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.

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.

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.

You’ve probably heard that joke “How do you eat an elephant” and thought that it was kinda clever. Well, there is a good piece of wisdom to the punch line: “One bite at a time”. Big tasks get MUCH easier when you break them down. And, yes, ‘big’ can be relative to whatever you’re doing, but the statement still stands. Breaking up your task into manageable quick-wins helps you keep that momentum and feel/see progress!

In Short; Getting Sh*t Done!

Eating the Elephant boils down to “Getting Big Sh*t Done”. We all have things that we need to do for our freelancing business and they all range in size and complexity. Most people just have a giant check list of things that they need to do and try to get that box checked. Without realizing the effort that is needed to get that box checked, we can sometimes focus on one task…and one task only.

This approach leaves everything else by the wayside, slows down your progress of getting things done, and doesn’t help you prioritize what you actually need to be focusing on. Are you getting caught up on the HOW and not the WHAT of your business?

Need help getting past that Analysis Paralysis we often have when figuring out our business? Get past the HOW and focus on the WHAT! Check out FHS 21: Figuring Out the WHAT

Your To-Do list may also be a place where ideas go to die. Throwing things on your To-Do list that doesn’t need to be there is pretty common.

Don’t use your To-Do list as a dumping ground for tasks or ideas.

You’ll easily get overwhelmed and discouraged from actually getting sh*t done. But how do we actually get sh*t done? Well…you need to learn how to chew that elephant!

How to Chew

This is where that “one bite at a time” answer comes into play. Any task that you need to do can be done. You just have to attack it with a strategy.

Taking a look at what you ACTUALLY do every day, you’ll realize that you’re only getting on average 3 things done per day. I challenge you to focus on widdling down your to-do list to only 3 things. Try it for a single day and you’ll see that you’re much more hyper focused and effective!

• Break it apart – Take you big task and separate it into small sub-tasks that have actions you can do.
• Set time limits for your work – Don’t think you have to do everything TODAY! Pace yourself and set limits on how long you’ll work on the task each day until its done. Work in 25-minute shifts and take a break after.
• Take breaks – You are not a machine. Take frequent 5-minute breaks after your 25-minute cycle so you wont burn out.
• Focus! – Don’t distract yourself by doing all of the sub-tasks at once. Focus on one task during that 25-minute cycle and one task only! Focus on that elephant!

Choose 3 tasks to do today that you can do within 8 hours. You’ll be hyper focused and proud of your progress.

When you break down your goals into smaller manageable and bite size pieces, you’ll see the fruits of your labor much more quickly than trying to take it all at once. Set a time-box (about 25 minutes) for how long you’ll work on that one piece and keep at it until you’ve made significant progress.

You’ll look back and have that sense of accomplishment and fulfillment pushing you further!

Marathon vs Sprint

Your elephant can be broken down into smaller chunks. Don’t rush through things just to get it done. Take your time by focusing on once piece at a time that will eventually finish the overall goals. You’re going to need some sort of Time Management system in place to keep you on track. One method that I use the Pomodoro method by Francesco Cirillo.

The Pomodoro Method is a simple and effective way to manage your time to help you focus on the tasks at hand

Basic Pomodoro Cycle

1. Choose a task from your list
2. Set a time for 25 minutes
3. Work on task until the timer goes off
4. When timer goes off, put a check mark on your piece of paper
5. Take a 5 minute break
6. Every 4 pomodoros, take a longer break (about 20 minutes)
7. Repeat

While going through the cycle, you’ll get a better idea on how to break that elephant into smaller and more realistic and manageable tasks. You’ll get better at taking off 25-minute chunks of your task.

It doesn’t matter how large of a elephant you have. You’ll still be able to break it apart into manageable tasks. You may even have to break THAT task even one more time. The point is to keep going until you’re able break the task apart into smaller and smaller pieces. Don’t think you have to finish large nearly-impossible tasks in one sitting.

Pace yourself when eating the elephant and you’ll make it through.

Eating the Elephant

Dont think you have to take on that mountain of a goal. Breaking things up into smaller and more manageable chunks are going to put you on that path of completion. Eating the elephant is a process that combines time management, task management, and focus.

Take a task that you need to accomplish that will go towards your elephant. Work on in for 25 minutes. Take a break, and repeat. You’d be surprised to see how much progress you’ll get done with a simple 25-minute focused session.

One tool that I use to keep track of my tasks is Trello (www.trello.com) and its 100% free. Its an online and virtual whiteboard where you can organize and share your thoughts or tasks. I’ve created myself a “To-Do” board where I have a ‘Need To’, ‘Doing’, and ‘Done’ board with dates and check boxes. It keeps my thoughts and to-do’s organized and related to each other.

The post FHS 30 Eating the Elephant appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Matt Rix – Game Developer + UI/UX Expert

Matt Rix is a talented game developer behind Trainyard, Scorekeeper, and Disco Zoo. Now he’s making FutureGrind (He’s one half of Milkbag Games). Matt pays attention to how games, apps, and projects behave with polished user experience and user interfaces.

Website: http://magicule.com/ or  http://www.milkbaggames.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattRix @MattRix

Here are a few points that we could talk about:

• What are some of your techniques to help with user acceptance
• What do you hate seeing in UI/UX
• UI = How it works
• UX = How it looks
• UI/UX is very closely related. Its hard to change how something works without changing how it looks.
• Having a good UX is more important because you’re losing users
• What do you consider “bad” UI/UX
  • Popups on mobile sites with tiny close buttons
• ‘Dark Design’ – User experience used for malicious use
• What do you consider “good” UI/UX
  • Should be one key thing that a user should find
  • Group functionality with similar designs
• Learn what people want to use your site for and focus on that functionality
• You don’t want to assume how people are using your site
  • Google Analytics
  • User Testing
• ‘Intro movies’
• Developers will sometimes have to make design decisions
• How important is it to have a good UI/UX person
• Car websites almost all look the same
  • Non-mobile friendly site
  • Flashy intros
  • Focusing on the wrong parts
• Gesture are sometimes nice to have
  • Don’t force them
• Companies focus on external UI/UX more than internal
• Flat Design comes and goes
  • Useful in some situations
• Affordance
  • Sometime that looks like how it should be used
  • Push door without handles
  • Coffee mug handle
• Pokeyoke – ‘Idiot proof’
• ‘Screaming Face’ game icon
  • Common app using a design to gain quick users
  • Possible Clickbait/Garbage App
• Children are easily susceptible to ‘Dark Design’
• Inspiration can sometimes come from other products
• Sometimes short-term ticky/clickbait works on us
• Old-school gifs

Quick Picks

Marion

• Spotify Family level – $15/month
  • Premium Spotify for multiple people
  • One payment for 5 people at the same address
• Refactoring UI
  • Website for practical examples of how to build and design a UI/UX
  • Learn how to design awesome UI’s by yourself using specific tactics explained from a developer’s point-of-view.

Matt

• http://www.massdrop.com
  • Community driven commerce
  • Crowd voted products and group buying
  • Awesome for parts for your computer
• Philipp Stollenmayer
  • Minimalist puzzle games
  • Zip-Zap
  • Supertype

The post FHS 28 The Importance of UI/UX ft Matt Rix appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Affiliate Links are included in this article.

A a freelancer or entrepreneur, the tools that you use are going to vary depending on what you specialize in. In this article, we’ll go over tools that you should take advantage of regardless of the type of work you do.

For most people, we can break down the tools you’ll use into 4 main groups:

• Contract/Proposal management
• Money management
• Time management
• Utilities

Contract Management

Anytime you deal with a client or a project, you need to make sure you have a contract in place. A contract is there to spell out the expectations that you and the client has. It helps protect both parties interests as it defines what you are doing for the client, the time frames, cost, and expected outcomes.

Hello Bonsai – https://www.hellobonsai.com/ [$16/month or $24/month/user]

Hello Bonsai is simple online contract and project manager tool. You can use it primarily to send agreements to clients for them to sign from their emails or online or as your invoice management tool. It helps keep things simple and straight forward.

They’ve added additional features such as sending invoices out based on the agreement of your contract. You also have the options of sending out reminders as well as new invoices to your clients. A newly added option is the proposal options. You’re able to send off proposals to your potential clients and allow them to choose.

Money Management

Mint – http://mint.com (free)

Mint is one of the freelancer tools that lives online. It does an awesome job of letting you know about your spending habits. You can also easily use it to automatically categorize and organize income and expenses. You can also set goals for yourself and use Mint to tell you REALISTICALLY how to create them. Pretty slick. You connect your bank account(s) to Mint and it helps you keep track of spending and income in a meaningful way.

The reporting features that comes from this freelancer tools can give you foresight into your expected income and spending.

Alternative: Quickbooks  http://quickbooks.com ($5/month)

I tried Quickbooks a few times in the past as well as the online version. The online version is the preferred route if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution. QB has a LOT of features that might make that $5/month fee very attractive, for sure.

List of financial freelancer tools can include additional apps that can help manage your money.

Time management

Rescue Time – Free – https://www.rescuetime.com/

Rescue Time is one of the freelancer tools to help you focus on your day. You install it on your computer or phone and it keeps track of the things you do. You have two main categories: Work and Entertainment. You get graded for how long you work versus play. You can set goals for yourself and RescueTime will keep track of what you’re actually doing.

It can measure how long you play games on your computer, how long you’re on Netflix, on Reddit, or any other sites. You can also set parameters such as your working hours and what programs constitute as “fun” versus “work”.

I love metrics and what better way to see where you’re leaking productivity than RescueTime.

Utilities

Slack – Free https://slack.com

Slack is a collaborative chatroom for your workspace that you can add to your collection of freelancer tools. You can create private chat rooms for your productivity team to talk about your project, deadlines, or general information. You can also create or join groups that have different topics or ideas. Create your own or join in on an existing group.

You can use it to keep tabs of your industry, connect with colleagues, or chit-chat with friends. Slack is great for working on and keeping tabs on projects that take a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. The ability to communicate in a chat room setting, and have offshoot private conversations, is what won me over.

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

Skype – Free Skype-to-Skype

If you’ve never heard of Skype, then I feel bad for you. Skype is a great video and chat took that you can use to conduct conference calls. You can have a lot of people on a single call and see little to no degradation of performance. The ability to join from any device such as your phone, laptop, or table is a great way to let you work from anywhere.

Just slap in some headphones and you can jump into the call anywhere you want!

Evernote – Free

Evernote is an awesome note taking solution that allows you to save all of your notes online. You can jump onto your phone, laptop, tablet, or whatever device you choose. You can easily do search across all of your notes to find that information you’ve been looking for. For the paid version, you’ll have the option of OCR (optical character recognition; fancy way of saying it reads your handwriting)

Bonus – Equipment

Adding to your freelancer tools are a few hardware pieces you could pick up. You are not tied down to a specific location and can roam wherever you’d like. What type of equipment you’d be looking for almost always boils down to something that is going to power up your different devices.

High Capacity Charger

When out and about, you’ll need to have a way to juice back up your devices. One of my favorite devices to use is the Anker High Capacity Portable Charger ($42 on Amazon.com) to keep your devices charged when need.

Portable/Light Laptop

When you’re on the go, smaller and lighter is better. Ounces add up really quickly and device that can shave off ½ an ounce will be appreciated. Look into getting a light Chromebook such as the Asus Chromebook Flip ($497.50 on Amazon) that can be a table or a laptop when needed to reduce that weight. If you’re a developer, you’ll need a more horsepower to keep your build time down. I personally like the Dell XPS laptops that are carbon fiber bodies.

Check your Sack

Lugging your devices and work around is important when working remotely. Get yourself a backpack or satchel that is comfortable and can carry your work with you. I’ve checked out the 17.3 Inch Laptop Convertible Backpack ($45 on Amazon.com) as a great middle-ground for backpacks or over the shoulder.

The post FHS 25 Tools of the Trade appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Roadmapping sessions, for me, are paid engagements that gives my clients a low-cost introductory to a project. It reduces risk to you and the client while eliminating ‘Tire kickers’. My session is a credit towards total cost of the project if the clients chooses to move forward.

The session is a 90-minute dive into the customers business and problems. During the session, I build that customer relation and trust by asking questions that traditional developers don’t ask or show concern about. The goal of the Roadmapping Session is to identify where they are now, where they want to be, and how you can get them there.

At the end of it all, there is a report that I create for the client. That report is essentially the proposal and blueprint that was derived from the Roadmapping Session. The client is free to do whatever they want with that report, including shop around. But 9 times out of 10, the client has already built up that trust with you and knows first hand that you understand their “expensive problem”.

Typical Proposal

A typical proposal usually involves the following:

• Cost base

• Feature focused

• Possibly hourly

• Pray and hope they accept

With the traditional route, your proposal is usually based on a ‘McDonalds’ style; menu of features and options. You are throwing in features that all websites/projects have and you already have a cost associated with that feature/solution. You may even have an hourly rate attached to the proposal. At the end of it all, after you’ve submitted the proposal, you hope and pray that the customer accepts what you’ve thrown at them.

Revised Proposals

A revised and updated proposal may involve the following:

• Anchor Price  base

• ‘Expensive Problem’  focused

• Moves away from Hourly

• Re-iterate clients problems

Your new proposals after the roadmapping sessions can take advantage of anchor based pricing. This means that you can potentially earn more and ask for more in your proposals. You’re also not tied down to an hourly fee. You’ve found what the clients “expensive problem” is; what is costing them money if this is not fixed.

Using that knowledge, you can definitely justify a higher fee.

Roadmapping Session

The session is a 90-minute dive into the customers business and problems. During the session, you’re building the customer relation and trust by asking questions about the business and eventually that “expensive problem”. These questions are generally what traditional developers don’t ask or show concern about. The goal of the Roadmapping Session is to identify where they are now, where they want to be, and how you can get them there.

You’re going to break down the session into 4 main points. Business, Demographics, Finances, and Risk & Success. With these 4 points, you’re able to get a better picture of what’s going on. AND you’ll be able justify the price you’re asking for because you’ve just identified how much it is costing if the client DOESN’T get this problem fixed.

4 Main Points to a Roadmapping Session

Business

The business part of the Roadmapping Session are questions that are designed to talk about the business overall. A few questions that you’ll want to have are these for example:

1.       How are your products cross-sold or up-sold? Do you have anything in place that increases the customer lifetime value besides customers deciding to come back for more?
2.       What are your best-selling products? Worst-selling? And why?
3.       Of the potential clients you interact with in a month, what % of them convert to purchase products or become customers? How many net new customers?
4.       How many customers do you have total? How many buy just the one-off products? How many have joined a recurring plan?  
5.       What email marketing work, if any, are you doing now? (Broadcast newsletters, subscriber onboarding, post-purchase up-selling or cross-selling, etc.)

Demographics

The demographics of a product or service is important. This information can help you identify a plan on how to target your clients customers more effectively. A few example questions would be:

1.       Do you have a defined market or industry you target?
2.       Define your ideal subscriber (reoccurring)? Your ideal customer (single sale)?
3.       For your ideal customer, what do they buy first? What leads them to your website and to buy?
4.       What resistance do people have in buying your products?
5.       For your monthly subscription product, what do you think separates these customers from the rest of your subscriber base?

Finances

During the discussions about the finances, its OK to get rounded numbers. This is where you’re going to start putting value against the demographics and products. A few examples:

1.       Without introducing any new products or getting an increase in monthly opt-ins, what realistic monthly sales figures would make this project a success? What increase in monthly sales would make this a home-run?
2.       What is the value of a subscriber? (Example: Total annual sales + revenue divided by subscriber count)
3.       What is the average value of a customer? (Easy formula: Total sales divided by number of customers)
4.       What percentage of customers buy just once, and what percentage buy again?
5.       What is the customer lifetime value (CLTV) of those who buy once vs. repeat buyers?
6.       What is the value of a subscriber who comes organically / via social media / via paid ads? (Don’t worry if you can’t figure this out just yet.)

Risk/Success

The risk/success portion is used to help your client, as well as yourself, understand what would make the project a success. As well as a failure. We’ll also want to identify what external and internal risks could be keep the project from moving on. A few examples:

1.       Define success for this project.
2.       Define failure for this project.
3.       What risks internally (e.g., untested business model) are there that could keep this project from being successful?
4.       What risks external (e.g., risky 3rd party APIs) ) are there that could keep this project from being successful?

Parking Lot (Bonus)

I include a section at the end called “The Parking Lot”. The parking lot is where ideas that are off-topic but business relate will go. If the idea does not need to be discussed now, write it down in the parking lot so we can circle back around.

Conclusion

After the session is completed and over with, both you and the client should walk away with a better understanding of the problem. You have an idea of what the problem is right now. Where the client is aiming to be. And how you can help get them there.

Mixing all that you know about the problem and how it could be costly if the client DOESN’T resolve it, you can now create a proper proposal. Take the time to compile a report that will essentially reiterate the information that you found during the session. From there, you can formulate a fee for each section of the business that you can help with.

When doing price anchoring, you will use the information from the business, finance, and demographic section to show that your higher rates are only a fraction of the money that the client will be saving/earning in the long run.

The post FHS 22 Roadmapping Sessions appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Working remote can be a win-win for everyone if done right. Most people rant and rave about how awesome working remotely can be, but few really talk about the reality of working remotely.

When you do get the opportunity to start working without an office, you’ll honestly be glad you can. I just want to make sure you’ve got an eye out for the downsides of working remote.

There are usually three things you’ll want to consider when making your remote workspace easier to work in: Equipment, Software, and Location. Let’s get you set up working outside of an office a little easier.

Benefits

Where do I begin! Working remote is a new level of freedom to get the job done. You’re able to work wherever you’d like and usually whenever you’d like as well. Being a freelancer or Entrepreneur already give you a lot of freedom to make your own rules. Being able to work remotely adds another layer onto that delicious cake.

• You decide WHERE your office is
• You decide your own schedule because you can start and stop when needed
• You save a good amount of money by not having to rent a space
• You can have more effective meetings
• You can network more effectively because you value connections more
• You can become more focused with less distractions that happen within an office
• You can avoid office politics

Drawbacks

You have to also realize that working remote is not 100% roses. With anything that you’ll experience, remote working has a few drawbacks. They honestly are not show stoppers, but you’ll have to be aware of them.

• Sometimes you’ll feel left out but keeping yourself involved helps reduce this feeling
• Networking with other people may be harder and may require you to find other groups
• You’ll have to be a self starter and focused on the task at hand. Distractions are real
• You have to self motivate as there really isn’t anyone checking in on you
• You’ll have to keep up with your own training
• It can get lonely sometimes if you’re a social butterfly

Equipment

Working remotely often means that you’re literally working from anywhere you choose to! You are not tied down to a specific location and can roam wherever you’d like. What type of equipment you’d be looking for almost always boils down to something that is going to power up your different devices.

High Capacity Charger

When out and about, you’ll need to have a way to juice back up your devices. One of my favorite devices to use is the Anker High Capacity Portable Charger ($42 on Amazon.com) to keep your devices charged when need.

Portable/Light Laptop

When you’re on the go, smaller and lighter is better. Ounces add up really quickly and device that can shave off ½ an ounce will be appreciated. Look into getting a light Chromebook such as the Asus Chromebook Flip ($497.50 on Amazon) that can be a table or a laptop when needed to reduce that weight. If you’re a developer, you’ll need a more horsepower to keep your build time down. I personally like the Dell XPS laptops that are carbon fiber bodies.

Check your Sack

Lugging your devices and work around is important when working remotely. Get yourself a backpack or satchel that is comfortable and can carry your work with you. I’ve checked out the 17.3 Inch Laptop Convertible Backpack ($45 on Amazon.com) as a great middle-ground for backpacks or over the shoulder.

Software

When you’re working on the road or if you’re a nomadic worker, there are a plethora of software and apps that you’ll use to keep your day streamline. Since you’ll be working from almost anywhere, your software should be able to be accessible from anywhere as well.

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.

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

Google Drive – Free

Google is my workhorse, honestly. I use Inbox for my emails but Google Drive for my bulk work. I love the integrated office tools such as the ability to create documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and PDFs. All within the cloud.

If I need to send or create a document on the go, Google Drive a quick solution for me.

SharePoint – ~$5/month

SharePoint is another workhorse that can get a lot of things done for you. It’s a platform built by Microsoft that allows you to use almost any Microsoft Office program you need. You can configure and manage SharePoint to do almost any business operations you need to do. It does take a little bit of configuration to get done, but SharePoint is my go-to for behind the scenes business processes.

Need a way to streamline our social media postings? Bam, SharePoint can do it for you. Have clients you need to keep track of? SharePoint. Keeping track of your expense and taxes a pain in the butt? SharePoints got your back.  

Evernote – Free

Evernote is an awesome note taking solution that allows you to save all of your notes online. You can jump onto your phone, laptop, tablet, or whatever device you choose. You can easily do search across all of your notes to find that information you’ve been looking for. For the paid version, you’ll have the option of OCR (optical character recognition; fancy way of saying it reads your handwriting)

Rescue Time – Free

Rescue Time is a tool i use to help me focus on my day. You install it on your computer or phone and it keeps track of the things you do. You have two main categories: Work and Entertainment. You get graded for how long you work versus play. You can set goals for yourself and RescueTime will keep track of what you’re actually doing.

It can measure how long you play games on your computer, how long you’re on Netflix, on Reddit, or any other sites. You can also set parameters such as your working hours and what programs constitute as “fun” versus “work”.

I love metrics and what better way to see where you’re leaking productivity than RescueTime.

Slack – Free

Slack is a collaborative chatroom for your workspace. You can create private chat rooms for your productivity team to talk about your project, deadlines, or general information. You can also create or join groups that have different topics or ideas. Create your own or join in on an existing group.

I use it to keep tab of my industry, connect with colleagues, or chit-chat with friends. Slack is great for working on and keeping tabs on projects that take a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. The ability to communicate in a chat room setting, and have offshoot private conversations, is what won me over.

Skype – Free Skype-to-Skype

If you’ve never heard of Skype, then I feel bad for you. Skype is a great video and chat took that you can use to conduct conference calls. You can have a lot of people on a single call and see little to no degradation of performance. The ability to join from any device such as your phone, laptop, or table is a great way to let you work from anywhere.

Just slap in some headphones and you can jump into the call anywhere you want!

Locations

Don’t discount the notion of working in a shared work space with other Freelancers or professionals. You have the options of working for anywhere you choose from. The major point that I learned when it comes to working remotely is to make sure that you keep your work location separate from your fun location.

If you play video games, don’t work in the same location you have your game system. If you’re a book lover, work in a separate location from where you love to read.

Its very easy to blur the lines and get distracted by the “fun” activities. You’ll also notice that your productivity increase and distractions decrease if you keep the two locations separate.

Suggested places to work to reduce distractions:

• CoOp work space
• Library study rooms
• Coffee house (headphones)
• Home Office
• Desk in your bedroom
• Front porch or back deck

The post FHS 18 Working Remote appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Know what you’re good at

• Are there a lot of people looking for your skill
• What are the skills that contractors get hired for in your field
• What can you do differently?

How much risk are you willing to take

• The most risk-averse you are, the more of a runway you should create before making that jump
• Build up that client base
• Moonlight gigs to start building that warchest

Be honest with yourself

• Freelancing and becoming an entrepreneur takes effort that some may not want to do
• There is nothing wrong with working for another company

“Plan B”

• My ‘Plan B’ was to work for someone else….I was already doing my fallback plan
• You wont know your success unless you try

Calculate how much you need to live per month

• Rent
• Food
• Utilities

Warchest

• Grab about 4-6 months of savings to help make the plunge easier
• If you don’t succeed, you have something to fall back on

Know your worth in your field

Glassdoor.com

• Research companies based on position, location, and average page
• Find out what people in your field are making
• Look up similar positions you’re attempting to go for

Payscale.com

• Find out how much you are worth
• What skills are worth in the market you’re attempting to go into

Comparably.com

• Find your ideal company and compensation range
• Local and nationwide
• Find what others are being paid to help you gauge your worth

The post FHS 11: When to Take the Plunge appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.

Alex Okafor

One Man Left Studios is an American game design duo working remotely between Alabama and Georgia. Alex Okafor is the developer, Adam Stewart handles artwork and animation, & we collaborate on game design decisions. We’re responsible for some games you might have played.

Email: contact@onemanleft.com

Twitter:

• @OneManLeft
• @AlexOkafor

Website: http://onemanleft.com/

Highlights Include

• What IS an app
• Brief history of Apps
• Finding skilled contractors and what skills may be required
• Google Play, Apple Store, Windows Store
• Build vs Buy and when you should consider
• Difficulties with building on Android, iPhone, or Windows
• How to make money from your app
  • Paid vs Free-to-play vs In-app Purchases
• What makes your app stand out
• Form vs Function
• UI Design is INSANELY important
• Start with requirements rather than cost

Quick Picks

• Last Pass – https://www.lastpass.com/
  • Manage all your passwords and never have to remember
• 1 Password – https://1password.com/
  • Similar to Last Pass
• Pixel 2
  • Camera is amazing
  • AR with Star Wars and Stranger Things

The post FHS 10: “Can you build me an app…?” ft Alex Okafor appeared first on The Freelancer Head Start.