The Freelancers' Show

Panel: Reuven Lerner In this episode of the Freelancers’ Show, the Reuven discusses what to do when people call you and ask you if you can train them. He talks about the steps you need to take when someone calls you as well as gives tips on how to be successful in it. This is a great episode for people looking to understand the process behind a successful training career.   In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Consulting since 1995
• Training for Python
• He loves teaching people
• How to get training clients
• Easy to become known as an authority for training
• Once your known, people will remember you
• They want to find out about you and you want to find out about them
• Find out what they’re interested in learning first
• What are their background and experience level?
• You want to have a menu of options for people
• Less content and more exercises
• What versions of software are they using?
• Semi-negotiation over content
• Show them you care and you are listening to them
• Half days for training or horrible
• Scheduling problems
• How to schedule
• And much, much more!     

Picks: Reuven

• Trainer Weekly
• The Tic

Panel: Kai Davis Reuven Lerner Philip Morgan In this episode of the Freelancers’ Show, the panelists discuss overcoming objections that your clients might have regarding your experience. They have found that if you have good rapport with your clients, they are more likely to ask you to work on other concepts, even if it’s a little different than what you normally focus on. It’s important not to lean away from your normal too much so that you don’t overextend yourself and fail on what you promise to your clients. This episode is great for freelancer’s who want to hear about the thought process behind pushing the envelope when it comes to your experience with your clients. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Client objections
• Proposing on new projects
• Positioning in your business
• More libraries
• Maturing markets
• Knowledge advantage
• Clients are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you have good rapport
• Helps to stick with what you know
• Leaning out analogy
• Balancing act
• Taking risks
• Feeling stuck and moving slowly
• The worst-case scenarios to taking risk (they aren’t that bad)
• The power of objections and critiques
• Dream Big
• Out-Bound and In-Bound channels
• Use the right career development or growth model for you and your business
• And much, much more!

Picks: Philip

• Specializing With Little or No Relevant Proof
• 2Bobs Podcast

Reuven

• Star Trek: Discovery
• The Mandarin Companion

Kai

• The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman
• MARKUS Chair from IKEA

Panel: Jonathan Stark Philip Morgan In this episode of the Freelancers’ Show, Jonathan and Philip discuss the introduction game. When you have people ask you to refer them to your clients or a colleague, Jonathan has come up with an idea for a referral game, which he calls the introduction game. He has these people who ask for his help send him a draft of what they want and then you can tweak it so it sounds like something that you would actually say. This way you are putting out what your friend or colleague wants and you aren’t having to come up with referrals from scratch.  They also discuss how specializing your business could lead to you getting more leads, even if it doesn’t seem like it should. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• The Referral Game
• Specializing your business
• Rolodex moment
• Shelf-life runs out on the story
• The introduction game
• Must have proof to create credibility
• How to play the introduction game
• “Help me help you”
• How long does it take for this “game” to play out?
• 2 questions in the referral game
• You want to be able to tell a relevant interesting story when referring
• Value proposition
• What do others think is special about my services?
• Valuing life experience
• Ah-ha moments
• And much, much more!

Links:

• Linode
• FreshBooks

Picks: Philip

• Discord 

Jonathan

• The Business of Authority
• The Prosperous Coach

Panel: Jonathan Stark  Philip Morgan In this episode of the Freelancers’ Show, Jonathan and Philip discuss why it’s important to position your business so that you can generate more leads. They define both positioning and lead generation and give examples as to how you can use these two concepts to your advantage in your business. This is a great episode for freelancers who want to understand the importance behind directing your business towards a certain type of client in order to get more leads, and grow your business in the long run because of it.  In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Defining positioning
• Why it’s important to specialize 
• Intentionality
• Defining lead generation
• Different ways to generate leads
• How qualified is a lead?
• Difference between a lead and a prospect
• Done for you services
• How do you get into more sales conversations with leads?
• You must decide: who are you trying to reach?
• Hitting your target market
• And much, much more!     

Links:

• Linode
• FreshBooks
• LootCrate

Picks: Philip

• Value-Based Design by Nick Disabato 
• Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss 

Jonathan

• Getting More by Stuart Diamond 
• Nick Disabato on Ditching Hourly  

Panel: Reuven Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Reuven and Jonathan discuss “Optimizing for Conversations.” Jonathan explains what this important tactic is and how it is used to get more leads, raise prices, and increase value. This discussion covers important strategies to help increase trust and between you and the target market, ultimately increasing leads and sales. This is a great episode for the freelancer who wants to add more strategic moves to their marketing. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Jonathan explains the value proposition?
• Identifying the target marketed
• Validation
• Just ask people you want to help!
• Listen, Listen, Listen
• Market Research
• Validation of the hypothesis, and value proposition!
• Knowing how to get in touch with the target market
• Doing it in a way to not feel scummy
• Reaching out to the buyers and having ESP
• Existing Clients, Pass Clients conversations
• Not a sales conversation
• Talk about problems
• What keeps you up at night?
• And much more!

Picks: Jonathan

• The Business of Authority Podcast 

Reuven

• ExpressVPN

Panel: Reuven Lerner Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Reuven and Jonathan discuss “How To Get Yourself Notice” as a freelancer.  Reuven and Jonathan talk about the best practices for building yourself up for marketing and getting more leads. The topics covered are, how to let people know you exist, attracting clients,  being different and unique, taking risks, speaking and writing, social media profiles, and much more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• How to let people know you exist so they can call you for work
• Getting more leads
• Clients want solutions
• What you Ideal client needs
• You need to be different, and take risks
• Being able to Speak
• Being able to Write
• Who do you want to notice you?
• Examples to those on UpWork
• Billing per hour  - what does that say about you?
• Direct outreach
• Blogging
• LinkedIn
• Social media profiles
• And much more!

Picks: Jonathan

• Lerner on Getting Started in Technical Training

Reuven

• Seminar style Q&A at lecture hall scale

Panel: Kai Davis Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Kai and Jonathan discuss “One Obvious Path to Increasing Your Freelancing Income,” Jonathan shares an old pricing story to kick off the discussion. The topics cover issues with hourly billing, estimates, autonomy, value base decision, the perception of value, growing your craft, becoming a peer with sales contact,  and much more. This is a great episode to understand strategies to prepare your path for increasing your freelance profits. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Jonathan’s story on Pricing
• The expert on price and freak invoice
• Taking the power away - with hourly billing
• Estimates
• Autonomy on prices
• Value base decision
• Perception of value
• Tangible ROI
• Emotional reaction
• “Keep sharpening your saw”
• Market rate
• Hourly and billable hours
• Gross revenue
• Knowledge work
• Growing your craft
• 80/20 rule
• Become a peer with your sales contact
• How do you make my clients lives better
• And much more!

Picks: Jonathan

• Hourly Billing Is Nuts

Kai

• Quick Start Roadmapping Projects

Panel: Reuven Lerner Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Reuven and Jonathan discuss “Growing Vertically,” or increasing your profits without increasing your headcount or costs. The topics covered are increasing profits, not having time to do what you are good at, growing or increasing sales, hiring and firing, increase profits not revenue, increase your prices and fees, and much more. This is a great episode for those who want to learn how to increase profits with minimal cost to your freelance business. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Jonathan’s story on solo consultancy
• Increasing profits, not headcount
• Not having time to do the thing you once you did
• Bring in sales
• Sharing the limelight
• Enabling other to help you with your job
• Hiring, firing, etc.
• Increase profits not revenue
• Increase prices, fees, etc.
• How to increase prices or fees
• They need your help to learn what to do
• Create a new product
• Creating value for the customer and capitalize on it
• The Rub -  lower revenue engagement
• How do you do the marketing?
• Shifting to Lower labor higher billing
• Charge for value
• Attending conferences and speaking
• Moving into a different crowd of people, when you get tired of this income
• Moving into a new vertical and making mistakes
• What kind of services to offer to a company?
• How long should I expect to do marketing before landing clients?
• And much more!

Picks: Jonathan

• My Brother, My Brother and Me Podcast
• valuepricingbootcamp.com

Reuven

• Backups! Use Backups!

Panel: Reuven Lerner Kai Davis Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Kai, Reuven, and Jonathan discuss outreach to potential clients. Each of the freelancers talk about their strategy for outreach to acquire clients. The discussion covers the pain points of outreach, audience, target market, connecting online or other platforms, stimulating conversation, not coming off as a spammer and many other areas. This is a great episode to learn the best practice for market put reach and building business relationships. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Reaching out to locate Credit Unions
• Online searching
• Looking for Chief Marketing Manager
• An online place to connect, email, etc.
• Goals to not look sleazy
• Building a leads list
• Outreach via LinkedIn
• The value you offer is it worth the time?
• Market research
• Looking into people who are already doing it
• Qualification process
• Personalize emails
• Value proposition
• Getting on their radar
• How many people to connect before a response
• How long before followup properly
• And much more!

Picks: Kai

• Blade Runner
• freeoutreachcourse.com
• outreachblueprint.com

Jonathan

• Web Cam  - Logitech C920
• howtobuildyourfirstproductizedservice.com

Reuven

• The Beautiful Country and Middle Kingdom 
• Training

Panel: Reuven Lerner Kai Davis Jonathan Stark In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Kai, Reuven, and Jonathan discuss, getting started in training. The panelist talk about how to outline training, in addition to your freelancing career, to add another modality in your business and provide more value. This is a great episode to understand what areas and packages you can provide, how to build a syllabus for training, intro to advance courses, students, teaching to a student and paying clients,  and how to get the first paying client, and much more. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: 

• Who is training and why?
• Specialization and providing more value
• Your superpower - how would you change their business
• Dev shop versus Training shop
• Training is better
• Courses
• Packages for training
• Syllabus
• Providing Intro to advance courses
• Students and learning along with them
• How to I determine what the courses
• Teaching - get experience doing it first before getting clients
• Pedagogical  content knowledge
• Getting paying clients
• Getting better and better at training
• Third party help
• Speaking with training managers and at conferences
• lynda.com
• Books and promotional products on amazon.com
• Positioning as a trainer
• Who do I reach out to?
•  
• And much more!

Picks: Kai

• Daily Email 
• Robin Sloan book

Jonathan

• Freelancer Show Episode 227 
• Joseph Pine Ted Talk 

Reuven

• Zoom 
• Steve Martin Master Class
• Trainer Weekly