Freelance To Founder

On today’s episode, I’m digging into our show archives to bring you a conversation that most of you missed because we aired it so early on. If you haven’t heard this episode you’re missing out because it’s an early conversation between me and Clay about how he built his first agency to over $100,000/mo in recurring revenue. Those of you who are quick at math have already figured out that means over a million dollars in predictable, recurring income per year. And Clay started the whole thing as a freelancer just trying to figure out how it all works. It’s an inspiring tale of hard work, passion, and smart business. Freelancers and agency builders at any stage can learn something from Clay’s story. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll

Sales is one of your most important tasks as a business owner. But hiring for sales can be a nightmare. On this week’s episode, we talk with Jason Vance, a former web design freelancer who’s building his next company in marketing. Jason stumbled on a creative idea that led him to pivot and start a marketing agency late last year. Now, just 9 months later, he’s got 9 employees and a whole lot of work that needs to get done. But hiring the right salespeople is something Jason just hasn't figured out yet. So toward the end of this episode, we give a masterclass in hiring salespeople without all the headache. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors so we can keep airing n

With millions of potential clients spending time on Linkedin, it's worth learning how to get it right. Today, we share our top tips for getting clients through LinkedIn. On today’s show, we have a coaching call with side-hustler Corey who’s building a web design business for physical therapists and other health professionals. Among other things, we end up talking in-depth about using Linkedin to get more clients. Our guest co-host and my friend Chelsea Baldwin and I share some of our tried-and-true tactics for making quality connections on Linkedin. We also talk about recurring clients, outsourcing your work, and lots more.  If you think Linkedin could be a great way for you to connect with potential new clients, but you’re just not sure how to go about it, this episode is for you. You might also enjoy reading the following articles from the blog: The LinkedIn ProFinder Guide to Get More Clients How to List Freelance Work on LinkedIn the Right Way Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your

Freelance job sites are a great way to get your foot in the door as a freelancer. But are they the best long-term strategy for growing an agency? On today’s show, we have a coaching call with Ron, who has been freelancing on Fiverr for over 10 years—and he’s done quite well for himself. Ron gets a ton of new business from Fiverr, but he’s worried about two things: first, it can be difficult to build long-term relationships with clients on Fiverr and second, if there was an algorithm adjustment or some other unforeseen change, Ron’s entire business would disappear. So he’s ready to start building his own processes in addition to the work he already does on the platform. We start off with some great tips from Ron about succeeding on Fiverr and then guest coach and friend Chelsea Baldwin and I chime in with our best advice for expanding away from marketplaces like Fiverr. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if yo

New clients are often the lifeblood of a freelance business, but what if taking on new work is holding you back from growing your business? On today’s show, we give some coaching to Will Gibbons—a product rendering expert who works with huge brands like Pelaton, 3M, Vizio and more. After a year of freelancing, Will is facing perhaps one of the best problems you can ask for: He’s got too many client requests coming in and too much work that needs done. So in this episode, Clay and I walk him through a few hiring, scaling, and management tips to help him scale up his freelancing without losing control of his business. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors so we can ke

On today’s show, we have a conversation with Corbett Barr from CorbettBarr.com. Corbett has had a huge impact on my life and business and, after a recent conversation with Clay about hustling and burning out, I knew I had to introduce them. That’s because Corbett is one of my favorite thinkers when it comes to balancing life with the hustle of entrepreneurship.  Corbett’s insights lead us down a path answering questions like: what am I giving up by hustling all the time? Do I really need to promote my business everywhere online? Or how can I stop wasting time on tasks that don’t matter and focus on better ones? If you’ve ever felt even a little bit of burn-out—if you’ve ever felt overworked in your own business, wondering where you’re entrepreneurial freedom went, then this episode is for you. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enj

On today’s episode, Caroline calls in from one of my favorite places on Earth: the Netherlands. Caroline is building a graphic and web design business and has already hired quite a few contractors. She gets a decent amount of work every month, but each new month leaves her with the frightening question: Will we get enough new business this month? With some good lead generation in place, a team working at about 20% capacity, and a desire to grow, she’s in a perfect place to make fast progress. Today’s episode is all about marketing, sales, and lead generation for your business. Without a steady pipeline, you can’t have a steady business. And this episode wraps up with some highly actionable advice for making real progress in sales and marketing. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an

On today’s show, I’m joined again by my friend Matt Olpinski for our coaching call with side-hustler-turned agency-builder Jason Frostholm. After working on the side for years, Jason and his wife finally decided to take their freelancing full-time and build an agency together. That was right before the global pandemic. Now, after a year of eating into savings, they’ve used word-of-mouth to build up some good relationships and they have the beginnings of a solid client base. But, as any agency-builder knows all too well, word-of-mouth marketing can be finicky and unreliable. So Jason wants to improve his marketing and sales to build a more predictable client pipeline. The problem? He’s a bit of an introvert.  So today’s episode becomes all about promoting yourself and your business even when you're introverted like Jason.  Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review o

After working with creatives for 10+ years, Clay and I know it can be hard making a living from your art and creativity. If your creative business needs a little boost, I suggest you listen to Creative Elements—a really great podcast from my friend Jay Clouse. Creative Elements is a highly produced narrative-interview show where Jay talks to high-profile, successful creators about how they built a business from their creativity. He’s had conversations with legendary marketer Seth Godin, Grammar Girl founder, Mignon Fogarty, Atomic Habits author, James Clear, and Etsy expert Morgan Nield, just to name a few. Track down the full episode we recently shared right here in the Freelance to Founder feed and have a listen for yourself. You won’t be disappointed. In fact, you’ll be inspired to keep moving forward, leveraging your creativity to build a business you can be proud of. You should subscribe and listen to Creative Elements on Spotify, Apple Podcasts  or wherever else you get your podcasts. Learn more abo

Today we have a coaching call with Joseph, a digital nomad working in Mexico. Joseph is building his Wordpress development company on the side of his day job with dreams of becoming a full-time entrepreneur. But there’s one major thing standing in Joseph’s way. As you’ll hear him explain during the show, Joseph is charging what he calls “employee” prices which just doesn’t give him enough cashflow to scale. Clay and I are up to the challenge as we spend the full second half of the episode tackling the question: how to do I raise my prices? Here’s a hint: it’s all about demand and value. If you don’t have those dialed in, you’ll never be able to raise your prices. If you’ve wanted to raise your rates for a long time, but were unsure how to do it, then this episode is for you. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you

Today’s coaching call is with Andy who’s calling in from Colorado, USA. And while Andy runs a business that Clay and I know virtually nothing about, he’s facing a question we have lots of answers to: Should Andy do his own marketing? He’s already working 40-50 hours a week in his business and he’s trying to figure out who to hire next, where to find them, and what tasks to assign them. It’s a common question for service-based businesses: should you focus on doing the work for current clients or generating leads and clients for the future. If you’re not sure how to balance doing your own marketing with all the other tasks you have to tackle in your business, stay tuned because this episode will be an eye-opener for you. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review o

Have you ever found yourself approaching burnout in your business and wondered: is there any way to generate revenue on autopilot? On this episode, Clay and I hit record on a rather personal conversation we were having about our businesses. The question is: can we make enough money on autopilot to finance a nice lifestyle without having to put in long hours every single week or—as Clay hopes—without really any work at all. Throughout the episode, I share how I’ve outsourced most of my daily tasks, focusing instead on the work I enjoy most and the recent discovery Clay made about passive income in his business. It’s this discovery that launched Clay into a small moment of questioning everything about his business. And it led to a nice conversation which is what we share with you today in this episode. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If y

On today’s episode Clay and I are joined by the editor of Entrepreneur Magazine, Jason Feifer to talk about how to get press for your freelance business. Whether you want to get more visibility to your brand or attract new clients using earned media, this conversation with Jason will give you actionable, real-world advice on getting featured by journalists and influencers. We also kick off the conversation chatting about the current state of freelancing and the future of freelancing in a post-pandemic world.  Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors so we can keep airing new episodes: GoodLife Clothing — Essentials for Modern Living. Offering ultra-premium essential

On today’s show, we talk with Mannat, a student calling from India with questions about her freelance business. Mannat is a typographer—she works with lettering and fonts. But everytime Mannat posts her work to social media, she gets packaging design clients and others reaching out who just don’t match her target audience. This leaves Mannat asking “what exactly should I be posting on social media to attract my ideal client?" We walk her through a few key social media strategies that’ll also help you build your online presence and attract the right clients on social media. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors so we can keep airing new episodes: GoodLife Clothing

Today’s coaching call is with Keegan who’s calling in from Louisiana, USA. Keegan is building a web design business (something Clay knows a lot about) on the side of his day job (something I have tons of experience in). And while Keegan has a very clear picture of where he’s going, he’s not exactly sure how to attract clients on a more consistent basis. This hurdle launches us into a conversation all about the power of finding local clients. We outline a few reasons you should try focusing on local clients—including one or two that might surprise you.  Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors so we can keep airing new episodes: GoodLife Clothing — Essentials for Mode

On today’s show, we talk with Karl who’s holding on tight while his writing business is growing fast.  After writing for a few highly technical development blogs, Karl’s business exploded and he now works with 50 writers to deliver articles for his clients. And while Karl is crushing it by some standards (his writing business has quadrupled since January), he’s naturally feeling like a bottleneck in his fast-expanding business. Clay and I have a fiery chat with Karl where we uncover what has done right in his business to experience massive growth and some tough truths about what he has to do next in order to stay on track and not slow his own business down. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a

On today’s episode we chat with Brady, who is building a web design business from his home in northern Idaho, USA. Brady has already built up a small team of contractors and aims to get the business running almost on autopilot in the next 6-12 months. To do that, he’s got to first perfect his sales process and then train someone else to do it. But he’s got a bit of a sales problem. After drafting a proposal and getting on a call with a client, too many people are just saying “no”—making it hard to get new web design clients on a regular basis. So today’s episode becomes a masterclass on selling your services without ever drafting up a proposal—which Clay and I believe are a massive waste of time and effort. This episode reveals what we recommend you do instead—the method that gets us a 90% close rate with new clients. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Ap

On today’s episode, we chat with Brendan—a sales consultant who wants to scale his business to something bigger. And while he finally started hiring people to help him scale, he’s still a bit unsure about a path forward. He’s working on a course for more passive income and he’s trying to transition away from one-on-one consulting gigs to more of a sales coach role. Since Clay and I are fresh off our recent 5-day recurring revenue challenge, we have some good advice for his course’s future and since Clay is building a very similar business to Brendan’s we wrap up the episode with some killer advice on scaling a coaching business. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a review. Support our sponsors

On today’s show, we chat with Jon who’s a physical product designer and prototyper.  Jon’s got a highly technical business—which you’ll see as we chat with him on the episode today. That means that Jon is very smart when it comes to product design and 3D printing, but has a hard time translating that expertise into language that appeals to clients. So in today’s episode, where I'm also joined by my friend and guest coach Matt Olpinski, we walk Jon through some important ways to think about messaging and marketing. Because, as a freelancer, you can offer the absolute best service on the market, but if you don’t know how to tell people about it, you’re in trouble. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to l

On today’s show, we chat with Christine, the founder of Bryant Creative Company. Christine has a nice freelance business where she works on graphic design and branding for her clients.  But over time, Christine has also begun to offer additional services such as web design—which, frankly, she doesn’t enjoy as much and she’s not as good at. That brings up a whole lot of questions on our call such as: should I outsource jobs that aren’t a fit? Or should I decline them altogether? If you’re not sure whether to expand your service offering or double down on what you do best then this episode, where we're joined by special guest coach Matt Olpinski, is for you. Get your own on-air coaching call We'd love to feature your business and offer some free on-air advice for growing your business. To see if you're a good fit, click here. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts: If you enjoy the show, can you do us a favor and leave us an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts? We'll love you forever. Click here to leave a