The 2023 Summer Freelance summit brought you a star-powered lineup of expert speakers, dedicated to helping you progress your freelance career. Today’s podcast episode is breaking down three days’ worth of inspiration into a smattering of highlights to help you optimize your freelance business!
From mastering your personal finances and combatting procrastination to implementing game-changing features on your website (and much more!), this is your chance to steal some of the most effective tactics that will boost your business as we soon enter 2024.
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Looking for closed captioning or a transcript? Watch the episode on YouTube!
A Sneak Peek at the Episode
[1:44] The 2023 Summer Freelance Summit was a three day event (free for CCA students!) with expert speakers talking about different ways to optimize your freelance business. This episode brings you a sprinkling of some of the key highlights from the presenters!
[4:00] It’s important to calculate prices based on your own numbers, rather than looking at competitors. Cost is made up of three factors: material costs, labor costs, and your time. It’s wise to track your time on every project for the first six months and see how your cost compares.
[8:36] Getting help by outsourcing admin tasks and things that aren’t in your “zone of genius” means you can conserve your energy and focus on money maker tasks like discovery calls, client work, and client meetings.
[10:55] Using quizzes can help to increase your leads in a more automated way, while still building a really positive, genuine connection with potential clients.
[14:05] To combat procrastination, try breaking down daunting tasks into smaller, manageable chunks and scheduling them on your calendar.
[20:42] If you’re not already capturing your visitors’ emails, consider adding an opt-in incentive to your website. This means you can follow up with them, continue connecting with them, and nurture them into becoming paying customers.
[22:22] When you create your pricing for a particular offer for a specific client, make sure you are accounting for the time and energy you spend on client work outside of the actual project itself (e.g. email/Slack communication, creating proposals and invoices, client calls etc.).
[28:39] Having awareness of money blocks is crucial, as it enables you to recognize and overcome your resistance to financial success.
[34:06] Holistic health practitioner Tara Bianca walks us through a breathing exercise which we can apply during our workday to help calm the nervous system and calm the mind.
Must-Hear Takeaways
As with every episode, we highly encourage you to listen to the entire conversation! But here are a few of the highlights:
“When we understand why we’re charging what we are, it’s so much easier to say that’s what the price is. If we need to lower the budget, let’s take some stuff away. It’s so hard to figure out how to price yourself and as a service-based provider, where your time is mostly what your service is made up of, it’s even harder. The worst advice out there right now is ‘charge what you’re worth’.” – Shanna Skidmore
“You need to be hiring when you start dropping balls, when things aren’t getting done. When you can feel that shame, like when you’re late on a deadline, and when you know that you’re kind of running out of time here, when you’re doing tasks that just are in your drudgery zone, you start dragging your feet on it. When they keep getting put at the bottom of the pile and you’re not ever getting to it, those are good tasks to start outsourcing, to make sure that they get done.” – Emily Reagan
“The first tool is learning how to take those scary or daunting tasks and actually break them down into much smaller, meaningful, less scary bite-sized chunks to get done.” – Megan Sumrell
“Capturing email addresses from your website visitors also means you can follow up with them, continue connecting with them and nurturing them into becoming paying customers. Because stats show that 97% of website visitors aren’t ready to buy, and 33% will leave a website to research competitors. So if you’re not already capturing your visitors’ emails, then now’s the time to start adding an opt-in into your website. It doesn’t have to be crazy hard either. All you’ll need is a CRM or email marketing platform like ConvertKit or Drip.” – Emma Kate Barker
Related Links
- Master Your Money Mindset – With Brie Sodano
- How to Calm Your Nerves for Meetings with Copywriting Clients
- How to Set Your Copywriting Rates
- Business Builder or Time Waster?
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About the Build Your Business Podcast
Ready to turn your love of writing into a successful copywriting career?
Join professional copywriters Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz to get the tips, tools, and training to help you become a copywriter and build a thriving business of your own. Nicki and Kate have 20+ and 10+ years of experience, respectively, writing copy for multi-billion-dollar companies, solopreneurs, and every size business in between.
Whether you want to land an on-staff job, freelance full-time and work from wherever you want, or make extra money with a side hustle, the best place to start learning is right here.
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Ep. 158: Set Your Future Self Up for Success Right Now
Last Updated on June 10, 2024
