School Days

During my early years, I would frequently take things apart. As a curious child, you can find me behind the TV taking the phone apart because I wanted to know how it worked. I feel that at was the turning point in becoming an entrepreneur; I wanted to know how the world works! One thing at a time.

Getting candies, toys, and small trinkets is every child’s dream, and it certainly didn’t pass me by either. I started to paying attention to how much things might cost and how to then get that amount to buy my own candy and toys. I didn’t want to wait for mom or dad to reluctantly buy me something.

I raided my parent pockets for coins! I raided the seat cushions, the dresser, the cup holders in the car. I was relentless.

I saw an opportunity to help my parents just give me their spare change. To them, it was low value, but to me, it was very high value. Creating a system where they could just put their spare change in allowed me to efficiently collect them. Collecting that spare change was my goal, and I made it easy for my parents to fork it over.

High School

By my high school years, I expanded my efforts to get actual dollar bills. I started to look around the neighborhood to see what we could do as kids. Raking leave, mowing the grass, taking out trash, or whatever menial job that kids could do. I wanted to start doing that for pay because I was already doing that for my parents.

So I started going door-to-door and offering lawn service to people in the neighborhood and signing up work. From there, I would recruit my friends to work with me and split some of that profit. I would keep 60% of the payment and they would be paid out 40%. It worked well that way because I was the one finding the work, locking in the agreement, and paying out my friends.

I learned from that experience that partnering up with people and taking a smaller cut can still make you money. You don’t have to take it all on yourself and think you need to take on the world solo.

Time @ INPO

INPO stands for Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. We helped regulate the nuclear power industry here in North America. Similar to how the NRC inspects and verifies the operations of power plants, INPO does that but kicks it up a notch.

INPO was during my college internship days and I worked on the help desk. I was the first level support and picked up the phones or answered the phone calls for any problem. We were the first line of defense. Then I started to notice patterns that we were having.

From there, I trained myself to become the subject matter expert for that specific problem. With time, I became the ‘SharePoint’ guy for our 400 people strong company. I became more senior and was able to sit with Project Managers and other experts to learn how to manage projects, have conversations about the budget, and direct technology in a way to meet the goals of the project.

The employees at INPO had specific roles that they performed when they went out to inspect these power plants. You had the woman looking at the chemistry of the plant because she was the “Chemistry Woman”. The gentleman focusing on the auxiliary pumps because he was the “Pump Man”. They were very specialized…..and VERY well paid..

I learned that specializing in a specific field can help you become the expert in the room a lot quicker and command higher compensation. From observation, I realized it the power of specialization.

My First Company

When I was getting more senior at INPO, I would be approached to work on personal computers and devices. This lead me to start offering that as a service on the side to work on peoples machines.

A friend of mine at INPO was in the same boat as me. We would both be approached, but we would often share customers if we could not work on them ourselves. We also both had that entrepreneur spirit with finding and acting on opportunities if we found any. His family ran and operated a public gymnastics gym in North Georgia.

We started a company installing public access points in public locations. The first (and only) location that we were able to start with was his family gym. We had an inside track with the operating team, and installed the internet, access point, and configured everything. We then started shopping this idea around to other gyms, locations, and other public locations.

In the end, we folded the company because we realized we wanted to focus on graduating more than driving around everywhere fixing issues. This was also in the time before smart phones were super popular, so WiFi was slow and unreliable. Which was a huge headache when trying to get dozens of people on a single access point.

We both learned how to create an MVP, shop it around, and what to do WHEN things go wrong. It took a lot of patience, determination, and elbow grease to just get things started. We grew a lot while we operated that company!

Setting Out on My Own

During my time an INPO, I also started to expand my Rolodex and circle of influence. I wanted to keep people around me that I felt that I could help and grow with. I knew that I wanted to eventually work for myself and felt that keeping up with potential clients and past clients would work out in the long run.

I started moonlighting on the side and slowly built up my experience and confidence in working with strangers. I used these opportunities to start saving in my warchest for emergencies and backup income for when I DO step out on my own.

That war chest enabled me to take on more risk, be patient and picky about the clients I wanted to take on and find quality work. As I grew into freelancing, I increased my rates and kept evolving. Word of mouth and Referrals started to work for me and allowed me to step further and further into working for myself.

I fell upon a W-2 job that luckily allows me to currently work both Freelance and have clients. The catch is that that single W-2 job is good bulk of my income at the moment and that makes me worry. That is a single point of failure if I am let go.

Whats Next?

These coming years, I want to focus on diversifying my income even more. I want to make sure that I don’t have a single point that is getting me the largest ‘operational’ income. I want to ensure that the load is spread out as much as possible.

In the mean time, I am enjoying my W-2 work and I am able to balance this with my clients. I want to work on a few passive income projects, course work, products that you can purchase, and maybe additional client engagements.

We shall see what 2019 and 2020 brings!

The post FHS 41 How I Started appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

A nanny turned Melanin (dot) Tech Founder and Help Scout growth specialist, she is dedicated to showing the world that there is more to black people than what you see in the media. Chanita is committed to helping people of color earn opportunities in the tech industry and sustain long-term, rewarding careers. She is usually advocating for the advancement of diversity and inclusion, traveling the world, playing Uno or attempting to dance salsa.

Chanita’s mission is to create lasting change in the tech industry that she knows and loves. Her brand of change is focused on inspiring others to stand up for what they believe in and to never run away from something they enjoy, even if they feel as if they don’t belong.

She and her partners created Melanin.Tech to give techies of color a safe space to share stories, enhance skills, find opportunities and feel heard. Melanin.Tech host meet-ups, curate an online community, offer conference scholarship, provides job listings and sells apparel to all techies in order to amplify the importance of diversity, inclusion and belonging in the tech world.

Website:https://www.melanin.tech
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melanintech/
Blog: https://medium.com/@melanintech

Here are a few points of what we talked about:

• Chanita started off as a nanny
• Works for Growth Scout as a growth specialist
• Impostor syndrome is real and can hit harder if you are a minority
• Step up and take ownership of your career – You’ll be viewed as the expert
• You may be the only person in your organization that looks like you, but that shouldn’t stop you from BEING you
• You don’t have to be the same to be in tech
  • Be bold and be yourself! Stand out and you’ll make it farther
• Take time to invest in yourself and learn something new. You don’t have to always have a degree or be a developer to be in the tech field
• Do what you love; what you know and get experience from your journey
• Join small projects + Volunteer / Freelance forums
  • Fiverr.com
  • Upwork.com
  • etc
• Start somewhere by. Work on projects

Once you get a little experience, start flexing! It doesn’t pay to be humble.

• Going from 0 to 100 is not required. You can go from 0 to 1 and you’re still an expert
• There are always levels to what you’re an expert with
• Don’t be afraid to start!
• Technology evolves and so will you. There are so many avenues of the tech field
• Step up to challenges and ask for more if you’re already working in a tech field/company
• Don’t prioritize prestige over what fits for you
• Burn out is real and will creep up on
• Go where the people are! Make friends in the tech space and network
• Melanin.tech is striving to help build relationships
• Helping you find jobs, but with screeners to include diversity
  • Indeed
  • Zip Recruiter
  • Atlanta Tech Village
• Finding a job is a full-time job in itself, and having someone in your corner is a win-win!
• Knowing your own worth and being firm with what your requirements are powerful
• Diversity and inclusion consulting
• Build a community where you can be yourself
  • Meetup events hosted with Melanin
• HATE those “speed dating for professionals” events
• Building that relationship takes time
• Icebreakers at events help get people started
• Challenges with working from home
  • Impostor syndrome X 1,000,000
  • Fear of being fired
• Codeswitching – Change yourself to match the environment/people
• How DARE you!
  • College drop out
  • Woman
  • Woman of color
• Be yourself and you’ll be just fine! You’ll enjoy yourself and your clients can tell
• Your clients and customers can sense when you’re real and genuine
  • Reduces stress
  • Builds trust
• “Your baby is cute as a button!” vs “Wow…your baby looks JUST like you…”

People are just people. At the end of the day, we’re all talk about the same things.

• Networking does not have to be collecting a business card
• Keep the conversation going and flow with F.O.R.D.
  • Family
  • Occupation
  • Recreation
  • Dreams
• You can start the conversations
• Working at Toys-R-Us as Geoffrey the Giraffe
• Everyone should work in retail at least one sale cycle
• Be friends with your tech support department
• Face time with the different tech levels. Build that report
• Conferences and networking events
  • Afro Tech – Large conference with a diverse group of people
  • Code camp – Local Atlanta techie conference
• As you progress with your career, your roles changes
• Diversify your skills to be more independent
  • Meeting customers
  • Closing sales
  • Meeting other professionals
  • Non-tech skills; soft skills
• Sometimes you have to experience it to learn you don’t like it
• Working in South America
• You have to put some action towards your learning
• Melanin.Tech 2019 Focus
  • Career Awareness
  • Screened Job Listings
  • Building a community
  • Flat Iron Schools
  • Virtual Meetup

Quick Picks

Chanita

• Switch Yards Coworking space – Downtown co-working space
  • Dope coffee partnerships

Marion

• Savannah River Street Sweets – Local candy company in the historic section of Savannah
  • https://www.riverstreetsweets.com/

The post FHS 40 Starting in Tech ft Chanita Simms appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Create a Newsletter

A newsletter is a powerful tool. It is a direct link to your audience. Its an invite from them to start talking to them and providing valuable content. If you are a business owner, freelancer, consultant, or anything else, having a newsletter should be in your wheelhouse.

Create a newsletter by first planning what type of audience you are planning to have with your newsletter. The easiest start is to look at your industry and become someone who keeps that audience up to date with news, events, or information. You are the expert here even if you don’t feel like you are. Get rid of that impostor syndrome because you’re already kicking butt and taking names!

Take it one step at a time and you’ll be able to grow your audience to impressive numbers.

Opt-In

Worry about the platform and tool that you’re going to use to manage the newsletter later. Plan on what you’re going to be giving away in exchange for that potential customer/clients email address. You’re building a small community around your idea or product, so give something away that is related.

The Opt-In item is something that the client may already be looking for and is little to no cost for you. A brochure, booklet, how-to guide, checklist; these are all great opt-in items that you can give away in exchange for that email address. You just need to make sure that the item is related to the newsletter.

Frequency

Try for once a month for your release dates. That’s only 12 emails that you’re sending out to your audience. Slowly build your frequency to hit about once a week. That’s only 52 emails a year that is going out to your audience. Once a month is great, but if you can do once a week, you’re doing better.

Quality vs Quantity

Quality is what is going to compel the audience member to stay with you and consume your content. Don’t just churn out content just because you need to hit those numbers. Strategically plan and think of the reasons you’re sending out these emails.

Over time, your audience is going to help guide you into what type of content you’re going to be sending out.

Part of sending out quality is that you’re going to retain those quality clients/customers. You are striving for people who interact with you and your content, repeat readers, and potential customers.

It’s better to have 5 people on your list that interact with you versus 100 people that don’t even open your newsletter.

Content

Content can come from anywhere and anything. You are already the expert in your field and industry enough that you can talk about it. If you’re still stuck on where to find content, check out these two suggested places:

• Feedly.com – A multi-website scrapper that brings content to you into a single dashboard. You’re able to group and organize multiple website feeds into different “buckets”. From there, you can create numerous newsletter content sources or research. The best part is that the free version lets you add a metric ton of sites before you need to upgrade.

• Reddit.com – Reddit is a very popular website that consolidates a lot of content into a single site. You can easily get lost within the different sub-reddits and discussions happening every day. In a nutshell, Reddit is a forum where you can participate or read discussions based on a wide range of topics. Perfect for inspiration or content for your newsletter.

Tools to Use

Mailchimp [affiliate link] – Mailchimp is a free newsletter platform that lets you simply and easily send out your content. Mailchimp manages your contact list, your content, your scheduling, and a lot of the automated processes behind the scenes as well.

The delivery system allows me to queue up a few newsletters to go out in the future. I can also create rules around the newsletters that just went out, such as “if noone opens this, send a reminder”. The automation is very impressive and perfect for what most people need. It helps keeps clients and customers engaged in you and your content.

With Mailchimp, you can also create templates for each newsletter that you’re about to send out, so you’re not rebuilding each newsletter from scratch. A template is going to save you a lot of time and helps make your messages consistent.

Drip – Drip is the next level when it comes to newsletters. When you need something that allows you to take control over every aspect of your contact list, newsletter, and content, this is where Drip works best.

Drip works best for ecommerce and situations where you want to keep clients/customers coming back to your site and shop. Mailchimp does this as well, but in my opinion, Drip does that a lot better.

Prices for Drip start at $50/month, but their feature list well makes up for that price. The performance for what you’re getting, Drip is an impressive tool that lets you take minute control over your communication to your audience.

Conclusion

Create a newsletter to have a direct connection with your clients and customers. Starting one begins with planning what type of audience you are speaking to. Work on that Opt-In piece to trade for an email address. Work on the frequency of how often you will send out an email, but shoot for at least 12 to begin with. Then look at what platform you are going to be using to send those newsletters out with.

Once you get going with a newsletter, you’ll find your rhythm and voice and you’ll notice the signups going up.

The post FHS 39 Newsletter appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Malika Bowling is a digital marketer and the Editor of Roamilicious. She’s the author of Culinary Atlanta: Guide to the Best Restaurants, Markets, Breweries and More! and Food Blogging 101. She has been featured on HGTV, Chowhound, Playboy, TravelGirl and has been a contributing writer to USA Today. Malika has also served as a judge at various culinary competitions and food festivals, including Taste of Atlanta. She is also co-founder of the Association of  Bloggers.

Follow them @Roamilicious on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for behind the scenes content. And don’t forget to subscribe to their newsletter and never miss a contest, giveaway or the latest must visit restaurant!

Website: https://roamilicious.com/
Association of Bloggers: https://associationofbloggers.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Roamilicious/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Roamilicious
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MalikaBowling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Roamilicious

Malika is a published author, runs a lifestyle blog, and the co-founder for the Association of Bloggers. We talked about what it takes to create and run a food, travel, and lifestyle blog. Her insight into the world of media management, blogging, and PR is very impressive and it shows in how she manages her blogs.

When you’re starting your blog, focus on the “WHAT” rather than the “HOW”. Shut down that ‘analysis paralysis’ …

Here are a few points of what we talked about:

• Malika started about 10 years ago after being laid off from her job in marketing. From there, she started writing a blog.
• She started out as “date nights” and slowly morphed into reviews and photos and a lifestyle blog
• She wanted to help manage others social media and newsletters and evolved into blogging as a business
• Social media is primarily used to drive traffic to her blogs. From there, she get clients, companies, brands, etc to partner with her
• Recently changed to include travel about a year ago. Immediate feedback from locations who wanted to partner with her
• Her books!
• You grow your equipment with your business, flowers, etc
• Include multiple multi-media content into your blog
• Analytics to test and respond
• Instagram TV (IG TV) strategy for your brand. Vertical for IG TV and landscape for YouTube
• Business vs Hobby
  • Market yourself. You have to put in that effort
  • If people are included in post, use back-links, mention in post, and send a request to
  • Media kit (canva.com for inspiration or resources)
  • Consistency
• Advertisements, Affiliates, and Traffic help you build your revenues
• Influence Network helps bring traffic to you and partner with brands (https://associationofbloggers.com/)
  • PERFECT turnkey solution to match influencers with brands
• ‘Exposure Bucks’
• Association of Bloggers
  • Any level of bloggers can join the association
  • You are now part of a network that will partner you with brands
  • Exclusive resources for bloggers include help building a profile, private support group, and coaching sessions
• Is this a business or a hobby? If you want a business, treat it like a business!!
  • If you’re looking to make money, you need to invest time, energy, and money into your blog
  • You will grow there where you need to start spending money in investing in yourself
• Planning and scheduling is important!
• Be consistent with your lifestyle blog content and release!
• There is a lot of work when it comes to growing and building a blog. Partner up with other blogs and people to get help.
• Work on documenting your processes. You will grow and having things written down will be your blueprint on how to run your business
  • Helps you focus on your lifestyle blog rather than getting down in the weeds
• Tools Malika uses
  • SEM Rush – Used for Keyword advanced research and related keywords ($100/month)
  • Keywords Everywhere – Basic keyword research (Chrome extension)
  • Google Trends – Helps you find trends with relational keywords
  • Yoast SEO – WordPress blog audit for SEO (Free)
• Content with Accessibility – 2 birds with one stone that can help with SEO tactics
• Use analytics to help guide you
• Social Media Tools:
  • Hootsuite – Schedule you social media posts
  • Missing Lettrs – Pulls in content, images, and information from your existing post and creates a drip campaign on social media
  • Post Planner – Used for topic research and find content
  • IfThisThenThat – Automate your life!
• Schedules on posting content should be consistent, but you don’t have to always hit exact dates
• Be mindful of the content that you create and use. You’re content is a reflection of you and your work
• Work on your craft and don’t be afraid to approach brands you want to work with
• Weave the product into a story revolving around you
• Grow and build your network by interacting and being involved
• Focus on the social media accounts that you are more comfortable with
• People want to know what is behind the blog – People want buy from a person and not a company
• Start a newsletter and use free giveaways to entice signups – Direct funnel to your audience
• Go to events and build connections
  • Meetup.com to find like-minded people and groups
• Common mistakes when blogging 
• Crafting your message 
• Favorite places to visit (so far) 
• Income from blogging? 
• Any other topic you’d like to talk about

Quick Picks

Malika

• SnapSeed.com app lets you edit images on your phone to give your images a polished look
• Perspective change options, update color scale, make colors pop!

Marion

• Goodreads.com Book Challenge
• Goodreads is a digital library of what you’ve read or want to read. Get recommendations from other people and can connect to your Amazon.com and Audible.com accounts

The post FHS 38 Lifestyle Blogs ft Malika Bowling appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Know When to Cut the Cord

Its hard to know when to let a client go, but its easier to make that decision when red flags start to pop up. Those red flags can sneak up on you or be super obvious.

A few examples of Red Flags that pop up could be:

• Red–Flag 1: “I don’t know what i want, but i’ll know it when i see it”
• Red–Flag 2: Money is stressed more than the outcome
• Red–Flag 3: Why deposits are important
• Red–Flag 4: “I don’t really have a budget right now”
• Red–Flag 5: Low to no communication
• Red–Flag 6: Sporadic Payments

In FHS 17 (Click here to listen), we chat about the red flags that we come across every once in a while.

Sometimes you come to a point where you can’t provide the services that your clients hired your for. Your skills may not be up to par or your availability changed dramatically.

Sometimes you may need to go in a separate direction. Did you decide to stop providing that service? Are you evolving your business to keep with the times? Your growth is more important than holding back and pleasing your client.

Sometimes you have to raise your rates which will then price your clients out. Don’t limit your income by keeping clients that wont move with you. The goal of every engagement is to help your clients gain a positive return in your services. There will be a few clients that you’ll hold on to at your old rate, but you should slowly plan on moving them up to your new rates.

But if you’re reached a point where you need to let them go, be specific about it. Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t lie about it. Be the professional in the relationship and let that client go!

Be SPECIFIC

Don’t be timid or vague about why you’re letting them go. At this point, you should have already had communication about changes you’ve needed to implement.

Maybe the client is unaware of able to resolve the issue. You can never really know what is going on with the client and having that open communication can move things along. A lot of times in your favor. You should have had open communication with your client when problems popped up. From there you may have been able to resolve the issues.

Let the client know specifically why you have to go in a different direction. Don’t be rude or curt, but be professional and firm with the reasons.

Leave on Good Terms (If Possible)

You never know when or if you will circle back to the client. You may have a reason to leave the client because your services outgrew their budget. Or you’re taking on different types of work.

Leave with a good taste in their mouth and help them transition (as much as possible) to an alternative. You never know how they may referrer you to other work.

If you DO want to burn your bridges, make sure this is a bridge worth burning. Don’t let your emotions take over and do a “scorched earth” type of scenario.

Stop Working on Work

Regardless of how you are letting the client go, you still need to stop all work for that client. Do not drag on additional tasks as “favors” or “to help them out”. It is not fair to you or the client if you keep sticking around and working on their tasks.

If you let the client go, that also means you let the work go. There is no obligation to keep working for free….and you should not be working for free!

Don’t Be Shy About It

Being firm and assertive when letting the client go is similar to ripping off the bandage. Its gonna hurt…but only for a little bit.

The post FHS 36 Firing Clients appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Chef Jack – Digital Marketing Consultant

Chef Jack wants to provide you with the best choices in food.  Whether you are seeking personal chef services, cooking classes, full-service catering of events, or connecting with masterminds over an amazing dinner, Chef Jack ATL is ready to meet all your food and catering needs. You can follow his delicious posts on Instagram.

Website: http://chefjackatl.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mastermind_dinners_atlanta (@Mastermind_Dinnners_Atlanta)

As a guest at the table you will be sharing and exchanging with other pros about what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve your business.  While working towards the next level of your business, you will be dining on a custom-made, gourmet dinner prepared on-site by the award-winning Chef Jack.​

Prepare to be inspired, motivated and encouraged on your entrepreneurial voyage with the support and advice of people who are in the same lane as you.

Mastermind Dinners Atlanta are invitation only events.  The best way to be offered an invitation is to register with the Guest List and learn when and where dinners are being conducted, and who the host/moderator is.  Some dinners have themes to be of the most benefit to certain business niches.  By filling out the short Guest questionnaire on ChefJack.com you can receive a special invitation to a themed dinner matching your profile.

Check out more about the Mastermind Dinners here: https://www.chefjackatl.com/mastermind-dinners

Here are a few points that we talked about:

• Unique foods served by Chef Jack
• What is a Mastermind Group (Also what is a Mastermind Dinner)
• Social lubricant
• Involvement increases at Mastermind Dinners helps make your groups more related
• Elements of the foods spur different conversations
• History of the Mastermind Groups
  • Junto Group with Benjamin Franklin in Philly
  • Napoleon Hill of the 1920’s
• Where to meet people
• Partnerships formed with 2 people who had parts-of-skills
• Strategies and importance of networking
• Group is more intimate and encourages discussion
  • ex. A woman spoke up about a great ideas, but execution needed help. Group stepped up and guided her idea to get started.
• Diverse groups bring diverse ideas
• Every problem that you’ve got, more than likely someone has already solved it
• 12 People maximum helps get the conversation flowing and a good pace
  • Effective sizes is about 8-10 people
• Tries to match groups together if possible
• Its OK to share, there are millions of people and ideas out there already

Quick Picks

Chef Jack

• Jason Gaignard – ‘Mastermind Dinners’

Check it out on Amazon. Click Here!

Marion

• Chick-Fil-A Sandwich recipe
• Diary Queen ice cream
• Wendy’s Chocolate Ice Cream

The post FHS 35 The Power of Mastermind Dinners ft Chef Jack appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Click to Listen!

Get Clients Now – by C.J. Hayden

Purchase on Amazon today – Click Here!

Get Clients Now is one of my consistent go-back-and-read-this-again books. This

I recently read an amazing book that helped me reach a 40% increase in my revenue. Get Clients Now (by C.J. Hayden) has helped me identify a rhythm of marketing and promoting my services. This basic guided outline takes you through the different types of effective marketing strategies.

In episode 7, I break down the different strategies that I’ve used. You can listen to that episode by clicking this link here:

From MOST Effective to LEAST Effective Marketing Strategies:

1. Direct Contact & Follow Up
   1. This involves making a person-to-person connection with a prospective client through email, phone call, in person, fax, text message, etc. This tactic can include cold calling, warm calling, and lunch/coffee with potential clients. I touch on a few steps that I’ve done personally to land some of my first clients as well as some of my most lucrative clients.
2. Networking & Referral Building
   1. Meeting people face to face at networking events is just a drop in the bucket for this strategy. Building a list of contacts that you can tap into for referrals, clients, resources, ideas, or information should be the goal of networking.
3. Public Speaking
   1. Positioning yourself as a expert to your potential clients can start from public speaking. Public speaking will help you become more memorable and noticeable than if you were in the crowd.
4. Writing & Publicity
   1. Writing about your expertise can also be a powerful marketing strategy by gaining visibility and credibility among your peers and potential clients. Start small through social media, blogs, or your own website. Reach out to other blogs as guest writers can quickly lead you to more and more opportunities to show that you’re an expert.
5. Promotional Events
   1. Creating an event such as a trade show, fundraiser, or a conference can put you in direct contact with potential clients and bring the audience to YOU. This also holds true with participating in an existing event by owning/renting a booth. Cost is very real on both end at with this strategy: participating in an event or creating an event can be a very expensive cost per head experience.
6. Advertising
   1. There are generally two different types of advertising: organic and paid.Organic advertising is essentially word of mouth and low/no-cost advertising. Advertising by talking about and promoting your goods and products on social media or withing your mailing list is an example of organic advertising. This is the lowest cost engagement and can have some of the highest returns. Referrals are very powerful and builds trust.Paid advertising can help fill your pipeline with paying customers, but they don’t necessarily build trust in your product. Treat advertising as a way to increase your visibility and awareness to potential customers. The trust and eventual sale will come with them interacting with you directly.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – by Charles Duhigg

Purchase on Amazon today – Click Here!

The Power of Habit is an interesting book that helps you understand why people do certain habits. Good and bad and how to help break or change that habit. This book looks at huge corporations and individuals and breaks down how habits are everywhere. From Starbucks to Target to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, habits are everywhere and can move mountains.

The Cue, Routine, Reward cycle is the basic concept behind the ‘Habit Loop’. Its what can be measured behind a habit. This can be in business or in life and we may not even be paying attention to it. By breaking down our habits, we can take control over our good or bad habits.

The Habit Loop have measurable stages in our habits. There is the Cue: the trigger for our habit. The Routine: what do we do during our habit. And the Reward: Why do we do our habit. This then restarts the Habit Loop and we’re back to it again.

Bringing this concept into our freelancing operation, we can create a Habit Loop to find and win customers and contracts.

Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products – by Nir Eyal

Purchase on Amazon today – Click Here!

Excerpt from the book: 

Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?

Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.

Customers and clients have a trigger that we can tap into that rely on existing habits that they have. We go on autopilot when we take action on behaviors that we are accustomed to. Building upon the habits that we may already have in our day-to-day, we can understand and alter them to our benifits. The same goes to when dealing with customers spending and purchasing habits.

Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.

Book Yourself Solid – by Micheal Port

Purchase on Amazon today – Click Here!

Booked Yourself Solid has a basic premise: promote yourself. This book highlights strategic ways to get customers to notice you and your services. A lot of times, we are focusing on promoting our clients work and ignoring our own business. 

Book Yourself Solid is a handbook for self-promotion that translates into results.

• Build a solid foundation for a stellar public image
• Enhance your reputation for trust and credibility
• Perfect your pitch and pricing to attract higher-caliber clients
• Adopt the six core strategies that will keep you booked solid

The strategies in this book helps us focus on building the foundation of our reputation, how our clients view us, and the type of work we’ll attract. Starting small and eventually building a promotion can help you effectively land the types of jobs you’re looking for in a consistent way.

Whats Next?

I’m finding more and more that I’m moving towards using Audible for books. I tend to also stock up on other podcasts and listen on the go. Here are a few books that are in my queue, but haven’t listened or read yet.

• The Millionaire Next Door – Thomas J. Stanley
  • This book identifies common traits that a lot of successful and wealthy that keep showing up again and again. Its on my to-read list for sure.
• The Total Money Makeover – Dave Ramsey
  • One of the classic books that MOST people have heard about. Its a powerful guide and program to help get you out of debt. The ‘snowball effect’ has helped me, as well as tons of others out there, reduce debt and build a financial platform.

The post FHS 34 What Am I Reading appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Bobby Kircher – Digital Marketing Consultant

Bobby Kircher runs Papaya Internet, a digital marketing consultant that helps individuals and small business grow their business online. He has over 15 years of SEO experience, 10 of which include using WordPress! When he’s not figuring out Google, he’s collecting records, hitting the gym, and performing improv around Atlanta. You can find him at https://papayainternet.com and on most social media with the handle @bobbykircher

Website: http://papayainternet.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BobbyKircher @BobbyKircher

Here are a few points that we talked about:

• What is SEO
• What are some basic mistakes people make
• Strategies for SEO
• How effective would auto-playing ads be?
• Difference between mobile vs desktop vs applications
• Tracking usage in a an app
• Basic SEO strategies

Quick Picks

Bobby

• WordPress Community
  • TONS of WordPress meetups around the area in Atlanta and across many other cities
  • Very helpful and open to new commers
  • Diverse skill sets and levels of expertise

Marion

• Orlando, Fl
  • OMG so much stuff to do besides Disney/Universal Studios
  • Great for families of all ages
  • Beach is 1.25hrs either east or west

The post FHS 33 Optimizing WordPress for SEO ft Bobby Kircher appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Where to Start

Most freelancers or entrepreneur start off as moonlighters working on side projects. You can transition into a full-time endeavor when you’re ready to take the plunge. “When” is always up to you, but starting a business may not be as hard as you think. Keeping the business running and operating is the real challenge. But we’ll get to that part soon enough. For now, let’s take things one step at a time. No matter what type of business you want to start, you will need these basic 6 steps.

1. Research your customers
2. Register yourself
3. Taxes and finance
4. Get online
5. Marketing
6. Getting help

When you’re just starting out and wondering where to start, your mind is full of tons of ideas that you just want to get out there and hit the ground running. But hold up a minute, we need to start planning this out. We’ll first need to find out who our customers are. We need to research our customers and do what is called “market research”.

1. Who, specifically, are you going to be facing (niche)
2. What is the problem that you’re hearing the most often
3. What are they willing to pay
4. Is it sustainable
5. Where do they hang out

Finding your customers, what their pain-points, and understanding the value of your services is going to give you that head start that you’re looking for.

After you’ve got a grasp on who and where your clients are. You’re ready to make things legal with your state, federal, and the IRS. Register yourself will help keep them off your back so you can make transactions happen without having to worry about Uncle Sam.

I have an interview with a CPA about taxes and registering with the IRS to keep them off your back. Check out FHS 3: http://freelancerheadstart.com/llc-vs-s-corp-and-the-tax-man/

During the registration process, you’re able to also get yourself a bank account. You need to keep your personal and business money separate, so go ahead and take care of that now.

Once you’re good and registered with a shiny new bank account, you can move onto getting an online presence. The world is smaller than you think and getting online will help you reach all corners of the earth. Grab yourself a domain name and host to do it yourself or purchase a pre-made package. A better and ideal way would be to hire a professional to take care of and grow your online presence while you work on your business.

When you’ve got a place to shuffle clients to see what you’re about, online marketing can help you gain even more traction. You’ll be able to focus your sales funnel, track engagement, and carry clients through your pipeline. As a result, you’ll be able to have a steady flow of potential clients.

And finally, when you’re look for where to start, always ask for help. Don’t be shy to talk to people about what your idea is or what your planning on doing. Make friends in your industry, reach out to Meetup groups, engage in forums and blogs, and generally “show up”. You’ll be surprised at how many people are going to be willing to help you through your tough times. The second pair of eyes and ears can bring about a new perspective on what you’re trying to do!

How to Get Clients

Finding and getting clients is one of the most common challenge for freelancers and entrepreneurs. There really isn’t a secret to finding clients, you have to put in some social effort and go where they are! To find clients, you need to have something that someone needs and be willing to pay for it. The easiest way to get a client is to show them how you are going to better that client from where they are now. They are essentially investing in what you have to offer to help them 2x, 10x, or 20x their returns.

In order to get your clients rolling in, you first need to work on your client profile. You need to be able to pick your client type, industry, and budget level out of a lineup. If you don’t know who your target client is, you’ll be shouting into the void hoping someone will stop by. Finish this sentence, then you’ll be ready to begin finding and winning clients

“I help __________ to __(single group of people)__ who have a yearly profit of _____________”

What you’re doing is making it easier for you to combine your services or products with the companies or people out there. Finally you can start using that to start looking for clients with laser focus.

Common places to find clients includes

• Job Boards
• Conferences
• Chatroom
• Face-to-face networking events
• Cold calls
• Cold emails
• Yellow Pages

If you’re like me, you want to maximize your exposure to potential clients and not a huge fan of shaking hands and kissing babies. Well, there are a lot of online sources where you can find GREAT clients and start to work on your sales funnel. Here is a rundown list of where to find clients and jobs online that I’ve used in the past:

1. Authentic Jobs
2. Behance Jobs
3. Craigslist
4. Drupal Jobs
5. LeadPages Jobs
6. Reddit /r/forhire
7. Smashing Jobs
8. Stack Overflow Jobs
9. We Work Remotely
10. WordPress Jobs

Once you’ve identified your niche, your client profile, and potentially where they’re hanging out, you’ll be able to create a proper sales/client funnel. Where to start is becoming more clearer.

Basic Funnel

Here are the steps that you’ll need to do EVERY DAY to keep your pipeline steady. Take at least an hour:

1. Visit each site above and filter to find projects.
   1. Subscribe to RSS feed or email to get listings automatically
2. Bookmark or note at least 5 potential
3. Research each lead
   1. Carefully read the description – understand the goal of the work
   2. Research the contact person and company. Learn their products, competitors, etc.
4. Contact the lead through email
   1. User verbiage that quick, short, and to the point. Don’t come off as sleazy, rude, or know-it-all. Keep it casual.
   2. Include information that you researched
   3. Include a simple call-to-action that lets you know they might be interested
5. Followup with the sent email at least twice, per listing. Once every week.

That’s a basic sales cycle for cold-emails, but it will help get your pipeline steady with potential clients who may need your services. The pattern is similar if you meet people face to face or on the phone. Don’t think you have to stick to one type of client outreach. You can use combinations if you’re comfortable.

Validate an Idea

So you’ve got a big idea or service that you think will change the world, but you don’t know if it will fly or where to start. Do NOT pursue an idea or product unless you have a little glimpse of proof that you wont be wasting time or money. Sometimes the market is not ready, sometimes you may need to tweak something, sometimes you’ll find something WAY better. Validate your ideas or products with market research. A little goes a long way!

Market Research is a technique you can use to validate your idea. Market research also will help you find that group of people that your product may be interesting to. You can break market research (finding and researching your customers) into two sub tasks; finding customers and reaching customers.

You’re going to want to do what is called “market research” to help validate your idea

1. Who, specifically, are you going to be facing (niche, market, clients, customers)
2. What is the problem that you’re hearing the most often
3. What are they willing to pay
4. Is it sustainable
5. Where do they hang out

I talk with Patrick Selby about how he focused on the “What” with a few pointers and what he learned from his mistakes. Check out FHS 19: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-19-market-research-building-product/

Additional Sources

• http://www.reddit.com Sub-Reddits specific to your industry
• https://stackexchange.com/ – A list of communities where people ask specific questions. Perfect for collecting common, popular, and hot problems.
• https://feedly.com/i/welcome – Feedly is an aggregator of websites that funnels everything into a single dashboard. You can subscribe to a bunch of websites that give you up to date content that you can consume in a single location. You will get a better understanding of what is commonly being said across your industry.
• Mailing list – Create or join a mailing list to collectively gather people who will be your potential clients/customers. You can then interact with this gold mine to get ideas or questions answered.
• Conferences/Tradeshows – You can’t beat the ‘heard it from the horse’s mouth’ effect. Hit the pavement and attend shows or conferences that are specific to your niche. You’ll be able to rub elbows with your clients and get a direct quote of what their problems may be.

I would honestly spend about 40-60 hours of effort to find and research your  customers. If you can understand what your audience is thinking, what their pains are, and a way to help, you’re ready to position yourself as the expert!

Running your Business

Running your business day in and day out may be the easier part of being a Freelancer or Entrepreneur. You’ll get into the rhythm of things and do a lot of your processes automatically. You’ll also get to a point where you can use tools to help take care of the lower-hanging fruit for you. Such as your invoicing, email marketing, contacts, client on-boarding, and other task.

The main rule for being self employed: 1/2 your week is finding clients/work and business admin tasks…the other half is active work

Don’t think that you’re going to be up to the ceiling in client work. You have to keep your machine running and clients coming in. You have to make sure the bills are literally paid, your emails are sent, and your plants are watered. This goes outside of physical client work and we sometimes forget that part of working for ourselves.

Plan your day (or week) where you work on your business and yourself. Don’t overestimate the amount of work you’ll need for client work and pace yourself.

Don’t Forget about Yourself

When you start down the road of actually servicing clients and producing contents or widgets, you’ll slowly start to forget to work on yourself. We get caught up in servicing our clients and customers with 100% of our efforts, we don’t think we need the same amount of effort or services for ourselves. We think that since we’re the experts, we don’t need our own help.

Candace Schilling and I chat about ‘minding your own business’ and working on ourselves. Check out FHS 24: http://freelancerheadstart.com/fhs-24-minding-your-own-business-ft-candace-schilling/

When I, myself, was starting out I slowly noticed that I was polishing my clients websites more than myself. I was putting it a lot more effort into their content and website rather than my own….. We’re the experts but sometimes we need to look internally at our business or ourselves to make sure that we’re using our own talents. We sometimes forget that WE are the experts! Don’t forget to turn our own skills on ourselves

Take a Time Out

Leave time in the week and the day for yourself. Unwind and de-compress. Your business is mostly you and its WILL suffer if you overwork yourself. Make it a priority to take an hour a day to do nothing. Have lunch outside of your work area. Go see a movie. Walk in the park. Play a level of your fave video game. Whatever it takes, make sure you pause your work day. Where to start will depend on your personality, but allot time out of your day to take a breath.

Use tools to your advantage

It’s 2018….don’t fight the digital age! Adopt a few and simple tools that are going to make your everyday work easier. Since we’re in the digital age, we’re also able to work online with most of our content and tools. Here are the two main tools that I use almost daily to run my business:

Dropbox – Free for 2GB. Up to 1TB of space on paid plan

Dropbox is a dynamic synchronizing file stored on your devices. It automatically back things up to the cloud and allows you the ability to access the files and content from anywhere you want or need with your freelancer tools.

Dropbox is my main work space because it allows me grab files, share content, and move things around multiple machines whenever i need. I also use Dropbox to allow my clients a quick and easy way to send me files if needed.

Check it out here: https://db.tt/i1gKYQepsg [Referral/affiliate link]

Get Harvest – http://try.hrv.st/1-294321 (Free for 2 project OR $130/year for unlimited)

Harvest is my go-to for invoicing. It definitely pays for itself with your first client. You can send out an invoice and give the option of 2 payment routes: PayPal or Stripe. Invoices get sent electronically either with a PDF, link, or an email where the clients can pay online directly. You get reporting on who is late and who paid on time. The invoices also have automatic reminders that are sent out at specific intervals.

You can also use Harvest to keep track of time to bill hourly (which is what I use daily), keep track of projects, and keep track of expenses. Reporting is not bad. It won’t tell you categories in your spending like Mint does, but it will let you know if you’ll be pretty close to blowing your budget out the water in overspending. If you have a team of more than one person, you can also keep track of spending and income per-person or per project.

Conclusion

Working for yourself is a fun and exciting challenge and is full of different paths on where to start. You’re the boss and you make all the decisions…good or bad. It may not all be roses and peaches at the end of the rainbow, but for most, its SO worth it! This shouldn’t discourage you from starting down the path of becoming self employed.

To sum it up, these are the 6 starting points when you wanna work for yourself and where to start.

1. Research your customers
2. Register yourself
3. Taxes and finance
4. Get online
5. Marketing
6. Getting help

Don’t think your idea or product is stupid one. You never know what you’re going to find with market research and validation.

Start by finding clients online and create a basic sales funnel. From there, you can refine what works for you and where your niche clients are hanging out.

Take time out of the day and week to take care of yourself and that business admin work. There are tons of tools out there that you can use to make your day-to-day easier. Don’t push yourself to the limits and burn out. Its too easy to do that in the beginning.

And lastly, don’t forget to work on your own business! We sometimes forget that we need our own help. Take a look at your own processes and look for ways to improve or change it.

Once you go down the route of becoming your own boss, yes, you’ll com across a lot of obstacles. But I promise you that it only looks like a mountain from where you’re standing. Take that first step and you’ll realize you’re only on a small hill.

The post FHS 32 Where to Start appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Listen to Our Last Episode Here

Jacki and I chatted last time about Taxes and how to avoid getting in trouble with the IRS.

FHS 3: LLC vs S-Corp and the Tax Man!

Income Tax classification

Your tax classification changes the rules about how you will need to file taxes. The different business entities each have their own classifications. For example, an LLC and an S-Corp are handled different but both have flow-through entity rules. You don’t pay income tax on the business (entity) level, you pay on the personal level. Basically, what you earn at the end of the year.

If you have more than one member (owner) of the entity, you’re automatically labeled as a partnership for tax purposes. There are no maximum level of members for an LLC while an S-Corp is capped at 100.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/limited-liability-company-llc

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/s-corporations

High Court Tosses Online Sales Tax Rule, South Dakota New Standard?

Virtually every state that administers a sales tax may follow South Dakota’s model after the U.S. Supreme Court established the state’s tax law as the new standard for online sales taxation.

The high court ruled June 21 in favor of South Dakota and threw out its 1992 rule in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. Quill, which states like South Dakota for years have tried to “kill” through lawsuits and regulation, prohibits states from imposing sales tax collection obligations on vendors lacking an in-state physical presence.

Read  More: Bloomberg Daily Tax Report Article

Quick Notes from the Episode

• Register to do business with the state
• Sales and use tax versus income tax
• Rule of thumb: every state is different
• Nexus – level of activity to create presence; threshold for filing
• Allocation versus apportionment
  • Ex. sold property in a state, gain allocated to that state
  • Net income allocated based on activity in state using factors
• Apportionment factors
  • Payroll – I think just employees so not 1099 contractors
  • Property – net book value or cost, rent x 8
  • Sales
• Apportionment formulas
  • Evenly weighted 3 factor, 60/20/20
  • Sales only
• Revenue sourcing
  • Physical – tangible personal property
  • Services – Cost of performance vs market based
  • Digital, SaaS
• Prewritten “canned” software, custom made
• Leave and load, license
  • Use sourced revenue for apportionment formula
• LLC versus S corp (partners/members, shareholders)
  • Flow through entities, pay tax at individual level instead of entity level
  • Some franchise taxes based on equity: GA net worth (over $100k), TN franchise (25% net worth, min $100) and excise (6.5% net taxable inc), AL report fee ($10) and privilege tax ($100), SC min license fee $25
  • Separate s corp election in some states: NY and NJ; don’t follow fed, may just file as c-corp
  • Withholding or composite taxes and returns; instead of filing individual returns for each partner, sometimes incl on s corp return
• Sign affidavit
• State of residence taxed on 100% of income
  • Credit for taxes paid to other states, at resident state rate
  • States that do not recognize s election, corp pays tax (not pay on behalf), then subtraction for income subject to tax
  • (credit versus deduction/subtraction)
  • Timing of payments; estimated quarterly taxes, extensions, pmts due with return
  • Federal deduction for state taxes paid in year (new tax law limit $10k)
  • State credit for taxes paid related to that tax year
• International – as US citizen and resident you are taxed on 100% of worldwide income, foreign tax credit (or deduction) for taxes paid to other countries

The post FHS 31 Selling Across State Lines and Taxes appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.