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Wondering how best to grow your audience or perhaps, how to fund your next trip to Ireland? If so, this week's podcast is a must-listen for you! This week, joining Conor on the show is special guest and serial entrepreneur Brennan Dunn. Brennan is the co-founder of RightMessage, a platform for online businesses to enhance their automated segmentation and website personalisation. In this episode, Brennan walks us through his fascinating leap from consulting into SaaS, launching and selling his project management tool Planscope and the accidental beginning of his thriving community, Double Your Freelancing, where he advises 50K + freelancers and agencies across the globe.Conor and Brennan unpack so much, including the secret to building with your audience, effective communication and truly understanding your customer's needs. Brennan also reveals what worked well when starting a new business from scratch. Main points throughout the discussion include: An introduction to Brennan Dunn. The rise of an accidental business. Being personable and building connections with your customers.The practice of creating evergreen content.The art of conversational copywriting: write as you speak!Utilising the voice of customer data.Re-evaluating a career and starting a new venture from scratch.What worked well: Brennan's proven business stepping-stone.Why you should borrow an audience. The key to real-time product positioning.Communicating directly and effectively with customers.How to elevate your customer testimonials to new heights. Brennan's advice for obtaining your first ten customers. Connect Brennan:https://www.linkedin.com/in/brennandunn/ https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/ https://twitter.com/brennandunn https://rightmessage.com/ https://createandsell.co/ Connect with First 10 Podcast host Conor McCarthy: https://www.first10podcast.comhttps://twitter.com/TheFirst10Podhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/comccart/ Resources:https://copyhackers.com/ Book: The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souzahttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Brain-Audit-Customers-They-Dont/dp/0473175045 https://www.robfitz.com/home Check out my podcast partners!Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1389931Otter: https://otter.ai/referrals/ETRNKY16Calendly: https://calendly.grsm.io/ilev18qxpn1eProduced in partnership with podlad.com
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Brennan is the co-founder of RightMessage and the founder of DoubleYourFreelancing.com. He's also started and sold another SaaS company, Planscope.
Brennan and I explore the trajectory of businesses and learning that led him to create RightMessage. Since founding his first SaaS application, Planscope, in 2011. Brennan began producing courses to help freelancers grow their business as a way to grow Planscope. However, as the content arm of Planscope grew, it became the primary breadwinner. Brennan eventually sold Planscope to focus on the content production with Double Your Freelancing. While optimizing the funnel and learning about the importance of personalization, he began to see the opportunity to create an application that could provide easy-to-use personalization for other businesses. After providing these personalization services in the form of consulting, Brennan recognized that the next step was to use his SaaS experience to create RightMessage. We also touch on the logistics of selling Planscope when it was financially intertwined with Double Your Freelancing. It required significant extra time to extricate the financials and clean up all of the books for the sale. Special Guest: Brennan Dunn.
Brennan Dunn started as a freelance developer, then after starting, scaling, and exiting an agency, he decided to start a software company, Planscope which he sold in early 2016 and co-founded RightMessage, a software company that helps bring on-site personalization to the masses. He is also founder of Double Your Freelancing. 00:20 - Brennan's Journey 03:20 - Validation of Software With Feedback 04:20 - Finding His Co-Founder 05:40 - MVP: Building A Course Before The Software 07:15 - Learning What People REALLY Wanted 08:40 - The #1 Thing People Say: "What do I do with this?" 10:05 - Building A Direct Competitor To Something vs When There Isn't Much Out There 11:35 - Software: Start With Education and Let Outcomes of Education Dictate Product Strategy 13:05 - Marketing Strategy: Content (Free and Premium) and Educational Webinars To Strategic Partners' Audiences 17:50 - How to Approach Potential Strategic Partners: Detailed Plan of Value + Proof of Results 23:35 - Failures Turned Into Lessons: Trial & Error, Being Pretty Analytical and Marketing Assets 28:50 - Brennan's Why: "A Better Internet" 35:15 - Lightning Questions
Today Ben’s guest is Brennan Dunn, co-founder of RightMessage, a tool that allows you to personalize your website based on user information and behavior. This allows you to customize your messaging to each user’s unique story and needs. Brennan explains the value of customer targeting, shares his ambition for Right Message, his personal journey and advice for other software startups along the way. Today’s Topics Include: Brennan’s experiences and genesis of RightMessage Targeting with ads and website content Technical details on customer targeting Most profitable targeting activity Onboarding hesitant customers with course material Current status and future plans for RightMessage If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RightMessage Double Your Freelancing Drip Pro Tools Master Drip Email Automation Course - Brennan Dunn Bounce Exchange Webpack Planscope Churn Buster Baremetrics Open Startups
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Thomas Smale, co-founder of FE International, a company with seven-figure revenues that specialises in brokering the sale of online businesses. Listen as Nathan and Thomas talk about valuing SaaS companies, brokerage models, and the importance of focus. Famous 5 Favorite Book? – The Tipping Point What CEO do you follow? —Elon Musk What is your favorite online tool? — SEMrush Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — Focus. I used to jump from idea to idea - it’s far better to focus on one thing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:06 – Nathan’s introduction 01:50 – Welcoming Thomas to the show 02:00 – FE International started at university when Thomas was 22 02:30 – Completed just over 300 deals 02:50 – Last deal was a SaaS business 03:20 – Model: FE will value a business, put together a package, and look for buyers 04:10 – How do you value a SaaS business? The amount of time the owner spends on a business: more time = less valuable The growth prospects of a business A multiplier of 4-6 times on annual net revenue 06:10 – Why use net? 06:30 – When valuing smaller businesses, it makes more sense to use net revenue 07:05 – Business in last deal had around $200k net revenue 08:11 – Recent public deal was with PlanScope - around $100k 09:10 – The buyer was a developer looking for a safe investment project 11:00 – 7-12% churn rate is normal for businesses they deal with 11:30 – FE International charges 15% brokerage on each deal 12:00 – Currently have a team of 12 people 12:30 – Made $1.5 million in commissions in 2015 16:00 – Famous Five 3 Key Points: Focus on one thing. It’s tempting to jump from plan to plan - but focus leads to success. Small businesses need a different valuation model to large ones. Make sure you’re looking at the right numbers. Always be looking for opportunities - a start-up can expand incredibly fast with the right input Resources Mentioned: Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible. Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+ Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives The Top is FOR YOU if you are: A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4) STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7) An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1) The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14). Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries. Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop
Today I am interviewing Jane Portman. Jane is from Russia, and she used to work with me on Planscope which I just sold. She is an amazing designer who is very focused on the design and the copy. I recently redesigned Double Your Freelancing. Which is appropriate for today, because Jane’s expertise is building really great user experiences. Jane is an amazing UI designer and business consultant. Jane has been designing for over 10 years. She worked for a large agency in Russia. She is also a mom, and now works full time in the US as a consultant. She wanted to build authority, so she started writing books and implemented a lot of my advice for consultants. She is currently focused on helping SaaS founders to build simple products that make money.
Brennan Dunn started his first agency in 2008, built it to a million-dollar-a-year business, and then exited when he realized it wasn’t what he was looking for. Since then, he has launched Planscope, a SaaS product that helps you gain total control of your agency, taught more than 30,000 freelancers how to charge what they’re... The post Agency Advantage 9: How Brennan Dunn built TWO million dollar agencies and a product empire appeared first on Hubstaff Blog.
If you've ever felt like your blog posts are a shot in the dark, this episode of the Nathan Barry Show is for you. Working to build an audience never has immediate results, but don't be discouraged by your lack of response! My guest today will tell you how to produce valuable content over time in order to generate the right kind of response you need to see your business succeed. As a professional freelancer, Brennan Dunn knows the ins and outs of creating an audience and a viable client list. His style of content creation and content marketing has been a huge influence on my own business style. He first started by writing a business blog about the conversations he was having with his own customers as an ingenious way to get new customers and build his email list. This pro-active approach to business, including writing and publishing an e-book, creating his own content, and using paid acquisition through Facebook, is what he's talking about with us today. You can apply his insight to your own marketing plans to develop something that works for you.Brennan has probably had a bigger on impact on the way I do online business more than anyone else.Brennan has built an audience by communicating with them regularly: regular emails promoting new/regular blogs, direct conversations, free advice, promotionals – Brennan pre-sold his e-book to his Planscope emailing list. He also offers a range of products to better serve your clients that results in more income for you.Topics We Discuss What the very early days of audience building look like How consistency converts your early subscribers into customers Paid acquisition and why you should be using it already How to use Facebook's Target to promote and communicate with clients What to do for a product or book launch Pros and cons of payment plans for customers (spoiler alert: it's worth it!) ContactSubscribe to Brennan's list at www.freepricingcourse.comLearn more about Brennan and his insights on freelancing doubleyourfreelancing.comIf you have a minute, I would really appreciate if you would write a review on iTunes about today's episode. Whether it's good or bad, let us know what you think by posting a review in iTunes.This season of The Nathan Barry show is sponsored by Kajabi. Check out how you can create, market, and sell your own digital products through the power of the platform at Kajabi. And let them know that The Nathan Barry show sent you.
Art of Value Show - Discover Value | Create Options | Start Pricing
Brennan Dunn started as a freelancer and grew his business into a 10+ person agency. He then decided to create software for himself, rather than others with Planscope.io. Additionally, he has created a variety of teaching tools for pricing and lead generation at DoubleYourFreelancing.com. Positioning With Care What is the most important thing you can share about pricing? It's […] The post The Value of Tomorrow with Brennan Dunn – 035 appeared first on Art Of Value.
Brennan Dunn is the go-to guy to talk about marketing automation. He's build a SaaS, called Planscope, but these days he recommends first-time entrepreneurs build something smaller (like an eBook, or a webinar).
Brennan Dunn, founder of PlanScope, author of Double Your Freelancing Rate and a number of other books and courses, talks with us about how he uses one "list" to market all of his products. Among other benefits, this leaves the door open to sell any numbe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Bright Ideas eCommerce Business Podcast | Proven Entrepreneur Success Stories
On the show with me today is Brennan Dunn founder of Planscope, a project management software for contracts and freelancers; author of “Double Your Freelancing Rate“; and owner of We Are Titans, a consulting company that focuses on improving their clients’ profits. Thank you so much for listening! Please subscribe rate and review on your favorite podcast listening app. To get to the show notes for today's episode, go to https://brightideas.co/xxx...and if you have any questions for me, you can leave me a voicemail at brightideas.co/asktrent
Panel Pippin Williamson (twitter github Pippins Plugins) Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:28 - Pippin Williamson Introduction Pippins Plugins Easy Digital Downloads Restrict Content Pro 01:53 - Making Money Making Plugins Product Development Custom Development 02:57 - GPLv2 Licensing ThemeForest Support Disabling Features 11:45 - Building a business around open-source Audience 12:48 - Transitioning from freelance to product work Graduality 072 – Saying NO Doing products during spare time Brian Casel The Bootstrapped Web Podcast 19:10 - Starting with products vs consulting 22:38 - Occasional Consulting 23:41 - Marketing Products Personal Brand Word-of-Mouth Referrals 25:42 - Customer Support 27:17 - Advice for people getting into commercial development Go the extra mile for your first customers 28:01 - Deciding what products to build Building what you need Best Practices 31:30 - Pippin’s Plugins CodeCanyon Easy Digital Downloads 34:26 - Pippin’s Support Team 36:45 - Tools to Run the Business Github WordPress Skype WordPress-GitHub-Plugin-Updater HALL Ronin Twitter Picks 1Keyboard (Curtis) Radium (Curtis) Episode 148 | Online Marketing Trends with Special Guest Clay Collins (Eric) The Online Marketing Makeover Training Course (Chuck) Bloons Tower Defence 5 (Chuck) SearchWP (Pippin) FacetWP (Pippin) Next Week Our Stories Transcript [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates and once you’re underway and help answer the question, these get done on time and under budget. I’ve been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 79 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. We also have a special guest, and that is Pippin Williamson. PIPPIN: Hi everybody! CHUCK: Since you haven’t been on the show before, do you want to introduce yourself? PIPPIN: Sure! As he said, my name is Pippin Williamson. I’m a WordPress plugin developer. I spend my days writing plugins, supporting plugins, and generally running a business around commercial plugins. I have a couple of large plugins out there. One called “Easy Digital Downloads” and another one called “Restrict Content Pro” that I’ve considered my main ones. That’s pretty much what I do day-to-day. CHUCK: I’m a little curious, generally, when you’re making money writing plugins for WordPress, are you writing the kind that people pay for and then they download the code and stick it in the WordPress installation? Or, are you doing custom development for people? Or, both? How does that work?
Panel Pippin Williamson (twitter github Pippins Plugins) Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:28 - Pippin Williamson Introduction Pippins Plugins Easy Digital Downloads Restrict Content Pro 01:53 - Making Money Making Plugins Product Development Custom Development 02:57 - GPLv2 Licensing ThemeForest Support Disabling Features 11:45 - Building a business around open-source Audience 12:48 - Transitioning from freelance to product work Graduality 072 – Saying NO Doing products during spare time Brian Casel The Bootstrapped Web Podcast 19:10 - Starting with products vs consulting 22:38 - Occasional Consulting 23:41 - Marketing Products Personal Brand Word-of-Mouth Referrals 25:42 - Customer Support 27:17 - Advice for people getting into commercial development Go the extra mile for your first customers 28:01 - Deciding what products to build Building what you need Best Practices 31:30 - Pippin's Plugins CodeCanyon Easy Digital Downloads 34:26 - Pippin's Support Team 36:45 - Tools to Run the Business Github WordPress Skype WordPress-GitHub-Plugin-Updater HALL Ronin Twitter Picks 1Keyboard (Curtis) Radium (Curtis) Episode 148 | Online Marketing Trends with Special Guest Clay Collins (Eric) The Online Marketing Makeover Training Course (Chuck) Bloons Tower Defence 5 (Chuck) SearchWP (Pippin) FacetWP (Pippin) Next Week Our Stories Transcript [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates and once you're underway and help answer the question, these get done on time and under budget. I've been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 79 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. We also have a special guest, and that is Pippin Williamson. PIPPIN: Hi everybody! CHUCK: Since you haven't been on the show before, do you want to introduce yourself? PIPPIN: Sure! As he said, my name is Pippin Williamson. I'm a WordPress plugin developer. I spend my days writing plugins, supporting plugins, and generally running a business around commercial plugins. I have a couple of large plugins out there. One called “Easy Digital Downloads” and another one called “Restrict Content Pro” that I've considered my main ones. That's pretty much what I do day-to-day. CHUCK: I'm a little curious, generally, when you're making money writing plugins for WordPress, are you writing the kind that people pay for and then they download the code and stick it in the WordPress installation? Or, are you doing custom development for people? Or, both? How does that work?
Panel Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Reuven Lerner (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:30 - Panelist Training & Coaching Experience 02:40 - Traveling for In-Person Training 05:52 - Rates 08:35 - Teaching College Courses 10:43 - Online Training Recorded Videos Live Sessions Forums/Discussion Groups GoToMeeting Skype tmux Pair Programming 17:15 - The Value of Training Expense vs Investment 19:54 - Structuring Exercises Canvas Working in Pairs 27:58 - Screencasting The Freelancers’ Show 071 – Recording Video 29:32 - In-Person Training vs Online Training Non-Verbal Communication Asking Questions 34:53 - Teaching Preparation 38:51 - Charging What You’re Worth Picks Joshua Clanton: A Drip of JavaScript (Reuven) Sensei (Curtis) Curtis McHale: Don't be an Idiot: Learn to run a viable business (Curtis) Zite (Eric) Civilization IV (Chuck) Discourse (Chuck) Book Club Book Yourself Solid with Michael Port! He will join us for an episode to discuss the book on September 24th. The episode will air on October 3rd. Next Week Freelancers Show: WordPress Plugins with Pippin Williamson Transcript CHUCK: [Stretching] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates and wants you on their way and help answer the question just to get done on time and under budget. I’ve been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 78 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: Reuven Lerner. REUVEN: Hi there! CHUCK: I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. This week, we’re going to be talking about “Training and Coaching”. Just to start this off, how many of you guys have done much training or coaching? CURTIS: I do run a blog that does coaching or training all the time for WordPress stuff, and then I do it with clients as well. REUVEN: I do a ton of training. Probably 2-4 days a week is a good estimate where I go to companies and I train them in person. And then I’ve done a fair amount of coaching as well where I go to companies and I sort of move around and sit with their people and do pair programming and look over their shoulder. CHUCK: I’ve done a fair bit. I haven’t done like on-site, stand up in front of people kind of training except maybe at users groups. But I’ve done a bunch of coaching. I’ve had several people come to me, “Can you sit down and help solve this problem?” Or, “Can you sit down and basically teach me these things that I don’t understand?” and I just get on and kind of pair program with them over the internet to do the coaching. CURTIS: I’ve done stuff at local user groups as well where they’re teaching really basic stuff. Or,
Panel Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Reuven Lerner (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:30 - Panelist Training & Coaching Experience 02:40 - Traveling for In-Person Training 05:52 - Rates 08:35 - Teaching College Courses 10:43 - Online Training Recorded Videos Live Sessions Forums/Discussion Groups GoToMeeting Skype tmux Pair Programming 17:15 - The Value of Training Expense vs Investment 19:54 - Structuring Exercises Canvas Working in Pairs 27:58 - Screencasting The Freelancers' Show 071 – Recording Video 29:32 - In-Person Training vs Online Training Non-Verbal Communication Asking Questions 34:53 - Teaching Preparation 38:51 - Charging What You're Worth Picks Joshua Clanton: A Drip of JavaScript (Reuven) Sensei (Curtis) Curtis McHale: Don't be an Idiot: Learn to run a viable business (Curtis) Zite (Eric) Civilization IV (Chuck) Discourse (Chuck) Book Club Book Yourself Solid with Michael Port! He will join us for an episode to discuss the book on September 24th. The episode will air on October 3rd. Next Week Freelancers Show: WordPress Plugins with Pippin Williamson Transcript CHUCK: [Stretching] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates and wants you on their way and help answer the question just to get done on time and under budget. I've been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 78 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: Reuven Lerner. REUVEN: Hi there! CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. This week, we're going to be talking about “Training and Coaching”. Just to start this off, how many of you guys have done much training or coaching? CURTIS: I do run a blog that does coaching or training all the time for WordPress stuff, and then I do it with clients as well. REUVEN: I do a ton of training. Probably 2-4 days a week is a good estimate where I go to companies and I train them in person. And then I've done a fair amount of coaching as well where I go to companies and I sort of move around and sit with their people and do pair programming and look over their shoulder. CHUCK: I've done a fair bit. I haven't done like on-site, stand up in front of people kind of training except maybe at users groups. But I've done a bunch of coaching. I've had several people come to me, “Can you sit down and help solve this problem?” Or, “Can you sit down and basically teach me these things that I don't understand?” and I just get on and kind of pair program with them over the internet to do the coaching. CURTIS: I've done stuff at local user groups as well where they're teaching really basic stuff. Or,
Panel Brennan Dunn (twitter github blog) Reuven Lerner (twitter github blog) Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Ashe Dryden (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:37 - Brennan Dunn Introduction Planscope Double Your Freelancing Rate by Brennan Dunn The Blueprint -- Learning to Sell Online by Brennan Dunn Consultancy Masterclass 02:46 - Closing the Consultancy We Are Titans 04:31 - Working on and Marketing Products 05:37 - Recurring/Predictable Revenue Gail Goodman, Constant Contact. How to Negotiate the Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death 11:28 - Onboarding Clients for Retainer Deals Provide Recurring Value 22:43 - The Proposal Provide a Guarantee 26:49 - Training Engagements and Seminars Lower vs Higher-end Offerings 35:19 - Scalable Training (Video) Mastering Modern Payments: Using Stripe with Rails 36:45 - Marketing Nathan Barry: How To Launch Anything “Be Everywhere” 48:14 - Struggles with building a product Marketing Finding Time Nostalgia for Consulting Pricing 56:05 - Packaging Picks Chromoji (Ashe) PuzzleJuice (Curtis) The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey (Curtis) Thank You For Arguing, Revised and Updated Edition: What Aristotle, Lincoln, And Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion by Jay Heinrichs (Reuven) INTRO TO JPEGOPTIM AND OPTIPNG (Jeff) Having a Clean Office (Chuck) Fujisu ScanSnap S1300i (Chuck) Informly (Brennan) indieconf (Brennan) Book Club Book Yourself Solid with Michael Port! He will join us for an episode to discuss the book on September 24th. The episode will air on October 3rd. Next Week Training & Coaching Transcript CHUCK: Eric is our ‘Yes’ man. [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope’ is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates, and once you’re underway and help answer the question, this gets done on time and under budget. I’ve been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 77 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Reuven Lerner. REUVEN: Hello there! CHUCK: Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Ashe Dryden. ASHE: Hi everyone! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What’s up! CHUCK: I’m Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. This week we have a special guest, Brennan Dunn. BRENNAN: Hey guys! CHUCK: Brennan, since you haven’t been on the show before, do you want to introduce yourself? BRENNAN: Sure! My name is Brennan Dunn. I came from running a consultant business. Within the last year and a half, I’ve actually fully transitioned to making all of my income through products. I’m probably best known for Planscope, which is my project management app.
Panel Brennan Dunn (twitter github blog) Reuven Lerner (twitter github blog) Curtis McHale (twitter github blog) Ashe Dryden (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 01:37 - Brennan Dunn Introduction Planscope Double Your Freelancing Rate by Brennan Dunn The Blueprint -- Learning to Sell Online by Brennan Dunn Consultancy Masterclass 02:46 - Closing the Consultancy We Are Titans 04:31 - Working on and Marketing Products 05:37 - Recurring/Predictable Revenue Gail Goodman, Constant Contact. How to Negotiate the Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death 11:28 - Onboarding Clients for Retainer Deals Provide Recurring Value 22:43 - The Proposal Provide a Guarantee 26:49 - Training Engagements and Seminars Lower vs Higher-end Offerings 35:19 - Scalable Training (Video) Mastering Modern Payments: Using Stripe with Rails 36:45 - Marketing Nathan Barry: How To Launch Anything “Be Everywhere” 48:14 - Struggles with building a product Marketing Finding Time Nostalgia for Consulting Pricing 56:05 - Packaging Picks Chromoji (Ashe) PuzzleJuice (Curtis) The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey (Curtis) Thank You For Arguing, Revised and Updated Edition: What Aristotle, Lincoln, And Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion by Jay Heinrichs (Reuven) INTRO TO JPEGOPTIM AND OPTIPNG (Jeff) Having a Clean Office (Chuck) Fujisu ScanSnap S1300i (Chuck) Informly (Brennan) indieconf (Brennan) Book Club Book Yourself Solid with Michael Port! He will join us for an episode to discuss the book on September 24th. The episode will air on October 3rd. Next Week Training & Coaching Transcript CHUCK: Eric is our ‘Yes' man. [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net.] [You're fantastic at coding, but do you have an action plan to take it to the next level? The upcoming book, Next Level Freelance, will help you optimize your freelance business for happiness. The book is packed with actionable steps to make more money, case studies, tips to find more clients, and exercises for you to establish your desired lifestyle. Extras include: 9 interviews with freelancers who make great money while enjoying great work-life balance, videos on strategies to find quality subcontractors, and videos on making more free time by outsourcing your daily tasks. Check it out today at nextlevelfreelance.com!] [This episode is sponsored by Planscope. Planscope' is a project management and collaboration net built for freelancers in the way they work with clients. It makes it easy to price out new estimates, and once you're underway and help answer the question, this gets done on time and under budget. I've been using Planscope to do my estimates and manage my projects and I really, really like it. It makes it really easy to keep things in order, and understand when things will get done. You can go check it out at Planscope.io.] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 77 of The Freelancers' Show! This week on our panel, we have Reuven Lerner. REUVEN: Hello there! CHUCK: Curtis McHale. CURTIS: Hello! CHUCK: Ashe Dryden. ASHE: Hi everyone! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hi! CHUCK: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What's up! CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from DevChat.tv. This week we have a special guest, Brennan Dunn. BRENNAN: Hey guys! CHUCK: Brennan, since you haven't been on the show before, do you want to introduce yourself? BRENNAN: Sure! My name is Brennan Dunn. I came from running a consultant business. Within the last year and a half, I've actually fully transitioned to making all of my income through products. I'm probably best known for Planscope, which is my project management app.
Brennan Dunn helps freelancers and consultants get better clients, make money more and live happier lives. Brennan ran a 7-figure consultancy with eleven full-time salaried employees with major clients that we are familiar with. Brennan decided to step away from his brick & mortar business to create great software and products to help freelancers and consultants. He is the author of two amazing books Double Your Freelancing Rate, and The Blueprint - Learn How To Sell Online, creator of Planscope, teaches The Consultancy Masterclass, and host of The Business of Freelancing Podcast. Brennan helps over 6,000 freelancers and consultants with his weekly newsletter full of proven business strategies and tactics. In this episode of Entrepreneur 2.0 you will learn: How to get better clients and how to get rid of the bad ones What is a "carrot" and why your website needs one The right way to build a relationship with your customers How to turn a prospect into a paying customer How to double your freelancing rate without losing clients Why having competitive rates is not important and what is And lots more...
How do you make a name for yourself, and your product? That’s the question we posed to Brennan Dunn. It seemed like almost overnight he was everywhere: blog posts on Hacker News, popping up in my Twitter stream, and promoting a new product for consultants called Planscope. In this episode we delve into how he made this happen: we asked him how he got his start in products, how he promoted himself, and what Latin has to do with all of this.
Ben Orenstein is joined by Brennan Dunn, author of double your freelancing rate and planscope.io. Ben and Brennan discuss transitioning from a freelancer to a consulting company, the issues he faced doing it, and how he overcame them. How he promoted someone to replace him in his consulting company and is focused exclusively on products now, where Planscope came from, how it works, and how he more than doubled the conversion rate. How content marketing was slow to work for him, and how he fixed it. How to effectively pitch and sell products, what victory looks like for him and what he's working for, and so much more. Double Your Freelancing Rate in 14 Days Planscope, Project Management for Independents Kalzumeus Podcast 3: Growing Consulting Practices, with Brennan Dunn Workshop: Start Your Own Multi-Million Dollar Consultancy Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don't) Bidsketch Freckle MicroConf Follow @thoughtbot, @r00k, and @brennandunn on twitter.