Freelance Transformation: Find Higher-paying Projects, Work Less, And Get Rid Of The Stress

In the past 99 episodes, numerous guests have shared their freelancing journeys, their setbacks, and the revelations that allowed them to build successful, sustainable freelancing businesses. In honour of this arbitrary and yet very special number, episode 100, Matt has sorted through the catalogue of FT episode and brought back ten of the most epic guest insights shared on the most popular episodes of Freelance Transformation. These are the mic drop moments, played back to you, along with a bit of explanation of why they are so important for all of our freelancing businesses. This episode features advice from Einar Vollset, Patrick Mckenzie, Nagina Abdullah, Naveen Dittakavi, Joshua Lisec, Brennan Dunn, Michael Port, Laura Elizabeth, Jeffrey Shaw, and Kai Davis. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode100

Why do your clients buy your services? Why is someone willing to pay you for your skill set? What are they really buying? To get clients, you need to understand the underlying human psychology at work. Dov Gordon, from the Alchemist Entrepreneur, helps consultants and coaches find their ideal clients through structure and process, instead of jumping straight to tactics. Dov shares why clients buy, how we get their attention, his 6 step marketing process, and why some people can seem to make any client generation tactic work, while others just can’t seem to get clients. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode99  

A common objection about running a service business, such as being a solo freelancer, is not wanting to just trade time for money. But that is only one model to run your service business, and it's not the most useful. Instead, think about your services as a product that you’re offering. A client signs-up, and you perform some defined result for them, and they pay you for that result rather than for the number of hours that you spent working on it. You can achieve financial success if you can build your service as a system that you can deliver over and over, instead of creating a completely 100% custom solution each time. Frank Bria calls this strategy the creation of a High Ticket Program and has applied it when consulting with Fortune 500 companies on multiple continents to help them structure and sell their own offerings. We are talking anywhere from tens of thousands to tens of millions of dollars in services sold. Frank shares how he thinks about turning a custom service into a repeatable high offering th

Josh Steimle, founder of the web agency MWI, started out building sites in 1999 and now sells 7 figures worth of business per year. Josh struggled between 2007-2013, and almost had to close his doors. But he persevered. Josh built up his business through persistence and by becoming a thought leader in his niche by implementing strategies such as writing for Forbes. Josh shares how to win clients through influence, how to build a scalable agency, and how to overcome the challenges along the way. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode97

Are you you asking your clients to pass along your name to anyone they know who needs work done? Once in awhile you might get a lead, but it doesn’t yield a lot of business. Sound familiar? Well the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Steve Gordon, author of Unstoppable Referrals, shares how to build a systematic referral system. Steve has published hundreds of articles on marketing and selling high trust services, learned in his previous career as the CEO of an engineering consulting firm. Steve shares how you can consistently earn referrals in a way that works and generates value for everyone involved. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode96

What type of clients will you take on? What rates will you charge? Having the answers to these questions can help you very intentionally make the rest of your business decisions throughout 2017 and beyond.  To help you in this process, and in the spirit of the holidays, Freelance Transformation has a small gift for you. We are going to go through a small exercise together that Matt's students have universally found helpful in defining what they want their freelancing to look like, and consequently, how to make better decisions in their freelancing. http://freelancetransformation.com/episode95

Khierstyn Ross, of Crowdfunding Uncut, is a crowdfunding strategist, working on campaigns that raise hundreds of thousands of dollars on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Khierstyn didn’t start there of course, but discovered what she was best at and most enjoyed while working through client projects. Once she decided to niche down, she became one of the highest in-demand crowdfunding experts. Khierstyn shares how she went from a generalist to a specialist, what that did for her business, how she built authority in this space, how she finds clients, and how she prices herself for a service where the results are so uncertain. http://freelancetransformation.com/episode94

Mark Fromson is a freelance digital project manager who works for agencies rather than the end client. Agencies frequently rely on freelancers as a way to gain access to skills they otherwise wouldn’t have, and to be able to grow or shrink their team to meet a changing workload. As a freelancer there can be some advantages to having agencies as clients, such as the possibility of working on larger projects than you’re likely to win on your own, collaborating with a team, and not having to be the one that goes out there and wins the end client. Mark Fromson shares the ins and outs of what agencies are looking for in a freelancer, how to connect with them and build long-term relationships, and the pros and cons of targeting agencies instead of the end client. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode93

Joe Sanok, founder of Practice of the Practice, shares how you can stop thinking of selling your services as a strictly time for money deal. The secret is thinking about your business as a system that you can build processes around, rather than doing everything yourself. Joe will be sharing how he built his counselling clinic so it ran without being completely dependent on him, how and why he decided to start coaching other practitioners, how he productized the services that he offers to them, and how he built highly systematized funnels for finding and winning them as clients. http://freelancetransformation.com/episode92

Jana Sedivy performs customer experience research for B2B companies. She helps companies that create and sell software to other businesses better understand their customers and identify ways they can improve the customer experience. Jana has worked with companies such as Adobe and Nuance, and she also holds twenty-one technology patents and is published in peer-reviewed user experience journals. In this episode, Jana shares how she got started consulting and how you can start building the authority and connections so you can start winning these big clients as well. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode91

  Freelancing can grant you tremendous control over your life and your day-to-day work, but being your own boss comes with some challenges. For example, the anxiety and weight of dealing with stressful work situations and clients, the isolation of working alone, and managing all aspects of your life efficiently and responsibly, which includes having the difficult discussions about finances and time management with your significant other. Sherry Walling is a clinical psychologist, one of her specialties is working with entrepreneurs, and she is the wife of an entrepreneur so she has both the clinical and personal perspective. Sherry reviews how you can balance self care with productivity in your business by identifying and working through anxiety triggers, catching early signs of stress and preventing stress from building up, and maintaining a healthy, supportive relationship with your significant other. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode90

Cassie Howard is a business consultant for bad-ass women entrepreneurs who aren't afraid to be themselves and say what they need to say in order to help their community. Cassie got into coaching two years ago when she started to engage with potential clients in Facebook groups and started her own group. Cassie loves it and doesn't even feel like she is doing work. She is excited to connect with her clients and create significant things for her clients and community that impact so many people's lives. Plus she gets paid well for it. So well that she hit 6 figures within her first year. The secret to her success? Being her authentic self and Facebook. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode89

Jake Jorgovan is the founder of Outbound Creative, where he helps consulting companies and agencies win their dream clients. But he doesn’t just talk the talk. Before starting this agency, he did business development at a video production agency where his strategies allowed him to bring in multiple fortune 500 clients and A-list touring artists. Jake shares strategies to reach out to clients directly as well as strategic partners who have the same clients that you want to target. Jake shares how to identify your dream client and dream strategic partner, how to do the research to figure out who to talk to and how to contact them, and how to reach out through email, conferences, podcasts, and cake. Yes, cake. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode88

If the primary product that you sell is your labour, then how can you leverage your time so that the money you earn isn’t directly tied to the number of hours that you work? Nina Kaufman is the founder of Business Exponential, where she helps service-based entrepreneurs build companies that don’t rely completely on them. Nina will share the story of the hard truths she discovered when she tried to sell her law firm, and several ways that you can leverage your time, from simply freeing up more time while charging the same, all the way up to building a business that you could even sell. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode87

Esther Kiss is the founder of Born to Influence, a boutique publicity firm that helps her clients get featured on TV, newspapers, magazines, and top podcasts. In a sea of people all claiming to do the same thing, Esther stands out and gets noticed by both clients and the media that she gets them booked on. Esther shares how she built up her business from very humble beginnings, why she’s able to connect with influencers, how to attract the right clients through referrals, how to qualify if a client is a great fit, and much much more. http://freelancetransformation.com/episode86

Why is it that some people seem to pull off seemingly impossible feats, such as winning incredible clients, scaling their business, or just getting something that they really want? Meanwhile others seem to get stuck at every obstacle that’s put in their way. To be a successful freelancer, you have to think like an entrepreneur. That’s true whether you’re looking to stay solo and small, or you’re looking to build multiple seven figure businesses. Cole Hatter is a serial entrepreneur, and somebody that embodies finding a path forward instead of giving up. Cole started out as a fireman, found himself wheelchair bound after a really bad accident, started a real estate business, had that fall apart in the 2008 crash, learned his lessons, then rebounded with new companies, and helped others along the way. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode85

Rachel Pedersen's daughter was going to start school in a few months and Rachel suddenly had this vision of someone else driving her daughter to school and picking her up and spending time with her while Rachel worked in an office 9-5. This image was Rachel's breaking point and her drive to give freelancing another go. The first attempt at freelancing on her own left her stressed out because she didn't know how to get clients. But for the second attempt, Rachel had a plan. She leveraged her network on LinkedIn to make connections to over 7,500 people. After only 1 year, she no longer has to actively search for clients and makes a 6-figure income. Rachel shares how she went from being a hairstylist to a social media manager and strategist. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode84

The goal for many freelancers is freedom. Freedom from the stress of debt, making payments on time, and saving for the future. Freedom to schedule your time the way you want to so you can make time to spend with your children and go on vacation. And freedom to run a business the way you want so that you enjoy your job and your life. Vincent Pugliese and his wife made freedom a priority in their life so they set up their own photography business, paid off their debts, started a family, and get to run their own lives while making ten times more than what they made working full time. Vincent shares how. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode83

If you feel like you can’t be the one that gets in front of the great clients, if you’re wondering why the heck anyone would listen to you, if you’re wondering how to build up a personal brand from scratch and get it in front of the right people, the ones that can buy from you, this interview is for you. Louie La Vella has interviewed and sometimes partied with A-List celebrities, built up a consulting practice helping entertainment personalities, concerts, and festivals market themselves, and he built all this with a deceptively simple approach to his career and business. https://freelancetransformation.com/episode82

The vast majority of the people that could be amazing clients for you are not currently looking for your services. Only about 3% of your target audience is actively looking for a freelancer. So you end up dumpster diving for those 3% and competing as a commodity. Stop! Joshua Lisec shares how you can reach the 97% who have the specific problem that you know how to expertly solve and convert them into paying customers. Joshua shares how he positions himself as the trusted advisor in the community, thus cultivating desire for his services. http://freelancetransformation.com/episode81