Unfederated

As Rob closed out 2019, he started to think about how he could focus his business on a specific mission. This week he works through that process with Sara as he seeks to grow his business by focusing on offering less.

Rob and Sara are back with major life changes. Rob's wife regrets not having an office, Sara had a baby but figured out a way to send month-end invoices from the hospital bed. They work through what it's like for a first time mother who's headed back to work.

In this episode, Rob and Sara talk about their upcoming life changes, and how the show is going to respond.

Rob interviews Amy Walters about her journey from a traditional job to a multi-faceted creative & marketing career. Special Guest: Amy Walters.

In this episode, Rob and Sara discuss the pros and cons of grocery delivery (especially on vacation). They then transition into looking at the future of your industry. How can freelancers build habits to be more nimble than bigger firms so they can be ready when trends change?

Rob gets things broken by the very person who shouldn't be doing that. Sara and Rob have a detailed discussion about how to quantify yourself and your services to your customers. Some businesses lend themselves well to this, but others do not. Is a case study a valuable resource for freelancers to build? As you build your book of business, think through how you'll quantify your success to future clients.

In this episode, Rob and Sara talk about how a freelancer can leverage their flexible schedule to take care of their mental and physical health. Rob talks about how beneficial it's been during their house building process. Sara ponders what people on strict PTO schedules do when they're pregnant.

In this episode, Rob and Sara talk about the practice of a freelancer working for a company for free in exchange for an ownership stake. Most of us have heard about people owning a % of a company cashing out when a company goes public or is sold. Is that the norm? What happens if that never happens? Before you work for free, listen to this episode.

In this episode, Sara puts on her lawyer hat to convince Rob that face to face meetings do have a place in the business world. How do you schedule, structure, and end them? All of this will be discussed along with some helpful tips on how to follow up after a face to face meeting.

In this episode, Sara is back from Europe, and Rob has summer childcare difficulties. They work through how to maintain your work load during seasons of change. If it's travel, summer hour changes, conferences, or co-worker vacations, you must still get your work done. Rob and Sara talk through strategies around devices, apps, and services while "out of the office". If you need to do more with less, here's a good place to start.

While Sara is on vacation, Rob goes solo to talk about 3 things to think about before joining the unfederated lifestyle. The first is responsibility. Do you have an increasing amount responsibility in your day job, but not lacking the authority to get it done? Does your increasing authority remove the work you enjoy, and now you are spending your entire day in meetings? The final piece to consider when making the decision is when your authority and responsibility are out pacing your compensation increases. If you are considering leaving your day job, be sure to listen to this episode.

In this episode, Rob loses a Parks and Rec trivia game due to an obscure question, and gives Sara some tragic news. He’s heard that a recession is headed our way. Are freelancers better prepared than full time employees? How can you structure your personal finances to help weather the storm? Is there anything you can do with client relationships in the good times to help in the bad times?

In this episode, Rob and Sara continue to talk about freelancer marketing. Rob talks about his use of email marketing and social media to grow his business. Sara brings up a third option. Sara also explains how she created her husband through algorithms.

In this episode, Rob and Sara break down Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They discuss organic SEO placement (opposite of paid ads), the myth around getting to #1 on Google, and discuss tools for SEO management/monitoring.

In this episode, Sara gets to ask Rob about Google Ads (previously known as Google Adwords). Does it work for all industries? What are the terms you need to know in order to make wise decisions? What are landing pages (and what makes a good one)? What are good conversion rates for my industry? Rob breaks it all down like you’ve never heard of Google Ads before, so be sure to listen to the end.

In this episode, Sara and Rob discuss a time when the most obvious answer was the right one. They also look internally to figure out the motivations for their careers, deciding how much money is enough, and what are their secret goals.

Rob and Sara discuss what it's like running a business without a full IT department. They discuss essential apps and services to make yoru life easier and to prepare for when disaster strikes. They also share horror stories from working in their University computer lab.

Rob and Sara talk about calendars, scheduling, and more when it comes to managing your time as a freelancer. Sara signs up for Calendly to take care of the scheduling ping pong match that can often occur with new clients, but also ponders the usefulness of it. They also discuss scheduling your meetings in batches to maximize productivity.

Sara and Rob are joined by Rachel Bettis to discuss how becoming a parent impacts the life of a freelancer. Rachel is a real estate agent in Chattanooga, TN and the mom of a nearly three year old daughter. Can you do maternity leave as a freelancer? What about sick days!? Rachel spills the beans, and don't miss the special announcement! Special Guest: Rachel Bettis.

In this episode, Sara and Rob talk about why vacations are needed to get the creative juices flowing again, and why collaboration isn’t always the best process for getting tasks done. Do you work better alone or with a team? Which process is better for getting to the best end result? With both hosts having experience working as a freelancer vs working with structured teams, they have plenty to share.

In this episode, Sara might have gotten bitten by a pig, and that is the reason she didn’t respond to email on vacation. Rob has a minor freak out session over losing a client, but then comes back to reality when things end up working out anyway. Sara also discusses the need to get back to the “scrappy” mentality that she had in the beginning of striking out on her own.

Rob gets some advice from his father in law (who's been a self employed attorney for decades), and discusses it with Sara. They also discuss balancing client relationships with emergency requests, and how that may impact pruning your client list at the end of the year.

Sara and Rob discuss the nature of self promotion when running your own business. Between panels, networking events, and online self promotion, what are the best ways to let people know what your expertise is without coming across "scammy"?

In this episode, Sara talks with Aaron Martin about becoming an "accidental entrepreneur". Aaron recently left his previous law firm and opened up a solo practice. With a baby on the way, he's evaluating health insurance, office expenses, building a client base, and more. Special Guest: Aaron Martin.

In this episode, Rob and Sara talk about ways that freelancers can (or have to) stay up to date with the latest trends in the industry, gain continuing education credits (CEU), and remain lifelong learners. Sara also discusses surge pricing on AirBnB during late April in Colorado.

In this episode, Rob and Sara look at the usefulness of attending conferences for freelancers. When you consider the travel cost, time away from billable hours, and the stress of traveling - do they provide enough return on your investment to go? If you are hosting a booth in an expo hall, how can you get the best bang for your buck to meet new clients? They discuss it all, and they share some fun stories from past conferences.

Clients come and clients go, but there is certainly a "break up" process that goes along with it. If you ended on good terms, how can you finalize the project in such a way that you could easily pick back up again if their needs change?

As freelancers, you often get asked to do things outside of your scope. In this episode, Rob and Sara discuss the pros and cons of “staying in your lane”. Rob talks about the time he got reversed two week noticed, but it wasn’t “hush money”.

Rob and Sara are joined by Bradley Chambers to discuss freelancing while maintaining a traditional 9-5 job. Bradley has no desire to leave his full time job, but rather uses freelancing as a way to supplement his income. He discusses tips, tricks, and tools to stay organized. Special Guest: Bradley Chambers.

Rob and Sara discuss the role of working with competitors in your local market. Is there a reason to meet together to share ideas and knowledge? Where is the line between learning and leeching?

Rob and Sara are joined by Austin Jett to talk about health insurance options for freelancers. There are a lot of things changing in the healthcare space all around, and it will certainly impact freelancers as well. Austin goes through all the types of insurance, discusses how current legislation impacts freelancers, and talks about upcoming trends in healthcare. Special Guest: Austin Jett.

In this episode, we learn that Sara ate moldy bread (and is probably very sick at this point), and Rob read a new (to him) book by Seth Godin called “The Dip”. The Dip is a little book that teaches you when to quit things and when to stick with them. The Dip is a temporary setback in a hobby or project that sometimes get better if you keep pushing, but should you?

In this episode, Rob and Sara discuss the idea of emotional labor vs physical labor. Even for jobs based around the internet (and clicking buttons), time is still a factor. How do you balance the emotional needs of clients vs simply performing a task? Sara also gives a key phrase to end all client phone calls with that can eliminate a lot of future miscommunication.

Rob and Sara discuss habits, and how they impact our lives. There are good habits and bad habits that freelancers can pick up. Your goal should be to strike the balance between keeping your day structured enough to keep you on task while staying flexible in order to address things that pop up (even if not work related). Sara addresses the role of “adding” habits vs “removing” them. Sara has a new book coming out, so be sure to stay to the end for the special announcement.

Sara and Rob discuss one of the downsides (or benefits) to freelancing: short term and long term disability. A lot of freelancers think one of the benefits of traditional employment is the benefits package. One way to look at being a freelancer is you are in control of exactly how your benefits package is structured. Learn more about the why and how of short term and long term disability.

Rob and Sara discuss one of the "good problems to have" for freelancers. What happens when you don't have enough time for new clients? How do you balance quality of life with having backup plans incase an existing client leaves? They also discuss why you should still be marketing and networking even if you aren't taking on new clients at the time.

Back from a family vacation, Rob and Sara discuss strategies and tips for working (or not working) while on vacation. Is it better to 100% disconnect or find ways to touch base with clients here and there? Before you take another vaction, you'll want to listen to this episode.

In this episode, Rob and Sara discuss the dangers of rationalizing everything you want as a business expense, how that affects your significant other, and how to track expenses.

In the final episode of 2018, Rob and Sara discuss ending the year on a high note, managing client relationships around the holidays (and vacations), changes for 2019, passing off clients via referrals, and more.

Rob and Sara look at doing pro-bono work and serving in non-profits. They discuss how to balance billable hours with serving your community, how to find pro-bono work that best uses your skills, and not getting stuck on boards with no exit plan

Rob and Sara discuss the idea of rest for freelancers. With traditional 9-5 jobs, paid time off is usually the norm. With freelancers, it can be difficult to take days (or even hours) off for things like vacation, snow days, and exercise. What are the potential pitfalls that freelancers must watch out for?

Rob and Sara discuss marketing strategy. Rob leads Sara through his marketing consulting process. He advises empathy and understanding and recommends isolating your preferred client-base. He takes her through his 6-P approach: People, Position, Promise, Promotion, Process, and Polish. Sara finds marketing enlightenment and direction through Rob's educated guidance.

Rob and Sara discuss the process of outsourcing. They discuss how to evaluate the tasks that can be automated, the tasks that can be delegated, and pare your activities down to the things that can only be done by you. Rob is generally the first to automate and the last to delegate and Sara encourages him to view them both as valuable activities. They discuss various ways in which they have delegated or automated parts of their work and their plans to streamline more in the future. They discuss the benefits of having total autonomy and how it allows you to play with delegating and automating. They realize that it might be a lead loss the first couple times but that knowing how to use the resources makes you more efficient overall. They discuss the fact that a lot of business owners fail to address delegatable and automatable tasks until there are so many they feel the need to hire an employee to help which is oversolving the problem.

Rob and Sara discuss how they set goals for their business. They discuss the amount of money they make, what they expected, and how they measure their own success. Sara discusses the billable hour requirement at old firms and how she uses the metric of money-billed instead of hours-billed. They discuss banner months, banner years, and whether or not they increase their goals when they do well. They both are working far fewer hours than when they were traditionally employed and both work far fewer hours than when they were traditionally employed. Rob uses a software called Cushion. He's working on scheduling capacity into the future. Each discussed determining their own threshold for what they are comfortable working balanced against what they'd like to make. Rob discusses his redneck childhood spent taking the safety off of lighters at his grandmother's house. Rob discusses obtaining clients, then maximizing the revenue from the billable hours. Constantly re-evaluating the nature of your client base and trimming some smaller client work helps build productivity. That being said, both deal with trying to keep avenues of referral open and maintaining a pipeline from marketing efforts. All in all, both have determined that planning to live off a conservative amount of money and treating the rest as excess has helped them feel successful. Articulating, sharing, and revising 5 year and 10 year goals is necessary to move forward. They discuss marketing their own products and eventually extricating themselves from the service provider mindset.

Rob and Sara discuss when Freelancers need contracts in place. Sara, a lawyer, refrains from giving legal advice, but generally provides educational background on mistakes she sees business owners make. Relying too heavily on the title of an agreement is a common mistake, signing things without reading them or understanding them, not having any contract in place, having the wrong terms in place, and other common mistakes. Assume the documents are meant to trick you. Clients who pull documents off the internet sometimes don't realize they're using terms that are unfavorable to them. At bare minimum you want to lay out the payment terms, milestones, statement of work, etc. in writing. Having someone promise not to infringe on other people's copyrights is important. Sticking to workflows and processes is ideal as you navigate your way through contracts. Failing to assign intellectual property can be a sword or shield. Rob discusses the freelancer-protective laws recently enacted by New York City. Sara certainly recommends having a lawyer review your engagement agreements or anything else you're sending out to multiple people. Rob accidentally refers to the Gutenberg press as the "Glutenberg." Rob notes that people take him more seriously when he sends an agreement because it shows he's taking himself more seriously. Rob describes places where his clients have pushed back on his agreement. Sara says you need a contract before you go into business with people, before you hire someone, and before you do work for someone. Sara also makes her recommendations about finding a lawyer who will be fair to you. Sara then explains how lawyers charge their clients. They then discuss how to get the most out of your attorneys and ways to use a lawyer's time efficiently.

Rob and Sara discuss how they set their prices, the benefits of subscription models, setting an hourly rate starting off, and how to know when to increase rates. Rob has a provision in his contract where if someone cancels early, they are still on the hook for a certain percentage through the end of the Agreement term. That gives him money he can plan with and rely upon. Defaulting to billing by the hour is common because it is one of the easiest ways to move forward, however it often causes people to leave money on the table. Rob recommends value-based pricing based on a consideration of what the solution he's selling is worth to his clients. Ending your pricing in 5 goes better than ending it in 0. For a lot of e-commerce clients he can track how much revenue his ads brought in. They discuss being careful of legacy clients who you have a soft spot for and still charge your original rates. Taking care of other peoples' legacy clients is horrible. Sara is planning to implement expedited turn around pricing to deal with her clients who need something immediately. Taking into account the money you're saving clients by allowing them to avoid hiring a full-time employee is another good way to set your rates.

Sara and Rob discuss the things they miss most from their traditional employers. Sara misses work rooms full of office supplies. Rob talks about a co-worker stealing office toilet paper. While they have chosen their own paths because the pros outweigh the cons, but there are cons. Sara misses support staff, great views, beautiful offices, and stocked snack rooms. Rob notes his offices were not as nice as hers. Rob misses being in a leadership role. Sara misses support staff and also misses having people reviewing all her work and then providing immediate feedback. Rob misses having people to talk about work stuff to. The teamwork aspect of traditional employment is worth missing. Sara misses expense accounts and expense reimbursements and coffee mugs. Rob misses being a part of the downtown working community. Sara misses dressing up. They both admit to wearing the same clothes over and over again since the same people aren't seeing them every day.

Just in time for Halloween, Rob and Sara discuss the ways in which freelancers should prepare their businesses in the event of their death or disability. If not carefully and swiftly managed, a successful small business can quickly become in the red. If you would hate to see this happen to your family, it's important to have a plan. That plan includes at bare minimum including someone in your industry who could take over for you and close things out. It's essential to keep all your logins centralized and recorded through something like 1Password or any other service so someone can step in and put holds on your overhead. Then someone needs to collect on your A/R if any invoices are outstanding and manage your client files and information where necessary. Disability and Life Insurance are a very important consideration. Key man insurance for multiple-person companies is a very good idea.

Rob and Sara discuss hitting the high points of days 2-10 of finding yourself in an unexpected freelancing position. Continuing to sow seeds with your village, avoiding putting yourself out there if you're not in a place of strength, taking time to feel angry, etc. Also, getting a phone number and then business cards from moo.com in a small quantity. They caution against falling into making a website too early and instead focus on a higher level of branding strategy. They discuss the importance of marketing yourself as a permanent freelancer rather than a temporary freelancer. Putting everything into your current situation is the smartest move to give yourself an honest attempt at freelancing. Rob and Sara then discuss branding and avoiding getting into branding trouble or violating copyright or trademark of other businesses when you're starting out. Networking with people at coffee is going to make up a lot of your first several weeks so choosing to isolate your meetings for a few days a week can be very viable. This is a great time to consider ways in which you can work as a vendor to your former employers or co-workers. Non-compete agreements also are essential to understand. Having a copy of everything you have signed at your former employer and understanding it. Avoiding running afoul of your legal obligations right out of the gate is important to move forward. Setting up your invoice software makes sense at this phase in the process as well.

Rob and Sara discuss the emergency steps you should take on day one if you're fired or other circumstances result in you suddenly finding yourself needing to freelance. First set up your choice of entity at your state's secretary of state, without letting a name choice slow you down. Then obtain an EIN, open a bank account. They discuss pros and cons of business bank account options and complain about Spark CapitalOne, which sucks now. Then set up a business email address. Do this by creating a Squarespace account which will help you build out a landing page and an email address domain. Squarespace has templates specifically classified as landing pages, that way you only need a couple photos and a few paragraphs of information. Avoiding wasting time on a full-fledge website is essential. Choosing a domain for a year makes sense, and an email with g-suite under $5.50 a month. Getting the landing page up for $8 a month. They recommend defaulting to the month to month plan on software subscriptions even if the annual plan is a little cheaper. This will allow you to be more agile and will let you save money if you decide freelancing isn't for you after all. Then start your insurance application process ASAP. Whether its malpractice insurance, commercial general liability, or even just an umbrella policy. After this, it's smart to close your computer and spend some time thinking about your village. Who's in your corner who may be able to help you out? Start making a list to reach out to these people organically in the coming weeks. Congratulations, you've completed your first day of freelancing!

Rob and Sara discuss the pros and cons of having clients who are also your friends. Navigating the waters of doing favors versus setting up a legitimate client relationship with a friend is tricky and can negatively affect your personal relationship. They discuss the importance of having a discussion about fees, costs, and boundaries at the outset to set expectations. They also discuss the best solution which is probably to charge regular prices up front and implement a friends and family discount on the end when invoicing. Working with friends can lead to referrals which are excellent source of income, but it's important to keep the time you spend doing free work limited. They discuss the benefits and pitfalls of doing work exchanges or trades for services rendered. Ultimately, each situation can be dealt with on a case by case basis, but you should always prioritize having a frank conversation up front with every client, especially your friends about the options to make sure you're on the same page.