 All right, guys can hear me excellent excellent glad to have you guys here My name is Matt Castner and how many of you guys are like hungover from tacos Taco hangover. All right here. I got I got something to wake you up who needs a little breath mint. Here we go Here we go way back in the back. Oh nice catch. There you go. That's a breath mint, baby Right there. All right. I got some that aren't quite as strong. Anybody want one that's not quite as strong Anybody else? Here we go Come back there Anybody else? All right. Here you go. I Love to feed my people Keeping them keeping them fed is keeping them happy Welcome how many of this is your first word camp raise your hand first for good job Look at all these people my first word camp as well I've had some great great conversations and you know, I'm a recovering Jumla developer No, I actually actually still like Jumla, I think Jumla has its place, but since I've kind of you know, switched over Just I see the benefit of both of them And so it's a great platform where press is great and one thing that Jumla doesn't have is a great user community That's local so I can get behind that But anyway, I want to welcome you and before we get started Who has gotten some information that made it worth the $40 ticket already paid for itself? How about that? That is awesome That is awesome. I think $40 for a two-day conference is Easy easy money to spend So specifically today, I'm gonna be talking about freelancing I'm gonna tell you my story here and Something is on my Sorry Kauffman wants me to connect There we go. All right So here's my story I was an agency guy in Kansas City 20 years ago and I Before that let me just start. I am a creative guy Ever since my mom put a crayon in my hand. I've been a creative kid Okay, and that has manifested itself in my life in various ways I'm a graphic designer by trade, but when I started finding out that I could build websites I became a web developer anybody there Okay, so you understand I Have have always had this creative Drive in me to build something. I love to build I have how many of you love it when a site launches. Is that not like the best feeling in the world? Oh my gosh And and I'll say this to start off. I don't want to try to convince anyone To be a freelancer. I do I do not Because it comes with its own set of challenges you guys heard Pippin this morning, right? You heard the laundry list Okay, if you're not comfortable wearing all those hats at least in the beginning I'm free losing might not be for you Okay, however, if that doesn't totally scare you off Then you're in right spot My story is when I first started freelancing. I was in high school. How many of you guys are freelancers raise your hand Okay, let me ask this question How many of you have done a project for someone else because they knew you could do something raise your hand You are a freelancer. All right Whoops That's that's you you are you are somebody who has done something for someone else because you have a skill That's valuable. All right. I believe Every one of us has unique skills talents blessings Cations and I believe those are as unique as our fingerprint Okay, and I believe with that uniqueness comes value Okay, so I'm gonna talk a little bit today about business building But I really want to get to the point where I cast a vision if you're a freelancer or if you're somebody who's thinking about it Where this could all possibly go? Okay, now I've been freelancing full-time now For 17 years Okay, and I like it that way. I Like it. I call it the freelance lifestyle and Let me just go through here. Yeah, you know what you've done business for somebody else. You're a freelancer But each of us have to answer this this question up here why Why why become a freelancer? Well for me as I was working in agencies I Was getting great projects working for great clients Working some really crazy hours and some really tight deadlines. Anybody know what I mean, okay? I Loved what I did. There was nothing that I didn't like what I did But at the end of the day my gas tank was empty and I never got a chance to meet the client that I just served Okay, I was in my cube somewhere and and that was all great and I and at that point in time I was learning these skills, but This builder in me was getting more frustrated Okay, and I started to see Opportunities as I learned the business as I learned how to build a site as I learned how to do things And I realized that people were paying the company as I was working for a lot of money For the work that I was doing and I wasn't they were putting that in my paycheck folks You know what I'm saying? So I had a decision to make and It came at about the point when I had enough Freelance clients on the side And that's what I'll say is if you're thinking about freelancing don't wait to start Start it right now Okay, because this is this is an ongoing thing. Okay, you you're a freelancer forever It's at one. There's a point when you shift over and become a freelancer full-time Okay, so I'm gonna tell you what my why's are now my why's used to be frustration tight deadlines no appreciation Feeling sorry for myself a lot of negative stuff a lot of negative stuff today it's It's it's my family It's it's the freedom of time the freedom of being able to invest my skills where I want to invest them My professor it I'm a Pittsburgh State grad. I'm a gorilla Yep, there we go My I'm a broadcast major graphic design minor, which is just very weird back in the 90s. They didn't know what to do with me Today with YouTube it makes sense right He said this to me made me made me think he said smart people know how successful people know why Okay, so I spent a lot of years as a designer as a web builder learning how How to do stuff how to do this how to do that? Okay, at some point the guys that own the businesses know why how many of you guys were in Scott shapers Seminar just the hour before Okay, you guys if you didn't get that get the recording and watch it, okay? Incredible, okay in terms of being able to to identify the why's and we're gonna talk about this later for your clients Okay, and I'm gonna unlock this whole thing about about getting clients and being able to serve them and getting them to hire You again and again, okay? anyway quote from Paul so this is these are my why's Quality time with my family the lifestyle, okay? Don't judge me. I live in a small town South of Lewis Perk Mound City, Kansas population 650 We call it Mayberry There's not a stoplight in the entire county. I Grew up in the country. I appreciate that lifestyle and I have fortunately very good internet I'm gonna brag a little bit I'm the mayor of Mount City and I got a telephone company to come trace fiber through our entire town We've got gigabit speed to every house and business in town 70 bucks a month Y'all come to Mount City. It's a great place to telecommute Freedom of time freedom of work to be able to pick my clients and Work with the people that I want to work with and I'm gonna talk about that later Financial control, okay? If there's been anything that I've had to learn as a freelancer. This is the one Okay, and now my wife is so good to me and she helps me manage my books But my wife's not accounting neither am I so if you listen to Pippin's story this morning We had to go find somebody that had that skill. Okay, so just FYI. This is my crew and this is a shot we took last October and That is in Jackson Hole, Wyoming anybody ever been there awesome place love it Anyway, I had my laptop two miles away. I was doing work that afternoon This is from six weeks ago South Korea This has freelance story written all over it the connection that got me to the Olympics is a freelance client How cool is that and then I got to go spend two weeks with my daughter in South Korea and She loved it there. She's probably gonna go back in a year and do an exchange program With them and I had my laptop there. I didn't have to stay disconnected I was able to stay on top of work. I didn't I didn't miss too much Anyway more control of my time more control of my earning potential give things give to the things I am passionate about Okay, that freedom the flexibility to be able to work for great clients and do the work for that I love and here's the best part of all to be my best self To be true to me and be able to do what I feel like I was created to do That is the best place in the world and you can't throw enough money at me to Make me give that up That is why I do what I do Before I started freelancing I had fears and you guys if you resonate with this just say amen or whatever I couldn't find enough clients. These are my fears. This wasn't reality. This was what I was fearing I couldn't find enough clients. Would they like what I do? Would they be happy with it? But what I charge pricing we talked about that last hour What I make enough money to support my family. I got four kids. They eat every day Every day. Yes, they use water in electricity It's insane. Oh my gosh. I got three now that use gasoline. Oh my gosh Anyway what I succeed I Knew two things. I knew the skills that I had were valuable that had been proven in my My corporate job. I knew the skills that I had had value The next thing is I realized that I really wasn't certain of where I was And I didn't really have any good experience for anyone that I could learn from so this whole thing freelance on fire It is really just a guy who's been doing this for 17 years Looking to help to somebody else about a year ago. I had a conversation with myself. I said What am I gonna do for the next 20 years? Am I gonna continue to do this? And then I thought back over the past 20 years and I thought if I could have gone back in time and had a conversation with myself in college and painted a picture and provided a roadmap It would have been a game changer for me now. I don't discount hard lessons guys I believe hard lessons are in our life for a reason. I feel like we learn better when we go through hard lessons But there's some things just no one's better, right? Sometimes just having knowledge and knowing where to go and what to do makes all the difference so I launched in 2006 I launched freelance Learned some really tough lessons tons of lessons the hard way Is life it's life But I didn't give up. I stuck with it I kept learning and growing and now that's been more than 15 more than 15 years ago 17 now I Fought and I persisted now. I'm able to take time with my family. I have great clients I pick and choose the jobs that I take I work when I want where I want I can invest in myself and others I went from making a hundred to a thousand dollars per job To earning recurring contracts worth between fifteen and seventy thousand dollars per year per client Okay, that didn't happen overnight But it did happen and if you guys heard Scott in the previous lesson talk about pricing That guy gave me goosebumps. The guy was standing up here with a fifty thousand dollar contract He did three of them last month. He sold three fifty thousand dollar jobs What would you do with that guys? But we have this mental block. We have this mental block that that's not something I can do Right, but it's it's possible This is last year, I wonder if there's a way that I could help somebody else Wonder if I could be the person that would have Love to know early in I would have loved to know that information early in my career So this has been a process for me of harvesting this wisdom over 20 years of experience and now here we are Okay, I'm here to share some information that I hope will be valuable to you If you guys walk away from here with just one information, I'll feel like I've done my job, okay? All right Here we go This is going to apply to you if you are a full-time freelancer and I know there are several in here I know if you're a seasoned freelancer I've been doing this more than five years raise your hand Yeah, I applaud you guys way to go your inspiration and if there's something I can say to you that just kind of encourages you You take it But if you are somebody who's just getting started or has a side hustle or is looking to grow and find out how to Do that that's what I'm gonna help you do today. We're talking about three things. Okay? We're gonna talk about your skills assessment. Okay, which is basically your value proposition What do you have that's valuable? The second thing we're gonna talk about is finding clients. Okay? It's not as hard as you might think. Okay. The third thing is the long game. How do you prepare to do this on? Into I mean, let's face it. I you know, I plan on retiring a freelancer. I Don't have any plans right now walking back into corporate Not saying that couldn't change Okay circumstances could could dictate that but I don't have any plans to do that right now Okay, so I'm in it for the long game. All right, so skills assessment. Oh, by the way, I Hope to have I'm gonna be done here in about 15 20 minutes So if you have questions, I want them and then I've I've got a survey If anybody would be willing to help me fill out a survey I really want feedback Especially your questions. I'm gonna give it to you and then I have a special offer for you if you're interested So I'm gonna give you time for that at the end. Okay All right, so understanding my value And what do I charge? Part of what my offer is gonna be here at the end is going to be a way for you to kind of do this a self-analysis In terms of what are your skills? What raw skills do you have? What are things that you've learned to do well? All right, what talents do you have? What are some natural gifts that you have that you can employ in your freelance career? What are your passions which for me is key because for me if your passion is driving you it can take you to some amazing places And then I call them blessings. Okay blessings are things that I have in my life that are great that I did not earn They were just given to me and now I see myself as being a steward of those. I call them blessings. Okay All right, so There is only one you I talked about that the value in being who you are Here's the number one thing. This would be one thing. I want you to take away as you are thinking about your freelance career I want you to Be known for something. This is step one in being a freelancer Okay Find something that you're good at and be the expert in it Okay, when someone has a problem and that problem is your niche You want your name to pop in their mind? Okay, that is how you get clients Early on it's how you keep clients because the more that your name gets out there the more it's associated with with the skills you have the more that you're going to be able to leverage that expertise and Convert it into a career Okay All right Scott mentioned this in his presentation. I'm rewarding it just a little bit actually it goes along very well The process of selling has people stymied. Okay, then people think sales is slimy Okay, they think that it takes you stepping and stooping down to some level But here's what it is if you want to help someone That is you're in Okay, Scott. I'm gonna I'm gonna use Scott's example. He talked about a guy going into a doctor's office with knee pain and Instead of the doctor asking him questions and finding out what the cause of the knee pain was he gave Scott a pill and a bill and Said here take this Okay, the correct method is ask questions and listen Ask questions and listen and literally you can find clients when you're not even looking for them If you hear someone struggling with their website Get in get in the conversation. What's going on? What's problem? What's the pain point? Scott used the he used the example of a Bleeding neck You know is I've got this bleeding neck. It won't stop and and someone has the answer for me Okay, if I can if I can give someone the answer if I can help solve their problem I Just didn't make a client. I'm somebody's hero Okay, so when you look at it from that standpoint the selling is never an issue when you're able to solve a client's problem What we need to train ourselves to be is problem solvers and Say, you know what I Can help you with that I Can I can I can fix that problem I can make that problem go away? I'll do that for you Okay, now there's an invoice and usually attached with that But that doesn't necessarily be the way you start the conversation. It's just simply you have a problem I can help you fix it. Let me help you Okay, that doesn't sound very salesy. That sounds like somebody wanted to help, right? If you had a if you had a hole in your neck and somebody had Some tape and some gauze. How much is that tape and gauze worth to you? What would you pay? Exactly, exactly. You're just wanting a solution. You want that pain to go away? All right moving on to What do I charge and this could be its entire session all the time? Okay but here's I'm going to say one thing that In Scott said this better than I will is that is that our value is more than we think All right, so many of us are used to calculating and boiling down what we do to an hourly rate That's how we calculate Bids that's how we do everything my my My question is not necessarily Do I do hourly or flat rate the question I asked myself is what's the value? What kind of value am I bringing to this organization this company? Okay, that's where the discussion needs to start and We'll talk a little bit more about that here in this in this second topic but but knowing what your value is and then not being afraid to Ask for it. Okay. Now Scott had talked about raising his rates, which I think is a great idea Don't put your price up here so high that nobody wants to touch you just continually little incremental increases Okay, start where you're at find people that are buying there and just continually raise your rates Okay finding clients When I when I kind of stumbled onto this analogy it made a lot of sense to me Okay, so when I when I graduated from college, I didn't have a marketing degree didn't have a business degree All right, most of my clients when I started off in freelance were They were friends. They were Honestly old business old employers that I used to work for It'd be becoming some of my my best freelance clients So do not count them out. In fact, I'll say this if if you happen to be frustrated right now in your J.O.B Okay Just be careful. Don't burn the bridge prematurely Okay, because there is a very good chance that at some point in time You could convert that old employer into a client and you're in the best position to because they know what you can do and Sometimes it's easier to pay somebody pay a freelancer who they know what they're getting Then to take another risk on somebody else Okay All right, so how many of you've been fishing before? All right, we live in Kansas or most of us in Midwest Kansas, Missouri ponds all around us, right? When you go fishing, there's a few things you need to have right? One is a body of water with some fish in it would be helpful Okay, so you need a market You need a place where there's some possibility Okay, then the second thing is is you need to have some bait Something that lets those little fishies know that you're out there and you're trying to catch them now they you know, they're dumb But sitting in your boat with your fishing pole with no bait and no hook in the water isn't going to get you very many fish right All right So the pond is where my clients hang out and then the promotion that I do is the bait now I'm going to just just assume everybody here is doing web design and so Literally guys you have the best platform to market your services Okay, everybody now has cell phones and can find you with a Google search Okay, or on your social media. There's very few professions that have a built-in Promotion tool that web developers have okay, so the bait is bait is my message. All right The key to building your business is not how many people, you know, this was something that I used to I used to collect people's contacts like I collect autographs, you know in an autograph book I meet somebody. Hey, I got their business card. This is great. Oh, man. I got this person in my real index now cool I want to feel over call me That just wait and Nothing would ever happen the key to building your business is not how many people you know It's how many people know you Okay, so you've got to be willing to put the bait on the hook and throw it in the water Where there's some fish swimming around that is what you need to do to find clients Okay, very very simple analogy, but if you don't do those two steps, then your chances of finding clients is very very slim Okay so we talked about Solving the problem making the pain go away and be the hero Where can I find clients all right you have personal contacts former employers professional groups How many of you brought business cards? There's probably some people walking around these halls That they're here at word camp because they're thinking they want to try to figure this thing out They need a hero Because at some point in time they're gonna go you know what I've I've tried it and I'm not figuring it out I need some help So the opportunity is here even in venues like this networking events Meetups can't see wordpress. Who's a member of the meetup? Awesome awesome conferences trade shows LinkedIn groups, how many of you are part of some sort of a professional LinkedIn group awesome Facebook groups same thing Upwork freelance sites. I'm gonna throw up working freelance there at the bottom. Oh Because that's That's a pond that has way too many hooks in the water in my mind And you're not gonna catch the big fish in that pond So stick with the stick with the smaller ponds the places where you can go face-to-face That's the best if you can go face-to-face you're gonna find you're gonna find better success Okay, long game sweet spot. I talked about this earlier gifts talents blessings and passions And finding perfect clients. So as you are becoming this freelancer, are you gonna work with some people that you really don't? Love yeah Yeah, are they they're giving you a check and it's it's helping pay the bills. So you're taking their money Okay, but what you really are what I really want to do is a freelancer. I want to find those clients that I love okay And You won't you want clients that will love you back. Okay I've learned this lesson probably way too late, but I can say I've learned it now and I'm trying to employ it That social proof is greater than your portfolio Okay, what people say about you and the service that you give them is Worth way more than the pictures and the examples that you have on your own personal portfolio website Okay Because the portfolio only tells part of the story It doesn't tell the whole story Okay, this is Beth folk. I met Beth about a year ago. She is HR manager for AXSET HR staffing over in Lenexa Founder through LinkedIn Profinder anybody ever use that LinkedIn Profinder Okay, I think you have to be a I think you have to be a LinkedIn pro member But it's basically a way for people to solicit work They throw out job opportunities and if you if it's in your niche you can respond to it and you can provide a proposal anyway I I threw a proposal out to To Beth and her her request was it kind of caught me She was frustrated She was working with a another individual actually she'd worked with a couple Trying to put together a PowerPoint presentation guys a PowerPoint presentation I'm like really and she was they weren't getting it right They weren't getting like she wanted it and her her requirements were right there very straightforward and I'm like Okay, I think I can handle this. This is this is the monkey claw Alright, this is the monkey claw from Scott Shapers talk. I threw I threw a softball. I said listen I said I'll give you I'll I'll handle this for you if it's not the way you want it when I'm done You don't pay me All right, I took all the risk off her she was she came to this and she was like this She was really upset so I tried to take the risk out of it for and This is what happened. This is this is a this is a testimonial that she left on my LinkedIn page You guys know what the recommends are a section on LinkedIn if you're not using them start requesting recommendations Okay, because this for me is way more valuable than the PowerPoint presentation that I designed for her because it describes her frustration and It shows me coming in and providing some help Giving her give you know taking the pain away alright, and so this is now part of my LinkedIn profile and It I don't even want to show them the PowerPoint. It was ugly So I'm gonna scoot past this one here I've got seven more minutes This is this is kind of where I want you guys to start thinking this this circle of awesomeness came from a Michael Hyatt, do you guys know who Michael Hyatt is? Okay? thought leader productivity He has this he has this philosophy. It's called the circle of awesomeness and it's it's really it's regarding sales and a sales cycle Okay, and it starts with your it starts with your first sale Okay, and and I and I would say it starts off instead of a circle It starts off kind of as a spiral kind of right here in the middle and then as you you do more the circle gets bigger and bigger But as you make the sale Your goal is to take the client's pain away to get results To to help them get what they want. Okay When that happens then we have to we have to really be on our feet because we want to capture that story Okay, so when you have a client and you are working with them and You just save the day you give them what they want you help them do whatever they need to do You say you know what I've enjoyed work on this project with you Would you take a moment and write down just? Whatever I'm looking for some recommendations I want to be able to share this experience with other people and the reason why it's so powerful as it comes from them It's their perspective And it has that pain and tension in it, which I didn't feel that I was there to provide the Provide the service not experience all the internal struggle Okay So produce the great story and then you leverage these stories in your own personal marketing Okay, so instead of saying hey, I just built five big websites I've got this client who shared this amazing story about how was able to partner with them To do this big huge project and now it's doing this for their company or it's achieving this for them It's sharing your clients win It's not puffing yourself up. It's showing what you were able to do and help this client achieve. Okay, so it's it's helping them Get something great and then you use that story in your marketing and then what happens is is that becomes your That becomes your opportunity to make a sale again. Okay, you get that social proof other people see oh man He was able to help them get this these results. I've got these problems. Maybe they can help me, too Okay, it just becomes this this this cycle that goes over and over and over circle of awesomeness Very very cool So now where do you leverage all these stories that you have? Well, gosh, we've got too many places The biggest one is to tell the story yourself. It's like guys. I just helped this client We just did this amazing project together and I'm so proud of it And it's getting this result for them or it's helping them this do this or that it's making their company run better or make more money Or do whatever they do Okay, tell your clients stories. I would say leverage your LinkedIn profile that that that social network is being is becoming huge And people are getting on LinkedIn now more than ever So so spruce up your LinkedIn profile if you haven't already your own website portfolio. This is something I recommend I Have I'm a piss-take grad and I they contact me and they asked me to take Seniors who are looking to do internships and I have this bad habit of turning high college seniors into freelancers They don't want to go work for corporate when they're done with me They see I let I peel back the curtain. I show them how I do it and they're like man. This is great But in your own portfolio, I tell these students. I'm like don't just put a snapshot of what you did write a narrative People call them case studies white papers. That's all they are. They're a narrative Identify the problem how you solve the problem what the win or the outcome was Okay, and you can you can add that very easily to a portfolio piece To give to give somebody looking at a lot more context into what happened with that project Okay, what problem did it solve? Okay case studies If you have a newsletter email blast, that'd be a great place for it your Facebook page if you don't have a freelancing page They're free to get I recommend getting one Instagram all kinds of great stuff. Finally, it's what I'm gonna do perfect client. Do they actually exist? Yes, they do and I'm going to define for you what the perfect client is. Are you ready for this? All right a client that pays you well for the work that you would do for free if time and money were no object I Have two of them right now That if I didn't have to support a family I Be doing the work for free because I believe in what they're doing so much But the cool thing is that the love is reciprocated because they love working with me they know what I give them and They trust me and they come back. Oh, that's that's the perfect client guys That's the client. That's I mean their family. I'm a single. I'm a single solopaneur But this is like an extended team that I get to call family. It's awesome. It's incredible All right See is that it? That's my last slide. I think Maybe It's not going anywhere Oh, here we go So sweet spot. This is this is something I'm offering to you I have I have an e-book that I wrote I don't have time to go in today if you'd like it. It's free It's 32 pages if you want to know what your sweet spot is. I have a little exercise in there that I take you through Some of the content that I share today is in there By the way, this whole slide deck is gonna be available for you. So if you guys want that It's gonna be available No problem at all. Okay, and then here's a special bonus for today, and then I'm gonna start taking some questions. I have a I Have a form of a feedback form If you are willing to help me out and give me some feedback from today And I realize this presentation wasn't perfect, but I hope to get better at it I'm going to offer you a free 20-minute coaching call Okay, any question nothing I'm not gonna say anything all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna listen to your questions And I'm gonna do my best to answer Okay, whatever it is. I'm not gonna say I know everything But if there's something that I can do to kind of help Communicate some understanding answer a question tackle a problem with you. I want to offer that to you. Okay So with that I'm going to go ahead and open up for questions We have some time Go Yes That's a that's a great question so One of the things that is a freelancer. I've had to shift my mind around is I left a corporate job where I was working 40 plus hours a week. Okay on the clock Okay, some weeks, of course, you know, it's more than that, right? And I immediately when I became a freelancer thought that I have to be working 40 hours and then do everything else on top of that Once I shifted my mind and said, uh, no, no, that's that's why I I feel like the value proposition And what you can charge as a freelancer needs to equate your value Because honestly, I really only am working and billing probably 20 25 hours a week billable work for clients Okay, I have 10 hours a week that I that I build toward business building So whether that is meeting new clients writing proposals going to networking events working on my own personal marketing Or whatever and then there a balance of that would be whatever miscellaneous Stuff comes up life happens So I think from a from a mental standpoint We have to we have to carve intentionally and it's a process to get there It's a process to get there and you don't want to necessarily Well burnout happens It happens for everybody But that's a that's a great question That's a great question my my thing is you want to make it a goal as a freelancer that you're not billing out 40 hours a week You want to bill out 20? So do the math whatever you feel like whatever you have to make Okay, bill do it based on that time not 40 hours 20 30 Or something like that and build in some cushion So that you've got room to do other business building stuff like it like Pippin said you're the accountant You're the sales guy. You're the janitor. I you know chief cook and bottle washer Yeah, next question. Yeah So let's say you're you're injects allowing and you're you're doing something family and then now you have to Disengage with family and go about some time to work out. What are some of your strategies around doing that while still being engaged? Okay, so I plan for that. I knew I was going to be out of town. I knew I was gonna be spending time with the family Typically what I would do is if I I would take care of like like essential tests like email and that sort of thing I typically do before breakfast Wake up a half hour early, whatever take care of stuff if it's pressing then you kind of have to call an audible maybe and that happens sometimes But I'm gonna get a I'm gonna get a you know a 911 at home just as easily sitting on the couch So, you know But you know, here's the other thing is I communicate with my with my clients I'm like, hey, I'm working remotely right now and I'm available. I'm not telling them that I'm not available to them but hey just you know We I may not be getting back to you quite as quick, but they all have my cell phone if it's an emergency Give me a call So that's great. That's great. You kind of have to be flexible though Yes, and let me let me tell you this I think right now where we're at as a as an economy I think freelancers have an incredible position Because of this if you're working in an agency, I can provide services I I can provide the exact same services that they would get from an agency for a fraction of the price and still make really good money Yeah, and so if somebody's looking for value then Chris, yes I've never called myself a freelancer Freelancer consultant contractor solopaneer, I think it's synonymous. I I mean, I'm really I mean I Freelancer, I don't know why I stuck that name to myself But yeah, I think a you know what Yeah I Yeah, that's a that's a that's a great question I mean I when I see when I say freelancer really what that print connotes to me is, you know I can contractor although a contractor mays. I see that more as single focused on maybe one client Whereas a freelancer. I'm just a gun for hire I can I can go work for anybody at any time. I'm not strapped down But I mean I get that I get that there could be a perception there that a freelancer may not be the person that they want to work for When I when I go out and put myself out in front of people. I typically don't say freelancer I'll just say graphic design web professional Yeah Blue cross blue shield afford a blue Yeah, yeah, and in the increased payments over the last three years have been awful Everybody's doing with it Yeah Yeah, so so what I would say is while you've got while you've got your 40-hour job and you're building your freelance clientele You only be working you want to be working on getting your rate up Okay, I would say not necessarily build a huge client base that you have to really micromanage Start growing your start growing your clients to the point where the bill rates are getting really good Okay, to where to where when you have to cut up cut, you know cut over you've got You've got some higher-level clients that you can start leading on because honestly as a freelancer contractor consultant I do not need a ton of clients to pay my bills. I just need a handful of really good ones and Finding them is is a is a process it takes time But I don't have to go find hundreds. I just have to go find a dozen or two To pay the bills So you have a question. Yeah I Wish I wish I could say I have really good experience with paid advertising. No Most of my most of my work Has come through word of mouth or or through my social presences People find me But you know what when when you've got a friend or you've done work for somebody and they Talk to somebody else in your top of mind and they passed you that is that is better than the advertising you could buy They're already sold if somebody recommended you to them This I mean it's to start working. I mean, that's literally it's that easy Okay, we got three minutes. Yes Talked about Yeah, so so that's a combination right so so what are you good at if you were on you put on your resume right now What would you put on there? I am good at this. I have done this. Okay, so maybe it's writing. Maybe it's Page building. Maybe it's SEO. Maybe it's root commerce. Maybe it's graphic design. Maybe it's Setting up Etsy stores, you know, maybe it's marketing whatever your little thing I mean, no, those are your skills that you sell the soft skills are gonna just pay off and they're just gonna pay off If you're if you show up for work, you're kind you support your people you help them solve problems I mean that's just gonna make you better That's that's just gonna make you better One more minute We'll get out of here. Yes Oh my goodness It's like far as like salary is like that probably four or five times over Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's a it's a mind shift. I when I left corporate in my I had just Guys it's it's that that is the thing between your ears is what holds us back the most That's freelancers is this thing between our ears Holds us back. We think there's these glass ceilings on top of our heads and we can't punch through them and so it's Yes, there's tons of potential. Okay. I showed up. I showed a picture of her. Her name is Kayla. We're she was my Intern last summer. She spent three months with me and by the end of the summer. She okay. She's a waitress at Chili's By the time of the end of the summer she had sold a $3,000 WordPress site five pages Yeah, when you get when the bug bites it's hard to get rid of it Anybody else guys, I want to thank you for being here today I hope the rest of your conference is great I'm going to be in the lounge at three o'clock today and I invite you come talk to me I would love to get to know you share my story hear your story I've got some business cards in the back with some swag and some Sweet stuff if you've got a sweet tooth right now Those are free for you to have and I guess have a great day. Thank you You