The Freelancers' Show – Details, episodes & analysis

Petra and our guest Kevin discuss the various elements that go into getting a freelance business to the next level of growth (if you choose) including systems, marketing, employees (including a few what not to do stories!) and sales. We'll discuss how we overcame certain challenges, and the one secret that caused Kevin's business to go from a team of three to a team of 25 within a short timeframe. Panel

• Petra Manos

Guest

• Kevin Urrutia

Sponsors

• Dev Influencers Accelerator

Links

• The E-Myth Revisited
• Coding Platform for Kids | Tynker
• #1 Facebook Ads Agency
• Twitter: Kevin Urrutia ( @danest )

Picks

• Kevin- DotCom Secrets
• Petra- A Series of Unfortunate Events

Chuck dives into the 3 essentials for getting the next successful outcome you want in your career. Whether that's something simple like a raise or something more complex like going freelance, you can achieve it by working on 3 main areas. First, building skills. The most obvious type of skills you'll need is technical skills. However, don't neglect your people skills and your organizational skills as well since you're often paid for how you work with people and enhance their work and how you put your work together in the most efficient ways. Second, building relationships. Often other people will be able to help you find the opportunities or will be the ones to make the decisions that impact your ability to get the outcome you want. Having good relationships is key to having good outcomes. Third, building recognition. Being known for being valuable in important ways allows you to leverage the skills you have to build better relationships and create opportunities to get what you need to get the outcomes you want by giving people what they want. A podcast is a great way to do all three. Chuck explains exactly how that works in this podcast and goes deeper as part of the Dev Influencers Accelerator. Panel

• Charles Max Wood

Charles Max Wood talks about how to build, grow, and benefit from positive relationships within programming. He talks about how he's built genuine positive relationships with hundreds of programmers and how he and others have grown from those relationships. He also explains that you get out of relationships what you put into them. Finally, he goes into how to begin to build relationships by building a system of influence you can use on behalf of the people you want relationships with. Panel

• Charles Max Wood

Sponsors

• Dev Influencers Accelerator

Panel:

• Jeremy Green
• Erik Dietrich

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy and  Erik, discuss “Late Paying Whale Clients.” The discussion covers how to assess situations where you are not getting paid on time in your freelancing business. Jeremy and Erik cover a number of common situations and how to navigate your way to getting paid and avoid further unfortunate situations. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 0:50 - Erik and Jeremy talk how to handle late paying client who is the major part of your income. Jeremy suggests ways to avoid the situation by determining a time of when payment is collected. 2:50 -  Erik says this is a right of passage for a freelancing way of employment.  Erik says this is common in freelancing. Jeremy share story with working in an agency and friendships on the line. 6:14 -  Erik shares a story about doing 10k worth of work and not getting paid. This want due to management changeups. 7:00 - Erik talks about asking them why you are not getting paid. Jeremy says this may be due to not getting to know everyone in the business and getting the invoice to the right person who responsible for paying invoices. 10:30 - Erik says it is important to get the invoice to the right people because invoice sent to the CTO might not be high on his the priority list. Get it to accounts payable or find out who accounts payable are. 13:30 - Jeremy says to recognize the difference between late payments and laggy payments. Erik talks net 10 or net 30 payments. 15:40 - Jeremy talks about stopping work and getting some kind of payment on late paid invoices. 17:28 - Erik talks about how some clients play games to keep putting your invoices off. Erik talks about techniques to de-prioritized work for the client to understand they have unpaid or late payments.  20:30 - Jeremy mentions knowing your worth. Erik talks about possibly talking legal actions. But asks Jeremy about how he handled not getting paid from a client who owed 80k. Jeremy shares a story on how he structured things to take the lost. 24:00 -  Erik talks about thing to do to avoid legal actions. Jeremy shares how he switches to upfront payments. Jeremy explains his explanation to employers for upfront payments. Erik talks about asking them to put some skin in the game or sharing the risk. 29:00 - Erik talks about getting push back and adding fees to those who push back on upfront payment.  Jeremy talks about discounts to upfront payments. Erik talks about how these strategies are about de-risking your payments. 31:00 - Erik mentions another strategy to tack on 5% late charge and mention to the client that it is accounting thing. This should serve as a reminder that they are late. 34:00 -  Erik says this might be a sign to avoid working with whale clients. Jeremy says you might want to get several smaller clients and having multiple sources of income. 36:00 -  Jeremy continues with how to get paid upfront with reengagement with an old client. Jeremy says to look for the structural flaws int system and get new people in the company to help you get paid. 37:50 -  Erik says to hope is not a strategy and try to figure out where the issues is to get paid. Jeremy continues to understanding when to pull the plug on working for this kind of client. Sponsors/affiliates

• Get a Coder Job
• Freshbooks

Picks: Erik Semantic MergeHit Subscribe Jeremy Rock & Roll with EmberServerless

Panel:

• Jeremy Green
• Erik Dietrich

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy and  Erik, and discuss “Starting Freelancing While Employed.” The discussion covers important topics on how to properly or successfully moonlight and transition into full-time freelancing while increasing your incoming and clients. This is a great episode on learning the ins and outs of moonlight on the side while maintaining a full-time job. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:00 -  Erik kicks off the topic about freelancing while you are employed. Erik starts with the questions form a forum form his place of work. Erik talks about the idea of moonlighting 2:00 - Reviewing your employment working about noncompeting work or conflict of interest to avoid restrictions. Jeremy says you should definitely check with the employment agreements. More talks about signing papers on agreements as a freelancer. 5:00 -  Jeremy talks about working with clients who want you to sign non-complete work or anything in the industry or nature of the work. Erik about work at Hit Subscribe. Erik shares more about working with the company to reform the agreements. 8:50 - Jeremy and Erik talk about moonlight on the “clock” which is a big issue and non-compliance. Jeremy continues to talk about the issues of doing this under the rader. 10:30 -  Erik talks about doing a bad job at your full-time job because of moonlighting. Don’t do it while you are at the office. Erik talks about people at the office who know you are running a side business and how to let it be known properly. Make sure your niche is not conflicting with your employer. 14:00 -  Jeremy talks about stealing clients from your employer and how that can cause employment issues within the full-time company. Jeremy talks about transitioning from employment to freelancing. 18:00 -  Erik talks about bargaining for perks over salary for time or freedom to freelance with your full-time job. 20:00 - Erik shares about signing with the company or letting your employer know about your freelancing work. This will allow you to do more if it is out in the open on social media and Linkedin. Jeremy talks about this could hinder your freelance marketing. 22:00 -  Erik talks about masking your identity with a brand, or working under a brand to keep from your employer from knowing about your side hustle.  24:00 -  Erik says if freelancing is going to be serious, then freelancing has to be out in the open with your employers. Erik asks Jeremy about when to know to make the switch to freelancing. Jeremy shares about his strategy and mistakes in making this transition. Jeremy talks about working with loan money to fill that gap and building his business. 28:00 -  Erik shares about making his jump from full-time salary to freelancing. Jeremy talks about mistakes in full-time salary and comparing that to freelancing work. How do you adjust the hourly rate or salary? Jeremy says this is selling your night and weekends. Jeremy says you will need to work on your business, not in your business. Jeremy also says you need to make more freelancing. 32:00 -  Erik talks about the pricing of service and freelancing work. Jeremy talks about delivering values to the client. Erik talks about experience and moonlighting within the company. 35:00 -  Erik talks about how freelancing on the side is going to mean more time working. Do what you need to do side hustling, but don’t make it a problem.  Jeremy shares about his agency and how they handled moonlighting within the agency. 40:00 -  Erik talks about kind of acting as an agent and bringing in moonlighting work. Erik says this is set up is not very common. 43:00 -  Make sure your contractually ready to moonlight and don’t charge too little is the takeaway. Also, have a bailout condition. Sponsors/affiliates

• Get a Coder Job
• Freshbooks

Picks: Erik

• The North East USA during fall for the amazing views
• A Hrefs

Jeremy

• Remarq - Now with emoji support 

Panel:

• Jeremy Green
• Reuven Lerner
• Erick Dietrich

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy, Erick, and Reuven discuss the topic, “When Your Clients are Wrong.” The panel gives practical advice on how to work with different client/work situations that may not be ideal. They suggest to think about the situation logically, have a conversation with the client, and try to work out a win-win situation for both sides. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:16 – Let’s introduce this topic a little bit more softer than I did! 1:34 – After giving your clients some new / different options and they still aren’t satisfied. 1:58 – This is so difficult and delicate b/c it’s easier when you don’t need the money. If you only have 1 client or a handful of clients they are they only ones you can rely on for your income then it’s a lot harder and worse. Many times if a client asks you to do the wrong thing sometimes you can leave, but sometimes that’s not always realistic. If you can walk away if it really is horrible then maybe you can. You have a solution to a problem (you know how to solve this problem!) and your client says, “no.” What then? 3:59 – For me, the arrow in my quiver would be I believe in this so much let’s try it for free and run an experiment, if that’s a cost concern. 4:45 – You are willing to invest in it? 4:53 – Nothing is coming to my mind right now. For my blogging business... If it were years worth of blog posts than I wouldn’t do that for free. 5:47 – When I was doing consulting projects I would recommend: we should store things this way, or...Sometimes my clients will say “NO” this is not the way I want to do it. I was working with a company in Tel Aviv, and I wanted to have a bunch of different columns in the database. The CEO was like you are using all of those columns?! Right, that would work if you were living in the 1960’s! I presented my case to him, but it was the beginning of the end. He still saw himself as the CEO but also a brilliant software guy he didn’t want me second-guessing his brilliant decisions. 7:51 – It’s worth throwing it out there – you always do have the option of going on with idea. Pick your battles – live to live another day. 9:05 – If you come in and say: “I am right and this is why...” they will not go for it. It’s not good to win that argument. Kind of tease it out – let’s look at time and cost. Maybe overtime the customer will see what you are trying to do. 10:02 – It’s a good opportunity to say: Let’s take a step back and see the goals of this project. Maybe we have a mismatch of what our goals are or the current state of the project. I thought you were concerned about X but I see now that you are actually concerned with Y. I see now – maybe I misunderstood your situation. That could help the client refocus. 11:29 – They brought on this team of 40 people in Rails and then realized nobody knew Rails. I had a blast, but the way it worked if something wanted to change something then they would do a change request to the... Panelists go back-and-forth. 15:49 – “I hope I am wrong” mentality might be better than: “Man that is horrible, you are going to fall down on your face.” He talks about a credit card issue and showing that this case had to be implemented with this specific client/company. 18:00 – Advertisement – Digital Ocean! 18:41 – There is a wide range of “wrongness” where clients aren’t in the best place and the level of “wrongness”. We aren’t going to steal a logo for you. Are they asking you to do something wrong or is it a difference between 1% to 2%? 20:20 – This would be a better play vs. something illegal vs. something in-between. If a client is trying to roping you into plagiarism don’t do it. 22:08 – You can say I am turning down this work b/c we won’t be a good fit or I really can’t fulfill what you want me to do and that work can come back to you from another avenue. 22:50 – If you just can’t find anything else, but I know there are people that specialize in x, y, and z. They will finish the work better than me and I would recommend these people for those reasons. They respected that. 23:42 – Blood money – I wouldn’t want to help you for the specific reasons. People will respect that b/c they will see that you have their best interest at heart. Panelists continue to go back-and-forth. 25:47 – Was the client a cheapskate?  26:57 – Engaging with a client and see where they are. Predict future 28:05 – I have a client with a small business and their business in teetering on the edge of collapse. I have been clear with them and they tell me their budget. We just are adding duct tape to the problem just for a quick fix. 29:00 – It would be ideal that you had money but let’s figure out the next, best thing. 29:15 – Okay what do we want to do in 6 months or in a year so that way we can pay for things in installments that is less painful that way. I am trying to think – has anyone asked you to do something truly unethical? 29:48 – Yeah the logo thing was a family dispute. 29:56 – For our blogging agency I was asked to misrepresent something on a website. They asked if we could post a commercial and we were ghost writing it. Anytime that comes up I can pass. It hasn’t come up too much over the years. I cannot stress enough DON’T DO UNETHICAL THINGS. 31:16 – What can you do setup the relationship so this possibly isn’t an issue in the future? 32:00 – Panelist talks about clients and more.  The more consultative a relationship is the more they will listen to their expertise. Getting paid for your brains and less for your hands. 32:30 – Most times clients disregard your advice b/c they just see you as a pair of hands. 33:22 – In my initial calls with training people... 34:00 – Panelist talks about his 4-day training course and how companies try to squeeze the program out in only 2-3 days instead, because their workers are “smarter than the average person.” 35:28 – I can point to this data to show that I AM an expert. The more narrow I am with my focus the more they are inclined to hear me out and trust me. 36:11 – I have been doing this for years now I know how long it will take. Other things that we can say about this? 36:32 – General piece of advice would be if the client is disagreeing then it can be a real gut check and it’s important to keep a cool head and you don’t want to fight with your client. 37:35 – Advertisement – Fresh Books! Sponsors/affiliates:

• Get a Coder Job
• Digital Ocean
• Freshbooks

Picks: Jeremy

• Splice

Erick:

• GoodRX
• Manatee Trello

Reuven:

• Podia
• The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

Panel:

• Jeremy Green

• Reuven Lerner

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy and Reuven discuss “The Care and Feeding of an Email List.”Both Reuven and Jeremy cover their experience and insights with building an email list, software for email marketing, running a campaign, lead magnets, evergreen content creation, and much more. This is a great episode to understand how to integrate email marketing and lists building for your business. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:00 - Reuven talks about special software for an email list. Mailing for Marketing. Reuven talks about the things he learned with all the email lists. 2:00 - Reuven talks about Awebber, Drip and other types of email marketing software. Reuven continues to talks about evergreen lists, and issues with mailing lists. Reuven talks about how to write evergreen emails. 5:00 - Jeremy asks about the timing of sending out emails rather it is a regular list or evergreen emails. Reuven talks about email campaigns and other kinds of scheduled type email tasks. 7:20 - Reuven talks about what a broadcast email list is according to Drip, as well as Drop Campaigns. Reuven explains how these email campaigns work and how they function to market a product. Reuven explains how to gain or collect emails. 10:00 - Reuven explains how to write up emails to keep your audience or lists in the loop of your products or whatever you are doing? 11:00 - How to get people on these mailing lists? Reuven explains how to collect emails for your campaign. Reuven talks about how Lead Magnet work to collect emails. Reuven continues with Content Upgrades, Email Courses, and other clever ways to collect or build up a marketing list. 14:00 -  Reuven explains opting out, and how this email market is a cost-free way to market. He also talks about Lead Ads on Facebook as another way to market, but it is not free. 17:00 - Some talk about the trials of unsubscribes. Reuven concludes his setup of his email lists 20:03 -  Jeremy asks about reusing content and the extent of creating content. Reuven explains that this leads to people creating a book or ebook our of all the content that create for their email lists. Reuven talks about engaging with the audience or lists. 23:00 -  Reuven talks about reusing content in his training material and how is cross pollenates.  24:00 -  Jeremy ask about how Reuven goes about pruning his list of those who are not activate with the email content. Reuven explains open rates and other analytic measures and how to read those numbers. Jeremy says he is anti-pruning of his lists. 27:00 -  Reuven talks about messages going into junk mail, and other kinds of undefined or unopened emails. 29:00 -  Jeremy talks about overcoming personal views on email and putting out content to people. Reuven talks about the response email to this subscribers. 32:00 -  Jeremy ask about compiling with GDPR. Is this important to know about email lists. Reuven talks about how he takes care of this GDPR compliance action. Reuven talks about ways to workaround those who want to resubscribe. Jeremy explain his actions with GDPR compliance. 35:00 -  Small business and privacy verses huge corporations. Daily messages. Revue talks more about writing and hiring to write content in place of himself to product content. As well as hiring to guest post and generate sales. Sponsors/affiliates

• Get a Coder Job
• Digital Ocean
• Code Badges

Links

• Drip: getdrip.com
• Mailchimp: Mailchimp.com
• Content Upgrades: http://rightmessage.io/
• RightMessage: http://rightmessage.io/
• Sumo: Sumo.com

Picks: Jeremy

• RightMessage

Reuven

• Blind Ambition, by John Dean

Panel:

• Jeremy Green
• Erick Dietrich
• Reuven Lerner

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy, Reuven and Erick discuss “Choosing a Specialty.” This episode covers the many different avenues of discovering your niche or specialty. Each Freelancer speaks about how they have become an expert in their field rather it was an organic transition or something that had to work and building. This is a great episode if you are apart of a company and want to separate yourself as an independent freelancer or entrepreneur. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 1:10 - Erick shares about a question he is asked often which is “How does one  figure out exactly what to specialize in if one is about to go independent?” Erick talks about his journey working his way up to being independent. Erick shares working in consulting, marketing, and the evolution of being a Freelancer. 3:45 -  Jeremy talks about his journey, working in Rails and Ember and other technologies via consulting with companies. Eventually, specializing in a few things rather a bunch of general bunch of things 6:20 -  Reuven shares how he got into specializing starting from Pearl to training in Ruby. Reuven talks about how know Python led his to training more often, then eventually decided to work from Israel and working on the training/consulting platform. 10:25 -  Erick talks about back into the specialty or finding what you are naturally great at. Jeremy talks about finding prospective buyers and getting in the door with them easier. 12:00 -Turning down work that is out of your specialty but take the work if you need it. 14:00 -  Look around and find out what is working. Focus on what you are good at, but think more about what you are hearing people need. Listen for the demand. Reuven talks about choosing something you like and interest you. 17:10 - Noting is permanent. You can change your specialty if you need too. Marketing yourself to different people in different ways. Reuven talks about niche AB testing. 20:00 - Reuven talks about Phillip Morgan’s book on specializing. Phillip Morgan consulting. 23:00 - Erick task about listening to the pain points of your clients to find opportunities. Reuvnen talks about making his want to a consultant to a trainer. Branding yourself and people will call you up for work. 27:00 -  Erick asks - Is there an organic way to find your specialty? Reuven says people he know that people just “fall-into” their speciality. Reuven gives Andrew Madsen as an example with credit unions. 31:00 - Reuven talks about the roles of peoples jobs and getting exposed to what kinds of jobs are out there. Reuven talks about going to conferences. Going to conferences of potential clients as an idea to market. 34:00 -  Erick talks about gaining expertise by writing about it and seeing who contact you about it. Jeremy talks more about writing and bring in business for your business. 40:00 -  Jeremy talks about when it is time to find something else. Reuven that your niche is similar to marketing yourself. 43:00 -  Reuven talks about establish what you don’t do as anti specializing. Reuven talks about trying several things to understand what you want to specialize in. Erick says not to procrastinate or indecision to put of life or career goals. Sponsors/affiliates

• Get a Coder Job
• Digital Ocean
• Code Badges

Picks: Erik

• Guideline
• Hit Subscribe authorship

Jeremy

• Phillip Morgan consulting

Reuven

• WeeklyPythonExercise.com
• From Cold War to Hot Peace, by Michael McFaul)
• War on Peace by Farrow

Panel:

• Jeremy Green

• Erick Dietrich

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Jeremy and Erick discuss “Working with Recruiters.” Both Erick and Jeremy describe their experience with how recruiters and agencies fit into the job search as a developer. This discussion brings light to the pros and cons of using a recruiter to acquire a job as a  freelancer or a conventional W-2 employee.  This is a great episode to learn the insights of what recruiters expect when helping one find a carrier in the software development platform. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• Hit Subscribe -  and working with recruiters 
• Changing relationships with recruiters
• What recruiters are looking for  - full-time employees
• The preferred way of working - W2 employment
• Not being seen as worth recruiter time as a contract worker
• Placement for staff augmentation and freelance
• The downsides of working with recruiters
• Successful placement with recruiters
• Intro projects via recruiters
• Recruiters taking a percentage
• Job boards
• Organizations over recruiters
• Working as a sub-contractor via agency
• Flipping a full-time offer intro a contract
• Labor laws
• Wasting an employers time with a switch from W2 to Contract
• Make your intentions clear as a freelancer
• Working with trusted recruiters
• and much more.

Picks: Erik:

• Hit Subscribe authorship
• Hubspot

Jeremy

• Mirror Placement
• Robert Half

Panel:

• Reuven Lerner
• Jonathan Stark

In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, the panelist, Reuven and Jonathan discuss “The Essential Consultant Library,” or the books you should read for consulting, marketing and business. Jonathan and Reuven share the exact books that helped them in the current area of business. Rather it is consulting, marketing, or entrepreneurship, the Freelancers share their favorites and much more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• You should continue learning
• Books that help in various ways for business
• Value-Based Fees by Alan Weiss
• The Positioning Manual by Philip Morgan
• Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath
• The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne
• How to Measure Anything by Douglas  Hubbard
• Just F  Ship by Amy Hoy
• Double Your Freelancing Rates by Brennan Dunn
• Hourly Billing is Nuts by Jonathan Stark
• The Brain Audit by Sean D’Souza
• Patrick McKenzie website
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
• And much more!     

Sponsors/Affilates

• FreshBooks

• Digital Ocean

Picks Jonathan

• Little Nightmares
• Jonathan's Reading List
• The Pricing Seminar

Reuven Lerner

• We Chat
• MEET