The Freelancers' Show

Panel: Reuven L. Jonathan S. Kai Davis In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, the discussion topic is Self Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing. The panel talks about the books they’ve published in the past and the details of each experience before and after launching a book. We learn the pros and cons of self and traditional publishing. Each panel member discusses their experience with contracts, deals, cash advances and royalties. Also, some in-depth discussion on the when and why you would want to self-publish. Lastly, the panel talks about what is next with their publications. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• What it means to go to traditional publishing company
• Advance payments and royalties
• Limitation on book sales and ending royalties at the same time
• Translations of book sales
• Collaborative process
• Software develops should at least write one book
• Tradition publishing helps get the book completed and distributed.
• Help with including in different resources in the traditional route.
• Traditional publishing helps with editing, moving copies.
• The money made on self-publishing vs traditional
• Your book is a 300-page business card
• Price of book verse the knowledge inside
• Book sales coupons codes
• You don’t have to conform with traditional aspects with self-publishing
• and much more.

Links:

• kaidavis.com

Picks: Jonathan

• SendOwl
• Tim Grawl
• How To Build Your First Productized Service 

Kai

• Stock and Flow
• remark.io

Reuven

• Amazon ECHO 
• My Heritage

Panel: Reuven L. Jonathan S. Phillip M. In this episode of the Freelancer’s Show, Reuven follows up on a previous episode, episode 257, about a launch on a product by Reuven. The team centers their discussion around ideas that were executed well, things that could have been done better, and next steps post-launch. Reuven gives a brief summary of the Python exercises or classes he turned into a subscription service. Reuven talks about his marketing strategy, and the audience he pitches this course to. The Freelancers talks about the many different areas of marketing and production building to launch a successful product. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• Reuven talks about his subscription service, both on a monthly and annual billing model
• Some discussion about why followers unsubscribe
• How Reuven was promoting the course or subscription to the audience
• Reuven talks about how he uses tools like Zapier to help with the email marketing strategy.
• Tools used like Easy Digital Downloads or EDD.
• Issues with unsubscribes and PayPal.
• Phillip references FS 236 about building your own system for billing and possible issues.
• Reuven talks about issues with running a business outside of the US and using Stripe
• Freelancers talk about refunding.
• What is a healthy product?
• Getting more subscribers
• Writing a sales campaign email along with Drip automation to reach the email list
• Redoing the sales page to show customer testimonials
• Discussion about Python 

Links:

• Zapier
• Easy Digital Downloads
• Stripe
• Drip

Picks: Jonathan

• Make Money Online Podcast 
• How To Build Your First Productized Service 

Phillip

• Python Programming Language

Reuven

• Pycharm
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Human Kind

Show notes are coming!

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Tweet this Episode Branden Silva is the Executive Director of his agency Ambition. He helps his clients tell stories.    This episode dives into how to create a story around you and your business. Freelancers can use the tool of storytelling to impact culture and business. Branden guides the listener through shaping a story, the elements of the story, and how to connect with your audience. Some of the areas we dig deep on in this episode are:

• Honing in your clients' stories and how to be a facilitator of the story
• How to uniquely position yourself  and your process and inject them into their story.
• The structure of a good story. The form, the tension, the obstacles, etc.
• and much much more...

  Links:

•  The 100 Most Trusted People in America

Picks: Curtis:

• Has the Smartphone Destroyed a Generation?

Philip:

• Ira Glass Interview

Branden:

• Pixar Storytelling on Khan Academy
• His website
• His podcast (coming soon)

Tweet this Episode Show Notes in Progress

FS 261: Q&A This episode of The Freelancers’ Show features panelists Reuven Lerner and Jonathan Stark. They are answering questions from the audience. Tune in to hear their answers! [00:01:15] When you sell someone an app or website, do you sell them a maintenance package with it? Reuven does not. He charges by the hour. He would probably consider a monthly retainer. Jonathan thinks that for the typical freelancer, maintenance work is not highly profitable unless it is your main business. He calls it “janitorial work.” Developers do maintenance work because they think clients want them to. They think that because it only takes a couple hours a month it is something they can do. What do you do when clients ask whom to call when something happens? Jonathan says he can’t help them but that he’ll put them in touch with someone who can. This may mean that he will put them in touch with a service provider or that he will train a junior developer internally who is capable of doing the work. If you are aware enough to recognize that when you sell someone a website build that they are probably going to need maintenance later, it can be an upfront guarantee or an option that you build into your proposal. Then you can give them a quote that includes bug free, guaranteed maintenance for a specific amount of time. The ideal option for Reuven is to use a bug free guarantee as a differentiator between you and anyone else bidding on the job. This gives you a strong incentive to do a great job the first time around. An ideal for Jonathan would be to give the client a fixed price that’s high compared to hourly estimates. Give a guarantee that indicates quality, whether that’s a bug free guarantee or satisfaction guarantee. [00:17:42] “Four Phases of Client Engagement” Jonathan is not a fan of long-term developer employer relationships because he feels that they start to treat developers as employees. He references a blog post, the “Four Phases of Client Engagement,” which points out the four phases of engagement. During the four phases, profitability is highest at the beginning phases and lowest at the end phases. It is easiest when doing a diagnostic because it is easy work for the developer and they earn a big profit while delivering value to the client. The four phases are:

• Diagnosis – This is where the problems or root causes are identified as XY and Z.
• Prescription – The stage where developers tell clients what to do about their problems.
• Application – Go and implement the plan. Most operate in this phase.
• Reapplication – The maintenance phase.

[00:22:10] What about businesses that offer specialized upgrades?             This is where the client finds himself or herself in a jam and needs help fixing a high-risk problem quick. There is a potential for a high profit to be made. If you have high risk combined with high urgency and your expertise overlaps with the problems that are there, this type of company can exist and make a high profit. In this situation, maintenance is not a goal. [00:25:15] If I go to make a list of clients I enjoy working with and the list is empty, what do I do? Reuven’s suggestion is that this person needs to find a different focus as well as different clients. Jonathan suggests picking a vertical. While this is easy conceptually, it can be hard to convince yourself that what feels like a risky decision is not. Jonathan suggests to look for where he has expertise. Find the common thread between his clients. Whether that is a vertical focus – a type of company - or a horizontal focus – a specific technology. He also suggests to look for a story to tell that could point them in a direction of expertise. There has to be a theme to his work. Find that and frame it to show value to potential clients. [00:33:30] If a client asks me to do something that’s out of the scope of the project I’m working on for them, how do I politely say, I’d love to do that for you, but you’re going to have to pay for it?” Software developers usually code. Extra work – such as sitting in on a meeting – that they may be asked to do is headwork, not handwork. This shows that the client trusts them, either through a relationship developed or through a conversation that was had about a particular expertise. If they are invited to a meeting, they should try to secure that opportunity. The wrong thing to do would be to ask for payment. At this point in the relationship, they still see you as a coder but are giving you an opportunity to affirm your value to their company. This is an opportunity to be promoted. Don’t act like a mercenary in this situation. Just go do it - even refuse if they offer to pay for your time. Act like it is a sales meeting. Deliver as much value as you can without doing homework. If it goes well, finish the meeting by saying that you have time to take this on and can write up a proposal. This shows them that you were happy to do them a professional courtesy but afterwards won’t take it further unless you get paid. If you are an expert in the field you won’t be able to give away all of your knowledge on the subject in an hour. Taking the meeting gives them a taste of how it will be to work with you and why they should hire you. Getting leads is the toughest thing so you probably will not have more than one or two of these types of meetings a year. If you begin to have more meetings than that, consider road mapping. This is an opportunity to charge clients for something that they will appreciate and that is easy to do on your end. But it is changing your business. [00:49:15] If I specialize on a vertical, how do I reuse code from client to client? The general rule if you are writing code for someone is that your client owns the code. If you reuse the code, it could get you into legal trouble. There are ways that you can get around it. One way is to put in the contract with the client that you still own the code. This actually happens a lot. It can be structured in different ways. If you are modifying a library then that retains an Open Source license, so you still own the code. If you come into a project with your own libraries then those also still belong to you. Just make sure to always put it in your contract. Picks Jonathan:

• Game of Thrones
• What's the Future

Reuven:

• The Good Fight (TV show)
• Drip's workflows

Links Four Phases of Client Engagement 

FS 260: Ari Lamstein on Making Money From Open Source  This week on The Freelancers’ Show the panelists are Philip Morgan, Curtis McHale, Jonathan Stark, and Reuven Lerner. Special guest Ari Lamstein is here to discuss how to make money from Open Source. [00:02:05] Introduction to Ari Ari is a trainer and consultant who specializes in teaching the R programming language. He wrote Chloroplethr, which is an R package that makes it easy to make Chloropleth maps in R. [00:03:45] Chloroplethr A presidential map is a chloropleth map that expresses value for states using just one color. Other things that can be measured using a chloropleth map would be population, disease rates, and unemployment rates. The package that Ari wrote makes it easy to write maps in the R language, which is why Chloroplethr is spelled as one word. [00:05:26] How did you get into Open Source R? Ari worked as a software engineer in San Francisco. In 2013 he discovered the R programming language while trying to figure out how to do analysis of data at the real estate company where he was working. All the company data had a spatial component to it. Charts were not enough to analyze this data because they were trying to understand geographic patterns. In 2013 R didn’t have the ability to do exactly what he wanted so he wrote his own package. In 2014 he released it to the R community. [00:08:04] Where you doing this on your free time? His company was very generous. During Innovation week, which happens once a quarter, he was able to choose a project to work on. He chose this and was able to do it both during Innovation weeks at work and free time. [00:10:30] Monetizing Chloroplethr On February 17, 2015 everything changed. 2013 he was Learning R, in 2014 he had the skills and it seemed like an open field. Scheduled to give a talk about Chloroplethr and he got an email at work saying he was laid off due to his company being acquired by another. He knew he had to figure out how to make money from Chloroplethr. In December he monetized Chloroplethr by self-publishing a course and made $3,500 during the launch. After that he got a training and consulting lead. [00:14:05] Did you try other approaches to monetization along the way? Was the course the first stop? Nothing worked as well as the course did. [00:15:19] What other things did you try? He closed blog posts asking for people to hire him in 2015. Now he tells customers he does not provide free support for Chloroplethr but tells them about a $49 bundle a month he sells. [00:17:14] Not Offering Free Support There are a lot of free opportunities in the R community; free programs are not hard to find. There is a split of what people in the R community think about not offering free support. Other experienced developers in the Open Source community want to learn how to monetize their own projects. There are also a lot of hobbyists. They are spoiled by having access to a lot of free stuff, so they have been vocal about not liking that they have to pay for support. It's been surprising for him. It is good for market research. Unanswered stack overflow questions can show the opportunity that developers have in the Chloroplethr world. There is a high demand but no supply for expertise. It also points out the disparity between people taking action that involves paying money verses their need for that solution. [00:39:30] If someone is starting from scratch and they had a project they wanted to monetize? The best advice Ari got was from Nathan Barry’s book Authority. In the book is a marketing strategy called audience building. Ari recommends that developers create audiences based around their project. There are three tactics he recommends for how to monetize R packages. He created an acronym for these tactics: the Best Darn System (BDS) for monetizing an R package.

• B = Build an email list of people who are interested in your package.
• D = Deliver free training to your email list.
• S = Sell a training product to your list.

Ari explains the need for an email list is because of the need to be able to initiate contact with people. Even though Twitter is active for R developers, engagement rates for email are better than Twitter. People have a hard time believing it because they think email is spam. He tries to get people comfortable using email as a marketing channel. The most popular thing he has done online is to create a free email course called “Learn to map census data in R.” The course teaches people how to use Chloroplethr how to map census data in R. He had 600 people sign up for the course in a few days. [00:45:05] Do you regret not having made Chloroplethr commercial? No. He feels it is one of the most interesting things he has done in his career and loves that the R community has so much free stuff. The only change he would make would be to know what he knows now about sales and marketing when he first started. [00:47:20] Did you ever have your employer claim ownership of anything having to do with Chloroplethr? Ari had to speak to his lawyer when he wanted to release Chloroplethr. The package system made it a special case. He had to file it under an Open Source license. The company’s lawyer wanted it to be under a BSD 3 license, which it was eventually released under. Ari’s employer owns the copywrite but the license is a BSD 3. That is unrelated to the product that was actually sold. Picks Reuven:

• Raymond Hettinger's talk

Philip:

• Audio Technica Mic
• Bossjock Studio

Jonathan:

• Do the Work by Steven Pressfield
• www.caddyserver.com/pricing

Curtis:

• Dave Ramsey Podcast 
• Total Money Makeover 
• Profit First

Ari:

• http://www.censusmappingcourse.com
• Profitable Portfolio Blueprint

Links www.arilamstein.com 

FS 259: Anthony English on Making a Radical Change in Positioning  On this episode of the Freelancers’ Show panelists Jonathon Stark, Curtis McHale, Philip Morgan, and Reuven Lerner talk to special guest Anthony English. Anthony discusses making a radical change in positioning. Tune in to learn more about this topic!  [00:02:30] Introduction to Anthony Anthony has an IT background working with mid-range systems. He has recently been transitioning into being a business coach. [00:03:31] Who do you work with and what kind of advice do you give them? Anthony works with people who are service professionals and highly technical but not necessarily in IT. They all share similar characteristics. They feel like they can’t sale, hate networking, and do not know how to translate their skills to clients. The first advice he gives professionals is to stop talking about their technical skills to clients because it only takes seconds to prove to the client that they are expert in their field. The questions they should be focusing on instead are: why does the client care? What problem are you solving for them? Anthony says that professionals are taking customers from point A to point B. The client needs to see how you will get them there. [00:14:50] How did you move from IT consulting to business coaching? Anthony still works in IT a little but states that companies do not put money into upgrading them. He was working with big companies and through agents originally, but when he tried to go on his own people companies told him they were used to paying $40 an hour. This rate was outsourced to companies in India and they wanted him to match that price. Anthony was not able to do so. He thought he should learn different skill sets but then he read Jonathan’s tweet about coding being the least valuable part of your existence, which made him decide to go a different route. Another reason was that he saw that business owners could be in different fields: there was no vertical. In talking to them he found out what their frustrations were quickly. This made him see that he could do that for service professionals and could teach them how to talk to their clients. [00:17:45] Was there ever an advantage to being Australian? How did that work and change over time?
The size of the companies he works with have millions of dollars invested in outsource companies. He can’t have a conversation with them about that. The companies are frustrated and know it’s not working but they can’t change it. [00:18:35] Is there an industry norm to use outsourced body shops? There is an industry norm for the bigger companies such as banks. For smaller companies they could not see the value of doing anything other than keeping lights turned on. [00:19:15] What was your first sign that your value was now diminished by other alternatives? When Anthony actually worked in the business, there was a lot of nervousness from people who had been working in the industry for ten to fifteen years. He saw seemingly irreplaceable employees being replaced easily within a week, showing the dispensable nature of people. Also, people were trying to find any new work, even without knowledge of what they were doing. That is when he realized “the writing was on the wall.” [00:23:00] How do you get clients to trust you? Building trust happens fast. Anthony is not sure if it is his personality or a skill. LinkedIn has been a successful method with connected with clients for him. He has made it client focused instead of focused on his own skills. He changed his headline from “IT Specialist,” to “Business Coach. I’m going to get you better leads.” He has sent leads with pointed comments about what they are doing well. This has helped people respond very positively to him, wanting to connect. [00:36:24] Has additional LinkedIn profile views led to more leads and more business? Anthony’s LinkedIn profile views are up 50%: he has a larger number of people viewing his profile every week. It has given him more leads. It is too early in the process to know whether it has given him more business. He has found new businesses are connecting with him. It has led him to build many relationships. Anthony makes a point to connect with point to reach out to connections of those people who like his posts. He sends personal comments along with invitations, who almost always respond to him. [00:39:21] What kind of people use LinkedIn? A large number of people do not check their profiles. Service professionals mostly use the social media platform. [00:48:00] Understand Your Clients Anthony’s advice to professionals is to worry less about tactics. Instead, learn to understand clients and how to sale. That is the Achilles heel for those with a technical audience. Anthony urges professionals to learn how to understand and talk the language of their clients. Picks Jonathan

• iPad 
• https://jake-jorgovan.com/blog/a-simple-hack-to-generate-more-leads-on-linkedin

Curtis

•  All Weather Pen

Philip

• The Consulting Pipeline Podcast

Reuven

• Das Keyboard 
• Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign 

Anthony

• trinityperspectives.com.au

FS 258: Positioning, Outcomes, and States of Market Awareness Panelists Philip Morgan, Jonathan Stark, and Reuven Lerner lead the discussion this week. They discuss Positioning, Outcomes, and States of Market Awareness. Tune in to learn more about these three topics! What does this mean? Jonathan explains the specifics of positioning outcomes by reading from an email he recently received. He talks about pitching to the wrong audience and using activities as key points instead of outcomes of the services offered. He uses the analogy of a website that sells drills and the headline. He points out that the headline on the website should not say, "So you need a drill?" Instead it should say, "So you need to hang a picture?" Sometimes buyers don't understand what outcomes a tool or service can provide and they are often looking for the outcomes. If they do not understand the tool, it's impossible for them to connect the availability of the tool to the outcome they are looking for. In some cases talking about the action or tool is valuable but in most cases, speaking in terms of how you are an input to a process helps sell.  Technology specialists are bad at positioning the outcome.  Many developers will sell themselves as developers with a particular language and results in commoditization. To sell yourself as an outlier, you have to talk about the business and outcomes of the work you do. Also, the life of specific technology can be short and selling yourself as an expert in a specific tech isn't as long lasting as selling yourself as someone who yields positive outcomes.   Timing of the Technology can come into play.  In some cases you'll want to describe yourself as a developer in a particular language or framework. If you notice a large demand for someone who is an expert developer for a language, then it would be appropriate to sell yourself as that person first and foremost. Many cases the employer isn't as concerned about the framework or language but is looking to have something done. Over time, emerging languages will create demand and over time will be in less demand.  States of Market Awareness Knowing what your audience is thinking in terms of what they are looking for helps to position yourself correctly. The states of market awareness describes the different awareness types that you may be in regards to your understanding of what the audience is thinking and your audiences knowledge of your product. There are five states to market awareness. First State – “Most Aware” Describes the customer knowing of your product, knowing what it does, and knowing that they want it. For example, something like a telephone, broom, or an air conditioner falls under this category. Customers that are “most Aware” will spend time comparative shopping but mostly know what they are going to get. Many people will positions themselves as if the customer knows exactly what they need to solve their issue.   Second State – “Customer knows of your product but does not yet know they want it." This describes awareness where marketing has successfully informed the client or customer what the product is but hasn't been told how well it does what it does. In some cases it's down to the conditions the customer is in. In those cases, something hasn't created a demand in their situation to want to approach this product.  Third State - "Knows or recognizes immediately what the problem is, but doesn't know that there is a product that fixes it."  Often a customer will have an issue, know it's an issue, and would want something to fix the issue, but doesn't know where to go to purchase that item or service. For example, a customer is running an ad campaign and knows that it is being run poorly, but the customer doesn't know whom to go to optimize it. Often this works out for the customer by either accidentally finding a solution or reaching out to find one. Finding someone who sells himself or herself as someone who solves that particular issue often creates an immediate connection. Sometimes with this state, the value of a diagnosis is as great if not greater than the service or product itself.  Fourth State - "The prospect does not have a desire but has a need."  This is when a person recognizes the need immediately and does not recognize the connection between the fulfillment of that need and your product. This is when a person does not know your product matches his needs. Fifth State - "Is not aware of his desire or need or will not admit to it." This category tends to be a red flag where the salesperson or marketing department spends most of his or her energy convincing the customer that they actually do want the product instead of the value of the product. The example of 'Pilling the dog' is brought up to illustrate the overall experience the customer or client has in this state of awareness. Often the salesperson or marketing will seemingly force their suggestion of need onto the customer and this generally leads to a bad experience.  Marketing Successfully If you pitch to the wrong state of awareness your marketing will be ineffective. The customer won’t know or understand how to evaluate their problem. Software developers usually talk over customers’ heads. HR Departments can be the blame for it being difficult to know how to market to customers. Resumes are a form of marketing, which causes people to think of themselves in terms of feature lists. More opportunity exists in a middle state of awareness. A consumer knows the problem but they have not decided upon the solution already. Talk about yourself less in terms of outcomes in order to be the most successful. There needs to be a target market you know you are selling to first. It is difficult to understand how what you do is important unless you know whom you are selling to. A question to ask is, “how would their business be worse if they didn’t hire you?” Worth Worth is not objective: it is always within a context. In order to know your worth, you have to know your audience. Who are you selling your craft or product to? The value of something is different to people. The example of a car is used. Someone may ask, “how much is this car worth?” But the question that really is being asked is, “How much am I likely to get from a dealer for this?” The Gardener Hype Cycle When a technology is brand new, there is an increase in excitement and interest. While there is excitement, there is no demand. This is depicted by an image of a hockey stick pointing up and to the right. It eventually peaks because of the earlier hype. Then, early expectations are seen as being hyperbole. Eventually, there is a bounce back and excitement stabilizes as it becomes a mature technology and is viewed as more realistic. While it bounces back, excitement doesn’t ever reach the peak of the initial hype. Advice Some advice to freelancers is to know where you are in the states of awareness, know your market, and the clients you are selling to. You should be good at your craft. But you should be cautious and know that it does not take you far. Being good is only part of the package. In order to be successful, have to have more than skills. Need to be current with your craft (keep up with new tools), improve the client’s condition, and have an ability to create change for your clients. Picks Reuven:  Drip API Philip: "Breakthrough Advertising" by Eugene Schwartz Jonathan:  The Expanse Series