chris_hawk

As a marketer, I see countless great projects that were abandoned.

Where do you see these?

Hey! Chris here, I'm the interviewer in this audio.

Josh Doody teamed up with me to lay out a sensible plan for making good use of your day job to become well-prepared for the transition. We cover things like:

* how much money you need to save * how to save it while controlling expenses * how to start marketing before you ever quit your job * how long before you can quit your job (the most popular question)

I don't usually address "how to get started" questions on my podcast, but so many people were asking how to make the transition from day job to freelancing that I felt like I should.

If anyone has questions about the episode or about the topic in general, feel free to post 'em up and I'll answer as best I can. :)

I agree with all of this, those 3 elements are critical. However, the issue I keep coming back to is "how do I figure these 3 things out before I launch a product?"

Nathan at ConvertKit has built an incredible business, and he's earned every bit of it the hard way. However, not everyone is going to have the financial or emotional stamina required to launch a product first, watch it struggle, and figure out the positioning later. For a lot of us, if we don't get the target market at least ballpark-right the first time, we aren't going to be able to see a product through the process of trying this positioning and that positioning until we find something that works.

So, how can we improve our chances of getting "purchasing power", "purchasing desire", and "market mass" right up-front, before we invest time and energy in creating a product? Are there any particular exercises or processes you recommend that will help us find and/or evaluate different markets?

Hey, all! Some of you had trouble with the download link last time, so here it is:

https://audio.simplecast.com/72614.mp3

Feel free to post any questions you may have about the episode.

Hey! Chris here - I'm the interviewer in this podcast.

This was a good talk with Brian (I think he posts here as casjam if you want to look him up).

If anyone has questions about the episode, feel free to post 'em up! I'm happy to stick around and answer.

Direct download link here: https://audio.simplecast.com/72161.mp3

I'm happy to answer any questions about this episode! I know a lot of us are freelancing.

I know you're listening, I can see the downloads traveling through the series of tubes comprising the internets. :)

If anyone has any questions about this episode, or the show in general, feel free!

Nice catch! I fat-fingered the download link.

It's been fixed now, feel free to download. If you want to save the click of going to 100kfreelancing.com first, here it is:

https://audio.simplecast.com/70348.mp3

Thanks for pointing that out, I would have missed it.

You know, I'm so dense sometimes. When I started doing transcripts, I was thinking "SEO", not "deaf people". Duh!

It's a pretty solid career choice for deaf people, considering 98% of the job is doable without being able to hear anything.

Never thought of it that way before. I bet it makes open-plan offices tolerable, too. Hmm.

10x is craaaaazy. I mean, unless you were only making like $500/month before. And I know that's not the case! :)

SyneRyder answered for me, so I'll just say "thanks for asking"! Sometimes I wonder if anyone is actually reading those things, and now I know.

Thanks! I should probably share that more prominently on the website.

It rhymes with SchmindSchbody.

It's not a bad system, I actually like it quite a bit, BUT...it has some definite pain-points associated with using it!

Thanks, I was just coming in here to post this!

Sometimes it takes me a day or two to get the transcripts up. I don't have them for every episode yet, as I just introduced the feature 3 or 4 episodes ago, but I'll have one up for this episode soon.

Hey! Interviewer here. This is my recent talk with Connie Holen, who is kind of a badass - how many web designers do you know who are former fighter pilots? O_O

Anyway. Connie is pretty cool and she figured out some useful things about running a freelancing/consulting biz. If you want to chat about the episode or have any questions, I'll be around.

Hope you find this useful. Thanks!

Hey! Interviewer here. Willing to answer questions about the interview topic if you have them. Hope this helps!

BTW, interviewer here. I'm happy to answer any questions, or just discuss the episode in general. Bring it on! :)

Just to add a data point, I earned about $2,000 with a self-published "how to start a podcast" book in 2015: http://record-and-release.com

I wrote it and released it in 10 days and followed a highly-abbreviated version of the promotional plan from Nathan Barry's _Authority_ to market it.

I know $2,000 is small money compared to some of the figures being tossed around in here, but I'm thankful to have earned that much.

My 2nd book was a total flop, commercially: https://gumroad.com/l/clientconflictbook

The people who bought the book found the content super-useful, but the subject matter just did NOT catch on as something my audience was willing to spend money on. I found d a real pain point, just not one that was compelling enough. I also prompted it poorly.

Here's hoping my 3rd book does better! I feel optimistic about the profit potential of self-publishing, generally speaking. As has been mentioned here, you have to market it well AND have a compelling subject matter with a hungry audience. It's not easy.

Thanks for mentioning my book! I'm glad you found it useful.

To answer the OP, I learned tons doing my first podcast: - It was the first time I'd used WordPress to build a site - It was the first time I'd edited audio with Audacity - It was the first time I'd used any kind of opt-in form to build a mailing list - It was the first time I did any kind of automated social media marketing - It was the first time I'd done long-form interviews with people - Etc

GREAT experience. The best thing was making friends with all my guests. I was bummed when the podcast ended, but it was time.

I'm gearing up to start a new podcast right now, for freelancers and consultants. It should be launching next month & I'm pretty excited about it.

That sounds right. The link in the OP outlines a pretty solid plan; that's pretty much the way I used to get raises as a corporate dev.

I love you guys so hard right now. Great comments, lots of good points that are clearly informed by plenty of client-project experience, and even a couple of things I didn't think to consider.

Real quick:

1) Bear in mind that nowhere in the article do I _refuse_ to give ballpark estimates; I'm simply pointing out the downsides and offering a potential solution.

2) I know my site is horrible, and I knew that YOU would know my site is horrible! The new one is under development and should ship in another week or two, but shrug. The cobbler's children have no shoes sometimes. ;)

3) You folks who are suggesting order-of-magnitude estimates are _spot-on_, and this is more-or-less what I've learned to do over the years when giving some kind of an answer is critical to maintaining the life of a potential deal. _Sometimes_ the order-of-magnitude thing can backfire, though, particularly when the client is thinking in "cost" mode rather than "return on investment" mode.

4) Pointing out the downside of a thing and offering a better alternative does not constitute "complaining" insofar as I understand the term; rather, I think of it as problem-solving.

5) "Dear Programmers: Stop Giving Me a Ballpark Lines of Code Estimate" is fucking hilarious and I love you for thinking of it. :)

OK, that's all I have time for, gotta run!

"Marketing is a multiplier" is an interesting perspective.

The idea of "force multipliers" is one that occurs to me quite a bit - in fact, I even use that term in the linked article.

A problem for many freelancers, I think, is when the base number you are multiplying is "zero". This is, regrettably, something I have a great deal of experience with. :)

"The more real the problem, and the better your solution, the less you have to rely on marketing. "

I don't know...isn't the world full of good work that doesn't sell because nobody ever finds out about it? It seems like a freelancer is screwed without marketing & selling skills, no matter how good their work is.

Oooooh. I'm pretty stoked that Scott quoted me!

In reality, it's a double-win relative to the goals each company was striving for - and acheived!

In the author's mind, Jira wins because it's OMG ENTERPRISE and going public.

It's worth noting that there have been plenty of cases where the rejected client did keep in touch, and we did end up working together later.

It's not the norm - usually they just go away and that's that. But I do like hearing that people made their project work somewhere, with some consulting firm, even if it's not mine.

nsns - can you elucidate?

I disagree. For whatever reason - the tech, the client, etc - the project is a bad fit. The e-mail says so as politely as possible, and moves on.

Looks like you & me are from different planets perspective-wise, my friend. :)

Wow, that's great, thanks for spelling out your thought process.

Granted, I disagree with virtually all of it, but I really do appreciate that a) you HAD a thought process behind your comments, and b) you shared it so clearly.

Respect!

You know, my first career aspiration was to be an attorney. Seriously.

And now I learn that I didn't even dodge a bullet by becoming a developer instead? Heartbreaking. :)