all that hard work and effort you’ve already put in the business would

In episode 180 - What is the structure of a weekly review, you learned my framework for performing a weekly review. Look backLook aheadExecuteWhen I found that this framework worked for me, I started applying it to all reviews I did, including weekly, monthly and yearly.I’d like to replace the monthly with a quarterly review. Also sprinkle in a daily review as well, but those I’m still working out.1. Look back on the month. Very much like the weekly review, I look back on the revenue, only this time, it’s the first thing I do. I’ve got a few different revenue streams into the business and I have certain goals for each.Looking back on which stream brought in what revenue is important for the business to understand if I’m meeting the goals I have.I’ve started only recently taking a review on the expenses during the month. Only just so that I’m not overly surprised at the end of the year and it allows me to curb and keep those $10 per month services under wraps.Then I take a look back on the projects. It’s a qui

I was chatting with Greg Hickman over Instagram and he asked about my review and planning structures.He shared a story on his daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly reviews and was open about which ones he’s still working on getting better at and that sparked the conversation.I thought that since I’ve spoken about how important and what I do in my weekly reviews, I’d share with you today the exact structure, the framework if you will, of all my reviews.Look backLook aheadExecuteIt’s a simple framework to remember and stems a bit from the GTD methodology. But see what works for you.Look back on the week. Review the sales pipeline. Clients and cash is lifeblood of your business. You have to be ridiculously involved in it even when you are heads down in a project.Supplemental to this is looking back on the revenue. This is essential to see how much came in to the business.You know when you are doing well and when you aren’t. Even if it’s a week where $0 come in, if you do this look back every week, you’ll see patte

How do I know Matt Medeiros?Matt is an account representative at Pagely, a managed WordPress hosting company. In his prior life, he co-founded a successful digital agency. He is the host of a number of podcasts, one of which he invited me on.I’ve known Matt for a number of years in and around the WordPress space. I’ve met Matt on a couple of occasions as well and when he asked me to be a part of a panel of other niche business owners for his podcast, Matt Report, I easily accepted.Matt and I have an east coast bond together where I guess for lack of a better term, we are all about figuring things out, just putting it out there and not messing around about it.In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the following:How to adapt and change to the WordPress climate?In case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the full episode for all the details.In the episode, I shared a variety of things includingHow WordPress isn’t my business, but a tool I use to solve a problemAsk the hard questions

Performing a search on Google of the biggest mistakes in freelancing and you’ll find over 10 million results.Yikes!
Sad thing is that prior to this episode, I took a look at the lists in the first page to see if my list had any overlap.There are a ton of mistakes any freelancer can make. But what I think you want to hear are the mistakes that another freelancer has made. So that’s what I want to share with you today. The 15 mistakes that I made throughout my career of nearly a decade. And how to avoid them!1. Not positioning yourself within the market2. Taking on a partner that doesn’t align with your goals3. Jumping into every client request immediately4. Reacting right away to a potential lead5. Client work always winning6. Discounting7. Not always doing some sales and marketing8. Not following up with everyone9. Not respecting your time10. Not building your own personal brand11. Not trusting your gut12. Time management13. Thinking like an employee14. Settling15. Not keeping your goal in mindWe all mistakes

Without a doubt having a child changed everything. We don’t nearly go out as much alone as we used to. We travel, but to places like Sesame Place rather than the Caribbean. We don’t sleep anymore. Even the business has changed. I love you, JoannaBefore I jump into it I want thank my wife for everything that she does each and every day. She is absolutely the rock of this household and family. Without her, I know you wouldn’t be reading this right now.The goal I had at an early age on why I wanted to have my own business was so that I could have the time freedom to spend it with my family and friends when I want to.I wanted to be around for first steps and first words. I want to go out on a random Tuesday afternoon just because it is nice out and not have to ask someone for permission to do so.The day it all changedWhen my wife and I had our son TJ, our first, it was a very different scenario than what it is now.My wife worked full-time and after her maternity leave was up, she went back to work. Which meant th

In episode 84 - Did hiring a mentor really help you with starting your business you learned how stubborn I was in getting a business coach. If you haven’t already done so, take a listen to that episode because I think it will reinforce what you’ll hear here.If you are running a business of any kind, there’s a good chance that you are not an expert in every single part of that business. Maybe you are exceptional at sales but not so great at the implementation. Maybe you are technical, but suck at marketing.The great thing is that you could learn all these things. Just about anything you lack as far as a skill you can read countless articles, listen to tons of podcasts, and even watch thousands of videos on that topic.All for free too!The downside is that you’ll be spending all your free time doing so.There’s a good likelihood too that you’ll be completely overwhelmed with varying point of views and opinions on what is “right.”This overwhelm will leave you scattered and stretched thin.I know this because I’ve b

During a coaching session I was asked how to properly ask someone for a phone conversation.The context of this question was that this person wanted to reach out to specific people in larger organizations in order to  simply have a phone conversation with them, not necessarily to sell to them, but for research.This is cold outreach and let’s be honest with ourselves here and just call it like it is, it’s spam. It’s unsolicited communication, even if it can add value to the recipient by making it you focused.In the post-GDPR and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation era we live in we, as businesses we have to adjust and be respectful of a recipient’s privacy that a lot of businesses hadn’t in the past.With that in mind, nothing really has changed other than shortcuts that businesses used to essentially carpet bomb an email list with a broadcast are now closed off.By now, you’ve heard that when performing outreach of any kind, you should be doing it in a way that makes the recipient feel like it is a direct email to th

## How do I know James?James owns a company called [Content Snare](https://contentsnare.com/) that helps freelancers and agencies get content from clients.This was a really fun episode because James and I are in the same circles around the web, we just haven’t had an opportunity to meet yet in person being on opposite sides of the planet and all. We both have a fondness for automation that, well can border on the line of obsession.So when James DM’d me and invited to me come onto his podcast, [Agency Highway](https://agencyhighway.com/podcast/), it was a no-brainer. I knew that we’d be unpacking so much together.In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the following:## Demand higher rates by following this specialization frameworkIn case you don’t want to read the rest of this post, you can check out the [full episode](https://agencyhighway.com/podcast/016-demand-higher-rates-by-following-this-framework/) for all the details.And for the second podcast we did together on [Lead Generation](https://agencyhi

This may be a surprising episode title for you considering everything you hear me talk about in regards to hourly billing, sucks!Yet there are times when hourly billing is good and I wanted to share the other side of the coin from yesterday’s show titled, Why hourly billing is bad? with you today.Quick / One-off taskIf you are a designer or developer and have bandwidth or time in your schedule where someone presents you with an opportunity to do some quick task. Something you know you can bang out in a few hours, or maybe have even done it in the past for a previous client.Or if you are a developer and another developer needs you to write some code. Or a designer and another designer asks you to design some simple elements.Hourly billing may be an option for you. To be honest, this is even a stretch, because I would argue that you would know what the outcome is and be able to put a price on it.However if it truly is something that only takes an hour or 2 and both you and the client know that, it’s going to be

I want to start off by stating, if you having yet read Hourly Billing is Nuts by Jonathan Stark go ahead and get it and read it!Hourly billing puts the 2 parties in the service agreement at odds. The financial incentives are misaligned from the start. From your perspective you want to take as long as possible so you get paid as much as you can and your client wants you to finish as quickly as possible to keep the costs down.This puts the goal, the motivation of the project, regardless of what that project is, on the number of hours to completion. Not on the business objective of that project.There’s a laundry list of reasons why hourly billing is bad. So I don’t want this to become a two hour long podcast of me spouting out a list.What I’d like to focus on are 3 reasons.Clients prefer fixed price (certainty) vs hourly billing (uncertainty)You are doing client service work and you can’t have your motivations different from your clients. “Serve first”, “Help”, “Put your customers first” are all things that you

The short answer to this question is that I don’t, their business does.A mantra that I’ve always lived by for my business is “Let the business drive the technology, not the other way around.”The simple truth is that technology changes much faster than a business can. So if the technology were to go away tomorrow, would the business still be viable and run or would it be out of business? Last week YouTube went down and the internet lost it’s mind! There are a great deal of people who build their business on YouTube. And if you don’t listen to those smarter YouTubers like Roberto Blake, Sunny Lenarduzzi, and Amy Landino who always talk about building a business on YouTube, but then say that it’s an absolute must to get customers onto your mailing list. It’s for that exact reason.To answer today’s question though, you want to listen to your client extremely closely and objectively.Be overly objectiveMy wheelhouse is WooCommerce, Subscriptions for WooCommerce, Drip, and ConvertKit. That is the technology that I w

First, I want to thank Justin Jackson for the mention on Build Your SaaS podcast.Second, an episode of Build Your SaaS is part inspiration for this episode in fact. Couple that with a couple of conversations I had in a forum last week is where this question comes from.Since they are two sides of the same coin, I thought that I’d share some thoughts around it.How long does it take to become successfulSo inside the forum thread was a person who was curious how long it takes to become successful in freelancing. Which obviously varies from person to person and business to business. Some may never get there in fact.I responded to the question with another question “What does success mean to you?” And whatever that meant is what will dictate how long it could take.Then in another thread we were taking about specific sales strategies and why it works and doesn’t work for similar businesses. It went on for quite a number of back and forth posts.What came of the conversation was a needed level of patience and trial an

How do I know David Shriner-Cahn?David Shriner-Cahn is the founder of Tend Strategic Partners and co-founder of the BestNetwork, which guides expertise-driven business owners to build recurring revenue.David and I know each other from the NY entrepreneurial space. We met a few years ago in an online community called Youpreneur. Then we continued to keep in touch, meet up and continue spreading the word for building sustainable businesses.David invited me on his podcast since we are both NYers and share in our love for podcasts. No I’m kidding (sorta), but he did invite me on because I’ve been doing client services work for so long and thought that I could bring value to his audience.In this episode, I had a chance to talk about the following:How to stop the feast or famine cycleIn case you don’t want to read the rest of this, you can check out the full episode for all the details.In the episode, I shared a variety of things including:Origin of the word “freelancer”Why freelancers don’t need more clientsThe mi

What is a CRM?A customer relationship management tool keeps all your contacts and the relationships with that contact in place.This is used for managing customers, leads, colleagues, network contacts and so forth. For a long time I didn’t use one, because I basically used my email inbox to manage my contacts. But that quickly became cumbersome and not ideal especially the more mature my business became.I then shifted from my inbox to my email marketing provider, Drip, to manage my contacts through tagging and segmentation. But then I had to switch from that as well.Focus on the contactThe reason I had to switch was really based on the need to keep in touch with a single contact.Drip and even my inbox was easy enough for leads and clients, but not for my colleagues and those that I wanted to be sure to keep in touch with over the year.Due to the fact that my relationship with leads and clients are mostly a linear relationship, but colleagues and other contacts can become complex and evolve, I needed a system t

In A152 - How do you do a review of your week? I talk about how important my weekly reviews are. It’s actually quite scary how my wife can tell Sunday afternoons how distracted or off my game I am if I haven’t done my review that morning.Can I be completely candid with you right now? This is a funny question to me because about 2 weeks ago…talking with a friend…when I start looking…I’m just distracting myself.I’m going to share with you X strategies to have a productive week, without question, but you need to really figure out what works best for you. The tools, strategies, methods that make me productive may not be right for you and that’s ok. Just like maybe you are a night person and I’m a morning person. It’s just how we are wired.So let’s dive in.Plan aheadYou need to plan your week before it starts. Whether that means you take Friday afternoon before you shut down for the weekend or are like me and plan on Sunday, you have to hit the ground running Monday morning knowing what you are working on.Not plan

The funny thing about marketing is that when something works for your business, you want to know what’s the next thing you should try. In the book Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, which is a book written for startups who want to grow and build a customer base. It dives into 19 or so different channels to do this.At the heart of the book though is traction. It’s not a book that tells you to try all the 19 different marketing channels. It’s a book that tells you to completely exhaust the one channel that’s working for you. To the point at which you start to almost see a decline.Yes, this book is mainly designed and written for startup Saas companies, but much of the methods and strategies can be used for consultants as well.Why WOM is badI know right now that 50+% of your new business and sales comes by way of word-of-mouth. And you are no doubt falling victim to the thoughts and pressures that your marketing is based off of someone else’s words.Perfectly understandable and definitely something to

This is something that I’m sure you’ve asked before, right?I’m going to share with you 4 strategies and biggest tip on this but I want to ask you to be open to hearing me out for the next few minutes here It all starts with your mindset. The reason you ask this is because you are stuck in hamster wheel that is the feast or famine cycle. Clients are the blood of your business, yes, but you are the brain of the business and need to control it so that the success of it is driven by the actions you do.You may be working on projects that are one-off and not recurring based and that’s ok. But often times when you ask this, you haven’t put in the effort, the time to properly set yourself up for consistent work.Prioritize the moneyThis includes dedicated sales and marketing time on your calendar every single week. When I first start, I blocked out time every single Tuesday between 7 PM and 8 PM to do lead generation. Now I dedicate mornings to sales activities. Things like writing emails, performing outreach, and eve

Lee Jackson is the founder of Agency Trailblazer. He helps agency owners fall back in love with their agency with his amazing community, workshops, and masterminds.Lee and I are 2 sides of the same coin. Lee works with agency owners where I work mostly with solo business owners.Lee and I had been bumping into each other around the web in various different groups and thought that we’d come together and dive into a few rabbit holes on a podcast together. See we both seem to have this uncanny ability to de-rail serious conversations.When you listen to this show, you’ll hear us talk about NY accents, Jarvis from Iron Man and how that will work itself into web development in the future, how Lee got played from a fellow colleague, Phil Collins, and us being rappers.Yes, the show gets quite off the rails, especially at the end. Yet, in the midst of all the tomfoolery, we unpack quite a bit of value for agencies and freelancers alike.oLee invited me onto his show and I invited him onto Live In The Feast and we had a