 Wow, I didn't even have to say anything and everyone got quiet How's everyone doing today? Are you done with your food comas and Taco Bell greasy? Whatever? I'm not so So this is a freelancer workshop. My name is Mark and I imagine that there are a few people in here that Got kind of sick of their corporate day-to-day and woke up one day and said I'm gonna be a freelancer That sounds like fun and that's all the thought they put into it So I had a nice video I was gonna show you But I don't have audio so I'm skipping it Does this look like your business plan? This was a you know South Park is one of those shows that Offends many but has many many very good points to it This one was in their second season and it stuck with me ever since then and I think they're unlike season 850 Wazillion now, so it's been a while This is what I found talking to a lot of people within the community not this in freelancers, but business owners and whatnot Seems to be a pretty common thing. They wake up one day. They come up with this really great idea and They're gonna make a bunch of money at it and that's the plan Right We've all done it. I think I've done it too So before we start getting into this let's let's look at phase one I'm not gonna cover phase one too much because The idea is there. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. You're gonna get into a being a freelancer But the first few questions you do need to ask yourself is is your product a service or service needed and wanted? Do you have the tools needed to produce the product? Do you have the money the time and the knowledge or access to it? And this is a really important one? Do you have the support from your family and friends now when I ask that question? It's not did your significant other say yeah, go ahead do whatever you want or did they say I'm gonna be your cheerleader I'm gonna back you up in everything that you do because that's really really important when you go into freelance life Because everything's gonna be resting on your shoulders. I Hate Dora the Explorer just for the record And I also hate her husband Diego mr. Dora or whatever you call him so But one of the things that Dora does in every single episode because every episode is exactly the same is That she roadmaps every single thing that she's going to do Which is that phase two that we're talking about so one of the things that you have to do when you're road mapping Your or your plan for profit to get to profit is you want to start talking about marketing and branding There's a difference between the two and I think a lot of people confuse the two Marketing is about your message or what you have to offer Branding about is about who you are who your company is what you do You own your marketing you own that message that you want to send out But here's the frustrating part your consumers your clients. They're the ones who own your branding and What I mean by that? Let's use a little bit of an analogy Let's say that you're single and you go on match.com and you fill out this profile and You talk about all the great things you are and you have a Ferrari and all this money that you have and you have a yacht and all this thing and you're the best thing to ever come along since Any, you know, I don't know anybody Slice bread the best person to come along since sliced bread. Yes, exactly That's your marketing you go out on a few dates and That person discovers you're none of the above They have formed an opinion of you. That's your branding You have to watch your branding carefully and you have to craft it and you have to decide ahead of time What is the message and what is the image? I want to convey about my company and Are they the same? So when you're a freelancer everything like I said kind of rests on your shoulders your one person, you know Shop a lot of the times So you have two different types of branding that you have to worry about you have to have worry about your professional or your company branding You have a specialty. Are you a low-cost volume volume volume person or are you a high-end? Do you do custom work? Are you really into accessibility and you want to produce accessibility sites or you know something of that sort? Do you deliver quickly? That's your company brand, but because you're a freelancer you have to worry about your personal brand, too What do people think of you as a person? Are you professional? Are you knowledgeable? Are you sociable? Do you have integrity? Are you generous? Are you snooty? Are you active in your community? These are all important things to so you have to focus on your personal and your professional branding And you need to be aware of it every single day of your business's life So when you get into marketing you have to think about who's my market going to be How am I going to attack that market? What is your marketing message? Does your branding fit within your marketing? So let's say that you like to do high-end sites and You like to have this professional image or you like to do professional sites, but all your marketing that you do is goofy stupid ads does that create a Symmetry between What your marketing message is and what your brand is what kind of support are you gonna offer you have to think about all those things? So now you've got a few of these things kind of In mind it's time to take our little road trip. You've got your map somewhat done. There's a lot more to it Probably four hours more worth of talking So these are what I call rules of the road these are things that if you don't do it will catch up to you And it will haunt you Get yourself a good bank or a good banker have good banks are hard to find there's no doubt But you can at least find a contact at a bank that will help you out Kind of bend the rules a little bit to you know help you if someone bounces a check to you and Maybe wave a fee or something. It's always good to have a contact at a bank Get a good accountant and a good bookkeeper Frank just talked about accounting. I'm not going to get into that a lot But accounts and attorneys you need them Have your marketing plan Deliver on your promises and communicate with your clients, especially if you can't deliver on your promises And have the ability to explain why you couldn't but these are all things that are going to go into your brand And if you do not cover any of these things or if you skip any of these things it will come back to haunt you I'm not speaking from experience at all Now we have guidelines These are things you should do Because they're good ideas Stay close to the speed limit notice. I didn't put that in the rules of the road. Nobody really sticks at the speed limit Let's take close to it. So you don't cut at get caught in other words pace yourself and be patient processes have a purpose Focus on the road ahead do one thing at a time and do it well Don't get distracted by everything. That's to your left and right Hopefully at the very beginning of your plan you said this is what I'm going to do Stay focused on that and do it well until you're good at it until people respect you for it And then move on to other things and believe me in this industry It is so easy to look at the next big thing and forget about the last big thing Which was your great idea and basis for your business to begin with? Check your location often Totally brutally assess your progress Look back and say what did I do right? What did I do wrong? And if you discover that you're lost go back to your map that you created at the very beginning Just because you can do something This is this falls under the category of things. You can't unsee Doesn't mean you should do it sometimes things seem like a good idea and then you produce it and you're like holy crap What was I thinking? Now if someone had said that they were going to design this to me I would have asked holy crap. What were you thinking to begin with? So I also use comic sans for the second thing just for fun Keep an eye on your surroundings Stay up to speed on current technologies be aware of emerging technologies be aware of changing markets Some all these things are going to impact you Consider how they may affect you and communicate with experts in your field in the WordPress community You have so many experts that are so so generous with their time and and energy that Your your I would I would say you're foolish if you do not tap into that Be prepared for detours they happen But always keep your eye on getting back on the main road and only look back through the review mirror in other words What I mean by that is Don't have regrets Use data To drive your future decisions and when you're looking back through the review mirror You're still keeping your eye looking forward, but you you can take the data that you have From experience that you've had and you can apply it to what you need to do in order to move forward Very few good decisions are made out of fear. Hollywood has spoken I don't watch a lot of horror movies But the ones that I've seen tend to be the people who get the most frightened are the ones who tend to die the fastest The people who live are the ones who actually start thinking about what they're doing despite the fear Fear is a perfectly fine motivator. I think we all have it. We wake up in the morning and we're like I need to make money and You know got to pay the bills. Those are all perfectly good motivators, but when you start taking jobs on the cheap Because you're so scared of not being able to pay the bills and then two weeks later You discover you made a big mistake because you made that choice Because all of a sudden another job came along and you have to say no to it because you're still working on this piece of junk job That you know that came along it happens. So don't make decisions out of fear make good sound logical decisions and Boom you've arrived at phase three profit I've I've so overly simplified everything, but you know like I said, it's a four-hour thing But now what okay, so you've gotten to the profit point you stayed on your roadmap you got there What are you going to do next? Most people will tell you a good Business plan includes an exit strategy What are you going to do at the end of it? Are you going to retire you're going to do it the rest of your life? Are you going to go work for an agency or a shop or something like that now? There's something where your personal branding matters I've seen a lot of times in the WordPress community where people were independence. They were freelancers But because they built their own personal brand so well they got absorbed into an agency where they Don't have to deal with a lot of the headaches of running a business and whatnot. So I Can't say I Can't emphasize enough how important the personal brand is to go way back to that. It's really important Are you going to expand your offer offerings? Are you going to close that shop? Are you going to go work for someone else? What's your exit strategy going to be put that on the roadmap because at some point in time you're not going to be doing this anymore Whether it's retirement or whatever, but always keep it in mind and That's it Do I have any questions? Or did I answer everything on how to go from beginning to end? Yes Okay, so the question was what happens if when you go back and reassess and you and you get brutally honest with yourself What happens if you don't feel like you've done enough? Do more but do it smarter in other words don't it goes back to the fear thing So you might wake up one day and you might say, you know, I didn't do this, right? So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll go back In fact, I just recently had an experience where I said, you know what this bit of marketing didn't really work for us It didn't do so what am I going to do? Well, it turned out that we had Done something a little bit wrong with a configuration on something and so I went back and worked through it and whatnot and What you're doing is you're just being kind of you're kind of Analyzing what went wrong at some point in time if you're not as far along as you'd like to be You got to figure out what it is that you need to do But don't sell out. I mean, that's really I guess what I'm saying It's really tough because I think if you want to talk to me about a specific situation which you might want to then I could probably help you a little bit more on that but Really all it is and that's why I said use data data is your friend Look at the data from when you're being brutally honest and assessing things Look at that data and say how did this impact where I am today? What could I have done differently? Am I able to do that now or is it too late? And if it's too late then what do I need to do in order to do it and sometimes the answer might be Time to close up shop. I mean and believe me. I say that because I've been there I have woken up on more than one occasion. I said, you know what it's time for me to disclose up shop I'm done with it because I made a mistake Here or or whatever, but that's why you you you're brutally honest because you're not gonna be You're not going to be happy If all you're doing is Is trying to fix something that that it's too late to fix I guess that makes sense I mean, it's it's tough and sometimes it's a tough decision. It's always a tough decision, but you know Being a freelancer is not easy for sure I mean being in business is not easy Any other questions? Oh my goodness way up there That's an exit strategy. I'm sorry. I and what's the rest of the question? Boy I'm gonna sound really harsh here and I don't mean to but Star Trek has these things called expendable crew members Right and it's really important and I in a situation now where I Have two business partners and we reassess often to make sure that we still have the same vision and there may come a time where It may feel like there's no possible way you can go on without that person and without them having the same vision as you But Everybody is replaceable Nobody isn't I hate to say that I mean you like I said expendable crew members they die and they go on right I mean I'm the show right you never see them like okay shows over it was only 10 minute episode, right? So It's it's a sad but true part of business and it's probably one of the hardest things that you have to deal with in business especially if these are people that Whenever I go into a partnership with someone one of the first questions I ask myself is do I like this person enough that I can be friends with them? So if you come to a point where you have to part ways It makes it even harder to be honest But sometimes you have to make those hard decisions and business is it's business, right? So I Don't know if that's exactly the answer you wanted, but Give them a personal let Yeah, let them exit. Yeah, because your exit strategy doesn't have to be theirs You know you want to do it for the rest of your life Then say you know what you can have an exit strategy will buy you out of your share or whatever And then find someone who can replace them and they're gonna replace them in exactly the same way But they'll you know they may be better. They may be worse, but that's that's part of the risk you take It's reputation. It's opinion. It's what people's opinions are of you And that's why the frustrating part of that is you work hard to establish your brand, but you don't own your brand Your customers own your brand Uh-huh. It's it's both. I I tend to look at that as more as marketing and by the way I should say I'm not a branding or marketing expert. It's what I feel I should have said that at the very beginning. It's what I it's how I look at branding is That it branding is owned by the people that you serve It's their opinion of you now I'm not saying that you can't manipulate it. You can't express it You can't but you need to focus on it if you say you're going to be this this this and this Your brand is did he do this this this and this or did he not do this this Do you own that Ferrari that you said that you own the you know and so it really is the opinion Of what people have of you or your company? Yes correct and I'm going to use that in my next presentation. Thank you, Michelle Yeah, I'm sorry. I almost you know what's funny is I almost used papyrus I almost did but the thing is I'm saying this in front of like the whole WordPress community here I don't hate papyrus as much as I hate comic sans You're welcome Yeah, actually So I do actually have a link it was supposed to be on that slide which it's not so I will tweet out the link later It's actually already up any other questions. All right. Awesome. Thank you very much