Marketing yourself as a developer is the best way to get the word out so you can build a reputation and secure work for yourself, especially if you intend on being a freelancer. Great, so what do I need to start getting myself out there? I’m Glad you asked…there are essentially 3 things you need to get started: 1- Skill Sets (both Technical and Social) – Skills you’ve developed through education/experience. 2- Reputation – The better it is, the better the chance you have of getting work. 3- IP (Intellectual Property) – What have you done in the real world. Projects you’ve worked on, jobs you’ve completed: for free or for pay.
Now, I know you’re looking at this and thinking these are all things that you get by doing real world work, how can I get real world if I don’t have these things? Ahhhhh…the catch 22, my friends…
The short answer is by any means necessary. Go out and do some free work/small project(s) for a small local business (not a long time, maybe 3 months or until the small project is done). At the end of that, yeah you may not have any money, but you’ve just got all three things you need to put towards getting a paying job (it might not pay much, but it’s a start), and when that paying job is done, you’ve got even more skill/rep/IP to put towards your next gig. From there you rinse/repeat ad nauseam and BOOM! work/life balance and a happy ending, LOL. Just kidding,, but it’s a good start.
Wriggity-wreck yo’self on the VLOG for some great advice on this subject from an almost 3 decade experienced ‘warrior of the code’ turned ‘diplomat of the code’, I guess… also a great analogy that might make you real hungry…you’ve been warned. -Enjoy
Alright, so you’re learning to code and you feel like you’ve got a relatively good grasp of the fundamentals, you’ve done a few tutorials and they confirm that from a theoretical standpoint: you got this!
Well, that’s good news…so what’s next? Maybe some more challenging tutorials to really put your knowledge to the test? Perhaps we send out some resumes to companies telling them we’d be on board for some intern/unpaid work to “try things out”? …Oh no, my sweet little birdie…it’s time to spread your wings and fly! “When people are learning anything new (and coding is not unique in this regard), …there’s often a lot of fear or trepidation: the unknown, the new, is kind of…it’s anxiety-provoking for people, especially career-oriented choices.”
Just Jump In, Man… Now full disclosure here, when we’re advocating “jumping in”, we’re assuming 1-That you’ve done our courses (shameless plug), which are designed to take advantage of over almost 3 decades in the business and to prepare you quickly and efficiently to handle almost any problem right out of the gate, or 2- That you’re trained to the gills and really just don’t know what you’re next step is. “A good course will give you the confidence to feel that you can move forward and actually do something for real. [When] you can build responsive a website, you’re ready to go. Do you know everything? No. But you’re ready to go.” “You learn so much more by building real-world projects for real people as opposed to walking through tutorials. Because what you’re going to learn: a big part of being a developer is interacting/speaking/communicating with the client; figuring out problems along the way.”
The VLOG goes into more detail and closes with a really nice bit of advice, which we recommend checking out, but it wouldn’t be a great VLOG if we didn’t have a mind-bending, super mario galaxy-inspired shot at the end, which we also recommend checking out. -Enjoy!
Selling online is really the future of selling; no question. So, is getting into a niche eCommerce business the way to go?
Niches historically have their highs and lows, depending on subject matter. A niche band that your buddy introduced you to might be music to your ears, but perhaps that band isn’t making a lot of money at shows because only a hand full of people who really appreciate what they do turn out…
On the other hand, finding a niche in eCommerce that you can fill would be a good thing. “Niche is the key to success, because if it’s not niche then you’re going to be competing with a lot of big players (possibly), meaning bigger companies or you’re just gonna have a lot of competition.” This is gonna be a shameless plug, but we go into this in better detail in our ‘Complete Entrepreneur’ course that we offer (link below).
“…If you want to get into business go into niche or you go into an industry where there’s just a huge amount of demand that the demand outstrips the supply.” One of the reasons we recommend finding a niche on the web to fill, whether it be eCommerce, WordPress, etc. is that you don’t necessarily have to go to school to be able to jump in. We’re talk about 3-5 years of schooling here… for example, you don’t have to get a data science degree, or a software engineering degree. You can simply take a course…like the ones we offer…nudge, nudge, wink, wink… and be able to jump right in, get your experience, grow your reputation and make your living.
VLOG your face off and check out more in-depth reasons to find a niche market to go into and stick around til the end (or just jump to the end), to see Montreal in the winter…just in case you’ve had enough of this wonderful July heat and forgot about what comes next… -Enjoy!
Starting a business can be very exciting and it can also be very challenging. “You gotta figure out what the business model is going to be, …figure out what product or service you’re going to sell and how you’re going to deliver that product or service in an efficient manner so that you can make money.”
We’re going to give to the short version here but for the most robust version we recommend you check out our entrepreneur course, you won’t regret it. We cover everything from different business types to generating new ideas for businesses, etc, etc.
But that being said, let’s jump into it: Skillz that killz: No matter where or how you learn to code, it’s going to be one of your most important skills; almost like a superpower. Businesses need online presence and they more than likely are “going to be dependent on sort type of software.” See where we’re going with this? Even if you run a travel site, someone going to have to program your search engine and SEO (search engine optimization).
Keep an [eagle] eye out: You may hate your job, but guess what? You’ve probably been there for so long that you know all the ins and outs and what’s lacking and what needs improvement. You could develop an app or a technology that improves how that industry operates and suddenly you’re not working there anymore and now they’re one of your clients. Find your niche, learn everything you can about it and how you can improve it.
Hitting a wall is okay: If every business succeeded right out of the gate, then I guess everyone would be millionaires that had businesses and we’d all be…okay, I don’t know where I’m going with this but the point is it’s okay to hit walls or have little spills and make mistakes. “I believe that if you follow certain basic principles in business and you’re persistent and you manage your finances well; you manage your psychology well, it’s inevitable you will be successful. But you have to expect there’s going to be some work in the beginning…”.
The VLOG goes into a nice little car-chat about some of the ins-and-outs of your business venture but again, check out the link below to our outstanding and experience-based ‘complete entrepreneur’. It’s definitely worth your time.
Wanna come up with the next great business idea? Better know the industry and know it well.
Haven’t we all at one point been in the shower or brushing our teeth and BOOM! We think we’ve come up with this amazing business idea. We’re sure it’s so good it’ll make millions and we can buy our own island and start working on our delightfully eccentric hairdo…
Fact of the matter is “the key to finding a really good idea as an entrepreneur, is to get yourself into a particular market or particular domain and really understand it”.
Yes, you’ll hear stories about that one person who had this great idea out of nowhere and now they have an island (and a super weird hairdo!), but that’s the exception rather than the norm. Too many times people jump into an industry they have little to no experience with, spend a whole bunch of money on product and just have it sit there because they missed a small but crucial fact about that industry. To really know the industry your in, is to spot where the weaknesses are that you can fill with your great idea or, if we were to work backwards; you could have what you think is a great idea and start researching the industry that idea could help. Learn all you can about it ie: talk to people in that industry; business owners, etc. Maybe even take a job or a few gigs in that domain to really get a sense of it and how it works. Yes, it’ll take awhile but if you’re serious about getting island(and crazy hairdo) money, it’s worth the time.
And lastly (not a real word.), Don’t get ‘married’ to your idea, be prepared to change it to match what the industry needs. ANY entrepreneur worth their salt will tell you that flexibility is the key to success, so be prepared to change elements of your idea for maximum efficacy.
Check out the VLOG for not just more details into getting a great business idea, but also for “the bird food incident” story…you’re welcome. And if you’re curious about becoming an entrepreneur, links are at the bottom to a course that we offer which no doubt is built on research and knowing the market your in …and some real world experiences(like ‘the bird food incident’) too. Keep on having great ideas and who knows, maybe an eccentric hairdo is in your cards? Well, for those of us that still have hair, at any rate… -Enjoy!
Look we’ve all been there, man… You’ve got a task to do and you don’t feel like doing it. You put it off… you do the dishes (maybe even clean your entire house), or just play video games and go down youtube’s rabbit hole…
It’s procrastination: pure and simple. You’ve fought it since you were 13 years old and had a 15 page essay to write, due in 2 weeks. But as a dev or a programmer; new or veteran, you’ve got a job to do and you can’t just put things off (for too long, anyway…).
Let’s start off by trying to understand procrastination and then we’ll go into some techniques to combat it…well, ONE technique really but it’s pretty effective. When it come to procrastination there are really 3 problems at play and you could have one, both or all mixed in a cocktail of “I’ll get to it later…”, which is a terrible cocktail cuz it never gets made <baddum-ching>.
1- Fear: Ah yes, that old chestnut… But yeah, fear this isn’t going to work, fear that you’re not going to go anywhere or that you’re missing out on other things, etc, etc. 2- Being Overwhelmed: There’s too much to do, too much to learn, etc… 3- Boredom: This one is pretty insidious. We don’t really have the end goal planned out (the job we’re going to get/money we plan on making, the skill we’ll have learned, etc.).
The key answer for all these problems and procrastination in general is something your mom or even your teacher might have told you (and believe me, I hate to admit they were onto something too)…
…Do 20 minutes a day…
I know it’s so simple you almost have to laugh but it’s true. Doing 20 minutes a day of any activity has so many benefits but I’m only going to list a few here: -It’s an easy to achieve goal. 20 minutes can go by pretty fast and if you find yourself ‘getting into it’ and want to take longer, you can! -You tend to learn much more quickly if you expose yourself on a frequent basis to that activity you need to get done. Some interesting math: 20 minutes a day for 5 days a week (cuz we need our weekends) is 100 minutes. That frequent exposure is going to help your brain learn faster and more effectively than 200 minutes once a week.
I can’t even begin to tell you the length at which this is covered in the VLOG and shameless self promotion: 20 minutes a day is roughly how long the lessons in our courses (link below) are structured for, so don’t have to sit there for hours wondering when it will end with a fried brain. Check it out…after the video game, heh. Enjoy!
How to get Clients to Produce Content for their Websites?
Clients, man… Can’t live with ’em, can’t make a living without them, amirite?
On your travels out there as a freelancer, you’re going to come across times when clients aren’t are late with, or aren’t delivering the content you need to work with. Maybe you find yourself doing what should be their responsibility or job, just to move things along so you can get to completing YOUR job on time. What can we do?
First off -SHAMELESS PLUG- we tackle this in our “Freelancer Course”; links at the bottom.
Second, essentially, you’re going to need to specify a lot this in your contract. Yeah, I know it’s more work for you to write this out, but it’ll save you so much grief in the long run. For example, something like ‘after the second draft has received approval, I will then need pictures, written content, etc. going forward’ if the content is to be delivered in whatever time you specified (ex: 30 days), work will be halted until ‘content’ has been received, etc.
Third, “gentle reminders” and emails. Clients sometimes forget things, they’ve got stuff going on too… so you email them with a “gentle reminder” (and seriously, be gentle. Use phrases like “at your leisure”, “when you have a second”, etc.), letting them know that you need ‘X’ material to continue. Also, we really do recommend you email them. That way there is a time-stamped copy of the request so they cannot come to you later saying that you were late on the project or anything else. You simply (and calmly) call up the email and show them that you attempted to get the material…
Lastly, unfortunately, this is “par for the course”, meaning that it happens and it’s totally normal if not expected. Have some other projects going on so that when one stalls, you simply refocus your effort the next. Now, fair warning: This does involve time management and juggling, so don’t bite off more than you can chew, especially if more than one of these projects has the capability to suddenly demand all of your attention at the same time…
Check out the video where we into more detail and check out our “freelancer course” link at the bottom so you can benefit from our mistakes experiences in the past, when dealing with client expectations. At the end of the day, it’s best that everyone knows where they stand and what expected of them. Enjoy!
A basic business lesson…be very careful about who and what binding business relationships you establish.
The general idea I want to get across is: don’t get into unnecessary deals with third party companies. Really think hard about what the “partner” brings to the table for you to want to “partner up” with them.
Now, specifically I want to talk about…
MCN: multi-channel network: A company that claims to help “grow” your channel (YouTube, in this case…), by taking control of your channel for x number of years, where generally all the income is funneled to the MCN, and after the “number of years” the income is returned, minus the MCN’s cut and generally you have no idea what the MCN has done, did or was planning on doing or the “help” they provided was ambiguous, uncertain or (in your best Unicorn voice), highly dubious. In my opinion it’s predatory. Also, see rent-seekers.
Generally the stuff they offer is stuff that sounds like you need their help getting but when you think about it, you don’t. Example: free access for using stock footage (you can get that yourself for about 20$ a month which is way less than their fee).
In the video we’ll link to some YouTube content creators that got hosed real bad (if you haven’t already heard) as an example. Plus some of the experiences we had in the past. Enjoy!
A couple of tips on how to price your freelance web design and development contracts.
Okay, you’ve got your first paying/serious/ for real-sises (technical term) job and after giving you the lowdown on the job, your client asks what the price tag is going to be?
Well, maybe you think to yourself, “I charge ‘X’ amount of money per hour and this looks like a ten hour job, so -” whoa, whoa, whoa, champ! there’s soooo much more to take into account.
First off, Shameless Promo: Check out the link to our freelancer courses that we offer. They’re real and they’re spectacular!
Second, if you’re freelancing you have to factor in all the stuff that goes around the project. ie: phone calls, re-writes/edits/corrections, etc. and those take up your time too and therefore need to be accounted for.
The good news is, you’re worth it, all of it. But, you do need to get into the practice of being able to correctly judge the price of a project.
Some businesses want know the sum total at the end of a job (“Is this going to cost my business 1000.00$? 5000.00$?) and you’re going to have to give them that. Check out the Vid below where we give you a few pointers and for maximum coverage, checkout our link below to our freelancer course.
Sure, you’re gonna learn a lot of stuff the hard way out there in ‘freelancer world’, but if we can save you a few hard knocks with our own experience, isn’t it worth it?
Do Web Developers need to Promise Web Sales for Clients?
So you’ve got a client; maybe they’re your first, so you really want to do a good job and WOW them. Maybe they’re not but you’re a professional and always putting your best foot forward. But these clients are asking/demanding something that you’ve never really had to deal with before. They want you to prove the efficacy of your work. They want a tangible return on investment. Maybe you want this job so bad that you decide offer a guarantee that few others in your field can offer…
Can you/should you offer web sales?
Short answer: No. Why would you? That’s not really your job. General rule of thumb: “If you have to convince a business that a website is good for their business, then you probably should move on to another business.” “It’s like convincing a business that having a telephone is going to be good for business, so that the client can call them”. In short it a little crazy, bordering on unreasonable and not you responsibility.
On The Other Hand…
If you’re positive you can deliver on this promise (maybe you’ve even negotiated a tidy 25% of the sales generated from the website on top of your fee), then provided things go smoothly, Cha-Ching! But, would you be about to watch this video if you were 100% sure things were going to go smoothly? All sorts of problems can arise from you not being an expert in the client’s; not knowing what drives sales or their model, to your client booting you and you having no recourse, just to name a few…
We’re gonna look at some of the challenges facing web sales for clients and throw a few tips and strategies your way. And just in case you’re feeling a little anxious by all of this, stick around to the end of the vid where we’ve got a nice little view and a moment of serenity to keep things in perspective. For some of you already in the middle of a bad client web sales drama, take a breather.
