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Episodes

May 8, 2024

What to Say to "Freelancing Isn't a Real Job?"

This is an interesting one. How would should you respond to someone telling you "freelancing isn't a real job?" View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the week: What is a staging environment?

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April 24, 2024

Client Supplied Contract Instead of Signing Mine

This one is kind of a specific question. What happens when you're a freelancer and ask a client to sign a contract, but they supply their own instead for you to sign? View this podcast as a video on YouTube …

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April 17, 2024

What's it Like Adjusting to Not Having a Boss?

Once you go off on your own and freelance, likely for the first time in your career, you won't have a boss. What's that like? View this podcast as a video on YouTube Links of the week: Proxyrack.com Key Components …

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April 10, 2024

How Do I Become a True Consultant?

One thing that freelancers commonly deal with, and that a lot of people ask me about is how to become a "true consultant" or an advisor, rather than just a laborer where the client gives you a checklist of things …

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April 3, 2024

What Questions to Ask During Discovery?

Part of any freelancer's practice is going to be doing sales conversations, and any good sales conversation for custom work will involve a discovery process. What should that look like? What questions should you ask the prospect? View this podcast …

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March 27, 2024

What To Do When Clients Want Bug Fixes after Contract Ends?

You've done some development work for a client, and as far as you're concerned, the work is over. But they come back later, demanding that you do additional work to fix a bug. How do you handle that? Join us …

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March 20, 2024

How Do I Get That First Client?

You've just hung out your shingle and are about to start freelancing. Congratulations! Now how do you get that first client? Join us to learn more. Link of the week:[Proxyrack Residential Proxies](https://proxyrack.com/residential-proxies)

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March 13, 2024

Dealing with Variable Income as a Freelancer

As a freelancer, you'll find that your income tends to be a lot more variable and less dependent than salaried work. How do you deal with that situation, both in terms of financial planning and making things more predictable? Join …

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March 6, 2024

How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads

When you have your own practice or business, lead generation is obviously critical. But how should you go about it and, specifically, is LinkedIn a good channel for lead generation? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a …

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Feb. 28, 2024

How Does Insurance Work When You're a Freelancer?

Insurance is pretty straightforward for those in the salaried world. But when you go off on your own, how does it work? What kinds of insurance do you need to think about, and how do you obtain them? Link of …

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Feb. 21, 2024

How Should You Handle Raising Your Rates?

This is something near and dear to the heart of any freelancer. The time has come and you've decided you need to raise your rates. How do you tell your clients about it, and how do you manage this process …

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Feb. 14, 2024

How Do You Break the Feast or Famine Cycle?

Anyone who has hung out their shingle to freelance has likely encountered the so-called "feast or famine" cycle. What is this, why is it suboptimal, how do you get out of it, and how long does it take to get …

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Feb. 7, 2024

What Do Freelancers Do When They Get Sick?

Sick time is pretty straightforward for employees. But how does this work when you go off on your own as a freelancer? How do freelancers handle it when they get sick? Link Picks Check out Tricentis Tosca: Intelligent test automation …

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Jan. 24, 2024

Should You Build a Business in Your Own Name or Pick a Brand Name?

You're thinking of starting a business or a freelance practice. Should you name the business and website after yourself, or should you create a separate brand for it? Links of the week: Get started with GitHub Actions Learn about test …

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Jan. 17, 2024

Managing Context Switching When You Have Multiple Clients

If you're working on significant projects in parallel for multiple clients, you might find yourself mentally "thrashing," or struggling with the context switching between the different projects. How do you handle that? Links of the week: Get start...

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Jan. 10, 2024

What’s the Difference Between a Freelancer and a Consultant?

People toss around the terms "freelancer" and "consultant" a lot -- often interchangeably. But what does each really mean, and what's the difference? Link picks: Learn to create a Kubernetes cluster in AWS What does bimodal mean in the context …

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Jan. 3, 2024

Is It a Problem for a Freelancer to Have Just One Large Client?

Is it a problem for you, as a freelancer, to have just one or two large clients? The short, easy answer is "yes," but I've got a much more detailed explanation in this episode.

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Dec. 20, 2023

What is a Retainer in Consulting and How Does It Work?

You may have heard the term "retainer" as a modifier to describe a kind of consultant. What is a retainer, exactly, and how does it work? Join us to learn more. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...

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Dec. 13, 2023

How Does a Freelancer Get Started with Content Marketing?

You'll hear a lot of conventional wisdom that anyone with a business should do content marketing. Is that right, and, if so, what do you need and how should you get started doing it? Picks: Learn what a production environment …

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Dec. 6, 2023

Should Freelancers Run Ads to Get Business?

As a freelancer, should you enlist paid advertising to help you get work? The answer, in most cases, is no, but tune in to hear why and what the exceptions might be. Join us to learn more. -------------------------------------------------------------...

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Nov. 29, 2023

How Do You Quit a Gig or Fire a Client?

Sometimes it just isn't working out, and it's not you -- it's them. When you decide you have to part ways with a client, how do you go about doing that?

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Nov. 22, 2023

What Software Do You Need for Your Freelance Practice?

What pieces of software do you need in order to start out as a freelancer? CRM? Accounting Software? Etc? I take you through the ones that I would recommend in this video. Link Picks; Test environments: Everything you need to …

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Nov. 15, 2023

Should I Start a Business Bank Account to Freelance?

In this edition of the freelancer Q&A series, I take on the subject of whether or not you should start a business bank account in order to freelance. I think you ought to, and I'll tell you why, and what …

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Nov. 8, 2023

Building a Hibernate Training Business with Info Products and Consult…

This time around in our community speaker series, we talked to Thorben Janssen about building a Hibernate/JPA training business with info products and consulting. Hear about made the transition over time from employed as a software engineer to buildi...

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