Today I have an awesome interview with a long time student of mine, Eric White. When Eric started he was a typical commoditized freelancer, but he made the transition to high-value business consulting. He has a background in developing business software. He enjoyed working with people and was the guy who spoke with clients to find out what they wanted in their software products.

Eric’s current consulting work is understanding what clients actually want with their software. He wants to meet them in the right place and discover what the solution for their problems are. He likes the job of figuring out what is motivating each side and what they need to make the project happen. His specialty is the higher-level people portion of managing software projects.

Today’s topics include:

Resources and links:

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Today I am talking with Bryce Bladon. He is the curator of “clients from hell”. Today we talk about everything from qualifying new clients to setting expectations. He runs a website whose sole purpose is to showcase crazy clients. We both feel that sometimes we can do things a bit differently to help avoid having clients from hell. So the theme of this show is to have fewer clients from hell.

Bryce has been involved with Clients from Hell, a collection of anonymously submitted tales of woe, since 2009. These tales are from designers and anyone who deals with clients. Today we are going to talk about how freelancers can avoid getting these bad clients. We want high quality clients who respect us.

Today’s topics include:

New freelancers run the risk of getting bad clients by not qualifying clients and knowing when to say no to a potential client

Resources and links:

Clients from Hell

Bryce Bladon Website

Twitter @BryceBladon

Project Prescription Paul Jarvis Client Qualifying Tool

Hell to Pay

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Today I am interviewing Jane Portman. Jane is from Russia, and she used to work with me on Planscope which I just sold. She is an amazing designer who is very focused on the design and the copy. I recently redesigned Double Your Freelancing. Which is appropriate for today, because Jane’s expertise is building really great user experiences.

Jane is an amazing UI designer and business consultant. Jane has been designing for over 10 years. She worked for a large agency in Russia. She is also a mom, and now works full time in the US as a consultant. She wanted to build authority, so she started writing books and implemented a lot of my advice for consultants. She is currently focused on helping SaaS founders to build simple products that make money.

Today’s topics include:

Resources and links:

Planscope

Jane’s Website UIBreakfast

Twitter @UIBreakfast

Sean D’Souza

The UI Audit

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Today we are speaking with Alex Mathers. Alex is an illustrator who specializes in vector illustrations, maps, diagrams and landscapes. He is also a blogger and writer. He runs the Red Lemon Blog which helps creative entrepreneurs market and promote their businesses. He has worked for clients like Google, Sony and the BBC. He is also a speaker and does one on one coaching for select clients. He lives in London, UK, and he also runs the Ape on the Moon design blog.

Alex studied geography in London. After that, he wasn't sure what he really wanted to do, so he studied real estate and received a Master's degree. During this time, he got back into what he really enjoyed which was creating illustrations. At first, this was part time, then full time, then he felt he needed to share everything that he had been learning with the world, and Red Lemon was born.

Now he coaches creatives of all kinds on how to market their businesses. He stumbled on the list concept where having a limited network that he looks at manually as one of his most effective strategies. His simple strategy is to build a list of 150 people that can help your business. These people need to know you in some way, even if it is just responding to an email list. They also need to be useful to your business in some way. Having everyone that is important to you in one place allows for easy communication and networking.

Today’s topics include:

You can have an agent, but build your own marketing channels as well

Resources and links:

Alex Mathers

Red Lemon Club

Ape on the Moon

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Karl Sakas is the president of Sakas & Company which is a consulting company that specializes in helping digital marketing agencies grow. I had an opportunity to chat with Karl today, and I found myself nodding my head the entire time. The meat and potatoes of the interview focused on helping businesses grow in a holistic way not just focusing on the technical aspect of what the business offers. Karl emphasizes using a SIT framework which focuses on strategy, implementation and training.

Working with agencies, Karl discovered everything they offer fits in the strategies of the SIT framework. The first part of the framework is strategy where the client is saying tell me what to do. The second part is implementation where the client is saying do it for me. Training is the third part, where the client says teach me how to do it. They want to do the project or maintenance in house and they need to get up to speed.

Success is more than just completing the project, it is knowing that what you delivered solved the problem at hand. Strategy, implementation and training is a perfect framework for cross-selling and creating the best long term solutions. Communication and understanding client goals can help avoid client problems.

Today’s topics include:

Getting paid for offering training as a service

Resources and links:

Sakas and Company Resources

Double Your Freelancing Courses

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Today I am talking with Jesse Strauss. Jesse is a New York-based lawyer who owns a firm specializing in debt collection for freelancers. When it comes to things like small claims court and debt collection, freelancers are usually on their own. Jesse discovered that there were a lot of freelancers with payment disputes while he was working on wage and hour cases.

He started looking for a new solution to solve this problem. Jesse was based in New York, so he couldn’t handle cases in other jurisdictions, but he could forward the cases to other lawyers in those jurisdictions. That is the idea behind the formation of Indepayment.

Having a solid contract can help to resolve a non-payment issue. You can also ask for payment up-front or for milestone payments to help prevent non-payment issues. Trust issues may prevent clients from wanting to pay ahead of time. Indepayment offers an escrow service where the buyer puts their money in and then it is paid to the contractor after the services are rendered.

Today’s topics include:

Problems that arise when trying to collect from a client who claims insolvency

Resources and links:

Jesse Strauss Law PLLC

Indepayment

Write to Jesse [email protected]

Write to me [email protected]

[podcast-bonus]

Today I’m talking with a good friend of mine, Keith Perhac. Keith is the founder of the digital marketing consulting agency DelfiNet and the online course software Summit Evergreen. He has managed to build a thriving consultancy agency while working remotely in Japan. Working remotely, can be an issue for many freelancers, but Keith says he is there when his clients wake up and there again when they go to bed. He says it’s like magic when they tell him what they want, and it is done for them when they wake up.

Keith credits being able to build a thriving consultancy agency through meeting and talking to people. Most of his clients are referral based, and he got started through contacts he had made doing earlier work. He feels that just talking to people and finding out what their problems are and telling them what he does is a great way to connect. He doesn’t have expectations he just talks with people. Down the road, these conversations can lead to potential business connections.

Today’s topics include:

How to structure project management in a different time zone

Going into conversations with the desire to truly help people is the best way to make connections. Keith says that when you are there to help people they will recognize that. He also suggests being open to talking to everyone, because you never know where that chain of referrals will begin. A great conversation starter is just to ask people what they do. Taking an interest and allowing people to talk is more effective than trying to pry.

Resources and links:

DelfiNet

Summit Evergreen

SegMetrics

“If you’re just looking in your own niche, you’re probably not going to find anyone that needs your services” - Keith

You can find out more about Keith and how to start products from a technology and marketing standpoint at his website.

If you are interested in finding out more about the upcoming conference in Stockholm or the roadmapping course, be sure and sign up for the Double Your Freelancing newsletter.

If you liked today’s podcast, please leave a review for the show in iTunes.

Today’s show features service scalability strategist, Mandi Ellefson. Mandi helps entrepreneurs develop a system to free up time and remove themselves from their business. In today’s interview we discuss scaling your business and things to consider before going down that route. Mandi has discovered that scaling is a common issue for freelancers, and she is passionate about helping them.

While researching methodologies to scale her own business, Mandi discovered that this was a common problem for other entrepreneurs, and her business was born. She developed a five step system for business scalability, so that the owner is not stuck selling time for money. In the process, the business owner will have time to focus on what matters and create a real business and saleable asset.

Today’s topics include:

Mandi’s five point system to help businesses run without you

Many freelancers get stuck having to choose between growing their business or having a life. With Mandi’s system it is possible to do both. To properly scale it is really necessary to have a mindset of scalability. There is a better, faster and easier way to do things. The transition doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. Involving other people in the transition process will help you to work smarter and work less.

“There is a whole other option where you can work less and less and have your business deliver value without you.” Mandi

You can find out more about Mandi’s five steps to scale your business at her training course here or you can contact her by email [email protected]

If you liked today’s podcast, please leave a review for the show in iTunes.

Today we’re joined by Bart Mroz: consultant, co-founder of Sumo Heavy, and long-time friend. Bart is an expert at experimenting new things in his business and using the discoveries to increasingly improve it and their strategy. Not only have they done this with billing models, but with trial periods, sales processes, and basically everything else.

What he’s discovered is that experimentation is the only way of finding out what works best for your business specifically. You need to approach the business from different levels, and be the consultant (for example) who’s seen as a trusted advisor rather than a salesperson.

Today’s topics included:

You always want to sell value, and be sure that you’re taking the necessary steps to do so. Ever since the first call, start building trust and make them feel like they’re where they belong.

“You have to be comfortable with yourself first.” – Bart

Take time to hone in on your specific skill-set, and use it to your advantage. When you invest your time into experimenting and discovering, you’re investing time into making your business succeed. Bart shares this and more really solid advice on how to follow in his footsteps, so you can start building and scaling your business, too.

Links and resources:

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Today’s guest is Liston Witherill. Today we got the opportunity to talk about getting into the heads of your clients. It’s important to understand your client’s mindset, the worldview of the people you work for and their values, problems and needs. It’s what separates you and allows you to position yourself as an expert consultant and reliably solve the problems of your clients.

On today’s episode we’ll discuss:

Checking in with the customer and gauging the success of the engagement is critical. It will show you where you’re being successful, but it will also give you the opportunity to course correct.

“Find the ‘Ten questions everyone should be asking their clients’ at Goodfunnel.co/DYF.” - Liston

You can learn more about Liston Wisterill at his website Goodfunnel.co or email him at [email protected].

If you liked today’s podcast, please leave a review for the show in iTunes.