What To Do If 2024 Was A Freelancing Sh*tshow

341. If 2024 sucked ass

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Brian: [00:00:00] It is the end of the year. and my question for you is this. How did it go? Was it steady? Where there ups and downs, where there may be only downs maybe it was your best year ever.

Brian: If he's best year ever, this is maybe not the episode for you, but if it's anything but the best year ever, this is probably the episode for you. here's the reality for most freelancers. They start the month. They have no idea where the next client is coming from. Does that sound familiar?

Brian: that also means that most freelancers start their year with no idea when or where or how they'll be getting their clients for that year. That should be terrifying. If this year sucked for you, if that's how you've run your business for the past year, and that's your plan for next year, that should be terrifying for you.

Brian: Now I want you to imagine the opposite, steady stream of high value clients that are reaching out to work with you month after month. You know where those leads will be coming from. You know, Within a relatively small margin of error, how many of those leads will actually be coming in each month. And then you can reasonably project.

Brian: Again, within a small order of error, you can reasonably project your income for the month. Every month. most [00:01:00] freelancers that I've talked to, that sort of consistency feels good. Like some sort of impossible dream, but it is not

Brian: the truth is sitting around Waiting for referrals or hoping that new leads land in your inbox. It is in no way shape or form a plan It is just I've called it a deathtrap before it is a deathtrap and it's one You've probably been in your entire career I want to talk about Why that trap keeps you stuck and I want to talk about how shifting your mindset around client acquisition could change everything For this upcoming year.

Brian: you see, I can talk about this from experience because I have been there. Back in January 2014, I had one of those dream months where I made about 20, 000, give or take. It was like 20, 500 and something.

Brian: And it felt awesome. Until February hit, the very next month. I brought in, not 10, 000, not 5, 000. Not 3, 000. I brought in just over 1, 200. I Went from 20, 000, over 20, 000, to just over 1, 200. In a span of a month, that rollercoaster of feast or famine is what most [00:02:00] freelancers just accept as normal. I want you to pay attention to this one point, because this is basically the entire point of this episode. The reason most people accept that feast or famine rollercoaster is because the entire freelancing industry runs on the belief that referrals and word of mouth are Or all you've got and that's 100 percent a lie.

Brian: It's a lie born from our own insecurities of putting yourself out there. or not wanting to look desperate.

Brian: And it's a lie born mostly, honestly, mostly from the blind, leaving the blind.

Brian: Most music producers, especially up and coming ones, just want to do what other successful music producers are doing.

Brian: Most web designers just do what other web designers are doing. Most videographers are just doing what other videographers are doing. Most photographers etc, etc. It's the same for every industry.

Brian: but the truth is, If you need more clients and you're just waiting for referrals, you're just waiting around for things to magically appear. It is dumb. Just think about it. It's dumb. And I know you want to be so amazing that everyone sings the gospel of [00:03:00] your services and how amazing you are.

Brian: And you just have referrals and amazing people flooding into work with you. But if that's not the truth of what's happening right now. Then it is a dumb thing to be waiting around for that to happen. So you have two options. You can either become the best in your niche, the best in your market, the best in your area, the best of the best in your entire industry.

Brian: Or you can start taking client acquisition seriously.

Brian: you can start to take marketing seriously. Think about this. What other industry relies entirely on hope and chance? Imagine a software company launches. some brand new product. A SaaS company. In other words, software as a service. I like comparing freelancers to software as a service because. In a software as a service company, it is simply a service being performed by a software and in a freelance world, it is a service being performed by a human. So there's a lot of similarities between the two business models in a software as a service world.

Brian: And they just launched a product, gathered funding from investors, built the product, launched the product with absolutely no ads, no outreach, no promotion, no partners, no [00:04:00] strategy, just thinking that, hey, we built an amazing product. People are going to find it and they're going to refer so many people to us and we're going to just explode in growth. That company would eventually run out of money. They'd run out of money well before they ever reached a critical mass. And yet this is the exact same strategy that freelancers use. And here's the biggest reason why the sass companies don't do that is because they have investors, and they have board members, and those people are very sophisticated, very smart, they're not going to let their company do dumb things. We're freelancers. It is just you. And I don't want to insult anyone here, but we all have our own blind spots. And so if we're doing some dumb, dumb things, sometimes it's because we're ignorant, not because we're stupid. It's because we're ignorant. We don't know better.

Brian: So if you wouldn't accept this sort of approach in any other industry, especially software as a service industry,

Brian: why do you think freelancers accept this?

Brian: Think it's partially because the problem is more painful and obvious if you're in a low dollar. High volume business model, something like software as a service where it's a small monthly charge, you 10, a month online courses where you're selling courses for [00:05:00] 100, 800. It's really painful in those business models.

Brian: When you don't get clients consistently, e commerce is an even better example, or probably the best example. This is a movie industry where every single person is worth just a handful of dollars, right? and those movie producers need to make back hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions of dollars to recoup their investments in the movies.

Brian: And so you see the biggest movie, the biggest blockbusters movies are advertised everywhere.

Brian: But in high value, low volume businesses like freelancing and consulting for that matter, You get a 5, 000 client, you're on top of the world. You feel great. You're starting to fulfill the work. You're putting your passion into the project. You're gonna blow your client away. At the end of the day, they're stoked.

Brian: They loved working with you. They're gonna refer some people to you, right? But you have no idea when. You have no idea where. You have no idea how. There's no predictability in this. So you just wait around for the next one.

Brian: So what's the opposite of just waiting around? How can we look to the movie industry or the software as a service industry and take the best practices from those worlds and bring them to our small, freelance, humble businesses?

Brian: We just have [00:06:00] to build a system that puts you in control. That's, it. We don't have to do a big Commercial. We don't have to have our faces all over billboards. We don't have to do anything like that, but it's gotta be something that you actually control.

Brian: A Process that allows you to find your ideal clients, bring them into your world and convert them into high value clients consistently. This isn't some sort of mystery. It is a solved problem. Every industry has solved this except for freelancers.

Brian: And just like the software as a service world, the product matters. It matters. You can throw millions of dollars behind marketing a terrible product and it'll fall apart. It won't work, right? But even the best software products that are out there, they are not the biggest ones. Do you think HubSpot is the best CRM?

Brian: No, they're just one of the best in the world at marketing their, software as a service company. Salesforce. Do you think they're the best CRM? God, no. those products. Are good enough, but they're great at marketing and selling those products. so the question is, do you want to make money or do you want to be the best in the world?

Brian: I Think trying to be the best in the world is a loser's game [00:07:00] because there's only one of those. There's only going to be one all time, best web designer in the world, or even one all time, best web designer in your specific niche for doctors or lawyers or whatever niche you fall into. There's only gonna be one best heavy metal music producer or indie pop producers, right?

Brian: There's only going to be one. And if you ain't first, you're last, as a mentor of mine once said.

Brian: But if you don't figure this out, you're going to stay stuck. Next year is going to be as bad or worse than this year. But if you set this up you'll know how many leads you're going to get next month. You'll know how many clients that will turn into for next month or the next couple months. And you'll know how much you're going to earn over the next month or two.

Brian: and the side benefit of this is because that predictability is coming, you know, where your next clients are coming from, you have more ability to say no to those bad fit clients that you've been saying yes to because you needed the work because you know, you don't need it anymore.

Brian: You can just say no to that 5, 000 gig from that client that you know is going to be an absolute pain to work with, that you shouldn't work with. They're, toxic clients, but you need that money right now. So you got to say yes. You can start saying no to those. And then you can fall back in love with your work [00:08:00] because you're working on better projects.

Brian: Your business is predictable. It's stable. It's profitable. It's a real business.

Brian: if this is the first time ever listening to this podcast, hello, this is the six figure creative podcast.

Brian: This podcast is for you. If you are a creative freelancer, you want to make more money from your creative services. Maybe you want some stability and predictability in your, in your business, but you want to do it without selling your soul. If that is you, you are in the right spot.

Brian: I Come to this episode, not from someone who knows it all and is perfect. I've been right there. I thought of the same exact traps in 2014, the 000 a month down to the 1, 200 a month, I thought referrals were my only option.

Brian: And so I'd wait and hope for emails and texts from my past clients to come hire me again or refer someone to me. When I had a good month, I'd feel unstoppable. When I had a bad month, I would question everything. I would doubt myself.

Brian: Again, I get this, but at the root of it, it was not my talent. That's It was not my pricing. It was just my lack of control over how clients came into my business. That was it. And my turning point for this was 2015. I stumbled into the world of digital marketing when I launched my first course. Remember how I said you only do what you [00:09:00] see out there, right? In 2014 I was still only following other producers, seeing what other people in my industry was doing. I had no outside influence. I was what I called an inbred business where there was no diversity in our gene pools. Essentially. just end with the other music producers out there.

Brian: And so our businesses were very Same, same.

Brian: But when I branched out and did my first digital product in the heavy metal mixing world, launched a course called from shit to gold was my very first course. I Had to learn how digital marketing worked in order to launch or promote this course.

Brian: And I didn't know what I was doing at first. I tried some content. I tried some ads, nothing really was perfect. Nothing worked great, but even the small wins changed how I thought, which is a big deal for me. I didn't know it at the time, but now looking back, that was a big deal.

Brian: By 2016, I was all in, I started learning from the SAS world. That's where I started becoming obsessive, about how software as a service companies market and sell those businesses. I Started diving into lead generation, figuring out how to adapt those lessons into my freelancing business And the shift in mindset is what paved the way for me to scale my freelance recording [00:10:00] studio To multiple six figures with consistent months instead of these massive up and down months It's also what eventually helped me build multiple software companies over six figures and then also Six figure creative into a seven figure company.

Brian: So inadvertently my entrepreneurial adhd There's a period of time where I had way too many businesses and trying to do way too many things that at least Exposed me to a more diverse gene pool of what else is out there when it comes to marketing And that allowed me to pull from these other industries into the freelancing world to really grow that and then when I launched six figure creative Essentially to preach the gospel that there are better ways to do things than what you are currently doing That is why we exist

Brian: so I want to walk you through the model that I think freelancers should adopt. But before I do that, I want to talk about the anti model or what I call jokingly, the smooth brain model, waiting around for referrals.

Brian: So in a smooth brain model where you're just waiting around for referrals and word of mouth and for people to just show up out of thin air, your lead generation is this. You wait around for emails and texts. That is it. You're doing nothing to put yourself in front of ideal clients. At least nothing consistently.

Brian: And if anything, [00:11:00] it's just kind of dabble here. dabble everywhere. But there's no consistency whatsoever. You can't predict when clients will show up, how much you'll make, how many leads you're going to get this month, how many clients you're going to get this month. You end up taking low value work because you have to rely on referrals and then you just take what you can get, even if it's low paying soul sucking projects and there's no control. Your business is at the mercy of other people's timing.

Brian: That client you blew away with how amazing you were. They don't control when they're going to come across somebody. They can refer to you. It just comes up in conversation. Oh yeah. I think. John. I think John Doe. John Doe could use your services. I'm going to send John Doe your way.

Brian: That's the Smoothbrain model. That's the way that I think is dumb, and that's the way most freelancers run their business. Now let me talk you through the three keys of the big brain model. This is where we build out a client acquisition system. The first key is consistency.

Brian: This model has a way to consistently get in front of your ideal clients.

Brian: Not wait around, but consistently get in front of your ideal clients. For me and many of our clients, it's paid ads. I like paid ads a lot. But it doesn't matter what it is. It just needs to be consistent. Some of our clients, they have [00:12:00] large social followings. That's a great place for some people. They like to do content.

Brian: That's a great place for some people. They have a good wide network of people that they can build a referral circle. That can work great. Some people it's live speaking. They actually speak at live events Especially in the B2B world, that can be great.

Brian: But the reason I like paid ads is because it's something that you can just turn on like that. And then within a week, you can be in front of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of your ideal people. And you can spend as little as you want, a dollar a day. We have a client who was doing, he brought in like 30 something clients off of a dollar a day in a two month span.

Brian: I don't remember the exact metrics, but it was 140 something thousand dollars of clients. Off of 3 a day of ad spend.

Brian: And it all started with putting himself out there in front of his ideal clients consistently. So that's the first key consistency, big brain client acquisition model. Key number two is inquiries. in order to get inquiries, people that are interested in our services, we need two things. I talked about this in a previous episode, having a clear blue ocean offer. That's not this bloody red ocean of me fiver. But when you have a good offer. We use something called a [00:13:00] direct offer funnel

Brian: that makes it clear and obvious how you can help your ideal clients.

Brian: If you do this right, you have a blue ocean offer, you're directly offering it to your clients through the direct offer strategy.

Brian: then you've essentially created a package that people want, and then you've created messaging that sets yourself apart from all the other button seat freelancers. If you do that right, you will get inquiries. That's the second key. The third key, It's a high average annual client value.

Brian: If your clients are worth less than 2, 000, good luck. If a client is worth less than two grand to you, it is going to be very difficult to grow consistently and scale consistently. Not impossible. I've seen it work. I've seen businesses as low as a 500 average client value thrive, but it's because those people are amazing operators.

Brian: They're like the top of the top when it comes to relationships, getting referrals, generating leads, fulfilling on the services, because that's a lot of clients to work with to make a substantial income. But when you're a two K or more, preferably five K or more, honestly, you hit that sweet spot where you can work with, you need the capacity to work with 10 to 50 clients a year, give or take.

Brian: Again depending on [00:14:00] what your average client value is our benchmark is. each client is worth no less than 2 percent of your income and no more than 10 percent of your income. So if every client to you is worth that 2 to 10 percent of your income range,

Brian: you're in a pretty good spot.

Brian: Especially when you start looking at what's your capacity, not what you're currently at. If you're making 10 grand a year and each client is worth 10 2 percent of your income. It's not a good spot. But if your potential earnings, let's just say you could at max capacity book solid, make 100, 150, 000 a year. And each client is only worth 5 percent of your income. Great spot to be. Those are the three keys. And most people have not done this because of one of these excuses. I've got like five different excuses here. That I've heard a million times and I want to talk through. But this is what holds people back from even implementing something like this. Excuse number one. This This is a big one. No one in my industry does this.

Brian: I'm gonna use a southern accent for this. I'm from Alabama so I can do that.

Brian: That's excuse number one. No one in your industry does this. The truth is this. Most freelancers are flying blind. I talked about this before. You don't want to be the smartest person in a dumb system. Be the one who steps out of the box. Be the one who dominates your niche. Be the one who's [00:15:00] willing to try something different because you realize you don't want to be an inbred business.

Brian: You want genetic diversity when it comes to your influences in how you operate your business in the freelance world. It's the least sophisticated business that is out there. Honestly, it is a bunch of solopreneurs trying their best. and it's not because you're stupid. It's because you just don't know better. So why can't we look to other models, other people who run businesses better than us in order to learn how to best run our businesses? No one in my industry does this is the worst excuse not to follow something like this. Excuse number two. This is why people that if paid ads, your only option, the excuse is I can't afford paid ads.

Brian: The truth is this. If you don't have a large social following, a large network, a large social circle, if you don't have some way to consistently get in front of your ideal clients, again, that's key. Number one is consistency. Consistently getting in front of your ideal clients. If you don't have a way to do that, paid ads is your only option.

Brian: That's why we do it with so many of our clients. So many of our clients come into us, they're amazing what they do, but they have no way to reach their ideal clients consistently. Paid ads are the only option. That is it. So if that's the case, you cannot afford not [00:16:00] to do this. It is a skill you have to learn.

Brian: The right strategy with paid ads means that every dollar you spend gets recouped more than that the first month. And from there, it's pure profit. So when that client comes back to you again and again, or refers to you, that's all pure profit.

Brian: It's something called client finance acquisition. I learned this from Alex Ramosi. I Have an Amex card for this. I get tons of flyer miles. I have over a million Amex. Credit card points right now because I spend money on ads in one month. Within that first month, I've made more than that money back. I pay my credit card off the end of the month with the profits from the money I spent.

Brian: And those clients continue to generate revenue for us long after that. The same in every freelance business that I've seen. If your client value is high enough, you can run paid ads. If your service is good, your offer is good. You're in a blue ocean. The model can work and you can't afford not to,

Brian: think about it. If you make paid ads work, you don't have a consistent way to generate new leads clients profitably. If you can't make them work, then where do you go? You go back to what you were doing before, which is not working, which means maybe this isn't the right work for you. Maybe you need to pivot [00:17:00] completely to something completely different. And unfortunately that's the reality for some people.

Brian: if you haven't tried paid ads yet. And you're struggling? It could be the solution to get you in front of your IDO clients. Excuse number three. This wouldn't work in my industry. My very specific niche snowflake industry. Here's the truth. It will work and it has, there is no universe that exists, putting yourself in front of their ideal clients with a good offer and proper messaging doesn't work.

Brian: Think about that. If you have a good offer. Good messaging and you're put consistently in front of your ideal clients. How do you not get clients from that people need your services right now? There's people out there that need your services Some people know they need it and they're actively some people need it and they don't know quite yet Or they haven't admitted to themselves and they're not quite searching yet.

Brian: Some people need your services. They haven't thought about it They don't even know that they need your services and some people don't need your services yet But they will soon all those people with the right offer the right messaging The right targeting can be your client, or at least some of those people.

Brian: If your clients are human beings, this will work. Excuse number four. I've tried ads and they didn't work or honestly insert [00:18:00] anything here. I've tried ads. I've tried social media. I've tried content marketing. I tried a podcast. I tried blogging. I've tried cold outreach.

Brian: I tried networking. It didn't work. Here's the truth. You either dabbled in whatever the thing was ads in this case is kind of what I'm talking about here because that's the thing that most people can utilize. You either dabble in it, which obviously doesn't work when you just dabble or you went all in with the wrong strategy.

Brian: I've never seen someone dabble and actually succeed. So if you tried something and it didn't work, it's either because you did the wrong thing or you just dabbled, which again is the wrong thing. Excuse number five, the last, excuse here that holds you back from implementing something like this, no one would pay those rights.

Brian: If two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand dollars is a lot for your services and you're just like, no one would ever pay that. Then.

Brian: This is the hard truth. No one will pay those rates for your button seat, commoditized red ocean offer that someone could get off five or 50. I talked about this a few episodes ago, the blue ocean strategy or blue ocean trio episode.

Brian: There are freelancers out there that offer your exact button seat service, video editing,

Brian: mixing [00:19:00] the offer that same service for 50 bucks, and they're really good. So if you don't have a way to stand out, shift your service, shift your model, shift your packaging, something that's more unique, then you're Then no, you won't get those rates.

Brian: And sometimes it's just wrong avatar you're going after many times, just shifting your service to a better avatar, something more niched, more targeted, something that's higher value for that specific person can be all the difference of getting two, three, five, 10, 000 or more for the same exact service.

Brian: So if you believe that no one will pay those rates, you're probably never going to ask for those rates. So some of it can be mindset as well. But the truth is people will pay two, five, 10, 000 or more for the right offer. The right person, the right niche. if you don't have that right offer, if you're not the right person, if you're not in the right niche, then you may struggle here.

Brian: the real reason you've been stuck for so long is because you have not made the decision to buy into this model. you're still stuck in anti model, the smooth brain model.

Brian: and until you're all in on this better model of actually taking client acquisition seriously, you're going to keep going through the same cycles you've been through. the feaster famine life, the shrinking revenue growth the saying yes to gigs that you know you shouldn't do [00:20:00] because you need the money.

Brian: So here's my action steps for you. If you want to implement this in your business, First apply for clients by design just to see if you're even approved.

Brian: This is what we walk people through is implementing this and we won't even approve you if we don't think this model will work For you. There's certain industries that we just know this won't work in if you're a photographer in the luxury fashion industry If you're a videographer in the tv or film industry that just does tv shows and film stuff.

Brian: we can't help with that. just a different model, but in most cases the model Works in your industry. And again, we want to prove you if he doesn't there are two reasons we reject people the most in this program is because Either the model won't work or you're bad at what you do.

Brian: The product is bad and you don't have to be the best in the world, but you've got to be good enough. Right? So just apply for clients by design. I'll give you a link for that a second, The second thing is have a conversation with someone on my team. We will walk you through how this applies to your situation. We will see if it actually works for you.

Brian: We will help you answer any questions you have about it. Any doubts you have,

Brian: talk to a real human and see if we can help. The third thing is move forward with us and get your strategy roadmap created. This is your customized strategy that is created based on your [00:21:00] business. Everything that needs to be fixed. Everything needs to be built. Everything needs to be changed in your business, along with the milestones and metrics to reach the goals that you have for yourself.

Brian: And we essentially, we create this and we pitch it to you. Make a full 45, 60 minute video. on how long and how much stuff we've got to do together. But we essentially pitch this to you. We create a pitch video, send you the document and we talk you through every single element of it and you can either reject it and we fully refund you.

Brian: And we just part ways, fully refund. You go on your merry way. You said this isn't for you. Two, you can ask questions, clarifications, ask for revisions, anything, or three, you can approve it. And we start helping you one on one on implementing this and building the big brain model in your business.

Brian: And then number four, we will work with you until you no longer need us. Everything's month to month. You just cancel any time.

Brian: All along the way, we give you templates, funnels, software, worksheets, all prebuilt out for you. We give you a 500 test budget for ads so you can learn on our dime versus yours. We give you daily help on anything you're working on,

Brian: and we have the ROI guarantee where if this doesn't at least get you 10, 000 of new clients, we will work for you for free until you do. That's the four action steps. Or you can just keep doing what you've been [00:22:00] doing and getting the same results you've been getting. And if this was the best year you've ever had, maybe that's okay. But I'm talking to people that this was not a good year for you, where you didn't hit the goals you had, or you went down

Brian: and you want next year to be different. If that is you just go to six figure creative. com slash coaching.

Brian: There's a short video on the page. I think it's six or seven minutes, talk you through some more details if you want. And there's also an application that you can start on that page. That's the first place to go. Just go sixfigurecreative. com slash coaching. Watch the video. Fill that out. See if it's a good fit and we can get you implementing this model in your business. ASAP. That is all I got for you this week. See you next week on a six figure creative podcast.