<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title><![CDATA[Impelid]]></title><description><![CDATA[For entrepreneurs building microbusinesses]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/</link><image><url>http://impelid.com/favicon.png</url><title>Impelid</title><link>http://impelid.com/</link></image><generator>Ghost 2.9</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 29 Jun 2024 21:09:38 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="http://impelid.com/rss/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><ttl>60</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[Learning to Sell: Talent or skill?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Is sales an innate ability, or something everyone can learn to do well? Combining perspectives on learning and skill development with research on sales performance we look for the answer to the ultimate question]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/learning-to-sell/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b1e</guid><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sun, 24 Nov 2019 21:56:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511629091441-ee46146481b6?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=5236eded73225432fcd0facf6f4e192f" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="talentorlearnedskill">Talent or learned skill</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1511629091441-ee46146481b6?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=5236eded73225432fcd0facf6f4e192f" alt="Learning to Sell: Talent or skill?"/><p>Is sales an innate ability, or something everyone can learn to do well?</p> <p>The idea of innate talent has been taken out in the shed and kicked around plenty, but it never dies. Its longevity is due in part to the advantage of beginning to develop certain skills early in life, and in part to there still being research to do.</p> <p>The 10,000 hour rule is a heuristic which states that to become an exceptional performer in virtually any skill requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. The rule is a generalization of a lot of research packaged for mass consumption by Malcolm Gladwell in his best seller <em>Outliers</em>. At about the same time Geoff Colvin published his <em>Talent is Overrated</em> based on much the same material and targeted for the business community.<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup> However, neither were the source of these ideas.</p> <p>The credit for this research belongs to Dr. K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues. Ericsson developed an early interest in skill development and studied Mnemonists (people demonstrating exceptional feats of memory) and proposed, along with his colleague Bill Chase, the Theory of Skilled memory to explain it. His work built from there into a study of the relationship between expert performance and deliberate practice in musicians, and then to professional development in exceptionally skilled professions such as surgeons.</p> <p>We certainly aren't born knowing how to perform surgery. If we can be taught to do something so complex with a life hanging in the balance, certainly we can learn to do something as simple as finding someone who needs our expertise and convincing them to give us a chance.</p> <p>The question is, what are the skills of the salesperson? Whether we seek mastery, or simple competence, we must identify individual skills and structure deliberate practice to develop them.</p> <h2 id="salescompetenciesexpertperformanceinthefieldofsales">Sales competencies, expert performance in the field of sales</h2> <p>There is debate on whether or not the ability to sell is innate or learned. Some people who do not identify as natural salespeople have learned to sell and say of course you can learn it, and others have watched aspiring salespeople struggle and opined that they lack some essential capability to excel.</p> <p>In my research so far <a href="http://www.omghub.com/salesdevelopmentblog?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Dave Kurlan</a> and the Objective Management Group (<a href="http://www.objectivemanagement.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">OMG</a>) has the most data driven perspective on what makes a top salesperson. They have developed a theory of <a href="http://stats.objectivemanagement.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">21 core competencies</a> through their assessment and analysis of well over 1 Million salespeople. Through their research they have a better than good idea of what it takes to perform at the <strong>highest</strong> levels of the sales profession.</p> <p>Within their 21 core competencies they have identified 6 key traits that they call Sales DNA. Sales DNA are raw abilities and personality traits that are found in exceptional salespeople. As much as drive and determination matter they suggest that people lacking the proper Sales DNA are going to struggle to perform at the highest levels in the sales profession.</p> <p>Their Sales DNA traits are:</p> <ol> <li>Not needing approval</li> <li>Control of emotions</li> <li>Belief they can sell</li> <li>Helpful expectations about buying</li> <li>Comfort talking about money</li> <li>Handling rejection well</li> </ol> <p>On a first look these don't seem at all like skills. They seem like social gifts possessed by relatively few people, but let's think about this in a broader perspective of learning and skill development.</p> <h2 id="learningandskilldevelopmentinsales">Learning and skill development in sales</h2> <p>It is clear that some kids possess certain social abilities at an early age and use them to get what they want from parents, teachers, and other kids. Think back to someone you knew as a child that had these gifts. Now compare their ability as a child to their ability as a young adult. Did they improve over time? I'd just about guarantee that they did, in fact I would suggest that looking back to their amateur manipulations as a child you might find it funny that anybody ever fell for it.</p> <p>From our own experiences (and maybe the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Theory of Multiple Intelligences</a>) we can see that some start life with greater abilities in one area or another. Praise for such a natural ability early in childhood can lead to years of practice on skills that use that singular natural ability. Whether we had a great ability to read someones emotional state early on or not, most people will develop the skill to do it before long and with <em>deliberate practice</em> can become exceptional. Heck, I didn't learn calculus in elementary school but I was pretty good at it by the end of college.</p> <p>I'll admit, I need to do more research on this topic, but if people who are gifted in early childhood can become better over time, than why not everyone else?</p> <h2 id="goodenoughsellingasafreelancebusinessowner">Good enough, selling as a freelance business owner</h2> <p>More than the possibility to improve our Sales DNA, I think the important thing for us to remember is that we are NOT all trying to be professional salespeople operating at the highest levels of sales performance. We do not need to close multiple million dollar deals every quarter to be successful as freelance business owners or solo-entrepreneurs.</p> <p>If it takes 800 attempts to land your first customer it will matter very little in the end because most of your business will come from referrals by happy customers. Learning the core sales skills that are most teachable combined with determination to build your business, that is good enough to be an <strong>effective</strong> salesperson.</p> <hr class="footnotes-sep"> <section class="footnotes"> <ol class="footnotes-list"> <li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Gladwell's purpose is to inform and entertain and he is great at it, Colvin is more focused and drives home the message that it is <em>deliberate practice</em> that makes the difference in the acquisition of exceptional skill. <a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p> </li> </ol> </section> <!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What is prospecting]]></title><description><![CDATA[Prospecting is an ongoing process. Even after you have built a good reputation and have solid referrals coming in, you will still need to qualify those leads to be sure they are prospects, and to focus your energy on good prospects.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/what-is-prospecting/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b25</guid><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 12 Sep 2018 16:29:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://res.cloudinary.com/dt21joeko/image/upload/matt-seymour-455231-unsplash-c1920w.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="prospectingisthefirststageinthesalesprocess">Prospecting is the first stage in the sales process</h1> <img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dt21joeko/image/upload/matt-seymour-455231-unsplash-c1920w.jpg" alt="What is prospecting"/><p>Prospecting, is the often lamented first of the traditional seven stages of the sales process<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. Generally speaking, it is all about finding new potential customers, but you probably already suspected that. Let's get specific about prospecting.</p> <ol> <li><strong>Prospecting</strong> <- You are here</li> <li>Preapproach</li> <li>Approach</li> <li>Presentation</li> <li>Overcoming objections</li> <li>Closing</li> <li>Follow-up</li> </ol> <h1 id="prospectingproducesprospects">Prospecting produces prospects</h1> <p>Prospecting produces prospects from leads.</p> <p>During prospecting we gather evidence to determine which of the leads are actual, qualified, prospects and which are just suspects<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="#fn2" id="fnref2">[2]</a></sup>.</p> <p>If you are familiar with the conversion funnel, Prospects are the second stage the individual goes through on their way to being a Customer.</p> <p>Leads -> <strong>Prospects</strong> -> Opportunities -> Customers</p> <p>Looking at how the seven stages of the sales process maps to conversions may help you understand how everything fits together. We have Leads becoming prospects and prospects becoming opportunities in stage 1, opportunities enter stage 2, customers come out of stage 6, and more leads (referrals) come out of stage 7.</p> <h2 id="aprospectmeetsfourcriteria">A prospect meets four criteria</h2> <p>A prospect is a lead that meets several criteria. A prospect has:</p> <ul> <li>need</li> <li>budget</li> <li>authority</li> <li>intention</li> </ul> <p>A prospect fits the profile of your ideal customer, they have a need for your product, they have the ability to pay for it, and they have the authority to make the buying decision.</p> <p>A <em>good</em> prospect has the need, budget, and authority to buy, and has the intention to buy <em>soon</em>. A great prospect is not simply looking to buy soon, but has an urgency that the average prospect does not.</p> <h1 id="threethingsyouneedtoknowbeforeyoustartprospecting">Three things you need to know before you start prospecting</h1> <p>First, you need to know your product or service. You should be fluent in all its features and benefits and ready to answer questions.</p> <p>Second, you need to know the problem your product or service solves for the customer. This is different than features and benefits, which are details of how it works, the problem you solve for a customer is a specific issue they have that motivates them to look for a solution. You will find that different customers have a variety of problems that are all solved by what you are selling.</p> <p>Third, you need to know why people buy your product or service rather than one of their other options. For all its advantages and disadvantages there is something that stands out for certain people, satisfies their need on a deeper level. Understand what that thing is and you will be in a much better position to identify good prospects among the sea of suspects and so-so prospects.</p> <p>Knowing these three things will position you to know who your ideal customer is, both as a company and as an individual decision maker.</p> <h1 id="prospectingisanongoingprocess">Prospecting is an ongoing process.</h1> <p>Even after you have built a good reputation and have solid referrals coming in, you will still need to qualify those leads to be sure they are prospects, and to focus your energy on good prospects.</p> <p>It can be tedious and difficult, but it will work if you keep at it and stay positive. Know that not every qualified prospect is ready to buy right now, take the long view, be persistent and you'll convert those prospects to customers eventually.</p> <hr class="footnotes-sep"> <section class="footnotes"> <ol class="footnotes-list"> <li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p>Moncrief, W. C., & Marshall, G. W. (2005). The evolution of the seven steps of selling. <em>Industrial Marketing Management</em>, 34(1), 13-22. <a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p> </li> <li id="fn2" class="footnote-item"><p>Sometimes you will hear leads called <em>suspects</em> because the bulk of leads are just suspected to fit your customer profile. <a href="#fnref2" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p> </li> </ol> </section> <!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to get a list of potential customers]]></title><description><![CDATA[If you have exhausted your personal network and are still looking for clients to fill your day this is the article for you.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/how-to-get-a-lead-list/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b24</guid><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 20 Aug 2018 18:46:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528911104572-560677f3996b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=514f02ed02358daecdd37a4af87c9969" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="whattodowhenyouhaverunoutofleads">What to do when you have run out of leads</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528911104572-560677f3996b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=514f02ed02358daecdd37a4af87c9969" alt="How to get a list of potential customers"/><p>Starting a business means getting customers. Your first customers are probably people you already know, friends, family, and old co-workers, you will approach them all looking for work and referrals. Hopefully, this outreach to your personal network will provide you with your first few customers, maybe even get you to full-time, but what if it doesn't?</p> <p>If you have exhausted your personal network and are still looking for clients to fill your day this is the article for you.</p> <h2 id="wheredoyoufindleads">Where do you find leads?</h2> <p>If you have given your pitch to everyone you know and you are still looking for customers you'll need to expand your search. There are plenty of options, inbound marketing, networking, speaking engagements, they all have their place, but for just starting out I think you will find that they are a little too slow, you're a go-getter and want to take control of your destiny afterall.</p> <p>The direction I'm suggesting is cold outreach, its a tough route but it is effective. If you aren't convinced of the effectiveness of cold emailing I'll have another article for you soon, for now trust me and read on.</p> <p>What you need to get started with cold outreach is a list of contacts at companies in your target market. This is a list of companies that based on what you know about their business you have a reason to believe that they need your service, a.k.a a lead list.</p> <p>You can build a list like this yourself using Google, it is time consuming but the information you are looking for is out there. Assuming you don't hate yourself enough to spend hours manually scrubbing through internet search results you'll want a faster way to get the list you need.</p> <p>Fortunately, for those who love themselves enough to respect their own time there are multiple companies that exist to provide you with lists of leads. These web services provide a way to search for leads that fit the profile of your target customer. I've compiled a list of some of these services that I have tried and I will share my experiences. There are other tools available, this list isn't exhaustive, the main criteria for inclusion in my list is that they offer a somewhat obvious free trial that doesn't require credit card information.</p> <p>Our candidates:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.salesgenie.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Salesgenie</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.limeleads.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">LimeLeads</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.leadfuze.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">LeadFuze</a></li> <li><a href="https://headreach.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">headreach</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.salesripe.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">SalesRipe</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="evaluationmethod">Evaluation method</h2> <p>Here's what we are doing. I'm going to define a target market/customer and build a list based on my criteria with each of these services.</p> <h3 id="targetmarketandcustomerprofile">Target Market and Customer Profile</h3> <p>I freelance as a data scientist and product manager, these are business-to-business (B2B) services so I'll be building a list of businesses.</p> <p>What's the profile? Defining your ideal customer profile is a bit of a creative activity at first, as we get more customers and complete more projects we will develop a better idea of the ideal customer profile. For now I will start with a few basic criteria.</p> <p>Customer profile:</p> <ul> <li>Located in the greater Twin Cities Metro, because I would like to be able to meet my customers in person.</li> <li>Big enough that they can afford my fee, let's say at least $5M in revenue.</li> <li>Small enough that they make quick decisions, no more than $20M in revenue</li> <li>Between 10 and 200 employees, a small business.</li> </ul> <p>We could focus our search within a specific industry as well. I don't really have an industry focus at this time for my freelancing, but I will use the industy filters for the sake of making complete evaluation.</p> <h3 id="filterbyindustrynaicscodes">Filter by Industry, NAICS Codes</h3> <p>The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is a classification system developed by the US federal government in cooperation with the governments of Canada and Mexico for use in collecting, analyzing and publishing data about businesses in North America. Every business falls into one or more of these categories. For instance the code for ECommerce (officially Electronic Shopping)is 454111, and the code for vending machine operators is 454210.</p> <p>Here are a few examples of NAICS Industry codes:</p> <ul> <li>541613 - Marketing Consulting Services</li> <li>454111 - Electronic Shopping (8 digit is 45411001)</li> <li>454210 - Vending Machine Operators</li> <li>518210 - Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services</li> <li>541713 - Research and Development in Nanotechnology</li> </ul> <p>The were pretty thorough when they came up with this system, as you can see.</p> <h2 id="theproducts">The products</h2> <h3 id="salesgenie">Salesgenie</h3> <p>Salesgenie is a product of Infogroup, a provider of marketing data established in 1972. It provides a web interface to their databases. They cover over 25 million US businesses, and over 245 million US consumers. The tool allows you to filter these massive lists down to a reasonable number of leads that match your customer profile.</p> <p>They offer a 3 day free trial with 150 credits, one credit gets you one contact record.</p> <p>I built a search up from their filters based on my customer profile and it returned 5,696 records. I can only download 150 with the free trial so to narrow down my list I played with some of the other filters.</p> <p>Adding NAICS 454210 (Vending Machine Operators) to my filter set limits the results to 5, smaller than I would like but isn't it fascinating how specific you can be!</p> <p>To be included in the results a contact only has to match one of the industry codes in your filter. Adding a few more codes (541613, 454111, 454210, 518210, 541713) to my filter set I get 159 records, and can further reduce that by searching only for a primary NAICS match.</p> <p>Choose wisely.</p> <p>Based on my limited evaluation Salesgenie seems to have the best database, they work hard to make the data complete and correct. The user interface is a little dated, by todays standards it is kind of clunky but it is effective. They have monthly and a la carte packages for getting lead data.</p> <h3 id="leadfuze">LeadFuze</h3> <p>LeadFuze has a smaller trial offering, you can search/filter and get contact information on 25 leads.</p> <p>LeadFuze has a really nice interface, it is a fully modern web application. For example, it makes smart suggestions for job titles to search for and gives you the ability to fine tune your results by including or excluding terms.</p> <p>Overall, it didn't provide as much in the way of filtering capabilities as Salesgenie. You can filter by geography, industry, and number of employees, but that appears to be the limit of their firmographic filtering. The industry filter was not as detailed as the full NAICS filtering in some other products.</p> <p>You can create multiple lists of leads. This is nice feature to organize your search by company size, geography, etc. It also allows you to make a saved search and it will keep adding leads to your list, they call this feature Fuzebot.</p> <p>You can filter specific contacts by title and keyword. It is important to talk to the right people.</p> <p>It doesn't allow you to export leads as part of the trial, but you can view the contact info in your saved list.</p> <p>They only offer monthly and annual subscriptions, I have to give them credit for transparent pricing, but it is more leads than I need and more than I would like to pay.</p> <h3 id="headreach">Headreach</h3> <p>Headreach is another with a smaller trial. They allow you to build a list of 10 contacts. Their product appears to be focused on finding contact information for people at companies you already know you want to reach. The advanced search screen does allow to filter by industry and location.</p> <p>The user interface is not as easy to use as LeadFuze. I got annoyed having to manually type in lists of job titles I wanted in the result set. I'd say the UX is better in some aspects than SalesGenie, but it is not as complete.</p> <p>There is no indication in the search result list about how many results there are, and it is not easy to scroll through the results.</p> <p>The database isn't as complete as others either. Searching for title and industry can return zero results with frustrating frequency.</p> <p>The quality of the contact information doesn't look as good as Salesgenie or LeadFuze. Few results for many searches, and the results it does return often don't have email addresses, just links to the person's LinkedIn account. In my sample of search results I selected 10 contacts, of the 10 only 2 had emails associated, one email was flagged by headreach as invalid and the other as "Risky".</p> <p>It doesn't remember my search settings if I navigate to a different page on the site, that's kind of annoying. It does remember the searches though, it has a search log that you can look back in which is handy.</p> <p>Overall an ok application UI, but the database is limited and the data quality is poor. It was one of the least expensive options at the time I looked, but in my opinion it is still too expensive for what it gets you.</p> <h3 id="limeleads">LimeLeads</h3> <p>LimeLeads gives one of the larger free trials with 100 credits. It has a high quality, broad database, and a good UI.</p> <p>I really enjoyed their filtering capability. It live updates as you choose to include or exclude terms so you know how many contacts and how many companies it covers (many companies have more than one contact in the database).</p> <p>It includes the ability to filter by location, size, revenue, industry, job title, company name, and you can include or exclude terms to zero in on the contacts your interested in.</p> <p>They had one of the best export features of the tools I tried. It offers the ability to select which fields will be included and (really nice) you can select to include only one contact per company and you can place a limit on the total number of contacts exported.</p> <p>They have transparent pricing, offer subscription and a la carte packages, and the pricing was reasonable (IMO).</p> <p>Working with LimeLeads was easy, pleasurable even.</p> <h3 id="salesripe">SalesRipe</h3> <p>SalesRipe offers one of the smaller free trials, only 10 contacts. The data quality seems good, and the interface is ok. It isn't quite as nice as most but I like the UX more than Salesgenie.</p> <p>It feels a little slow, certainly compared to LimeLeads which was pretty snappy. Could be the time or place I was trying it from.</p> <p>The filtering interface was just a bit clumsy, it wasn't quick and easy to adjust. It works and if you aren't sure where to start it is nice in that it walks you through each category to build your filter. It wasn't easy (possible?) to add exclusions for unwanted companies or job titles.</p> <p>The export process was a bit tiresome, but at least it allows downloads of contact data during the trial.</p> <h2 id="summary">Summary</h2> <p>In total I downloaded 252 leads between all the services, well I had to copy/paste and clean the 18 I got from LeadFuze because they don't provide export ability during their trial, and I gave up on headreach.</p> <ul> <li>Salesgenie 133</li> <li>LeadFuze 18</li> <li>LimeLeads 91</li> <li>SalesRipe 10</li> </ul> <p>I need to check for duplicates because we were searching the same metro area for all services with similar filtering. I'd expect a good amount of overlap.</p> <p>The question now is how good are the leads? These are absolutely cold leads, no indication from them that they are actively looking for my services. We find out how effective this type of list can be in the sequel where we start cold emailing.</p> <p>I think 1-3 customers out of the whole list would be pretty normal for this type of cold list, if we got 10-25 I think that would be remarkably good.</p> <p>The point is that getting your first few customers is hard, but once you have a happy customer you can expect more work from them, and referrals.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Breadth or depth? How to know you are ready to specialize]]></title><description><![CDATA[Problems can arise in choosing too soon, with too little experience in your field, or defining it too narrowly for instance. However, the key to reaping the advantages of specializing is not simply in the choice, it is in bringing focus to your sales and marketing efforts.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/breadth-or-depth-how-to-know-you-are-ready-to-specialize/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b23</guid><category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 24 Jul 2018 13:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528044166082-4159f1209b3a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=95a9b244c807bedbe61cc198a36d1e7b" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="howtoknowifyouhavespecializedtoosoonortoomuch">How to know if you have specialized too soon, or too much</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1528044166082-4159f1209b3a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=95a9b244c807bedbe61cc198a36d1e7b" alt="Breadth or depth? How to know you are ready to specialize"/><p>Among the advice most frequently given to freelancers is the encouragement to find a specialty. In a broad sense this advice is solid, but in specific cases it can go awry. Problems can arise in choosing too soon, with too little experience in your field, or defining it too narrowly for instance. However, the key to reaping the advantages of specializing is not simply in the choice, it is in bringing focus to your sales and marketing efforts.</p> <h2 id="theprosandconsofspecialization">The pros and cons of specialization</h2> <p>I'm going to take what is a potentially controversial approach and come out strongly against premature specialization.</p> <p>If you don't have professional experience, you're just starting and looking for your first customers, stay in your field, but other than that try to stay a little broad. After you've worked with a few customers and a variety of projects you'll begin to understand the field better and then its a good time to find your specialty.</p> <p>Choosing a specialty is a strategic decision with long-term implications. Staying broad allows you to work, make connections, gather referrals and customer testimonials. All good things. Being strategically broad for a short time when you start your business does not mean you go into a sales call pitching wildly all the different services you can perform. Your sales pitch needs to be focused on the <em>problem</em> the customer is trying to solve and you <strong>must</strong> know what that is before you start pitching your services. Nobody will hire you for anything if you drown them in a torrent of services.</p> <p><strong>Be specialized in your pitch, even (or especially) if you are currently generalized in your practice.</strong></p> <p>With that said, let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of specializing.</p> <h3 id="infavorofspecializing">In favor of specializing</h3> <ul> <li>Easier sales, prospects respect experts</li> <li>Focus your prospecting/marketing, get more of the right leads</li> <li>Higher rates, customers pay for expertise</li> <li>Lower costs, work more efficiently due to domain knowledge</li> </ul> <h3 id="againstspecializing">Against specializing</h3> <p>You lack the expertise to credibly sell yourself as a specialist. Ok, that isn't exactly a disadvantage of specialization but more of a challenge to overcome.</p> <p>Assuming you have done your homework to pick a reasonably in demand specialty here are some disadvantages to being a specialist:</p> <ul> <li>Fewer potential customers</li> <li>Fewer potential projects</li> <li>Customers might not even know they need your specialty</li> <li>Unpredictable dry spells</li> <li>Things change, skills can become obsolete</li> </ul> <h3 id="selectedreading">Selected reading</h3> <p>Here's an article with some good general advice on how to pick your <a href="https://medium.com/workroll/how-to-pick-your-freelancing-niche-1cd46f22d559?ref=ghost.impelid.com">niche.</a></p> <p>So many writers, but a few other types of freelancer as well in this list of <a href="https://myadaptablecareer.com/16-top-freelancers-tell-found-niche?ref=ghost.impelid.com">16 freelancers</a> sharing how they found their niche.</p> <p>Understand yourself before you choose your <a href="https://millo.co/how-i-found-my-freelance-niche-and-tips-to-finding-yours?ref=ghost.impelid.com">specialty</a> you have to try a few things before you find what excites you. They recommend getting a job first before you start freelancing, not always an option.</p> <p>Coming out strongly in favor of <a href="https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2014/04/10/why-freelancer-should-specialize-not-generalize/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">specializing</a> at the Freelancers Union, and also the counterpoint arguing to <a href="https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2016/03/10/diversify-your-skill-set-or-focus-your-niche-how-find-balance-suits-you/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">diversify your skillset and find balance.</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.flauntmydesign.com/to-specialize-or-not-to-specialize?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Pros and cons of specialization</a>, a few <a href="http://freelancefolder.com/freelance-specialization/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">more cons</a>, and <a href="http://freelancefolder.com/when-should-you-specialize-your-freelancing-business/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">a balanced take.</a></p> <h2 id="takingactionstrategiesfornewfreelancers">Taking action, strategies for new freelancers</h2> <ul> <li>Get a mentor</li> <li>Try a few things</li> <li>Gather data</li> <li>Make an informed decision</li> </ul> <p>There are many good reasons to focus your business on one specialty. There is a catch though, you can't credibly call yourself a specialist in something you've never done before. Such is the difficulty we face in starting a new business.</p> <p><strong>If you have had the opportunity to work in an area before starting to freelance that's great, problem solved.</strong></p> <p>Having a traditional job in your field before going out on your own is a huge advantage. You probably had a chance to work in a variety of related specialties and have a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses and what you like and don't like. In that case you pick an area that you like and are good at to specialize in and go full speed ahead to find customers.</p> <p>If you haven't had the opportunity to work professionally in your field, if you are freelancing to get experience and build your reputation it might be too soon to specialize. I'm not saying don't ever specialize, just give yourself a chance to explore a little first. Every field has a set of core skills that will improve as you practice, and you don't need to have all of that practice in a specialty to benefit.</p> <p><strong>It is the more advanced skills and knowledge, the ones that are only really relevant to a specific area that require practice within the specialty to acquire and perfect.</strong></p> <p>How do you acquire practice in a specialty if nobody is hiring you to work in it? Personal projects, offering discounts, friends and family, and finding entry level projects.</p> <p>It may be hard to find entry level projects when you first start in a specialty because you aren't an expert yet and do not know what an entry level project even looks like. <strong>Find a mentor!</strong></p> <h3 id="evaluatingaspecialty">Evaluating a specialty</h3> <p>In every field one could work in there is a hard truth to face. Some areas pay well, some poorly. Some are in demand and some are not. This is basic microeconomics, supply and demand. If the number of people that want to do the work exceeds the amount of work, the price will fall and it doesn't matter how hard the work is or the level of qualifications needed.</p> <p>So what's an entrepreneur to do? Before choosing a specialty do your homework, take the time to make a list of the potential customers and market rate for the work.</p> <ul> <li>Can you make a list of 100 potential customers?</li> <li>How about 1000?</li> <li>Is the rate attractive?</li> </ul> <p>Only you can say if the rate is good enough, but make an informed decision here.</p> <p>If you can't find at least 100 potential customers you are in great danger of not being able to find enough work, and you may need many more than that to make a living depending on the rate and length of projects. The math is simple, if 1% of the potential market hires you and the average length of a project is (for example) 1 month, a list of 100 potential customers is just not enough to make a living. (If your rate is high enough to make that untrue please tell us what you do!)</p> <p>If you are really good, you could very well get more than 1% of that prospect list, but as a newcomer to the field it will require some time to build your knowledge, skill, and reputation.</p> <p>That's all for now, hit us with your questions in the comments!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Prioritize your marketing with these Easy Marketing Tips]]></title><description><![CDATA[It's easy to say "Easy Marketing Tips," but here's the reality: marketing is challenging when you're the CEO, CFO, and CMO. There's so much to tackle, and there's so much competing advice out there, where should you start? Here are four tips that will help prioritize your business's marketing needs.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/easy-marketing-tips/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b22</guid><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[J. Annie Wang]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2018 20:44:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1421840809797-7b1e0e159af2?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=bd81a10b3f01aa5791af107a535c03a5" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1421840809797-7b1e0e159af2?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=bd81a10b3f01aa5791af107a535c03a5" alt="Prioritize your marketing with these Easy Marketing Tips"/><p>It's easy to say "Easy Marketing Tips," but here's the reality: marketing is challenging when you're the CEO, CFO, and CMO. There's so much to tackle, and there's so much competing advice out there, where should you start? Here are four tips that will help prioritize your business's marketing needs.</p> <ol> <li>Does your <a href="https://blog.impelid.com/2018/05/22/first-steps-to-marketing-your-business?ref=ghost.impelid.com">website</a> work? Even if your website is incredibly simple -- just a link to your CV or gallery -- it can provide a lot of insight and ideas on how to attract more customers. One client of mine saw a lot of traffic coming in from local newspaper sources rather than social media, so when we successfully pitched an article idea about him, a lot of traffic and new business came in! To be able to do this successfully, an analytics tool is essential and should be integrated into your website. The best part? You can get this tool for free: <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008015?hl=en&ref=ghost.impelid.com">Google Analytics</a>.</li> <li>My motto is "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Why? We feel compelled to have a presence in all of these social media platforms, but it doesn't mean that it's right for your business needs. How would you find the right kind of platform? If you already have an account in most of the major social media platforms, don't entertain the ones that your audience are not on. For designers and photographers, Instagram is a great way to show your work visually, and Facebook is a great way to encourage social sharing of your work. But YouTube and G+? That's just unnecessary.</li> <li>Anything and everything related to your business that is external facing should have consistent branding. Consistency, especially visual consistency, helps make your products and services more memorable and it will attract a more consistent stream of followers. No, you don't need to watermark every photo you put out on Instagram -- what I mean is that you must use your logo as the profile picture on social media, and not a picture of your dog even though he or she is adorable. Little details add up, especially if your work and profiles are publicly visible.</li> <li>Do you have business cards? Even if you're an introvert, you'll never know who you'll meet. From networking meetings to lines at the grocery store, every day is an opportunity to talk about your business and what you can bring. However, remember that "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" -- it's essential to read one's interest rather than aggressively and straightforwardly selling your business.</li> </ol> <p>Do you have an essential marketing tip you'd like to share? Comment below!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Hack Your Habits]]></title><description><![CDATA[I will introduce you to the anatomy of a habit and I will discuss how you can use your new-found understanding of habits to hack your habits.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/how-to-hack-your-habits/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b21</guid><category><![CDATA[Habits]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2018 21:45:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465658428880-830aab5e4e30?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=b1652a4a6785f2bfdc953250c02f708e" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1465658428880-830aab5e4e30?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=b1652a4a6785f2bfdc953250c02f708e" alt="How to Hack Your Habits"/><p>In a <a href="https://blog.impelid.com/2018/06/21/beliefs-and-habits-prelude/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">previous post</a>, I talked about how limiting beliefs and bad habits can hold you back from freelancing success.</p> <p>In today's post, I will introduce you to the anatomy of a habit--that is how habits actually work, and I will discuss how you can use your new-found understanding of habits to hack your habits and change your life.</p> <h3 id="theanatomyofahabit">The Anatomy of a Habit</h3> <p>Charles Duhigg's excellent book, The Power of Habit, boils a habit down to a simple 3-step process: Cue-Routine-Reward. The cue triggers the performance of the routine and the resulting reward reinforces the behavior, thus creating a Habit Loop.</p> <p>Over time, repeated performance of the Habit Loop leads to the creation of powerful cravings associated with the Reward, so that the habit becomes essentially hardwired in the brain.</p> <p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dt21joeko/image/upload/Slide11-300x225.jpg" alt="How to Hack Your Habits" loading="lazy"/></p> <p><strong>Let's see how this works in practice...</strong></p> <p>One of my own bad habits is procrastination. I have discovered that when I feel anxiety brought on by uncertainty about how to proceed on a certain task, I will procrastinate by reading the news. The reward I obtain by performing my news-reading routine is a temporary distraction from my anxiety.</p> <p>The problem with the procrastination habit is that procrastination does not relieve the underlying anxiety, it only distracts from it. When tasks are left undone, a sense of guilt then ensues, which further amplifies the craving for distraction. The procrastination habit has held me back for a long time and I would love to rid myself of it.</p> <p><strong>So, the question is...</strong></p> <h3 id="howcanweridourselvesofbadhabits">How can we rid ourselves of bad habits?</h3> <p>It turns out (again as detailed in The Power of Habit) that you can't actually get rid of a bad habit--but you can change it to a good habit. To transform a habit, the cue and reward of the Cue-Routine-Reward Habit Loop will remain unchanged, but the routine performed gets replaced.</p> <p>To change my procrastination habit, I am going to try to replace my news-reading routine with a planning routine. When I feel uncertainty about how to proceed on a task (the cue), I will relieve my anxiety (the reward) by coming up with a plan to move forward (new routine). Instead of merely distracting myself from my anxiety, planning will actually relieve the anxiety by providing a greater sense of clarity about next steps.</p> <h3 id="awordofencouragement">A word of Encouragement</h3> <p>We all have bad habits we've developed over the course of our lives. It's a very human characteristic, so don't beat yourself up about it. Instead, identify how you can change your habits to healthier habits and come up with a plan to do it.</p> <p>I'll let you know how my habit transformation journey goes! In the comments below, how about letting us know what kind of habits you would like to change?</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fashion disasters and guidelines for the solopreneur]]></title><description><![CDATA[How we dress is so much more casual today than it was in the past. For many people jeans and a t-shirt are perfectly acceptable options for the workplace. ]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/fashion-disasters-and-guidelines-for-the-solopreneur/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b20</guid><category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 27 Jun 2018 19:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508066001146-cd53910a8f20?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=404b5cb02b42906a6b395ea21ca9f2fe" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="dressingthepart">Dressing the part</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1508066001146-cd53910a8f20?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=404b5cb02b42906a6b395ea21ca9f2fe" alt="Fashion disasters and guidelines for the solopreneur"/><p>How we dress is so much more casual today than it was in the past. For many people jeans and a t-shirt are perfectly acceptable options for the workplace.</p> <p>However, it isn't always the case, especially when you are meeting with a customer.</p> <p>Why is that? How did a dress code even develop? I don't know how but I do know that it goes far back in history, remember the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toga?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Toga</a> was symbolic of Roman citizenship and members of the Roman Senate wore special Togas to distinguish themselves from the mere citizens. In fact, non-citizens were barred from wearing them at all.</p> <p>More recently in western civilization there are fewer outright restrictions on wearing the garments of the upper crust. In fact, formal dress has often been required in a business setting. The rules are fluid and we have largely (though not exclusively) opted for a more casual approach to office dress these days.</p> <p>So why wear anything beyond business casual? That depends on the situation, really. The only hard rule here is to make it work for you and your client. Use your clothing to help communicate your message, and be intentional.</p> <p>What does it tell your customer if you are wearing cutoff <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/mrloganrhoades/dear-men-you-seriously-need-to-stop-wearing-jorts?ref=ghost.impelid.com">jorts</a> and a hoodie?</p> <p>Why would you wear a suit? Pant suit, skirt suit, kilt suit? In some situations nothing beats the smart look of a well tailored suit, but try not to accidentally match the groom...</p> <p>Does it make your prospect comfortable, make them see you as "one of us"? Or is it bonding over shared misery?</p> <p>Often what we are wearing has more implied significance to the observer than was intended. You wore it because you liked it, but the human brain is busy looking for patterns and attempting to explain them. Dress codes simplified things in a way, if we followed along we had less to be concerned with in how others interpreted our clothing choices.</p> <p>I tend to dress up a little from the average. I'm generally not trying to make a statement about anything, I just prefer how I look in a long-sleeved collared shirt. Pair that with some chinos and your engineering co-workers will be certain that you have a job interview or funeral to attend that day (I learned accidentally).</p> <h2 id="whatisafreelancertodo">What is a freelancer to do?</h2> <p>As a solo-entrepreneur working out of your home office anything goes, as long as your cat is ok with it. Something covering your lower half is mandatory at the coffee shop (no matter how much you hate pants). Outside of that, use your judgment, <strong>or share your question below and we'll find someone to help</strong>.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Free Digital Marketing Tools]]></title><description><![CDATA[These digital marketing tools will make you feel like you have your own social media team, marketing team, and communication team. The basic versions of these tools are free to use, and it'll undoubtedly make your Work Life easier!]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/free-digital-marketing-tools/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b1f</guid><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[J. Annie Wang]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2018 22:39:20 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487516473436-431c2bdcdbe4?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=87c0c4363390647a093cc0fad35e8339" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487516473436-431c2bdcdbe4?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=87c0c4363390647a093cc0fad35e8339" alt="Free Digital Marketing Tools"/><p>These digital marketing tools will make you feel like you have your own social media team, marketing team, and communication team. The basic versions of these tools are free to use, and it'll undoubtedly make your Work Life easier!</p> <p><em>This post is not sponsored in anyway and we did not receive any compensation for this post.</em></p> <ol> <li><a href="http://grammarly.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Grammarly</a>. I know you can use Word or another similar word pressing software but the grammar and punctuation power this tool has to offer is smart and efficient. It WILL catch errors that Word will not. You can also download the tool onto our desktop and browser so that you won't send another embarrassing email again.</li> <li><a href="https://hootsuite.com/plans/free?ref=ghost.impelid.com#">HootSuite</a>. Instead of logging into various accounts to post and monitor your social media accounts, you should be doing it all in one place. The calendar within the software will encourage you to plan ahead of time as well, so you're not scrambling to post something to Facebook just because you haven't done it in awhile. For the free version, you can have up to three social media accounts. You'll have to upgrade your account if you want more -- for a majority of small businesses and solopreneurs, this will do just fine.</li> <li><a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1008015?hl=en&ref=ghost.impelid.com">Google Analytics</a>. If you haven't been measuring and tracking your website visitors' activities, well, why haven't you? Understanding website traffic will help you create more website content that people care about, which will help you prioritize and focus on the things that matter.</li> <li><a href="https://seositecheckup.com/tools?ref=ghost.impelid.com">SEO Toolbox</a>. To give your site more search engine visibility, the free tools from SEO Toolbox helps you check the SEO health of your website by testing broken links and making sure your website pages are properly tagged.</li> </ol> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Are your beliefs and habits holding you back from freelancing success?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Be great in your core services and you will have happy customers and referrals for new business. Neglect your chores and watch the wheels will come off. What is it that holds us back from doing what needs to be done?]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/beliefs-and-habits-prelude/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b1d</guid><category><![CDATA[Habits]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:05:50 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489157133503-78f2a7b6808e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=812ba38db19557d0854984fa4c61de03" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489157133503-78f2a7b6808e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=812ba38db19557d0854984fa4c61de03" alt="Are your beliefs and habits holding you back from freelancing success?"/><p>One of the biggest shifts that takes place when transitioning from being an employee to being a freelancer is that you transition from being reliant on others to being reliant on yourself. As an employee, you are one part of a larger system, which enables you to focus within your area of concern and trust that others will handle theirs.</p> <p><strong>As an employee in a company, whatever competency you lack is made up for by others who are great at it.</strong></p> <p>It is a natural human tendency that we want to focus our time and energy on the things we are good at and care about. I mean, that’s why we got into our business in the first place, right? People who need the services that we offer will pay us for those services. That’s the fundamental nature of business.</p> <p><strong>As a freelancer you can't afford to neglect any part of your business.</strong></p> <p>Be great in your core services and you will have happy customers and referrals for new business. Neglect your chores and watch the wheels come off. Things like bookkeeping and marketing may not be your jam, but are still essential to operating a business.</p> <p><strong>So what is it that holds us back from doing what needs to be done in order to have a successful freelancing business?</strong></p> <p>For many of us, the problem is that we have limiting beliefs and bad habits that hold us back. Beliefs like "selling is sleazy" and habits like procrastination can keep us from achieving success. Some of these beliefs and habits may have even served us well at one point in our lives. What matters is if they limit our success now.</p> <p>In a future series of blog posts, I will discuss how to identify the bad habits and limiting beliefs that are holding you back, and introduce you to strategies you can use to change your behavior. In the comments below, how about letting us know what limiting beliefs and bad habits are affecting your business success?<sup class="footnote-ref"><a href="#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup></p> <hr class="footnotes-sep"> <section class="footnotes"> <ol class="footnotes-list"> <li id="fn1" class="footnote-item"><p><em>Help us help you! Let us know what questions you have and what issues you are struggling with in your business. We will do our best to answer your questions and provide insight to your business problems. We may even write a blog post that addresses your concerns so the whole community can benefit.</em> <a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-backref">↩︎</a></p> </li> </ol> </section> <!--kg-card-end: markdown--></hr>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Three steps to sales success]]></title><description><![CDATA[To be human is to sell, but most of us don't do it professionally. Here's how to get started selling your products and services as a new freelancer or solo-entrepreneur.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/three-steps-to-sales-success/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b1c</guid><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 19 Jun 2018 00:49:18 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1453806839674-d1a9087ca1ed?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ca6c8eb600c71995409f59452a44609f" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="yourfirststepstosalessuccess">Your first steps to sales success</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1453806839674-d1a9087ca1ed?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ca6c8eb600c71995409f59452a44609f" alt="Three steps to sales success"/><p>There are <em>heaps</em> of articles on the Internet on the subject of sales. Mountains of paper and ink have been dedicated to the subject because it is so foundational to a business operating in a market economy. However, most of what you find will be talking to a different audience. They are written for the professional salesperson or sales managers, generally people with professional sales experience in a team environment. You are looking for information relevant to selling as a freelancer or a solo business owner.</p> <p>There are still some good bits of information for you, the solo-entrepreneur, the freelancer, but allow me to distill it down to the good bits for a person in your shoes. We'll start here with a high level view to get started selling for your business.</p> <h2 id="1knowyourvalueproposition">1. Know your value proposition</h2> <p>The first step is simple, define what you are selling and who you want to sell it to. Hopefully it is something they want to buy, maybe you can find some evidence that they already buy similar products.</p> <p>You may come back to this step from time to time to refine your concept. Your understanding of the market and customers will change, and where you want to go in your career will change.</p> <p><strong>A value proposition is the promise of a benefit that will be received if they buy your product or service.</strong></p> <p>Your product may be graphic design services, but new art (generally) isn't the benefit they are looking to buy. Think about what it will do for their business and the problems it will solve for them. How will your service get them more customers and make their business more profitable.</p> <p>This is a critical step. Without a clear understanding of what you are selling, to who, and <strong>why</strong> they should buy, you will have great difficulty moving forward with your business. It is critical, but not difficult to get this understanding. Perhaps start out by identifying a few potential customers and ask them for an informational interview, not to sell them your services but just to ask them about the problems they have in relation to your product.</p> <h2 id="2masteryourproductknowledge">2. Master your product knowledge</h2> <p>Whether you are selling a "thing" or you are selling your own freelance services you need to know the details of what you are offering. Not only the details of your solution, you also need to learn what the competition is doing too.</p> <p>Here we are getting into the details of how your service will solve your customer's problem. Know the details of your product and your competition to help you effectively answer questions and handle objections to moving forward with the sale.</p> <p>As a service provider this might seem like an oh duh sort of step. After all, if they are hiring a writer the service is written words and they know what to expect. Right? Not entirely, you might be hired to write 500 words but you aren't going to write the same 500 words as the next writer, your process and interactions with the client are features of your product. How much you already know about the subject and how much research you will do have real impact on the quality of the finished product, and on your costs.</p> <p>Product knowledge is knowing how what you are selling solves the customer's problem. Knowing the details of how your product delivers the value proposition, that promised benefit, will help you speak fluently about your solution. Being an expert on your solution begins to establish you as an <a href="https://impelid.com/3-eye-catching-headlines-communicate-expertise/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Authority</a> in the field, and that builds trust which leads to sales.</p> <h2 id="3workasystem">3. Work a system</h2> <p>Formal processes are used by successful people in all professions, they ensure we know what to do next and avoid mistakes. There are many books and articles on the sales cycle and various sources will define the steps a little differently. The process is often defined in terms of how much evidence has been gathered with respect to the customer's interest and intent to buy.</p> <p>In four steps we can view the stages as Prospect->Lead->Opportunity->Customer, but I will break it down a little more mechanistically.</p> <ul> <li>Step one is discovery, where you identify potential customers.</li> <li>Step two is to reach out and contact them, also called prospecting. In this step your goal is to find out who is interested enough to set an appointment for a live conversation.</li> <li>Step three, the appointment. Your job here is to ask a few questions and <em>listen</em> closely.</li> <li>Step four is a conversation, building on what you learned about the customer's problems by listening you share how you can solve their problems. There is still a lot of listening at this stage as you go back and forth to better understand how your service is a solution for the customer.</li> <li>Step five is the close, once you have established that your service can solve a problem that they care about you have to ask for their business. Some might take the initiative after realizing they need you, but most will need you to make the next step clear. Don't lose sales through ambiguity, it isn't being pushy to simply tell them how you can move forward solving their problem!</li> </ul> <p>Finally, working a sales system means allocating time to each step, everyday. It is a process, over time it will result in plenty of new customers, but you have to put in the work consistently and conscientiously.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[3 eye-catching headlines that effectively communicate expertise]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this blog post, we will examine 3 headlines of published works and discuss how they portray Authority to grab the readers attention]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/3-eye-catching-headlines-communicate-expertise/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b1a</guid><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 14 Jun 2018 16:32:42 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499080863200-1f37ed9cb653?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=438002c280c22e6184339f147f17d702" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="establishyourselfasanauthorityinyourfieldandnevergohungryagain">Establish yourself as an Authority in your field and never go hungry again</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1499080863200-1f37ed9cb653?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=438002c280c22e6184339f147f17d702" alt="3 eye-catching headlines that effectively communicate expertise"/><p>A great way to attract clients is to position yourself as an Authority in your domain (Authority is one of the 6 social triggers discussed in a <a href="https://blog.impelid.com/2018/06/01/marketingblunder/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">previous</a> post). People want to follow a leader with Authority--not only is it deeply engrained human trait, but we are also socialized from a young age to listen to those in authority (e.g., our teachers). A good title is a remarkably effective way to convey Authority in your domain, whether it is used in a blog post or an email subject line.</p> <p>Fortunately, getting a client's attention is easier than it sounds. It doesn't require a lot of creativity, just a little understanding of the psychology of attention.</p> <h2 id="whatisauthority">What is Authority</h2> <p>The principal of Authority is the tendency to trust and follow people in positions of power. This innate drive could be explained by reasoning that this person has achieved their position of influence through some combination of talent and hard-earned experience. This effect then extends to expertise, in fact, it is practically synonymous as we view power being derived (at least in part) from relevant expertise.</p> <h2 id="howtocreateauthority">How to create Authority</h2> <p>Authority being derived from expertise means that nearly anyone can be an Authority on some specific thing. Step one is to know yourself and what subject you excel in. Step two is to let others know it (without coming off as a know-it-all). Step three is to expand your sphere of influence, keep learning and sharing your new expertise.</p> <p>That's it, three steps to become an Authority in your field. A moment to get started, and a whole career to grow!</p> <p>In this blog post, I will examine 3 headlines of published works and discuss why they are so effective <strong>and how you can tailor them to your audience</strong>.</p> <h3 id="howtowinfriendsandinfluencepeople">How to Win Friends and Influence People</h3> <h5 id="bookbydalecarnegie">-book by Dale Carnegie</h5> <p>Having sold over 30 million copies world-wide, Dale Carnegie's little self-help book is one of the best-selling books of all time. The book's enormous success is due, in part, to a great headline.</p> <p>"How to" headlines are great in that they imply expertise and position the author as an Authority on the subject. Ask yourself what you can tell your potential clients how to do. Nothing sells a service like having tried to do it yourself first, ask any plumber.</p> <h3 id="whateverybodyoughttoknowaboutthisstockandbondbusiness">What everybody ought to know...About This Stock And Bond Business</h3> <h5 id="merrilllynchadvertisementfrom19481965">-Merrill Lynch advertisement from 1948-1965</h5> <p>This was the headline for a newspaper advertisement that resulted in <em>millions</em> of leads for Merrill Lynch. The headline evokes the reader's curiosity. The reader wonders if he/she will learn something new and valuable, or if they have been making mistakes with their money.</p> <p>This type of headline again conveys Authority since the author is telling the reader about things they should know. Use this type of headline to talk about issues that are relevant to your market. It's a lot like school, we all want to know what's going to be on the test.</p> <h3 id="the7surprisingwaystoloseweightwithoutexercise">The 7 Surprising Ways To Lose Weight Without Exercise</h3> <h5 id="blogpostbyandreaatkinsathuffingtonpost">-blog post by Andrea Atkins at <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-7-surprising-ways-to-lose-weight-without-exercise_us_580f7698e4b02444efa56b2f?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Huffington Post</a></h5> <p>List articles are very effective and often shared on social media because they are compelling and succinct. The specificity provided in the headline (7 ways) is very compelling to readers and the fact that these ways are "surprising" further evokes feelings that the author knows something special.</p> <p>Be specific about your expertise and approach your writing with a beginners mindset. Before you were an expert what was surprising, exciting and challenging? Know your audience, <em>you</em> are the Authority and you are writing to the uninitiated.</p> <h2 id="finalwords">Final words</h2> <p>You don't have to be a creative genius to come up with headlines that are effective at getting your prospect's attention. Of course, the article you write should deliver on the promise made in the headline. Play around with the types of headings described in this article and see what works for you!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What if your contract is not renewed?]]></title><description><![CDATA[The end of a client relationship can happen for many reasons outside your control. How much of your revenue is that one client? If it is more than 20% you may be in for hard times ahead.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/what-if-your-contract-is-not-renewed/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b19</guid><category><![CDATA[Strategy]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 22:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518904868869-fbb2cdd0429a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ca0a0b3d47dff7f509077a8b99a5b180" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="losingacustomersucksdontletitturnintoatrauma">Losing a customer sucks, don't let it turn into a trauma</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1518904868869-fbb2cdd0429a?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=ca0a0b3d47dff7f509077a8b99a5b180" alt="What if your contract is not renewed?"/><p>The end of a client relationship can happen for many reasons outside your control. You provide superlative service and results, of course, but your client could shutdown or move the work in house anyway. What then? How much of your revenue was that one client? If it was 20% or more, you're going to feel some pain.</p> <p><strong>Diversification of your client base, services, and markets is how you avoid these situations in the future.</strong></p> <h2 id="diversityofclients">Diversity of clients</h2> <p>Diversifying your client base is the most obvious way to reduce risk to your business revenue. Limit the amount of time you are spending on any single client so that losing that client is a manageable pain. Better to be patching up a skinned knee than rushing to the emergency room with an open artery!</p> <p><strong>If you are earning 20% or more of your revenue from a single customer you need to make finding new clients a big priority!</strong></p> <h2 id="diversityofservices">Diversity of services</h2> <p>Focus within a niche is a great way to begin growing your business, but taking this strategy too far can lead to a massive risk to your business. If all your income comes from the same type of service you can find yourself in great difficulty if that market dries up.</p> <p>There is still work for COBOL programmers for instance, but the peak of that market has long passed. You may be writing blog posts 40 hours a week now, and it is hard to imagine blogging going away, but there is no guarantee that the next hot startup won't somehow make it obsolete.</p> <p><strong>Some small projects using a different skill will help smooth the ups and downs, and it might be a nice change too.</strong></p> <h2 id="diversityoftargetmarket">Diversity of target market</h2> <p>Likewise, if a large part of your revenue comes from customers in the same industry or market segment your business is at risk. If the companies you serve as a group go through a downturn your business is going to suffer right along with them, no matter how well you serve them. Imagine that you specialize in digital marketing for heating and AC repair companies, an unusually temperate year would impact everyone in that market and as they reduce their marketing budgets to wait out the weather you are left scrambling to make up the difference.</p> <p><strong>Leverage what you know to expand into new markets, find customers whose businesses are independent from your current client base.</strong></p> <h2 id="finalword">Final word</h2> <p>Diversification is about reducing the risks your business faces. As you can see, these are systemic and can effect every service provider in your industry at the same time. It is best for you to think about this in the good times, put in place a plan now to grow your business into new areas to provide resilience against these unavoidable ups and downs.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Thing's I've Done in the Past for Money (Greg's Freelancer Journey Part 2)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Everybody starts their freelancer journey from a slightly different place. In this post I will talk about my professional path before embarking on freelancing, and why I decided to embark on the freelancer's journey.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/things-ive-done-in-the-past-for-money-gregs-freelancer-journey-part-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b18</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:04:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1526304640581-d334cdbbf45e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=84f31e83af3a8f668d63c6422e2582f3" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1526304640581-d334cdbbf45e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=84f31e83af3a8f668d63c6422e2582f3" alt="Thing's I've Done in the Past for Money (Greg's Freelancer Journey Part 2)"/><p>Everybody starts their freelancer journey from a slightly different place. In this post I will talk about my professional path before embarking on freelancing, and why I decided to embark on the freelancer's journey. Although this is the second blog post of the "Greg's Freelancer Journey" series, we can really think of this post as the "prequel" to the series.</p> <h2 id="myacademicpath">My Academic Path</h2> <p>I began my career in college by studying bioengineering, a choice that was heavily influenced by the career path of my father. My father is a Ph.D. physicist who designs lasers at one of the two main laser manufacturers in Silicon Valley and he's worked there since I was about one year old. My father has been very succesful as a laser engineer and for as long as I can remember, he has been well paid.</p> <p>So, I grew up believing that if I got a Ph.D. in a STEM field, I would have a stable career as a scientist/engineer and have a comfortable life. Yet after I got my Ph.D. in a STEM field (chemical engineering), my career path was very different than my father's.</p> <p><em><strong>Lessons learned: The world is always changing. What worked in a previous generation may not work today.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="myfirstjob">My First Job</h2> <p>I was extremely lucky in finding my first job out of grad school at a company making software for genomics applications. It was a perfect fit for me: I was able to lead the development of a product based on my graduate research and do experiments to validate the product. It was immensely satisfying to see my graduate work actually being used in the real world and I loved the work I was involved with for the two years I was there. Unfortunately, the company never sold much software--their main source of support was grants from the National Institutes of Health, and once the grants dried up, they had to let go of nearly all of the scientists at the company, including myself.</p> <p><em><strong>Lessons learned: Doing a good job and working hard matter, but there are things beyond one's control that mean you cannot necessarily rely on your job being there indefinitely.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="mysecondjob">My Second Job</h2> <p>I found my next job, as a product manager for a biotech company that served the genomic sequencing market (one of the hottest markets in biotechnology at the moment), through networking at a biotechnology convention in Chicago. At this convention, I stopped by a booth for a company that was founded by two professors from my department at UM and I talked my way into a job as a product manager for the company's best selling product.</p> <p>After a few months on the job, the company leadership told me that I needed to double the sales of the product I was managing. Since I had no sales and marketing training up until that point (my business training consisted of some technology entrepreneurship classes and some market research consulting experience) and nobody in the company was a good resource (they were all scientists with no sales or marketing experience), I scrambled to learn as much as I could about sales and marketing on my own.</p> <p>After a few weeks of stumbling around in the dark, I found a style of marketing that was less about "branding" and more about influencing people to take action. Eventually, I came up with a marketing plan that I was sure would increase sales, but I was not given a chance to implement it. After I presented my plan to the company leadership, I was let go the very next day.</p> <p><em><strong>Lessons learned: Marketing is important regardless of your industry. Continual learning is crucial in a knowledge-worker economy. Finally, good leaders work with their team to set realistic goals, rather than decreeing goals from above.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="myfirstentrepreneurialventure">My First Entrepreneurial Venture</h2> <p>From my previous two jobs, I became convinced that scientist-led companies don't know how to sell or market effectively, and I believed that I could help. I recruited a friend and together we decided to consult with scientist-led companies to help them increase the effectiveness of their marketing. We called our company Sell Your Science. The venture was short-lived, however, for a few reasons: First, we didn't really know what we were doing; and second, scientists are an extremely skeptical bunch, so without a portfolio of projects that were successful, we had a hard time finding clients willing to work with us.</p> <p><em><strong>Lessons learned: Know your target market before investing too much in a venture. Also know your strengths and weaknesses and work with others who complement your strengths and/or mitigate your weaknesses.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="contractemploymentatstartups">Contract Employment at Startups</h2> <p>Following the "failure to launch" of Sell Your Science, my parents convinced me to move back home to Silicon Valley and attempt to resurrect my biotechnology career in San Francisco, the birthplace of biotechnology. It was here that I became familiar with the "<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/inquiring-minds-ethan-perlstein-postdocalypse/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">postdocalypse</a>," the term given to describe the difficulty of Ph.D. scientists finding jobs in academia, or anywhere else for that matter. I lived in the Bay Area for two years looking for work in biotechnology and the only jobs that I got during this time were a few contract positions at startups. I took each of these contract positions thinking they would lead to something more, but unfortunately they did not. In retrospect, I should have broadened my search to other fields, but I was determined to get a biotech job.</p> <p><em><strong>Lessons learned: Know when to give up on an idea. Be open to exploring. Don't get locked into thinking there is only one solution to a problem.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="transitiontodatascience">Transition to Data Science</h2> <p>While living in the Bay Area, I had read about the emerging field of data science. It seemed that, in contrast to biotechnology scientists, data scientists were in demand, so I started picking up whatever data science skills I could from online courses. Over the course of about a year, I went through significant data science training (including a fellowship through Insight Data Science) and although I still haven't landed a data science job yet, I am confident that data science will be the foundation of my future career.</p> <p><em><strong>Lesson learned: Position yourself to take advantage of changes in the marketplace.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="adjunctteaching">Adjunct Teaching</h2> <p>My wife recently joined the faculty at a university in Washington state and was able to use her connections to get me an adjunct faculty position teaching microbiology labs. I just finished the semester a few weeks ago, and let me tell you, I've never worked so hard for so little money. Teaching is a hard job. I have a newfound respect for teachers. Though I enjoyed working with my students and working in the lab, I had a hard time with the mountain of grading to keep up with.</p> <p><em><strong>Lesson learned: Teaching is not my calling, but I wouldn't know that if I hadn't tried it out! Sometimes experience is the best teacher.</strong></em></p> <h2 id="myfuturecareer">My Future Career</h2> <p>I've definitely had a nonlinear career path and have learned many difficult lessons. My employment experiences have led me to believe that the traditional model of employment is broken for people like me who don't necessarily fit the mold of a linear career. My current thought is that an entrepreneurial approach to employment (i.e., freelancing) will be a more viable path to career success, but I'll let you know how it goes...Stay tuned for updates!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Vacation and the solo entrepreneur]]></title><description><![CDATA[As an employee it was hard enough to take paid time off. Work expands to fill the time allotted and we fear missing out on the good projects if we are away. Still, the benefits are well known, so add vacation to your to do list you over-achiever.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/vacation-and-the-solo-entrepreneur/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b17</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2018 22:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487730116645-74489c95b41b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=c08973054e28a121dbdd3473c097f62a" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="vacationasanonemployee">Vacation as a non-employee</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1487730116645-74489c95b41b?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=c08973054e28a121dbdd3473c097f62a" alt="Vacation and the solo entrepreneur"/><p>As an employee it was hard enough to take paid time off. Work expands to fill the time allotted and we fear missing out on the good projects if we are away. Still, the benefits are <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-l-ferguson/health-benefits-of-taking-a-vacation_b_9384466.html?ref=ghost.impelid.com">well</a> <a href="https://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/4-scientific-reasons-why-vacation-is-awesome-for-you.html?ref=ghost.impelid.com">known</a> so add vacation to your todo list you over-achiever.</p> <p>Well, you may have noticed that it isn't easier to take time off now as an entrepreneur. You think about what it is costing you, maybe it is hours you could be billing a client or maybe it is missed opportunities to develop your business. Whatever it is you'll spend your first days off thinking about it. You'll probably need a pre-vacation before you can even <em>begin</em> to enjoy your time off.</p> <p>Your time off as a business owner isn't paid in the same sense as it was as an employee, but you are for sure "paying" your vacation-self to do it. And you need that time off. You need the time off to recharge, to get your head above water, to see the big picture when you have been head down in the grind for too long, and don't forget its also good for your health and relationships with family.</p> <p>If you are thinking about that one day you took off recently, "I think it was a Wednesday..." I'm going to stop you right there. You are an entrepreneur and one of the benefits is a flexible schedule. Taking a Weekday to recharge after working 15 days straight is not a vacation.</p> <p><strong>You need real time off</strong></p> <p>So I'll help you get started thinking about your next vacation, by asking you about your last. Fill out this short survey, we'll share the results after you've completed it.</p> <iframe src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJ7sakUi_WHgI_ipLpVXLPTd5L30oztYX1bMBqcq7eTX6XVQ/viewform?embedded=true" width="100%" height="1250" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" align="middle">Loading...</iframe> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Greg's Freelancer Journey (Part One)]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this post, I'll describe the process I went through to set up my own custom domain, email, and website.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/gregs-freelancer-journey-part-one/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b16</guid><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 05 Jun 2018 01:29:37 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520085601670-ee14aa5fa3e8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1e864f4f0bb10dfb4c242a5e2d39c2af" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1520085601670-ee14aa5fa3e8?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=1e864f4f0bb10dfb4c242a5e2d39c2af" alt="Greg's Freelancer Journey (Part One)"/><p>In a <a href="http://blog.impelid.com/2018/05/22/first-steps-to-marketing-your-business/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">previous post</a>, Steve laid out the process for getting started with a custom domain, email, and website in order to effectively market your freelancing services. In this post, I'll describe the process I went through, trying to follow that post to set up my own custom domain, email, and website.</p> <p>First, I purchased my domain name from Namecheap. I thought about a couple of domain names, but settled on gregboggy.com since I was lucky enough that my firstname-lastname .com domain was available (Steve isn't so lucky). There are lots of TLDs available other than .com, so if you find that your own firstname-lastname .com domain is not available, you may choose a different domain (e.g., firstname-lastname.ai).</p> <p>With my domain name in hand, I set up G Suite for my domain name. Following the instructions <a href="https://support.google.com/a/answer/87127?hl=en&ref_topic=4446024&ref=ghost.impelid.com">here</a>, I had G Suite set up in no time at all, and I could move on to setting up a website.</p> <p>As a data science freelancer eager to show off my programing skills to prospective clients, I opted to build a website from scratch and I chose Netlify for hosting. If you decide to build your website from scratch, hopefully you are either a developer yourself, or you have a developer friend who can help you out from time to time (it's been helpful for me to be able to bug Steve when I get stuck!).</p> <p>It was pretty easy setting up Netlify to build a website from a repo on my Github account. Netlify even has a template that you can use to get a page up quickly and I used this to set up my first website.</p> <p>The only snag I hit when getting set up with Netlify was when I attempted to add the nameservers provided by Netlify to my Namecheap account. I got confused following <a href="https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/292/10/how-can-i-update-my-personal-nameservers-ip-address?ref=ghost.impelid.com">these directions</a> for setting up nameservers. A quick call with Steve got me straightened out though, and after following <a href="https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx/767/10/how-can-i-change-the-nameservers-for-my-domain?ref=ghost.impelid.com">these directions</a> for setting up Custom DNS nameservers, I got everything working.</p> <p>Of course, after I finished setting up Netlify, I had to set up G Suite to work with Netlify instead of Namecheap. Steve helped me out here too. He helped me find the <a href="https://support.google.com/a/answer/140034?ref=ghost.impelid.com">generic instructions</a> for setting up G Suite MX records (currently, there are no specific instructions for Netlify). After following the instructions, everything was working for me.</p> <p>Now everything is working beautifully! All of this setup took me less than a day and now I have a custom email address and a website I can use for marketing my freelancing services. I'd say it was time well spent!</p> <p>This is the first blog post in the "Greg's Freelancer Journey" series. In this series, I'll be discussing the concrete steps I take toward developing a successful freelancing business from scratch. I'll post again soon after I have spent some time designing my new website. Stay tuned!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What I learned about marketing from one of the biggest blunders of my career]]></title><description><![CDATA[Selling is not convincing someone to buy. ...Selling is inspiring someone to take action]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/marketingblunder/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b15</guid><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 01 Jun 2018 22:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504210288106-e478b8da3919?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=96e0b690f45cb6150cd6f4cd520d8042" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1504210288106-e478b8da3919?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=96e0b690f45cb6150cd6f4cd520d8042" alt="What I learned about marketing from one of the biggest blunders of my career"/><p>Early on in my professional career, I learned a difficult lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life. You see, I’m a trained engineer, and what matters to engineers is building things that work the way they were designed to.</p> <p>So when I developed a commercial data analysis product based on my Ph.D. research, this product did what it was designed to do incredibly well. Not only did this product improve accuracy and decrease costs associated with measuring DNA using a method called qPCR, it actually pushed the envelope on what this method is capable of measuring. My product was <strong>truly a scientific breakthrough</strong>.</p> <p><em><strong>...Yet when it came time to sell this product, none of that mattered.</strong></em></p> <p>My company had trouble selling even a single copy of this software.</p> <p>I was dumbfounded. I could not understand how something that was such a significant breakthrough would not be adopted by every biotech scientist.</p> <p>Eventually, it dawned on me…</p> <p><em><strong>...Nobody will do business with you if you cannot effectively communicate what it is that you’re offering.</strong></em></p> <p>It didn’t matter that we had the best product of its kind on the market if we couldn’t effectively tell potential customers why they should use it. We were a company of scientists and engineers trying to sell a product that none of us knew how to sell effectively. <strong>We were all so excited about this product that we thought it was obvious why someone would use it.</strong></p> <p><em><strong>We were dead wrong.</strong></em></p> <p>Since then, I’ve become a student of human behavior and influence. I’m fascinated by what the fields of behavioral economics, psychology, and neurobiology have revealed about the human brain and how we are influenced to make decisions.</p> <p>Over the past few decades, science has shown that the human brain operates very differently than most of us imagine, especially when it comes to making a decision about whether or not to buy a product or service.</p> <p>...In fact, <em><strong>science is validating what has been known by savvy marketers for over a century:</strong></em></p> <ul> <li><strong>Selling is not convincing someone to buy</strong></li> <li><strong>...Selling is inspiring someone to take action</strong></li> </ul> <p>This means <em><strong>to sell your product or service, you need to get your customer emotionally invested</strong></em> in your product or service.</p> <p>This is not quite as hard as it sounds.</p> <p>In fact, it’s pretty formulaic.</p> <p>It turns out, humans have evolved to respond emotionally to social cues. Dr. Robert Cialdini discovered that there are six social cues (also called social triggers) that humans have evolved to respond to. They are:</p> <ol> <li>Reciprocity</li> <li>Scarcity</li> <li>Authority</li> <li>Consistency</li> <li>Liking</li> <li>Consensus</li> </ol> <p>In a series of blog posts, I will discuss each of these social triggers in more depth. And I will discuss how <strong>you can ethically use these triggers</strong> in marketing your freelancing services <strong>to get a steady stream of customers, get more business from existing customers, raise your rates, and grow your business organically.</strong></p> <p>To make sure you don’t miss these posts, <strong>sign up for our email list here.</strong> We will let you know when we have a new post for you.</p> <p>In the meantime, check out this video from Dr. Robert Cialdini:</p> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cFdCzN7RYbw?rel=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen=""/> <p>Do you have ideas about how you might be able to use these social triggers in marketing your freelancing services? <strong>Let us know in your comments below.</strong></p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pricing strategies for freelancers]]></title><description><![CDATA[There is good variety in how people charge for their services. Here I summarize the common ways freelancer's structure and price their offering and discuss some pros and cons of each.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/pricing-strategies-for-freelancers/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b14</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 30 May 2018 22:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457694716743-eb419114c894?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=dc70ff7a4887f769e8e2baaa22e96ec4" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="whatisyourtimeworth">What is your time worth?</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457694716743-eb419114c894?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=dc70ff7a4887f769e8e2baaa22e96ec4" alt="Pricing strategies for freelancers"/><p>How much to charge as a freelancer is another tough question. You are still worrying about closing the deal on your first customer and now you have to decide how much to charge so you can send them a quote.</p> <p>I've done some research for you, here is a list of links and a summary of strategies.</p> <ol> <li><a href="https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/career-change/pricing-freelancer/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Jake Jorgovan for Career Foundary</a> Good overview of available strategies.</li> <li><a href="https://www.godaddy.com/garage/the-4-cardinal-sins-of-freelance-pricing-strategy/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Tom Rankin for GoDaddy</a> Some what not to do perspective.</li> <li><a href="https://digitalnomadgirls.com/frelance-pricing-strategies-digital-nomads/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Jenny for Digital Nomad Girls</a> More pricing strategies and some freelance pro-tips.</li> </ol> <h2 id="pricingstrategiesforsoloentrepreneurs">Pricing strategies for solo-entrepreneurs</h2> <p>There is good variety in how people charge for their services. (Some even turn their services into products which is another model to consider but we will save that for another post.) Here I summarize the common ways freelancer's structure and price their offering and discuss some pros and cons of each.</p> <h3 id="hourly">Hourly</h3> <p>This is well known to be the most common pricing strategy for new freelancers. It is easy to start with hourly pricing because you know what you are making at your job doing the same work. The downside is you get paid <em>less</em> as you get better at your work, and it also runs the risk of unhappy customers if you exceed your estimate significantly.</p> <p>If you do elect to charge by the hour, charge more than you are making as an employee. Not only to account for added costs of self employment, but you will also spend time finding customers and administering your business and that overhead has to be paid.</p> <h3 id="weekly">Weekly</h3> <p>Though similar to hourly in that it is fundamentally time based it is a bit better option. Charging for larger chunks of time is somewhat easier to account for and your work time may be less hectic as you can focus on a single customer for a block of time.</p> <p>It also has the advantage that you benefit a bit from working efficiently, if you finish your work with time to spare you still get paid for the week.</p> <h3 id="retainer">Retainer</h3> <p>Still in the time based category, but moving toward more beneficial terms for everyone. Give your customer a discount to sign them up for a longer period of time. If they don't use all of the time they bought for the week you still get paid, and this can go a long way to smoothing out volatility in your business income.</p> <h3 id="costplusprofit">Cost plus profit</h3> <p>Estimate your full cost, add some profit on top. This is potentially the worst thing you could do. After all you aren't working for the government. (Are you?)</p> <p>This sort of thing can work for services that involve lots of materials, but you risk undervaluing your expertise.</p> <h3 id="projectbased">Project based</h3> <p>Quoting a fixed price based on estimated time is another popular approach. It insulates the customer from small errors in estimating scope or carrying out the work. This could be a problem because accurately estimating how long it will take to complete a project is notoriously difficult, especially when you are first starting.</p> <p>Big risk of underpaying yourself initially, but over time you could benefit greatly as you get more efficient at completing work.</p> <h3 id="valuebased">Value based</h3> <p>This is essentially project based, however, instead of a fixed price based on time the quote is based on value to the customer.</p> <p>This is not a common practice when starting out because you really need to know how the customer will benefit from your work. Charging based on value is a good long term goal since it will make you the most money while making your customers happy.</p> <h3 id="makeitup">Make it up</h3> <p>LOL. Just price your service based on whatever you feel the customer can afford and deserves.</p> <p>This might work, but ultimately it is hard to justify your quote if they push back.</p> <h3 id="marketrate">Market rate</h3> <p>Charge roughly what the market is charging. It will require some research, networking, and chats with friends who freelance to come up with a good estimate of the going rate. Once you know you can adjust a little above or below average for your level of expertise and desire to sign the client.</p> <p>It is good to know what the market rate is when setting your prices and negotiating with clients. You can't just take their word that everybody else is charging less. Let's not let this be an excuse to charge less than what you are worth though.</p> <p>Your services are worth closer to the value you provide the client than they are to the market average, and that will depend on the individual project and client.</p> <h2 id="sohowdoyoucharge">So how do you charge?</h2> <p>Ultimately, it is up to you to weigh the pros and cons of high value vs steady work, and you will probably change your pricing strategy a few times as your business grows.</p> <p>I'll continue to do research on this topic to find more resources for setting rates, see you next time!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Networking to find your first customer]]></title><description><![CDATA[One of the most significant challenges facing a new freelancer is getting the first client. In this article, I will be sharing ways you can leverage networking to get your first client and generate consistent work for yourself. ]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/networking-to-your-first-customer/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b12</guid><category><![CDATA[Networking]]></category><category><![CDATA[Getting Customers]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2018 17:30:56 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525168040608-0fa00f174419?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=19889c48ff5002c415dee44d6a563619" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525168040608-0fa00f174419?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=19889c48ff5002c415dee44d6a563619" alt="Networking to find your first customer"/><p>Starting a career as a freelancer can be incredibly exciting, but like any new path, it can be full of anxiety as well.</p> <p>One of the most significant challenges facing a new freelancer is getting the first client. At this point, you have no testimonials, or reviews as proof of your expertise, and truthfully, businesses are loath to take a risk on a rookie. In this article, I will be sharing ways you can leverage networking to get your first client and generate consistent work for yourself.</p> <h1 id="understandtheconceptofnetworking">Understand the concept of networking</h1> <p>Networking is one of the tools available to you as a freelancer looking for your first clients, and it is a very important one when you first start. It means leveraging your professional and personal relationships to advance your freelance business.</p> <p>People naturally prefer to hire someone they know, not necessarily the most qualified. If you have a relationship with someone, then they will more likely give you the job instead of someone they don’t know. Below are some ways you can get the best out of networking as a freelancer searching for your first client.</p> <p>Being good at networking involves being social, open-minded and most importantly focusing on how you can <strong>help others</strong>. When you approach networking correctly it will pay long-term benefits to you both personally and professionally. While focusing on the needs of others is key, networking won't help you get clients if you do not let it be known what you do and that you are available for work. Getting clients through networking requires you to actively seek work opportunities.</p> <h1 id="utilizeyourconnections">Utilize your connections</h1> <p>When searching for your first client, you shouldn’t hesitate to tap into your existing network. You may know what most of them do and might think they won’t need your services. However, the essence here isn’t getting them to hire you, instead because they can act as an invaluable referral army. From social media to verbal conversations, any of them can come across a related job and refer you.</p> <p>Many freelancers have said to me that they got their first client through a referral.</p> <p>If there is anyone you know who owns a business, you should tell them you are looking for freelance work. Ask if it is okay to send your portfolio over to get their advice, and ask about anyone who they think might need your services. They may be able to refer you to someone looking for your skills right now, but it is just as important that they know what you are offering so they can send you referrals later.</p> <h1 id="makefriendswithotherfreelancers">Make friends with other freelancers.</h1> <p>A perfect way of extending your network is finding others in the same boat as you. Freelancers rarely see each other as competitors, and they would be happy to give you tips, tools and recommendation on how to get jobs. Also from time to time freelancers do have large projects, which would require more hands, and you can be hired as part of the team.</p> <h1 id="anoteofencouragement">A note of encouragement</h1> <p>Getting your first freelance client may not be easy, but I assure you it will happen! It's up to you and following the tips listed above, you are bound to get your first job and then many more.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[First steps to marketing your business]]></title><description><![CDATA[Getting your name out there has always been an essential part of starting a business. This doesn’t require a full page ad in the local newspaper; a unique domain name, some business cards, and maybe a website, is a great start.]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/first-steps-to-marketing-your-business/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b11</guid><category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Steve Hawley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2018 20:15:27 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472851294608-062f824d29cc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=0290e804fa28e80baa6460d1a83ebb23" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><h1 id="doineedawebsiteandwhereshouldihostit">Do I need a website, and where should I host it?</h1> <img src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1472851294608-062f824d29cc?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=1080&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ&s=0290e804fa28e80baa6460d1a83ebb23" alt="First steps to marketing your business"/><p>Getting your name out there will always be an essential part of starting a business. This doesn’t require a full page ad in the local newspaper; a unique domain name, some business cards, and maybe a website, is a great start.</p> <p><strong>TL;DR</strong></p> <ul> <li>Get a unique domain name from namecheap.com, and setup your business email in Google G Suite.</li> <li>Have some business cards printed online from MOO or Vistaprint.</li> <li>Update your LinkedIn profile to let everybody know you are in business.</li> <li>Maybe setup a quick website, Wix and Squarespace are easy and have everything you need.</li> </ul> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Platform</th> <th>Ease</th> <th>Hosting Cost (USD)*</th> <th>Features</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Wordpress</td> <td>***</td> <td>8/mo</td> <td>SSL</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Wix</td> <td>****</td> <td>11/mo</td> <td>SEO, SSL</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Squarespace</td> <td>****</td> <td>16/mo</td> <td>SEO, SSL, Support</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Netlify</td> <td>*</td> <td>0/mo</td> <td>Build it yourself</td> </tr> <tr> <td>* lowest price without ads as of May 2018</td> <td/> <td/> <td/> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2 id="domain">Domain</h2> <p>First, you need a domain name. Price varies depending on name and where you get it, but most aren’t terribly expensive and you’ll be more interested in the service your domain registrar provides, and how easy their tools are to use. I use <a href="http://www.namecheap.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Namecheap</a>, the cost per domain is reasonable, the tools are easy, and two factor authentication makes it a little more secure. Of course, the relative pricing between registrars changes all the time so it might be worth checking out a couple real quick.</p> <p>And since we have a domain name for our business now we should set up our business email. Again, something really easy and inexpensive that shows you are a serious professional.</p> <p>I’m a big fan of <a href="http://gsuite.google.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">G Suite</a> you get email and then some, it’s only $5/mo and pretty easy to setup between your domain registrar and Google.</p> <h2 id="businesscards">Business Cards</h2> <p>You might be thinking that in the digital age we live in business cards are a relic of a bygone era. Let me offer this small argument to the contrary in support of what is really a very minor investment in marketing your business. A well designed business card lends an air of credibility, it emphasizes that you are serious enough about your business to put it in writing, it is fast and easy to hand out (at least it should be, keep your cards handy!) when you meet someone in passing, and it serves as a physical reminder of your business (tossed on a desk is better than hidden away in a phone). Our intention here is to promote our business, not get a new friend’s digits in a crowded bar.</p> <p>Plus, it is very easy to have good looking cards made these days. We have multiple options in online printing, and they provide a wide variety of well designed templates for your business card.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.vistaprint.com/business-cards?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Vistaprint</a> is the standard. I’ve used them before, multiple options for size, paper, and finish.</li> <li><a href="https://www.moo.com/us/products/business-cards.html?ref=ghost.impelid.com">MOO</a> is a bit more design forward. My current card was printed by MOO and I really love the heavy card stock. It is the more expensive option though, and if heavy card stock isn’t your jam you’ll definitely save money with Vistaprint.</li> </ul> <p>If you aren’t a visual designer don’t waste your time trying to design the card yourself, and I’d hold off on paying for a custom design too. Just pick one of the many templates, keep it simple, and focus on actually getting the card in the hands of potential customers.</p> <h2 id="website">Website</h2> <p>You might be ok for a little while with your business domain, email, a pack of business cards, and a good LinkedIn profile. As you get your name out there people will start to look for you online, eventually the LinkedIn profile won’t be enough to really show what you can do.</p> <p>I’m sorry to say that early on your website isn’t going to help you find customers as much as you would like. It is more a case where not having it will hurt more than it costs to have it.</p> <p>So what are your options for a starter website? Let’s look at difficulty and expense of building and maintaining the site for each of these common options.</p> <ol> <li><a href="https://www.wordpress.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Wordpress</a> on wordpress.com.</li> <li><a href="https://www.wix.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Wix</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.squarespace.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Squarespace</a>.</li> <li><a href="https://www.netlify.com/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">Netlify</a> and custom development.</li> </ol> <h3 id="wordpress">Wordpress</h3> <p>Wordpress has some advantages. There are lots of themes and examples out there to provide inspiration, and there is plenty of community support available, wordpress is open source software and <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/05/wordpress-now-powers-30-of-websites/?ref=ghost.impelid.com">30%</a> of the web runs on wordpress. Wordpress.com keeps it all working for you and provides support. Minimal cost $4/mo for a custom domain with email/chat based support, $8/mo if you want to use premium themes (goes up from there if you want to use custom themes or plugins).</p> <ul> <li>Comes with SSL.</li> <li>Need a premium package to get their SEO tools.</li> <li>Live chat and email support included.</li> </ul> <h3 id="wix">Wix</h3> <p>Wix has a really slick website creation tool that they call Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). Their ADI system will ask you a few questions and create a site for you. You can then tweak the site for your needs all in their software (no coding required). The trick is it is a bit more expensive than wordpress, the entry level $5/mo plan shows ads, for $11/mo they remove the ads and will act as your domain registrar which saves you a little trouble (but not really any money given how inexpensive most domains are).</p> <ul> <li>Asks what type of business, and you select a style preference, then it creates the site.</li> <li>The site creation tool (what they call Artificial Design Intelligence or ADI) is slick, but editing the site after that is a little less intuitive (to me anyway).</li> <li>The editor is pretty easy to use once you get familiar with the interface.</li> <li>The site will come with example content, just edit it for your specific business.</li> <li>The base site is a single page design, separated into sections. It fits a design trend and gets the most relevant info on a single page so a visitor can easily scroll through.</li> <li>You can add more pages to your site, it will even make suggestions for pages to add and provide a variety of designs for each page type to choose from.</li> <li>Has support for blogging, if that’s a part of your marketing strategy.</li> <li>Support for the lower tier accounts is mainly through the web forum, higher tiers have VIP phone support.</li> <li>Images are easy to upload, and they provide a selection of free images as well as integration with shutterstock.</li> <li>Support for SEO.</li> <li>Comes with SSL.</li> </ul> <h3 id="squarespace">Squarespace</h3> <p>Squarespace has a beautiful website and its templates are beautiful as well. Its entry level plan is $16/mo ($12 if billed annually) and no ads, 24/7 customer support. To me Squarespace felt the easiest to use.</p> <ul> <li>They will allow you to register a domain name through them, but it is $20/yr for a .com. Compare to Namecheap at $10.98/yr.</li> <li>They will set up G Suite for you if you like.</li> <li>The workflow is easy, sign up, choose your template.</li> <li>They create an example site with the template and you can delete or edit the example pages as needed.</li> <li>The editor is really easy to use and you can get started really quickly by just editing the text and images in the example site.</li> <li>It is easy to upload images from your computer. They have a search box to find images for your site if you don’t have any, but the image search feature in their editor goes to getty images, which requires a subscription to remove the watermark.</li> <li>They have a separate menu for changing design elements of the theme, like colors and fonts.</li> <li>The separation of design from content editing is nice, it allows you to focus on the content, but still see how it will look.</li> <li>It does have the ability to add custom CSS, but you probably won’t need it to get a site up.</li> <li>Also has support for blogging.</li> <li>Support for SEO.</li> <li>Comes with SSL.</li> <li>24/7 customer support (worth repeating).</li> </ul> <h3 id="netlify">Netlify</h3> <p>A static site on Netlify. Its free and fast and completely customizable, and doesn’t put ads on your site. The problem is that you need to know how to build a website. This is the developer friendly option, but if you have never made a site before you will want to pass on this (or pay a pro). The cost here is all in your time, and time is precious.</p> <ul> <li>Comes with SSL</li> <li>Low cost option for hosting a static website with great performance</li> </ul> <p>Pay a pro isn’t a bad idea. You’ll get a website custom built for your needs, worth it in the long-run. I’d hold off for a bit though, you want your business to be growing enough to fully benefit from the investment.</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welcome to the Impelid Blog! Stay tuned...we've got good stuff for you coming up!]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hey there! So, you've taken the plunge and you're a full-fledged freelancer. Congratulations! Sure, you don't know for sure where your next paycheck is coming from and you're worried you won't get enough work to stay ahead of your bills. But hey! You're your own boss now! Nobody's there to tell you what to do and when to do it. The possibilities provided by freelancing are so appealing: choosing what to work on, setting your own schedule, taking home more money, and working from home...or wher]]></description><link>http://impelid.com/welcome-to-the-impelid-blog/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">Ghost__Post__642063b9b56ebe0001f18b10</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Boggy]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 01 May 2018 18:37:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="http://res.cloudinary.com/dt21joeko/image/upload/hello-letters-bigger.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/dt21joeko/image/upload/hello-letters-bigger.jpg" alt="Welcome to the Impelid Blog! Stay tuned...we've got good stuff for you coming up!"/><p>Hey there! So, you've taken the plunge and you're a full-fledged freelancer. Congratulations! Sure, you don't know for sure where your next paycheck is coming from and you're worried you won't get enough work to stay ahead of your bills. But hey! You're your own boss now! Nobody's there to tell you what to do and when to do it.</p> <p>The possibilities provided by freelancing are so appealing: choosing what to work on, setting your own schedule, taking home more money, and working from home...or wherever you like! But let's face it: the reality of starting out on your own is scary, intimidating, and fraught with uncertainty.</p> <p>That's why we're here.</p> <p>Our mission at Impelid is to help you succeed as a freelancer. With our blog, we want to create a community of people like you, helping each other and succeeding together.</p> <p>Congratulations again on embarking on this epic adventure! You inspire us to do what we do for freelancers like you. We're here for you!</p> <!--kg-card-end: markdown-->]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>