The Multi 6-Figure Freelancer Playbook Series | Part 1

356. The Multi 6-Figure Freelancer Playbook pt 1

===

Brian: [00:00:00] So this podcast is called Six Figure Creative, and throughout the last 354 55 episodes before this, we talked about earning six figures as a freelancer. All the things we've brought in to this episode, all the outside influences, all the guests we've talked about, even all the way back to when we used to be called the Six Figure Home Studio.

Brian: We just talked about earning six figures. So you could say that this podcast is a playbook to earn six figures. there's a whole advice buffet. There's tons of stuff more than you can ever consume. There's a few of you who've been around a long time and you've been through every episode.

Brian: Shout out to you people, but what about the playbook to go from six figures to multiple six figures? What about going from 200,000 to 500,000? These are the things that get more and more difficult for freelancers because the average freelancer has no experience making that sort of epic growth in their income. I'm actually doing an entire series on this where we're gonna break down the playbook to multiple six figures as a freelancer.

Brian: and this is the first episode in that series. Now, if you're the average freelancer, you probably earn around 50 KI think we'll talk about the numbers later in this episode, But the average freelancer, you're stuck in the freelance mindset. You are a button a seat. You're trading dollars for hours or hours for dollars. You're [00:01:00] working for clients. Emphasis on four. You're working four clients. You're trying to juggle everything yourself while hoping to get paid again, emphasis on hoping to get paid.

Brian: You're waiting around for the next client and you're stuck in this constant FE or fame lifecycle. That is the typical freelancer. As long as you're doing those things, as long as that's how you operate your business and that's how you think you should be operating as a freelancer, you're gonna continue to earn the same as an average freelancer, which I looked this up. It's around 50 to 55,000 a year. I think that's honestly being generous.

Brian: If we're looking at averages, I think that number's inflated because the data that most of the internet has is based on data that's available, I think most freelancers are not full-time. Therefore, those incomes are much, much lower. So I think 55 is generous, but 50 5K is the average according to the internet and the sources I could find it's like 35, 45 bucks an hour max.

Brian: however, the average business revenue is $804,000 a year Obviously when you're looking at average business, that's everything from like the solo business owner, including freelancers, technically all the way up to like multi-billion dollar, trillion dollar businesses.

Brian: So obviously that number's gonna be skewed by the larger businesses. However, it doesn't really [00:02:00] matter.

Brian: What matters is. It's painfully obvious that real businesses and business owners operate differently than freelancers.

Brian: And I've seen freelancers able to break six figures basically by accident. They're just really good at a skill. They're in high demand because they're, one of the top 1% or better of that skillset. And so people find them they get enough referrals and they're able to break six figures that way.

Brian: And by and large, they're not really operating like an entrepreneur or a business owner, they're just operating like a freelancer. It just happens to work out, so you can kind of accident your way into the six figure. Very, very, Very few freelancers. Stumbled their way into multiple six figures. Much more difficult.

Brian: So we need to dig into what those differences are so that you can spot in yourself. What are you doing wrong right now if you're stuck at 60, 70 5,000 a year, you're stuck at a hundred thousand a year. You've plateaued. You're trying to break multiple six figures and you can't. What are those differences?

Brian: So this episode, I'm gonna break down seven key mindset differences between the average freelancer and an actual business owner mindset.

Brian: And as personally who's gone through that transition. I started off as a solo freelancer in 2009, starting a recording studio in my parents' basement with those [00:03:00] white checkerboard, black and white checkerboard tiles and wood panel walls from like the eighties and nineties, slowly made that change up until now, you know, it's 2025 now. How many years is that? 15, 16 years. And this, year we're on track to be a multimillion dollar business. And that's just six figure creative, not including other business adventures that I have.

Brian: So I have lots of thoughts, lots of opinions on this because again, I have made that entire journey myself. So if you can make these changes to your mindset first, and then from your mindset to your business.

Brian: This is what allows you to build a reliable, stable, sustainable business that is able to break that six figure and multi-six figure plateau and eventually sustain that. And if you want, start to grow that into million, multi-million dec a million business if you want.

Brian: And most importantly, do it without breaking yourself first, because that's a whole other can of worms whenever you start. Operating like a business owner you get way too carried away with that and then you end up breaking your family up, divorce, all these things that can come with the entrepreneur side, the dark side of being a business owner that we also don't want either.

Brian: So it's about balance.

Brian: so if this is your first time here. Hello, I'm Brian Hood. This is the six Figure Creative podcast. This is a podcast where I bring [00:04:00] influences from what I'm doing and all my businesses, what I've done in my past, what I'm bringing guests from other industries outside input and ideas from other industries and create a nice little melting pot stirred around, serve you a cup of something that's gonna actually help your business grow.

Brian: if that sounds at all interesting to you, you're in the right spot. So let's get into the episode. We're gonna talk about seven mindset shifts that need to happen. If you wanna break six figures, multiple six figures.

Brian: The first one is from, but seat. It's a trusted advisor. Freelancers, they essentially just operate as a button a seat where any butt's as good as another, but as long as you're the button a seat, I'm getting paid. However, the business owner, especially the, multi-six-figure freelancer operates as more of a trusted advisor.

Brian: So while freelancers get paid to sit at their desk, business owners get paid for their expertise or their outcomes that they provide.

Brian: think one thing that freelancers fail to think about is that clients tend to pay more for strategy than just execution. And some of our highest paid clients that we work with, 'cause we have over 220, 2 25, 230 clients at this point right now. I. That we work with helping on the client acquisition side, our best performing clients are people who they're not a button a seat.

Brian: They're not just [00:05:00] executing on something, just doing a thing that the client wants. They're helping shape a big picture idea or strategy, and then helping them execute it.

Brian: So instead of being the worker, they're being the guide.

Brian: And they're leading them through a process that they've created to reach the outcome that the client wants.

Brian: So instead of asking the client what they want and then just giving it to them, they lead them again through an entire process that helps them understand what does the client actually need. And then say, okay, this is what you need. Here's how to get there. Do you see the difference in that? Whereas the freelancer says, what do you want, Mr. Business Owner Mrs. Client? I'll do whatever you need. What do you need me to do? I'll be the button in the seat. Whereas the trusted advisor says, what outcome do you want? Okay, I know how to get you there.

Brian: Here's what you need to do. Here's how it works. Here's what's going to happen. One leads, one follows, and if you want to be a button seat freelancer for the rest of your life and always follow what the client asks you to do. that's a place you can be that's the five way, if that's the way you wanna do it.

Brian: Or if you wanna be a trusted advisor who is the person who's running the show, and you say, if you want the outcome that I provide, here's how you get there, Mr. Or Mrs. Client,

Brian: that pays significantly more.

Brian: So when you charge [00:06:00] for thinking, not just doing, you can charge significantly more. so when you're doing any sort of advisory work with a client before you get started with the project, any sort of strategic work, any sort of consulting that you do before you really start getting into the project that pays more, the fees are higher.

Brian: An easy example of this, is the web designer who just takes orders The client says, I want a website. Here's what we want. Will you build it? And web designer says, yes, I will build it. Here you go. Do you like it? Yes or no?

Brian: That's how a lot of web designers operate, honestly. The other type of web designer says, okay, Mr. And Mrs. Client, what do you want? We want a website. Cool. They're gonna ask bigger and better questions. What do you want the website to do? How do you want it to make people feel? what sort of messaging needs to be on the site?

Brian: What's the outcome of the people you want to be on the site? Oh, you want to do this? You wanna get your e-commerce store, you wanna get increased conversions. You're a SaaS company. You want more free trials to sign up. You're a coach or a consulting company, you want, more book calls, whatever the outcome is that the client wants.

Brian: Now, me, the specialist in that field, knows how to shape the project to help the client get what they want.

Brian: So by taking a consultative approach to the project where you're [00:07:00] trying to truly discover not what the client wants, but what the client truly needs, and you are shaping the project to give them the the end result that they really want, you are the expert in that, not them.

Brian: You are the one who's created a bunch of websites. You know exactly what works and what doesn't. You are the one who is. Put a lot of effort and time and energy into learning conversion rate optimization, understanding the messaging of the demographic of the niche that you serve. That's what I'm talking about here, and there's examples in every perceivable niche out there when it comes to the services you're offering, how you approach the services.

Brian: But bottom line, are you a button a seat, or are you a trusted advisor? That's the mindset shift that has to occur first in your head and then in how you operate. Number two is making that mindset shift from. I'm selling my time to, I'm selling the value of what I, provide. And this, again, I've talked about this in the podcast a million times, but freelancers charge hours for dollars. While business owners charge for the, outcome, the value, they provide results. In other words.

Brian: And it is easy to say this out loud. Oh yeah I'll charge for the value, I'll do value-based pricing, but very few freelancers actually do it because they don't actually understand what brings value. Go back to the first mindset shift that I just talked [00:08:00] about, where you were just a button a seat taking orders.

Brian: You're not a trusted advisor leading the show you, because you don't have the confidence to leave the show because you don't actually know how to get the outcome to the client Once. If you don't know how to get the outcome that the client wants, your services are worthless. They're not worthless, but they are worth a lot less,

Brian: and that's because bottom line, another little mindset shift, time does not matter. Impact does. So does the service that you provide or the services you provide to your clients actually bring a bigger impact the other alternatives that are out there? Or are you just like every other button seat freelancer around you who does a similar outcome, similar style website with the same exact styles of fonts?

Brian: Because that's what the client wants.

Brian: The best clients, the ones everyone really wants those best of the best clients who pay the most, they care about outcomes. They don't care about how long it takes. They don't care how many hours you work on it. They don't care. About a lot of things that most freelancers think you care about, they care about is the thing I'm provided going to give the impact and the outcome that I want as a business owner.

Brian: And if you're not in the B2B space, it still applies. We had Anna Mae Tonkin on the show where she's working in family photography. There's no ROI on that, but still the outcome. The goal, [00:09:00] the outcome is how am I going to capture all these memories as the child grows up? And so nobody, we we don't miss out on any big moments where there's big gaps in our photo sets.

Brian: So you know, we missed three big, crucial years in our child's development and we always look back and regret not having these photos. Well, She put together an entire offer that led them through getting the outcome that they wanted, which is memories captured. She put everyone on an autopilot, membership essentially, where they come in twice a year to get photos taken.

Brian: She has automatic customers. she's selling value, not time, and she has a very profitable, great business from that.

Brian: I've even seen this in the studio world, the recording studio world. A lot of clients they're in the world of just, again, selling time, selling studio time. And they don't realize, in some niches, this is in every niche, but in some niches, clients come in 'cause they really want a really cool experience.

Brian: This is more when you're working with more amateur style people, not necessarily professional, bigger artists, which again is a whole other thing we could talk about. But in the more amateur side, they might come in once a year, once every three years into the studio and they want a really cool experience so they can share on social media something they can brag about with their friends.

Brian: Something that feels, the nostalgia they may have had [00:10:00] when they were younger. These are, older professionals.

Brian: And so the, result or the impact or the outcome you're providing those people isn't an ROI. It isn't, the best sounding record on earth, although. Obviously quality matters, but it is a truly remarkable, memorable experience. And so we have some clients who are working with clients on providing an incredible experience, and that's the entire focus is how can we make this experience even better?

Brian: It's the experience focus. Again, every business is different, every niche is different, but there's always the same core principle on the bottom of this that you have to shift your mindset to. It's not just selling time, it is selling value.

Brian: The reason I talk about businesses is because it's really easy to understand Value. Value is a clear ROI. If you're helping your client make 50,000 bucks or an extra a hundred thousand bucks in a year or an extra million in a year, why should you charge for hours that you spend on the project? Why would you do that?

Brian: Makes no sense.

Brian: Third mindset shift shifting from I work for clients, shifting that to clients, work with me. This is a mindset shift I've seen many, many freelancers make, and when they finally make this shift, it is freeing. You are not an employee for your client. Your client is not your [00:11:00] boss. Also, your client does not work for you.

Brian: Obviously, they're paying you however they work together. You work with each other.

Brian: However, freelancers don't make the shift, so freelancers are taking orders while business owners are running the show. This goes back to my first point where you are the trusted advisor. If you're the trusted advisor, you are the one operating the entire process. You are the master of your domain.

Brian: Let's say you're a solo freelancer earning 200 KA year. You're working with a solo business owner, with a small team, and they're doing five, $10 million a year.

Brian: While that business is bigger and obviously they're making more money than you. Doesn't mean that they're the expert in your world. You're a small bubble that you've created. You are the expert. You run the show, you create the processes,

Brian: And you set the rules. Remember, you're creating processes that create outcomes, and the clients are what follows those processes. And if you don't have processes and things that you run your clients through again and again to get predictable outcomes that the clients want, you don't have a great business.

Brian: You have a very sketchy, unreliable business.

Brian: But the best freelancers are the ones who understand the outcome they're giving their clients. They create a predictable, repeatable process. They've put their clients through [00:12:00] and they say, this is how we do things, Mr. Client or Mrs. Client what do you want? Lemme shape everything that I'm doing around exactly what you want.

Brian: Because again, the client doesn't always know what they need, and you should be the expert with the thing that you're providing, the outcome that you're providing.

Brian: And also along with this mindset shift is you're not an employee. So if you get a client that's not a good fit, you can and should fire them.

Brian: You'll make more money throughout your career if you work with people who respect your time, respect your skills, respect your boundaries. Respect your processes, follow your processes. Don't push back.

Brian: At this point, I have fired a few clients though. And at this point, we currently have over, 200 clients, a small percentage of those are just gonna be bad clients no matter what we can do to try to filter those out at front.

Brian: Some bad clients will get through. And when those people rear their heads up and they try to pull us away from the process that we know is proven to work, and they try to do something way out of the ordinary, or they wanna be as treated as a special snowflake, we can't operate our business that way.

Brian: again, we are the experts in our domain. You're the expert in yours. So when you come into our world, you follow our processes, you follow how we do things [00:13:00] because we have a thing set and created to create repeatable, predictable results just like you should with your clients and when that person bucks back and doesn't respect your process, the value you provide, the time you put into things, they don't respect your boundaries or any of those things, fire 'em.

Brian: And it is very difficult to do when you feel like you work for the client because in that, dynamic, now you're trying to do whatever you can to please that client so they don't fire you.

Brian: And while obviously we want happy clients, we want clients to be ecstatic with us, that is much easier to do if we're just getting them great results. Whereas if you're just trying to keep a client happy, people, please them. Not really focus on results and you're letting them run the show and mess up all your processes and pull you away from things and take longer.

Brian: It's going to drag projects out. It's gonna make things more difficult for the client. It's gonna make things more difficult for you. You're gonna hit your life. It's gonna show for the client. Your client's gonna feel how much you dislike them. It's not gonna work make that shift again. Number three, from I work for clients to, I work with clients.

Brian: That's what businesses do. Businesses work with clients. is, It is a partnership of sorts.

Brian: So mindset shift number four is freelancers think I can do it all while business owners think who [00:14:00] or what can help me. It's no surprise that freelancers basically try to do everything themselves because freelancers generally are cheap 'cause they don't have a lot of resources.

Brian: They don't know how to delegate or automate or systemize things. that's literally what a business is built off of. If businesses didn't have people, systems, automations, processes, if they didn't have these things, they're just gonna implode.

Brian: The structure is what creates the business.

Brian: So as a freelancer, focusing on outsourcing low value tasks so that you're not doing them. We've talked about this before in past episodes. That way your time is spent on high impact stuff that's actually creating value for your clients. Not low value stuff that is just admin work that anybody with a pulse could do.

Brian: You can focus on using automations and tools and all the wonderful things that are out there that even if they charge a few bucks a month, who cares? It saves you so much time, effort, and energy. If you never have to send an invoice again, you never have to send a reminder again to get paid. How much is that worth to you when you're not the bill collector anymore?

Brian: You're out there debt collecting from clients,

Brian: and if you do wanna hire a team. My suggestion to you is hire before you're maxed out. If you're trying to get like a virtual assistant or somebody to help 'em with admin work, they can make your efficiencies skyrocket. Like [00:15:00] Seriously, one assistant can make you like 2, 3, 4, 5 times more efficient on the rest of your business.

Brian: However. Hiring and training and delegating all those things and getting 'em off your plate onto assistance plate takes time. It takes energy. And you, bad at hiring right now. you don't even know where to hire, how to hire, right? So you may mess up, you might have to do it two or three times before you find the right person.

Brian: So if you wait until you are fully bucked up and you are barely scraping by, you have no time left in order to start delegating things and getting 'em off your plate. it's too late. You now don't have time to get your time back. Do you see the, dilemma there? So before you're maxed out on work, start thinking through how can I hire someone to take on some admin work off my plate?

Brian: And if you are maxed out, you're gonna have to take a pay cut. You were better off long term if you just say no to some projects on the short term so you can get someone on your team to help take on some admin work. And then as you get time back, start taking on that work again.

Brian: But the mistake I see in why so many people can get to six figures and then get stalled out there is because they've maxed themselves out, and so they hit this wall. You can hit this wall earlier too. It could be 50, 60, 70,000 a year, usually around a hundred, 120,000 a year. You hit this upper limit, this [00:16:00] wall, and you're stuck in this point because you cannot get your time back because you can't invest any time to get it back.

Brian: Getting your time back takes investment. It takes money. Sure. It also takes time. And when you have no time left, you're in a really bad spot. If you have no time and no money, horrible place to be likely. Horrible pricing issues. And maybe that gets us into number five here, of our fifth mindset shift to make.

Brian: And that is, shifting from where the freelancer is. I hope I get paid shifting to the actual business owner of I control my cash flow. Businesses control cash flow. if you've ever worked for a big business and you've sent them an invoice, they usually have some sort of like net 60, net 90 day pay terms.

Brian: They set the terms and so you send an invoice off and they say, all right, Mr. Business or Mr. Little Freelance, hey, a little freelancer guy. Hey, a little freelancer girl. Uh, We'll pay you in like three months. Hope you like that. Hope that's okay. And you say, cool, I hope I get paid. And I've heard horror stories of sixty, ninety, a hundred twenty days, six months later, no pay yet.

Brian: You're still hoping to get paid. I've heard horror stories from this. So your cashflow, you've already fulfilled the work. You've six months in the future, you haven't been paid yet. That's a [00:17:00] easy way to have tons and tons of money. You have a lot of revenue, but no actual cash collected. And so if you were slammed with work.

Brian: You have a bunch of invoices passed due, now you are broke and you have no time. That's even worse place to be Usually if you're broke, you have a ton of time, so you can at least start fixing the broke thing by investing time into it. and usually if you are, slammed with time, you generally have extra funds that you can invest into buying some of your time back.

Brian: but if you're broke and you have no time, this is likely an area to look at. So freelancers wait on payments. Business owners set the payment terms. So if you wanna make that shift, you gotta start doing upfront payments. So required deposit for full payments before you start the work.

Brian: I've done this my entire career and literally every single business I've ever worked in, I have always gotten paid before I deliver anything, every single time. With exception of the first year, 2009, I had a, band book in my studio. And then on day one they sketched out.

Brian: They backed out. So I had a big old opening on my calendar and no money to show for it. And so at that point I learned let's do non-refundable deposits. And that way if they sketch out like that, I still get some sort of money. And even past that point, I've [00:18:00] always done deposit up front then the remaining balance due first day of the studio.

Brian: For my software companies, obviously you're getting paid up front and then delivering the software the next month for the coaching company paid up front, delivering the coaching every month. It is month to month, so you can cancel any time if you're looking into it, but we still get paid on the first of the month or the first day you start, and then over the next 30 days, 31 days, however many days during the month, we fulfill on that, and then you pay for the next month and then we fulfill on that.

Brian: That's a great cashflow position to be in. Same with you.

Brian: I have many times stuck to my guns with larger businesses, especially record labels 'cause that's in the recording studio world. The biggest B2B stuff you're ever gonna do is working with record labels. Those are, you know, sometimes, multimillion dec million, a hundred million dollar plus companies.

Brian: Essentially, they're the worst when it comes to getting paid. I have stuck to my guns and said, I do not. Book on my calendar without a deposit, and they've paid deposits. I've said I do not ship final masters out until I've been paid, and they've paid me before. I've shipped final things out so I don't have to wait around for money because I learned that one time the hard way from a label, and then I changed my policies after that.

Brian: One more shift around this as far as getting paid in advance is recurring [00:19:00] revenue. If you're controlling your cash flow, you can set recurring revenue, monthly retainers, subscriptions, anything like that. Memberships, that is true financial security. That is great cashflow management. Anytime you can get paid in advance, especially on automatic mode, Great for your cashflow.

Brian: And then finally, if you wanna shift this in your business, contract and payment terms. I've seen this with clients we've worked with where I. working through their contract terms. What happens if a payment's late? How do you get these bigger clients to pay up front or to not wait for way past the due date, putting late fees in place, or, one of the ways you can shift it is instead of late fees, you have what they call an early payoff bonus where, the late fee, let's just say it's a $10,000 project generally, and the late fee might be 2000 bucks instead of.

Brian: $10,000 and if you pay after this date is $12,000. Instead, you say the project is $12,000 and if you pay before this date, you get a $2,000 bonus off the fee. So you get an early pay discount. But if you set clear rules, set clear boundaries, make sure that they understand that they agree to them, they'll pay on time just about every damn time.

Brian: Mindset shift number six. Is making the shift. This is freelancers 1 0 1 from chasing clients [00:20:00] or waiting around for clients. It's usually the latter of the two. the desperate example of this is you're just chasing clients. You've all seen that desperate freelancer who's just like chasing clients everywhere, so desperate to get work.

Brian: Business owners, real businesses, they attract clients. That's the mindset shift. That's the difference.

Brian: Freelancers either beg for work or wait around for work while business owners create demand. Creating demand is the secret to success with this. I mean, this is where the rubber meets throw. This is where freelancers really struggle. They struggle to understand that demand is something that can be created.

Brian: An easy example for me to use, 'cause I do this all the time, is somebody listening to the show right now, this is maybe you, 'cause we have a lot of new listeners. It's because we spent a lot of money on ads

Brian: and we generate a few thousand leads a month at this point. New leads and those leads, you know, email addresses generated. Many of those people will get into the podcast and they'll be listening. This may be the first episode you've ever listened to and before you saw the ad, you really were just living your life, right?

Brian: And yeah, you have problems. You are responding to the ad based on the problems that you had, but you weren't out there searching for solutions to that. And now you're listening to the episode of the podcast where I'm building up, trying to break that multi-six figure [00:21:00] mark. And now you might have a goal of, you know, I've been stuck at a six figures every year.

Brian: I, now I'm gonna break this goal and I'm gonna get this, 200,000 or quarter of a million or 300, maybe half a million. Or God forbid, maybe I wanna break a million dollars. Right?

Brian: And so now you're thinking bigger, thinking, more possibilities. And maybe you'll listen to a few other episodes that we have and you'll realize client acquisition is a big struggle for me. Maybe I'm gonna hire Brian to help. Maybe he knows more about client acquisition than I do. So I have essentially created demand for you.

Brian: You were sitting there scrolling on your phone in a doom scroll, and then an ad caught your vision. You signed up, you got into my world. You listened to the podcast you started. Realizing the opportunity that's out there as far as getting more clients instead of waiting around for them.

Brian: Stop chasing. Start attracting, right? Those are all things that are building the demand for our services, which is client acquisition, coaching and consulting.

Brian: Think about that from your perspective. What do you need to do to create more demand for your services? The first thing is to start attracting people, you need to be attractive there's obviously that's a loaded term, like attractive, especially in the dating sense not even gonna go down that rabbit hole.

Brian: But in the freelance or business owner sense as a freelancer to become more attractive, there's a lot of [00:22:00] things you need to do that the average freelancer likely doesn't do. You have to be seen as the go-to option in your niche case studies. Proof that you actually can do what you say. You can do maybe a better portfolio, content like this or some other version of that can all create authority, and show you as this is the go-to person in that market or that niche.

Brian: Right? when I say niche nicheing down's another element of this. It is very difficult to be. Cheesecake Factory, although Cheesecake Factory, I guess their niche would be cheesecake. But if you ever look at their menu, sorry, from a non-American listeners, I don't think you have Cheesecake Factory, out of the us but us people, you've been to a Cheesecake Factory.

Brian: It's like a book. It's a thick ass menu of so many different things that is not specialization, but specialists get hired faster, they get paid more than generalists, It's much easier to raise your status as somebody, as I specialize in this one thing.

Brian: The freelance world for me is a very wide world, and

Brian: I am not an expert in videography. I'm not an expert in photography. I'm not an expert in web design. I'm not an expert in, graphic design. I'm not an expert in copywriting. I'm not an expert in, home organization. We've had clients in that world. I'm still really not even an expert in the audio world.

Brian: I haven't had pro [00:23:00] tools on my computer since 2020, so I'm an expert in the creative fields anymore when it comes to like the freelancers that we serve. But I am an expert now in client acquisition. I'm very much the expert in that, and so that's how I've niched down. I've planted my flag in the ground.

Brian: Say I help in client acquisition. If you need more clients come to me. Most of our episodes have some client acquisition theme to it. Though, not all of them, we still talk about things that help. Your business in other ways. 'cause there's more than just client acquisition. And truth be told, we help our clients in a lot of ways outside of just traditional client acquisition and marketing.

Brian: There's a lot of stuff we have to fix on the foundational level before we can actually start getting you more clients.

Brian: if you imagine for a second, no matter what, niche you are, it doesn't matter what kind of freelance you are. If I were trying to help videographers shoot better videos. Photographers take better photos. Music producers produce better songs. Copywriters write better copy. If that was what we were trying to promote on this podcast is like, come here and we will make you better at your creative craft.

Brian: If that was what I was trying to sell here, it would not go well for me because I'm not a specialist in any of those things, and nor could I be if someone's trying to hawk that at you. One business, one person who's an expert in all these [00:24:00] things. It's impossible. You cannot be an expert in all those things.

Brian: You cannot be a specialist in all those things. the restaurant that serves Mexican food, Chinese food, Italian food, Thai food, Vietnamese food, Russian food, fine dining. I'm putting in air quotes, buffet, food, you know, like there's no way I would go to that restaurant.

Brian: But that's what I'm talking about when it comes, to being attractive. You were only attracted to me if you need clients, right? And that's okay. You should be attractive to your ideal clients and be seen as the go-to. However, once you are attractive, people still have to know you exist.

Brian: that to me, is the biggest area that freelancers suck at. You've still gotta fill your funnel, as I call it.

Brian: And that's where we get the mindset shift Number seven is shifting from just accepting that feast or famine is a way of life and that's the average freelancer, which is, oh, this is just how things are. It's feast or famine. Things are hard. The economy's down politics or stopping the tariffs.

Brian: The stock market's falling, consumer sentiment is down. We're all in the same boat, and so if everything's gone to shit, we're still in that, all in the same shitty boat. So there's still projects to get out there. That just means that the market's gonna be shrinking, that means there's gonna be fewer and fewer projects [00:25:00] to go around.

Brian: So if you just accept that feast or famine and market swings are a way of life, you're just gonna say well, sucks. I'm just gonna be poor, I guess. real entrepreneurs or business owners or people people with a good head on their shoulders Say, just because this is how it is does not mean that has to be how I am gonna be.

Brian: So they're gonna find ways to bring predictability to capture more market share as people bring marketing budgets down. How can you increase yours?

Brian: smart business owners and some of the smart freelancers we work with have broken it down to just clear inputs and outputs,

Brian: pretending that you're a very attractive option for your clients. How do you get your word out? Clear inputs, clear outputs. What is the thing you put into the funnel? What is the outputs you get out? I have a whole episode on this is the last of the seven mindset shifts. Go listen to this episode next.

Brian: It's episode 333, why You're stuck on the Feast and Famine Rollercoaster, and how to Get Off. Episode 3, 3, 3. If you go to six figure creative.com/ 3 3 3.

Brian: That episode walks you through how you can set up very clear inputs and outputs to turn client acquisition into just a numbers game.

Brian: If you're listening to this episode way in the future, when we have this entire series done, I just suggest go through [00:26:00] the rest of this series and then go back to episode 3, 3, 3. Whenever you, finish this, or if you just wanna do it now, go for it.

Brian: But those are seven of the mindset shifts that need to change. If you wanna get to that multiple six figure range, or even seven figures, no more button seat. You were the trusted advisor. No more selling time. You are selling value. no more. I work for clients. Now you are working with clients. No more trying to do everything.

Brian: Now you are trying to find who or what can help me do the thing. So you can get your time back, number five, no more. Hoping you get paid. Now you are controlling the terms. You are controlling your own cash flow. Number six. You are not chasing clients and you sure as shit are not waiting around for clients to magically appear at a thin air.

Brian: It does not work. Instead, you are attracting them by becoming more attractive and turning it into clear inputs. AKA number seven. Shifting from the feast or famine. Lifecycle that the average freelancer just goes through again and again, just accepting it as fate. Instead saying, I control my own fate to an extent.

Brian: Obviously there's unpredictable things. I'm not gonna pretend that you are the captain of your ship and nothing can ever happen to change that. But I will [00:27:00] say in general, the people that I've seen the most toxic mindset is just accepting that this is how things are when it's a bad thing.

Brian: Instead of focusing on all the outside stuff, you have no control over politics. Macroeconomics.

Brian: Instead, focus on the things you can actually control. A, KA control, the controllables, the things in your life you can do creating. Great messaging for your services, creating better pricing, better terms, making sure you get paid upfront, having a good client agreement so you don't get screwed over building out all that client acquisition systems so that you've turned it into clear inputs and clear outputs.

Brian: So those are the mindset shifts. From here I've got about five or six more episodes playing for this series. So if you're watching the future, just skip to the next episode get to the second episode in the series. If you are waiting around for that series, because you are, live your week to week on this podcast, go back to episode 3 33, just as a good reminder.

Brian: If it's been a while, it's worth a real listen. Again, six figure creative.com/ 3 3 3 for that episode. And if you need links or just notes or bullets or just anything from this episode. Every episode is just six figure creative.com/the episode number. So this one is six [00:28:00] figure 3 5 6.

Brian: So that's all I got for you this week. See you next week on the six Figure Creative Podcast. Peace.