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[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.240] Look, adulting can be a challenge, but there is an easy button for at least one item on your to-do list.
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[00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:00.000] That's policygenius.com.
[00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.080] And now, onto the show.
[00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:18.080] Here's an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits Collection: how one Side Hustle Show listener turned a challenging situation into a new income stream, or the path from no skills to three grand a month on the side.
[00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:22.160] What's up, what's up?
[00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.200] Nick Loper here.
[00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:28.000] Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because every expert was once a beginner.
[00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:37.360] Like many parents, I've been spending a lot more time with my kids over the last couple months, which has been a great silver lining to the whole having preschool clothes thing.
[00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:43.680] And one thing that is fascinating to me about spending this extra time with the kids is the pace of their learning.
[00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:49.520] They're two years old and four years old, for the sake of reference, and they're picking up new stuff daily.
[00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:54.240] What's weird is as adults, we start to think of our skill sets as fixed.
[00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:56.320] A kid would never think that way.
[00:01:56.320 --> 00:01:59.040] There's just stuff they haven't learned yet.
[00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:04.760] And that brings me to today's guest, Chris Misterick of self-madewebdesigner.com.
[00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:11.960] It's an appropriate URL for Chris because he's a self-made, largely self-taught web designer.
[00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:21.880] He went from being in a tight spot personally and financially to bringing in an average of three grand a month on the side through his new web design business.
[00:02:21.880 --> 00:02:30.360] Stick around in this one to hear how Chris picked up this new skill set on the cheap, how he found his first clients, and how he's marketed and grown the business since then.
[00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:35.480] And the important note here is that this is replicable across any number of industries.
[00:02:35.480 --> 00:02:41.880] In fact, I just hit publish on a blog post on some of the highest paid and most in-demand freelance skills.
[00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:43.640] Don't have any skills worth paying for?
[00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:45.640] Go learn some, just like Chris did.
[00:02:45.640 --> 00:02:55.320] Notes and links for this one, plus the full text summary of our conversation with all of Chris's top tips from the call, are at sidehustlenation.com/slash self-made.
[00:02:55.320 --> 00:03:02.920] I'll be back with my top takeaways from this chat with Chris, including the only known cure for imposter syndrome after the interview.
[00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:03.880] Ready?
[00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:05.160] Let's do it.
[00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:14.920] So, about six years ago, my wife of 10 years decided that she was done with our relationship.
[00:03:14.920 --> 00:03:20.760] So, that made a crisis for me, obviously, relationally, but also financially.
[00:03:20.760 --> 00:03:30.680] And so, I had to figure out a way fairly quickly to learn how to make some extra income on the side for me and my three daughters as a single dad.
[00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:39.160] So, I knew that I wanted to stay in my full-time job, knew I didn't want to leave that, but also knew like the salary that I was getting from that wasn't cutting it.
[00:03:39.160 --> 00:03:51.520] And so, off of the suggestion of a friend, ended up looking into web design and found some free online courses and just plowed my way through them as quick as I could.
[00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:55.360] And a few months later, I was telling people that I was a web designer.
[00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:57.280] So, you weren't working in tech at the time.
[00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.800] You didn't have, you didn't study this stuff in school or anything.
[00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:03.760] Just a friend out of the blue says, Hey, you ought to consider a web designer.
[00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:05.200] Like, sure.
[00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:05.680] You're right.
[00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:07.600] I was in a completely unrelated field.
[00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:10.960] I was essentially the equivalent of a full-time musician.
[00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:15.120] So, I was what's called a worship pastor at a church here in Phoenix.
[00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:20.640] So, I led just a team of volunteers that did all the music for all of our services.
[00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:24.560] And so, web development was never in my purview.
[00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:29.440] Like, never thought of myself as being someone that went down that avenue.
[00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:37.680] And so, as soon as I started doing some tutorials and doing some online courses, I instantly found out, like, hey, I really love this stuff.
[00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:43.040] And, like I said, started telling people I was a web designer, probably had no business telling people that.
[00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:50.560] But a few gracious friends gave me a shot and just slowly started building a freelance business.
[00:04:50.560 --> 00:05:01.440] And about 18 months in, I had doubled the income of my full-time salary at the church and was able to sustain everything that was happening in my daughter's life and our life.
[00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:12.320] And it was just such a crazy thing to happen to kind of force me into teaching myself and staying up late nights, but really kind of grateful to be in this place.
[00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:15.520] And I think it's tough to see that when you first get started.
[00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:20.800] It's tough to see that when you get through the other side of this, you're going to be better off than when you first started.
[00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:23.040] But that certainly was the case for me.
[00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:24.400] It definitely is.
[00:05:24.400 --> 00:05:37.720] And I want to highlight something that you said there as you started introducing yourself as a web designer, even if, you know, maybe in practical purposes, you had no business doing though, but like establishing that internally as part of your identity.
[00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:39.080] Like, yes, this is what I am.
[00:05:39.080 --> 00:05:40.120] This is what I do.
[00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:42.280] I think that was really powerful.
[00:05:42.280 --> 00:05:49.400] Did you give any thought or hesitation to the fact that the world is already crawling with web designers?
[00:05:49.400 --> 00:05:52.920] Like, how am I going to compete with all these people who actually know what they're doing?
[00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:54.360] Yeah, for sure.
[00:05:54.600 --> 00:06:00.440] I'm the kind of person that jumps both feet in before I really consider things.
[00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:05.720] And sometimes that turns out negatively, but in this case, it turned out great.
[00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:14.200] And I think anytime you're looking at a field where there's a need, you do need to consider like, okay, who's out there already?
[00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:15.640] And what's my competition?
[00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:23.720] But I think at the end of the day, there's no one person that is going to connect to all of these people out there.
[00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:27.080] If there's a big enough market, then there's a big enough need.
[00:06:27.080 --> 00:06:36.440] I might not be as good as other people in certain things, but I know my personality might connect with business owners a little bit better than other people's personalities.
[00:06:36.440 --> 00:06:42.840] Or the fact that I'm communicative and I follow up and I make deadlines and I hit them.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:48.440] Like there are ways to stand out, even if you feel like the market is saturated.
[00:06:48.440 --> 00:06:48.840] Yeah.
[00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:52.440] And on top of that, so it's a big market, but it's also a growing market.
[00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:57.800] So it's not necessarily a business that relies on carving out market share from somebody else.
[00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:04.920] It's, hey, there are more and more businesses that are going to need a website, and I can make a name for myself there.
[00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:05.640] Absolutely.
[00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:11.960] The web design market is certainly changing, and it has changed, and it will continue to change.
[00:07:11.960 --> 00:07:15.840] So, from when I first started, it's even harder now to get into it.
[00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:25.600] And so, I don't think you should ever come into something that's a side hustle with the idea of I'm going to learn a skill and then bunker in and be set for the rest of my life.
[00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:44.960] I think you have to come at it of I'm always going to be learning, I'm always going to be adding new skills, I'm always going to be discovering what it is that my clients can really value from, could really benefit from, and then adding additional skills or bringing other people on your team and adding other components to what you have to offer.
[00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:52.160] Because it was 10 years ago that if you wanted a website, you had to know how to do web development, but now that's that's just not the case, right?
[00:07:52.160 --> 00:08:10.880] There's so many off-the-shelf platforms, and whether customers are educated on those or not, or they just like hey, they want a custom job, then they come out and they can hire you for that versus picking a template off of Wix or Weebly or Squarespace or even any of the thousands of free WordPress themes.
[00:08:10.880 --> 00:08:11.440] Exactly.
[00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:19.920] You know, I liken it to the fact that fast food restaurants will never shut down really good steakhouses.
[00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.040] There's just no way.
[00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:26.640] And so, there will always be a differentiation between what you have to offer versus what somebody else has to offer.
[00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:33.920] So, as long as you're coming about it with eyes wide open and saying, Okay, what makes me different than everybody else?
[00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:37.360] And who can I connect with better than everybody else?
[00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:38.960] You're going to find a place in the market.
[00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:42.400] You're going to find a place of people to find projects from.
[00:08:42.400 --> 00:08:42.880] All right.
[00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.960] Tell me about the self-education phase.
[00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:48.320] Was this just a matter of Googling how to be a web designer?
[00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:59.920] Like, curious, what queries or like what gave you the base-level education to start to feel confident to put a price tag and charge real money for customers?
[00:09:00.760 --> 00:09:01.320] Yeah.
[00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:05.480] So I first started with a platform called Code Academy.
[00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:08.120] And at the time it was 100% free.
[00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.600] Every single thing that they offered, you didn't have to pay for.
[00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:17.320] It's since gone on to have like a tier of paid courses and a tier of free courses.
[00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:23.000] And honestly, what is free now is the equivalent to what I took when I first got started.
[00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:29.960] So that gave me kind of the basic essential knowledge that I needed just to start building things.
[00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:38.760] But what I always encourage people to do if they're looking at getting into web development or web design is to just start building projects.
[00:09:38.760 --> 00:09:43.000] After you get the fundamentals, you learn most from doing.
[00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.600] And online courses can be really tricky.
[00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:51.240] They can give you kind of a false sense of security and that you know what you're doing.
[00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:58.920] And then, you know, all of a sudden you've got a job for somebody and you're tough out of luck because there's not somebody there typing the code out for you as you go.
[00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:01.800] Yeah, it's all theory until you put it into practice.
[00:10:01.800 --> 00:10:02.440] Right.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:07.880] And so I took a course at my community college close to me had a course online.
[00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:14.200] But after that, like it was me and Google being best friends for months as we tried figuring stuff out.
[00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:18.600] You know, it's a slow process at first and you definitely get frustrated.
[00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:25.480] But the crazy thing is, like, I just went full-time this last year as a UX designer for a company.
[00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:36.520] And I thought I was going to come and sit amongst all of these web developers who didn't ever have to look anything up or never ran into any errors or like they, every code that they wrote was absolutely perfect.
[00:10:36.520 --> 00:10:40.920] But they were doing the same things that I'm doing and what I was doing when I first got started.
[00:10:40.920 --> 00:10:46.640] So there's this real big misconception that in order to be a web developer, you have to know absolutely everything.
[00:10:46.640 --> 00:10:48.320] And that's just not the case.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:53.280] I'm really glad you said that because I do the same thing, like how to do such and such in WordPress.
[00:10:53.280 --> 00:10:57.840] And I end up on some help desk thread or plugin support thread.
[00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.280] And yeah, I'm out there Googling stuff every day.
[00:11:01.280 --> 00:11:06.800] And that's kind of a technical element, but it's like the same thing, like how to set up such and such in Google Analytics.
[00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:09.040] Like the answers are out there.
[00:11:09.040 --> 00:11:12.080] And it's like you have the confidence to say, yes, I know how to do this.
[00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:13.760] Yes, I know how to find these answers.
[00:11:13.760 --> 00:11:18.560] You don't expect nowadays to have like this infinite knowledge bank in your head.
[00:11:18.560 --> 00:11:19.440] You don't need it.
[00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.160] And I'm curious what school will look like for our kids.
[00:11:22.400 --> 00:11:24.480] It's like, why do we have to memorize this stuff?
[00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.640] I can access this in 15 seconds.
[00:11:26.640 --> 00:11:27.040] Right.
[00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:28.560] Well, I remember being a kid.
[00:11:28.560 --> 00:11:42.880] And in order to know anything outside of what you were taught in school, like you either had to spend tons of time in a library or your family had to subscribe to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was, you know, a huge chunk of money.
[00:11:42.880 --> 00:11:45.040] And so it's just so different now.
[00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:52.320] There's so much knowledge at your fingertips that if you want to learn something, like whatever it is, it doesn't have to be web development.
[00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:53.280] It could be copywriting.
[00:11:53.280 --> 00:11:54.560] It could be digital marketing.
[00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:56.480] It could be Google Analytics.
[00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:02.160] There's a market for it and there are places and avenues to learn it for free.
[00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:03.280] Yes, absolutely.
[00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:17.840] So trying to figure out what is the large and growing market segment that you're something, at least somewhat interested in, and you have the competence and maybe persistence to figure out how to learn and how to become good at it, right?
[00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:24.240] The passion, I imagine, follows doing the work in most cases, or at least that's the Cal Newport bit.
[00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:26.400] It's like, don't start a business around your passion.
[00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:30.920] Start a business around something you are good at, that you care about, and then watch the passion follow.
[00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:32.920] And I always give the example of podcasting.
[00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:35.640] Like episode one, I had zero passion for podcasting.
[00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:36.440] I didn't know what I was doing.
[00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:37.400] Nobody does, right?
[00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:41.240] It's like, but over the years, I've become super passionate about podcasting.
[00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:43.480] So that is an important point as well.
[00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:56.680] And like you said, we're looking at this through the lens of web design, but we've seen it from other guests in the world of knife sharpening, in the world of bookkeeping, in the world of, you know, any skill, you name it, right?
[00:12:56.680 --> 00:12:58.040] You can go out and learn the skills for that.
[00:12:58.040 --> 00:13:05.000] It's just a matter of, is this something you can see yourself doing long term that you care enough to put in the education effort?
[00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:06.680] So I like that part.
[00:13:06.680 --> 00:13:11.400] Where did you go from there to saying, now, hey, I'm Chris, I'm a web designer.
[00:13:11.400 --> 00:13:12.600] Hire me?
[00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:20.520] Well, eventually I built enough websites for friends that I didn't have any more friends to build websites for.
[00:13:21.160 --> 00:13:23.880] Were you doing that stuff just for free for practice?
[00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:26.120] No, well, the first one was for free.
[00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:38.760] And then after that, I would approach it and just say, hey, I'm learning web design and I'd love to do a website for your business and I'll give you a great deal because I'm just getting started.
[00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:42.040] So after that first one, I never did it for free.
[00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:48.600] And most of my friends were gracious enough to know that I would put enough work into it to be valuable to them.
[00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:53.400] And I think a lot of people who get started think they have to be free for a really long time.
[00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:55.560] And I don't necessarily think that's the case.
[00:13:55.560 --> 00:14:04.600] I think you can start to charge fairly soon if you know that what you're giving brings value to the person that is getting the website, right?
[00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:11.160] So every time I got a project, like let's say my first paid gig was like 500 bucks for a website, right?
[00:14:11.160 --> 00:14:14.880] And so then every single one after that, I would double my rates.
[00:14:14.880 --> 00:14:16.560] So my next one was $1,000.
[00:14:16.560 --> 00:14:18.320] And then my next one was $2,000.
[00:14:14.680 --> 00:14:20.240] And my next one went on to $4,000.
[00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:29.360] And eventually I got to a place where, like, okay, this is, I'm getting a good value and I'm giving a good value to the people that are getting my services.
[00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:30.800] Yeah, so that went on.
[00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:34.800] And eventually I had to start looking outside of my social network.
[00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.160] Everybody you know has already done them, built them a website.
[00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:38.560] Okay.
[00:14:38.560 --> 00:14:39.520] Right, exactly.
[00:14:39.520 --> 00:14:42.880] And we laugh at that, but I think a lot of people dismiss that.
[00:14:42.880 --> 00:14:54.960] I feel like there's a lot more people in your people's world to be able to say, hey, let me give you this service, build you this website for money that might be connected to you, that might be close to you.
[00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:58.640] Because I've talked to a lot of people who are like, I just don't know anybody that would need one.
[00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:04.560] And I'm like, okay, go sit down, write down a list of 100 people that you know.
[00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:12.800] And then everybody that has a business or is connected to somebody that has a business, you reach out to them and see if they might need your help with a website.
[00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:14.480] And surprisingly, they all come back to me.
[00:15:14.560 --> 00:15:15.680] They're like, oh, yeah, you were right.
[00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:17.760] There was this person that needed a website.
[00:15:17.760 --> 00:15:18.240] Yeah.
[00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:22.080] Was it uncomfortable in any way pitching your direct network?
[00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.240] I mean, there is always, there is always that little bit, especially when you're first getting started.
[00:15:26.560 --> 00:15:33.200] There's that feeling of like, oh man, I want to make sure that I'm not just pulling the wool over my friend's eyes.
[00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:43.280] But I think if you are a good person and you come at it as like, if this fails, I'm not going to take their money from them because they're taking a risk on me.
[00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:49.840] And so because of that, I'm going to take a risk that if I can't figure this out, it's just going to be my own wasted time.
[00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:51.600] That's the thing with sales in general.
[00:15:51.600 --> 00:16:03.720] If you look at pitching your services to somebody as the greasy snake oil salesman, then you're going to feel that way no matter how good of a person you are, no matter how good of a freelancer or web designer you are.
[00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:15.320] But if you look at it as I have something valuable to offer people and people are willing to pay for it, then it becomes more, much more you're a servant to their needs more than anything else.
[00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:15.720] Yeah.
[00:16:16.040 --> 00:16:23.160] I've always had such a hard time with that, especially like in this particular space, because it's like, oh, you know, but I could do it myself for free or something.
[00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:26.040] But it's like, maybe the client doesn't have time to do that.
[00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:27.160] They don't want to do that.
[00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:29.640] They're just happy to, you know, have a custom thing.
[00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:34.040] And so it's like, you know, get out of your own head if you're kind of thinking in that sense.
[00:16:34.040 --> 00:16:35.080] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:45.160] And I think when it comes down to it, building a website, designing a good website that's actually going to benefit a company or a business is a lot harder than people think it is.
[00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:51.240] And I've had so many clients that come to me and say, We did our best with this website and it's just not any good.
[00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:52.600] Can you help us?
[00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:53.080] You know?
[00:16:53.560 --> 00:16:55.240] And so then it's like, yeah, for sure.
[00:16:55.240 --> 00:16:57.720] Like, those are the clients that would come to me.
[00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:05.000] More with Chris in just a moment, including how he expanded his client base beyond his personal network coming up right after this.
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[00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.520] See Mint Mobile for details.
[00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:08.240] I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode.
[00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:17.680] OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy-to-use centralized hub.
[00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:22.560] But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
[00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:24.160] You probably don't remember this.
[00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:31.440] This is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups.
[00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:34.400] And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours.
[00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:49.360] Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work.
[00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:53.120] And those posts got us some of our first customers.
[00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:53.920] So thank you.
[00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:55.600] It's a full circle moment.
[00:18:55.600 --> 00:18:56.560] Oh, that's super fun.
[00:18:56.560 --> 00:18:57.360] Very cool.
[00:18:57.360 --> 00:18:59.520] That's Doreena, the co-founder of OpenPhone.
[00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:01.760] And sure enough, her posts are still there.
[00:19:01.760 --> 00:19:08.000] OpenPhone is offering SideHustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:13.280] That's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E openphone.com slash sidehustle.
[00:19:13.280 --> 00:19:18.480] And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
[00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.400] It's more than just putting pretty pictures in the right places.
[00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.040] It's testing designs and layouts out.
[00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:28.720] It's making sure that things are converting the way that we want them to.
[00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:36.840] It's making sure that things are set up automatically to where a client doesn't have to check their email every 10 minutes.
[00:19:37.080 --> 00:19:53.880] Like they just have a funnel and a system that just brings them to a place where they're getting leads and nurturing leads and then making sales in a way that they would never be able to do if it weren't for my expertise of having done the dirty work and gone in and figured this stuff out.
[00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:58.840] So in that sense, you should never feel bad about what you have to offer somebody.
[00:19:58.840 --> 00:19:59.400] Sure.
[00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:00.120] All right.
[00:20:00.120 --> 00:20:01.800] So you tap out your personal network.
[00:20:01.800 --> 00:20:06.360] You keep doubling your rates until people start saying, no, you're out of the warm leads.
[00:20:06.360 --> 00:20:07.960] So what happens next?
[00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:08.840] Yeah.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:11.880] So then I went to a platform called Upwork.
[00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:14.680] And at the time, it was Odesk.
[00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:26.440] Did everything, put my profile up, got accepted, like dialed in my biography, started bidding on projects, and absolutely nothing happened.
[00:20:27.080 --> 00:20:31.320] And because you have like no reviews on the platform, you got no track record.
[00:20:31.320 --> 00:20:33.480] You're like, I'm not going to take a risk on this guy.
[00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:35.160] Exactly, exactly.
[00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:39.880] And I've heard most people had much quicker success than I did.
[00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:44.840] But for me, I was putting in bids and putting in looking for projects.
[00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:51.080] But if you don't have a lot of clout, if you don't have reviews, then it's a lot tougher to get people to trust you.
[00:20:51.080 --> 00:20:58.920] But I think there's also this aspect of you're kind of learning how to work within the platform, right?
[00:20:59.080 --> 00:21:00.200] Of Upwork.
[00:21:00.200 --> 00:21:12.680] There's a system and then there's a method with which is the best way to look for projects and to filter through projects and then to bid on projects that it takes some time to dial in.
[00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:14.800] Well, let's talk about some of those best practices.
[00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:19.200] So, Upwork is probably the largest freelance platform in the world right now.
[00:21:19.280 --> 00:21:24.800] I imagine they're blowing up with tons of qualified candidates as lots of people are out of work right now.
[00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:29.120] But it's featured in the book Buy Buttons as one of these mini marketplaces.
[00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:30.720] Go where the cash is already flowing.
[00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:38.640] Upwork is one of those sites where people who need work done and are willing to hire remotely are going to look for talent to do that work.
[00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:42.320] So, what made it start to hit for you?
[00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.640] It was a mixture of a few things.
[00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:51.920] So, eventually, I got one of my first gigs, and that went well, and I got good feedback from that.
[00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:53.440] And that was super helpful.
[00:21:53.440 --> 00:22:05.360] But I will say, the only reason I got that gig was I got some advice when I first got started that said, whenever you're laying out your skills, don't say everything that you're good at, right?
[00:22:05.360 --> 00:22:13.280] Don't say, I'm a web designer and a graphic designer, and I can do, I can edit your audio and edit your video, and I can do voiceovers.
[00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:17.280] Like, that's actually going to harm you more than it's going to help you.
[00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:20.880] And so, I dialed in what I had expertise in to three things.
[00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:25.760] So, it was WordPress, it was Adobe Photoshop, and it was Optimize Press.
[00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:30.320] And Optimize Press at the time was much bigger than it is now.
[00:22:30.320 --> 00:22:39.440] But sure enough, people who were looking for optimized press work done were the ones that were reaching out to me in those early days.
[00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:45.360] For those of you who don't know, Optimize Press is essentially a plug-in within WordPress that's kind of like a site builder.
[00:22:45.360 --> 00:22:53.680] And it was one of the first drag-and-drop site builders on WordPress whenever that started to be a more popular route for building websites.
[00:22:53.680 --> 00:23:00.920] Okay, I was going to ask if there was any sub-specialty, which, you know, you can go really deep on, you know, web design is hopelessly broad.
[00:22:59.840 --> 00:23:07.000] So, yeah, you mentioned I will design in WordPress and then specifically with this plug-in, kind of carving out a niche in that space.
[00:23:07.320 --> 00:23:08.520] Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:08.520 --> 00:23:17.240] And my encouragement to a web designer getting started is you need to take a risk on a specialty, like you mentioned.
[00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:32.360] And the specialty either needs to be for a certain group of people, like saying, Hey, I'm a web designer for HVAC companies, or I'm a web designer for course creators or podcasters.
[00:23:32.360 --> 00:23:37.960] So that's the group of people, or you need to have a specialty with a certain tool.
[00:23:37.960 --> 00:23:55.240] So if you are really good at HubSpot, which is like a CRM platform, then you need to be putting that at the forefront of what you do as a web designer because there are so many people who are looking for good HubSpot freelancers.
[00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:55.800] Okay.
[00:23:55.800 --> 00:23:58.200] Why do you call that taking a risk on a specialty?
[00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:04.520] It feels risky to say, like, I'm going to narrow down what I do and who I do it for, right?
[00:24:04.520 --> 00:24:08.280] Yeah, I'm going to say no to 99.9% of the market.
[00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:09.320] Right, exactly.
[00:24:09.320 --> 00:24:14.600] And when you're first getting started, you're like, why would I say no to anything and everything?
[00:24:14.600 --> 00:24:17.080] And listen, sometimes you just have to say yes, right?
[00:24:17.080 --> 00:24:21.800] I think there's a lot of people that are hammering niches down people's throats right now.
[00:24:21.800 --> 00:24:24.920] And when you're first getting started, you might not even know what you're good at.
[00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:27.560] You might not even know who you serve best.
[00:24:27.560 --> 00:24:33.160] But eventually, some patterns start to kind of come together and you can kind of look back.
[00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:40.040] And the reason why I was able to say I'm good at Optimized Press was because the first website I ever did, the person used Optimized Press.
[00:24:40.040 --> 00:24:42.600] And so I learned it like the back of my hand.
[00:24:42.600 --> 00:24:44.520] And so I was just like, you know what?
[00:24:44.520 --> 00:24:46.480] That's the thing I know the best.
[00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.800] And so I'm just going to go with it.
[00:24:48.800 --> 00:24:54.160] And so it was a little bit of jumping in with both feet and going, let's hope this works out.
[00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:55.840] And thankfully it landed.
[00:24:55.840 --> 00:25:01.120] And the equivalent today may be Elementor or Thrive Architect or there's a bunch of these.
[00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:02.000] Right, absolutely.
[00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:03.920] There are so many different things.
[00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:09.120] And as certain things get more and more popular, like Elementor is getting super popular.
[00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:13.760] And so you have to, I've heard it called the down-down niche.
[00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:21.200] So I do Elementor websites for local businesses or mom and pop coffee shops.
[00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:29.040] So the bigger a tool gets, the more people are going to learn it and the more you're going to have to learn how to differentiate yourself.
[00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:29.680] Okay, yeah.
[00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:35.520] So originally it was to take a risk on a specialty either for a group of customers or within a certain tool.
[00:25:35.520 --> 00:25:42.000] But if that tool is super popular, you might have to claim a specialty within that tool and for a certain group of customers.
[00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:42.720] Absolutely.
[00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:43.600] Absolutely.
[00:25:43.600 --> 00:25:53.920] Okay, so this guy or this customer hires you on Upwork, you get good feedback, and your bid to success ratio starts to improve after that?
[00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:59.840] Yeah, well, honestly, it was another three months before I got another gig.
[00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:01.520] It was a great copywriter.
[00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:06.720] His name's Ed Gandia, who has a podcast and is a copywriting coach.
[00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:13.520] And so he connected with me through Upwork and had me build out a landing page within Optimized Press.
[00:26:13.520 --> 00:26:19.360] From that, he gave me a few more jobs, and slowly but surely, the reviews started to stack up.
[00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:28.400] And then rather than having to go out and bid on certain projects, people started coming to me because they were seeing the array of reviews.
[00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:34.840] And one of the things that I always encourage people on Upwork is: if after a project's done, you have something to show for it.
[00:26:34.840 --> 00:26:55.320] Like if you can take a screenshot of the website that you've just created and attach that to the review, it's going to help you out a lot more than if you just leave the review by itself because you're trying to help people connect the dots between the work that somebody was pleased with and the quality that it actually was.
[00:26:55.320 --> 00:26:57.400] Yeah, make it visual if you can.
[00:26:57.400 --> 00:26:58.280] Absolutely.
[00:26:58.280 --> 00:27:00.040] And so I just kept doing that.
[00:27:00.040 --> 00:27:03.240] And then from there, it was kind of a snowball effect.
[00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:06.440] I ended up becoming a top-rated freelancer.
[00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:12.760] And then Upwork, right around the time I became a top-rated freelancer, went public with their stock.
[00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:17.880] And so I was actually featured on one of their advertisements and featured within the platform.
[00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:18.280] Oh, wow.
[00:27:18.360 --> 00:27:22.600] That really helped me to gain a lot more visibility for a certain season of time.
[00:27:22.600 --> 00:27:27.640] It's not, it didn't last for forever, but it certainly helped within the interim.
[00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:29.480] Yeah, that's awesome, man.
[00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:30.920] Yeah, thank you so much.
[00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:47.880] One of the inevitable pushbacks against Upwork is that it's global in that, okay, as a freelance web designer in Arizona, I'm competing with freelance web designers in developing countries who are often willing to work for far less than I am.
[00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:57.000] Did you stick to your guns on your rates, or did you find some filtering on which projects that you bid on?
[00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:04.520] Like, I'm curious how you avoided the race to the bottom that some of these freelance platforms are known for.
[00:28:04.520 --> 00:28:09.160] There's a season of time where you have to learn how to filter through the jobs that you're looking for.
[00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:21.600] Because if you take the default filtering, you're going to get anything and everything to bid on, and you're going to be wasting a lot of your time bidding on projects that are worth pennies to the amount of time you're going to put in them.
[00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:24.080] And so there's a filtering process.
[00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:41.840] So when I first got started, you can filter through the experience that the client has, the level of experience that the freelancer that they're looking for, the amount of projects that, or freelancers that have bid on the project, and the price range.
[00:28:41.840 --> 00:28:48.080] And so when I first got started, I just kind of said, okay, who would be looking for me, right?
[00:28:48.080 --> 00:28:50.320] What would my ideal client look like?
[00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:53.360] Or who would see me as the ideal freelancer?
[00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:58.560] And so I figured it was probably somebody that was new to the platform that was willing to give me a shot.
[00:28:58.560 --> 00:29:04.080] And I figured I was probably about like the mid-level range of experience and skill.
[00:29:04.080 --> 00:29:09.280] And then I was looking for somewhere between the $1,000 to the $2,000 range.
[00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:18.640] And so you can filter all of those types of projects within Upwork to where what you see is exactly what you're looking for.
[00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:19.520] That's what I did.
[00:29:19.520 --> 00:29:23.120] And that was a really successful strategy for me at the very beginning.
[00:29:23.120 --> 00:29:25.920] And then as time went on, my skills increased.
[00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:30.000] And so I started looking for more experienced projects that were higher paying.
[00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.960] And so you can filter out most of the projects where there are going to be people who would work for much less than you.
[00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:50.960] And at the same time, there are a lot of clients who are wanting to work with A, someone local, but B, someone in the same time zone, and then C, someone within the U.S.
[00:29:51.520 --> 00:30:00.520] Is that an actual filter, or are you just kind of gauging that based on their expected price range and desired freelancer experience little toggles?
[00:30:00.760 --> 00:30:02.360] No, it's an actual filter.
[00:30:02.360 --> 00:30:06.120] You can search for projects that are US-based only.
[00:30:06.280 --> 00:30:12.840] I occasionally will search for ones that are outside of the U.S., but it's very rarely that I find one outside of the U.S.
[00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:16.280] that is at the level that I'm looking for.
[00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:24.440] And so it's an easy on and off checkbox that really helps you dial in the projects that are kind of worth your time to bid on.
[00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:25.320] Yeah, that's helpful.
[00:30:25.320 --> 00:30:33.320] And imagine even if overseas workers are bidding on those, they're not a great fit in the client's mind because they're like, hey, that's not what I asked for.
[00:30:33.320 --> 00:30:33.640] Right.
[00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:39.320] And there are even, you know, a client can set it up to where restrictions on exactly what they're looking for.
[00:30:39.320 --> 00:30:45.080] So they can say within their project, I don't want anybody to bid on this project that isn't from the U.S.
[00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:50.360] If somebody does, then they don't get pushed to the top of the pile.
[00:30:50.360 --> 00:30:59.800] So if you're from the U.S., you have a much more likelihood to be seen and be connected with by the client who is looking for the freelancer.
[00:30:59.800 --> 00:31:01.800] You know, the same is true for locally.
[00:31:01.800 --> 00:31:10.120] Like if you bid on, like I'm in Arizona and I bid on a few projects in California and they just never landed, even though I knew I could do a really good job on them.
[00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:10.600] Interesting.
[00:31:10.600 --> 00:31:12.120] They're like, ah, that's too far away.
[00:31:12.120 --> 00:31:12.600] Yeah.
[00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:14.360] I can't deal with that.
[00:31:14.360 --> 00:31:20.280] Is Upwork still driving decent business for you today or have you shifted off platform?
[00:31:20.600 --> 00:31:25.640] Yeah, I'm in a kind of a new season of starting self-made web designer.
[00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:33.880] And so I've kind of started to do less freelancing and tried to help more and more people figure out how to do what I've done.
[00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:39.960] But Upwork still remains a good, consistent source of projects.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:42.200] And sometimes it's different.
[00:31:42.200 --> 00:31:48.480] For instance, I just had a company reach out to me through Upwork that wanted me to create an online course for HTML and CSS.
[00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:57.600] So that's not necessarily building a website, but it's still a great project and it's of great value to me because I love teaching and they're paying really well.
[00:31:57.600 --> 00:32:07.120] So it's not like it is not as, you know, it's not as steady, but it's only because I'm not actively putting as much effort into it.
[00:32:07.120 --> 00:32:17.200] So I'm still getting, I'm still getting interviews, I'm still getting requests, but if I were to put more time in it, it would definitely be just as much of a freelance side hustle as it once was.
[00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:30.880] Yeah, that's an interesting note, too, on Upwork and even other freelance platforms and other marketplaces is as your reputation builds and grows and as your portfolio and your feedback grows, all of a sudden you kind of become featured, right?
[00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:42.080] It's like as I'm going into post a job on Upwork, it's showing me like recommended people that I could either hire outright without any sort of back and forth or at least invite them to bid on my project.
[00:32:42.080 --> 00:32:46.880] So it's like, you know, you're no longer having to do this kind of like search and filter and shotgun approach.
[00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:49.680] It's like now people at least have some familiarity with you.
[00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:53.920] They've seen your profile, they've seen your past work, and they're like, this guy looks legit.
[00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.800] Let me invite him to this thing and see if it's a fit.
[00:32:56.800 --> 00:32:58.480] Yeah, and that's exactly it.
[00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:06.560] And there are even some clients who they haven't even posted a job yet, but they're just doing exploratory messages with certain freelancers.
[00:33:06.560 --> 00:33:10.800] And so that happens real consistently: of people saying, I haven't posted this job yet.
[00:33:10.800 --> 00:33:11.760] I saw your profile.
[00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:13.760] I'm very interested in working for you.
[00:33:13.760 --> 00:33:14.880] Can we talk?
[00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:20.560] So eventually, after you've built up a reputation, it gets much easier as time goes on.
[00:33:20.560 --> 00:33:23.040] And that's by Upwork's own account.
[00:33:23.040 --> 00:33:37.080] Like, they're trying to make the best freelancers connect with the best clients, and they get a lot of grief for certain things that they do, but I'm convinced that the decisions that they make are trying to serve both the freelancer and the clients who are looking.
[00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:41.000] Anything else that worked to market the business?
[00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:48.440] Chris's response, plus the surprising full-time career pivot this side hustle led to coming up right after this.
[00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:55.960] Years ago, this is probably 2009, I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara, and the presenter asks this question.
[00:33:55.960 --> 00:34:00.040] Are you working on your business or are you working in your business?
[00:34:00.040 --> 00:34:07.880] I saw myself as this full-time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that, no, I was still very much working in the business day to day.
[00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:11.160] So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full-time hire.
[00:34:11.160 --> 00:34:21.240] It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks.
[00:34:21.240 --> 00:34:28.040] Now, when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
[00:34:28.040 --> 00:34:32.280] Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
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[00:34:37.160 --> 00:34:40.280] That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed.
[00:34:40.280 --> 00:34:49.240] Side Hustle Show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash side hustle show.
[00:34:49.240 --> 00:34:57.000] Just go to indeed.com/slash sidehustle show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
[00:34:57.000 --> 00:34:59.960] Indeed.com slash sidehustle show.
[00:34:59.960 --> 00:35:01.480] Terms and conditions apply.
[00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:04.200] Hiring, indeed, is all you need.
[00:35:04.200 --> 00:35:15.000] You know, when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout, that's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner, Shopify.
[00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:18.960] Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business.
[00:35:18.960 --> 00:35:21.280] For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch.
[00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:29.600] They've got hundreds of beautiful, ready-to-go, proven-to-convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code.
[00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:37.760] You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more.
[00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:45.280] Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built-in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got.
[00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:50.160] If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify.
[00:35:50.160 --> 00:35:56.720] Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:35:56.720 --> 00:36:00.080] Go to shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:36:00.080 --> 00:36:03.680] Shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:36:04.640 --> 00:36:05.840] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:16.320] I always tried to come at it: I want to have more than one avenue of projects coming in because at any moment, Upwork can say we're done, right?
[00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:25.680] And then if I'm leaning completely on Upwork, then I'm going to be up a creek and I'm not going to have anything to do for quite a few months.
[00:36:25.680 --> 00:36:30.720] So another thing I did was I tried focusing on something called local SEO.
[00:36:30.720 --> 00:36:37.120] You know, I'm by no means a SEO expert and have never touted myself to be that.
[00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:49.680] And anytime a client has come to me asking for SEO, I always try to encourage them to either get somebody to work with me or if they need somebody that can do SEO and web design, by all means, if you find that unicorn out there, go for it.
[00:36:49.680 --> 00:36:56.400] But something that I did that was really smart was I put my home address on my website.
[00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:03.960] And another great strategy, and I started writing this blog post for my freelance website, but never got through with it.
[00:37:04.200 --> 00:37:11.480] A friend of mine encouraged me: write the blog post that says the 10 best web designs in whatever city you live in.
[00:37:11.480 --> 00:37:13.000] So for me, it'd be Gilbert, Arizona.
[00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:17.080] So it'd be the 10 best web design firms in Gilbert, Arizona.
[00:37:17.080 --> 00:37:22.840] And put some other people that you know that are good, that are close to you, but also put yourself.
[00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:36.840] And what happens when you focus locally, it drives people who are looking for your services to your site a lot easier because Google is setting it up to where they're wanting to connect people that are close to each other.
[00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:45.400] And so I've had quite a few jobs of people saying, I was looking for somebody that was in my city and you're right down the road from me and I love your work.
[00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:48.520] And so that was a super helpful strategy.
[00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:54.280] And then it eventually gets to the point where you've built up a network amongst other people.
[00:37:54.280 --> 00:37:59.160] Even jobs I've gotten on Upwork, those clients went and told their friends who weren't on Upwork.
[00:37:59.160 --> 00:38:01.160] And so then they reached out to me directly.
[00:38:01.160 --> 00:38:14.040] So if you're doing a good job, if you are, you have a certain level of expertise, but are good at things like project management and just staying in touch with clients, words going to get around and it's just going to kind of be a natural progression.
[00:38:14.040 --> 00:38:23.000] Now, outside of punching in your address on your website, and there are ways to do this in Google, My Business, that you can just type in, like, this is the area that I serve.
[00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:26.600] Like, if you don't want your home address public, I totally understand that.
[00:38:26.600 --> 00:38:28.840] Was that something that was like automatic?
[00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:34.920] Like, once you did that, it would like the algorithms kind of figured out, like, this is, this is the guy's business, this is where he is.
[00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:35.880] And that was it?
[00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:44.280] Or did you have to do something specific so that you showed up when I type in Gilbert, Arizona Web Designer, I find Mysteric Web Design?
[00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:48.960] Well, you know, I don't think there's anything that's super easy with Google and SEO.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:51.520] Good God, sometimes you want to bang your head against the wall.
[00:38:51.520 --> 00:38:58.640] But it wasn't instant, but eventually, so many web designers quit within the first two to three years, right?
[00:38:58.640 --> 00:39:08.560] Like, I remember when I first got started, I would just go look at people's websites that I knew were web designers, and there would be a website not found 403 error, and they were done.
[00:39:08.560 --> 00:39:10.160] You know, it was two to three years in.
[00:39:10.160 --> 00:39:18.400] And so, eventually, if you stick with it long enough, you outpace all of your competition.
[00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:21.280] And so, you become the person that shows up first.
[00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:30.640] And another thing that I did, which I think really helped me, was I had those friends that I did really cheap or free, that free website for.
[00:39:30.640 --> 00:39:34.000] And I just said, Hey, you know, I'm doing this website for you.
[00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:37.680] Will you go leave a review in Google for me?
[00:39:37.680 --> 00:39:47.680] Having some type of social proof within Google is so important, and they really favor that type of method with testimonies.
[00:39:47.680 --> 00:39:50.960] And they would prefer that you get rated on Google itself.
[00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:54.320] But any type of rating anywhere is going to help you.
[00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:57.200] And getting a rating from a client is not easy.
[00:39:57.200 --> 00:40:04.320] Most of us think we did a good job, and the client says they love it, and they pay us, and they're going to go leave a raving review.
[00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:06.720] No, it's just simply not that simple.
[00:40:06.720 --> 00:40:13.040] You have to have a good system of follow-up with a client to make sure that they are actually giving you feedback.
[00:40:13.040 --> 00:40:16.720] And a lot of times, like I would tell clients, like, hey, I'll write this for you.
[00:40:16.720 --> 00:40:18.400] Like, what do you think about this paragraph?
[00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:20.080] And they're like, Yeah, sure, great.
[00:40:20.080 --> 00:40:21.920] I'll put my name on it and I'll put it in.
[00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:24.720] You've got to be intentional if you want to get good feedback.
[00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:26.560] Yeah, that's 100% true.
[00:40:26.560 --> 00:40:36.840] And so few businesses have that system in place to solicit, especially Google reviews, but even Yelp reviews and these other platforms where these are really high-authority domains.
[00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:39.480] Like they show up really prominently in search.
[00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:52.120] And so if you can find your way to the top of those rankings, and I should check my wife's business, like for a long time, they were on the first page for Livermore wedding photographers because, again, it's kind of a suburb.
[00:40:52.120 --> 00:40:53.720] It's kind of a smaller town.
[00:40:53.720 --> 00:40:55.240] It's not that competitive.
[00:40:55.240 --> 00:40:58.280] You do a few things right in terms of on-page SEO.
[00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:00.520] Like there wasn't any proactive link building.
[00:41:00.520 --> 00:41:03.480] It was just asking happy clients to drop in a review.
[00:41:03.480 --> 00:41:07.080] And all of a sudden, there you are, like free traffic.
[00:41:07.080 --> 00:41:07.560] Yep.
[00:41:07.560 --> 00:41:10.120] And that's really similar to my story.
[00:41:10.120 --> 00:41:13.240] Like, I wasn't doing a lot of link building.
[00:41:13.240 --> 00:41:15.480] I wasn't even writing a ton of content.
[00:41:15.720 --> 00:41:23.240] I just said that I was in this city, put my address there, and then I asked people to write Google reviews.
[00:41:23.240 --> 00:41:27.880] And I wish I could say there was more secret sauce to it because that sounds so simple.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:36.600] Now, I'm curious: was there ever a thought to go after Phoenix web designer, or is it like, I can't compete, that's too big.
[00:41:36.600 --> 00:41:38.840] I'm going to go for my little suburb.
[00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:40.760] Yeah, well, little suburb.
[00:41:41.080 --> 00:41:43.720] There's still quite a few people here in Gilbert.
[00:41:43.720 --> 00:41:47.320] Like all of the cities surrounding Phoenix are pretty big.
[00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:53.400] And I knew there was enough business here to keep me busy for the rest of my career as a web designer.
[00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:53.800] Okay.
[00:41:53.800 --> 00:41:56.200] That's a really positive way to look at it.
[00:41:56.200 --> 00:41:56.520] Right.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:01.160] You know, and I think there might be some people listening who live in smaller towns.
[00:42:01.160 --> 00:42:04.760] And I mean, this might be a little bit different of an equation for you.
[00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:14.880] But even let's say if there's 30,000 people, there's 20,000 people in your city, there's still good work to be done within that small group of people.
[00:42:14.520 --> 00:42:17.840] And so don't just necessarily dismiss it right away.
[00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:26.880] But I have seen a few people use the strategy of really focusing on building content around three cities that are close to them that they want to focus on.
[00:42:26.880 --> 00:42:34.000] But I just knew, like, okay, there when I Google Web Designers Phoenix area, there's a lot of competition there.
[00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:39.280] When I Google Web Designers Gilbert area, there's not nearly as much competition.
[00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:43.760] Maybe one day I go for Phoenix, but for now, I'm a small fish in a big pond.
[00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:50.240] And so I'm happy to take my little corner of the world over here and just be content.
[00:42:50.240 --> 00:42:50.640] Right.
[00:42:50.640 --> 00:42:59.280] Better to be on page one for a lower volume, highly targeted search term than be on page eight for a higher volume search term.
[00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:01.040] What's next with this thing?
[00:43:01.040 --> 00:43:04.240] So you mentioned you're working on self-madewebdesigner.com.
[00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:05.760] Chris has got a podcast over there.
[00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:10.240] If you're interested in this business model, so you're not actively bidding on new work.
[00:43:10.240 --> 00:43:11.520] If it comes to you, fantastic.
[00:43:11.520 --> 00:43:12.480] I'll take a look.
[00:43:12.480 --> 00:43:14.400] Or are you building like an agency?
[00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:16.320] Like, you know, do you want to go full-time?
[00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:19.520] Like, I'm curious, what's coming down the road for your work here?
[00:43:19.840 --> 00:43:23.760] Well, the biggest pivot that I made was this last year.
[00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:31.440] I went from my full-time job as a worship pastor for a church to being a full-time UX designer at the company that I'm at right now.
[00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:32.640] It's called Show It.
[00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:35.200] And so I knew I wanted to go full-time.
[00:43:35.200 --> 00:43:47.120] And I was honestly considering just going full-time into freelancing, but the company Show It, like, I just resonated so much with their mission and the heart of the people that are running the business, the CEO.
[00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:49.600] And it just seemed, it was four miles away from my house.
[00:43:49.600 --> 00:43:52.480] So it seemed like a no-brainer to go, you know what?
[00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:56.720] I think there might be a little destiny here for me to be a part of this business.
[00:43:56.720 --> 00:43:59.680] So that was kind of my big step with web design.
[00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:05.000] And then really my focus right now is to build self-madewebdesigner.com to really help people.
[00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:06.360] And that all started.
[00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:13.320] There was a young guy who's on our staff at Show It, and he's actually going to school for computer science.
[00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:16.920] And we were on our company retreat, all relaxing in a hot tub.
[00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:21.240] And I was like, hey, man, like, why aren't you doing any web design work?
[00:44:21.240 --> 00:44:26.520] Like, you know more now than what I did when I first started telling people I was a web designer.
[00:44:26.520 --> 00:44:28.280] Like, why aren't you going for it?
[00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:31.480] And his response was, well, I'm just afraid.
[00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:32.200] I'm just scared.
[00:44:32.200 --> 00:44:34.280] Like, I don't know if I'll be able to find projects.
[00:44:34.280 --> 00:44:36.360] I don't know if I'll be able to do a good job.
[00:44:36.360 --> 00:44:40.840] I don't know the ins and outs of all these things that it seems like are so complicated.
[00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:45.240] And I was like, oh, man, like, let me help you take the next steps.
[00:44:45.240 --> 00:44:46.040] Let me help you.
[00:44:46.040 --> 00:44:48.680] I'll walk you through the process.
[00:44:48.680 --> 00:44:54.520] And so, sure enough, he was up for it and helped him find his first gig and kind of helped him through that.
[00:44:54.520 --> 00:44:59.960] And then after that, he just skyrocketed, started getting his own gigs and now has more work.
[00:44:59.960 --> 00:45:00.840] He's a college student.
[00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:03.880] He's making like $120 an hour on the side as a freelancer.
[00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:05.000] Oh, it's awesome.
[00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:05.240] Yeah.
[00:45:05.240 --> 00:45:07.240] And you're like, hey, if I could do it, you could do it.
[00:45:07.240 --> 00:45:07.800] Right.
[00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:12.920] And so my thought was like, man, there's got to be more people out there like Josh.
[00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:19.240] And my heart is always to build, like, I don't necessarily want to build a business as much as I want to build a legacy.
[00:45:19.240 --> 00:45:28.440] And so I'd love to build a legacy of people who can learn how to do what I've done and have it change their lives like it changed mine.
[00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:35.240] That really, like, I wish I could tell you, like, yeah, no, I'm automating everything and farming out the work, but no, that's not.
[00:45:35.240 --> 00:45:36.600] I've never had a heart to do that.
[00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:40.520] I've more had a heart to teach people and to help people along their own journey.
[00:45:40.520 --> 00:45:53.360] Well, and it's kind of this domino effect for all of the businesses that you've served and all of the customers that they serve and now all the people that you're helping get started in this business and the domino effect, the ripple effect of all that.
[00:45:53.520 --> 00:45:55.120] You're touching a lot of lives.
[00:45:55.120 --> 00:45:56.560] Yeah, well, you too, Nick.
[00:45:56.560 --> 00:46:06.720] You know, I mean, everything you've done, when I was first getting started, I was desperately looking for any type of insight as a side hustler and as a freelancer.
[00:46:06.720 --> 00:46:13.280] And back in the day, your podcast was one of the bright shining beacons out there, and it still is to this day.
[00:46:13.280 --> 00:46:15.840] So just really appreciate everything you've done.
[00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:18.560] Well, I'm always looking for more success stories like yours.
[00:46:18.560 --> 00:46:21.360] So if you're listening in and have a similar one, definitely hit me up.
[00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:26.800] So, Chris, very much appreciate you reaching out and joining me and sharing the story.
[00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.440] Selfmadewebdesigner.com.
[00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:30.960] Check them out over there.
[00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:35.520] Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
[00:46:35.520 --> 00:46:38.480] Yeah, my number one tip would be don't quit.
[00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:48.080] And I know that sounds simplistic, but it's going to be so incredibly enticing just to give up as soon as you face resistance.
[00:46:48.080 --> 00:46:52.000] But I always encourage people: if you don't quit, you win.
[00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:52.480] All right.
[00:46:52.480 --> 00:46:52.960] I like that.
[00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:54.160] If you don't quit, you win.
[00:46:54.160 --> 00:46:55.600] Keep playing the game.
[00:46:55.600 --> 00:47:01.840] I just read The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, and he said that was the hallmark of infinite leaders.
[00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:03.440] He called them infinite leaders.
[00:47:03.760 --> 00:47:06.480] They don't play to win the quarter or the year.
[00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:08.160] They play to keep playing the game.
[00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:09.040] But I like that.
[00:47:09.040 --> 00:47:09.840] Don't quit.
[00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:13.040] Chris, thanks so much, and we'll catch up with you soon.
[00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:19.120] All right, my top three takeaways from this call with Chris.
[00:47:19.120 --> 00:47:22.160] Number one is to always keep learning.
[00:47:22.160 --> 00:47:29.760] Like Chris explained, you don't need to be the best in the world to get started, but you do need to embrace a lifelong learning mindset.
[00:47:30.040 --> 00:47:34.680] It's hard to imagine an industry that's stood still over the last 10 or 20 years.
[00:47:34.680 --> 00:47:37.800] So there's always going to be new stuff to learn.
[00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:47.800] I think that's one thing that makes my job these days so exciting and rewarding is that I get to learn new skills, experiment with them, try stuff out in real time, and try and get better.
[00:47:47.800 --> 00:47:49.400] Everything is learnable.
[00:47:49.400 --> 00:47:51.960] Everything is Googleable or YouTubable.
[00:47:51.960 --> 00:48:02.920] And I really loved Chris's attitude here of continuing education, not just being a requirement to check off, but being a requirement to stay relevant and to fuel your own motivation.
[00:48:02.920 --> 00:48:05.000] So that's number one: keep learning.
[00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:08.040] Takeaway number two was to start with your network.
[00:48:08.040 --> 00:48:14.520] This is a common theme in many a side hustle show episode, but it's that for an important reason.
[00:48:14.520 --> 00:48:19.960] You probably already have a bigger, quote, audience than you give yourself credit for.
[00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:23.880] These are people who are hopefully rooting for your success.
[00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:28.840] And if they may not be ideal customers themselves, they might know someone who is.
[00:48:28.840 --> 00:48:36.680] But if you don't tell people about your work, remember Chris said he started introducing himself as a web designer, they can't make those referrals.
[00:48:36.680 --> 00:48:46.120] I know I've told this story before, but when the show started, I didn't have any audience to speak of, but I did have a decade of personal and business contacts.
[00:48:46.120 --> 00:48:50.920] So I reached out to those people individually to tell them about this new project.
[00:48:50.920 --> 00:49:02.520] If you're just sitting back and waiting for SEO or some other algorithm in order to get found, it might eventually work, but I think you can accelerate that if you start spreading the word yourself.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:04.240] So, that's takeaway number two for me here.
[00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:05.560] Start with your network.
[00:49:05.560 --> 00:49:11.160] And takeaway number three is the only known cure for imposter syndrome is doing the work.
[00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:20.000] Chris didn't call this common entrepreneurial hurdle by name, but he did talk about the fear and mindset issues that sometimes come up.
[00:49:20.240 --> 00:49:22.320] So, how do you overcome imposter syndrome?
[00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:23.520] You practice.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:27.120] I think everyone will face this at some time or another.
[00:49:27.120 --> 00:49:30.160] But remember, every expert was once a beginner.
[00:49:30.160 --> 00:49:36.720] If they let that fear and imposter syndrome paralyze them, they never would have gotten past that beginner stage.
[00:49:36.720 --> 00:49:44.720] I know it's tough, I know I've been there too, but from all the interviews, I think I found the cure, and it's to do the work.
[00:49:44.720 --> 00:49:53.440] Only through practice and repetition are you going to build that confidence and be able to silence that inner critic that says you're not good enough.
[00:49:53.440 --> 00:49:58.160] So, if you're thinking you're not good enough, you're not going to get good enough sitting on the sidelines.
[00:49:58.160 --> 00:49:59.440] Go get good enough.
[00:49:59.440 --> 00:50:00.560] You got this.
[00:50:00.560 --> 00:50:10.640] Once again, notes and links from this one, plus the full text summary of our call with all of Chris's top tips, are at sidehustlenation.com/slash self made.
[00:50:10.640 --> 00:50:11.520] That's it for me.
[00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:13.120] Thank you so much for tuning in.
[00:50:13.120 --> 00:50:15.920] Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen.
[00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:19.120] And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
[00:50:19.120 --> 00:50:20.080] I'll see you then.
[00:50:20.080 --> 00:50:21.600] Hustle on.

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

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[00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:00.000] That's policygenius.com.
[00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.080] And now, onto the show.
[00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:18.080] Here's an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits Collection: how one Side Hustle Show listener turned a challenging situation into a new income stream, or the path from no skills to three grand a month on the side.
[00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:22.160] What's up, what's up?
[00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.200] Nick Loper here.
[00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:28.000] Welcome to the Side Hustle Show because every expert was once a beginner.
[00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:37.360] Like many parents, I've been spending a lot more time with my kids over the last couple months, which has been a great silver lining to the whole having preschool clothes thing.
[00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:43.680] And one thing that is fascinating to me about spending this extra time with the kids is the pace of their learning.
[00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:49.520] They're two years old and four years old, for the sake of reference, and they're picking up new stuff daily.
[00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:54.240] What's weird is as adults, we start to think of our skill sets as fixed.
[00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:56.320] A kid would never think that way.
[00:01:56.320 --> 00:01:59.040] There's just stuff they haven't learned yet.
[00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:04.760] And that brings me to today's guest, Chris Misterick of self-madewebdesigner.com.
[00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:11.960] It's an appropriate URL for Chris because he's a self-made, largely self-taught web designer.
[00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:21.880] He went from being in a tight spot personally and financially to bringing in an average of three grand a month on the side through his new web design business.
[00:02:21.880 --> 00:02:30.360] Stick around in this one to hear how Chris picked up this new skill set on the cheap, how he found his first clients, and how he's marketed and grown the business since then.
[00:02:30.360 --> 00:02:35.480] And the important note here is that this is replicable across any number of industries.
[00:02:35.480 --> 00:02:41.880] In fact, I just hit publish on a blog post on some of the highest paid and most in-demand freelance skills.
[00:02:41.880 --> 00:02:43.640] Don't have any skills worth paying for?
[00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:45.640] Go learn some, just like Chris did.
[00:02:45.640 --> 00:02:55.320] Notes and links for this one, plus the full text summary of our conversation with all of Chris's top tips from the call, are at sidehustlenation.com/slash self-made.
[00:02:55.320 --> 00:03:02.920] I'll be back with my top takeaways from this chat with Chris, including the only known cure for imposter syndrome after the interview.
[00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:03.880] Ready?
[00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:05.160] Let's do it.
[00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:14.920] So, about six years ago, my wife of 10 years decided that she was done with our relationship.
[00:03:14.920 --> 00:03:20.760] So, that made a crisis for me, obviously, relationally, but also financially.
[00:03:20.760 --> 00:03:30.680] And so, I had to figure out a way fairly quickly to learn how to make some extra income on the side for me and my three daughters as a single dad.
[00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:39.160] So, I knew that I wanted to stay in my full-time job, knew I didn't want to leave that, but also knew like the salary that I was getting from that wasn't cutting it.
[00:03:39.160 --> 00:03:51.520] And so, off of the suggestion of a friend, ended up looking into web design and found some free online courses and just plowed my way through them as quick as I could.
[00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:55.360] And a few months later, I was telling people that I was a web designer.
[00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:57.280] So, you weren't working in tech at the time.
[00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:00.800] You didn't have, you didn't study this stuff in school or anything.
[00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:03.760] Just a friend out of the blue says, Hey, you ought to consider a web designer.
[00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:05.200] Like, sure.
[00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:05.680] You're right.
[00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:07.600] I was in a completely unrelated field.
[00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:10.960] I was essentially the equivalent of a full-time musician.
[00:04:10.960 --> 00:04:15.120] So, I was what's called a worship pastor at a church here in Phoenix.
[00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:20.640] So, I led just a team of volunteers that did all the music for all of our services.
[00:04:20.640 --> 00:04:24.560] And so, web development was never in my purview.
[00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:29.440] Like, never thought of myself as being someone that went down that avenue.
[00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:37.680] And so, as soon as I started doing some tutorials and doing some online courses, I instantly found out, like, hey, I really love this stuff.
[00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:43.040] And, like I said, started telling people I was a web designer, probably had no business telling people that.
[00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:50.560] But a few gracious friends gave me a shot and just slowly started building a freelance business.
[00:04:50.560 --> 00:05:01.440] And about 18 months in, I had doubled the income of my full-time salary at the church and was able to sustain everything that was happening in my daughter's life and our life.
[00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:12.320] And it was just such a crazy thing to happen to kind of force me into teaching myself and staying up late nights, but really kind of grateful to be in this place.
[00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:15.520] And I think it's tough to see that when you first get started.
[00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:20.800] It's tough to see that when you get through the other side of this, you're going to be better off than when you first started.
[00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:23.040] But that certainly was the case for me.
[00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:24.400] It definitely is.
[00:05:24.400 --> 00:05:37.720] And I want to highlight something that you said there as you started introducing yourself as a web designer, even if, you know, maybe in practical purposes, you had no business doing though, but like establishing that internally as part of your identity.
[00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:39.080] Like, yes, this is what I am.
[00:05:39.080 --> 00:05:40.120] This is what I do.
[00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:42.280] I think that was really powerful.
[00:05:42.280 --> 00:05:49.400] Did you give any thought or hesitation to the fact that the world is already crawling with web designers?
[00:05:49.400 --> 00:05:52.920] Like, how am I going to compete with all these people who actually know what they're doing?
[00:05:52.920 --> 00:05:54.360] Yeah, for sure.
[00:05:54.600 --> 00:06:00.440] I'm the kind of person that jumps both feet in before I really consider things.
[00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:05.720] And sometimes that turns out negatively, but in this case, it turned out great.
[00:06:05.720 --> 00:06:14.200] And I think anytime you're looking at a field where there's a need, you do need to consider like, okay, who's out there already?
[00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:15.640] And what's my competition?
[00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:23.720] But I think at the end of the day, there's no one person that is going to connect to all of these people out there.
[00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:27.080] If there's a big enough market, then there's a big enough need.
[00:06:27.080 --> 00:06:36.440] I might not be as good as other people in certain things, but I know my personality might connect with business owners a little bit better than other people's personalities.
[00:06:36.440 --> 00:06:42.840] Or the fact that I'm communicative and I follow up and I make deadlines and I hit them.
[00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:48.440] Like there are ways to stand out, even if you feel like the market is saturated.
[00:06:48.440 --> 00:06:48.840] Yeah.
[00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:52.440] And on top of that, so it's a big market, but it's also a growing market.
[00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:57.800] So it's not necessarily a business that relies on carving out market share from somebody else.
[00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:04.920] It's, hey, there are more and more businesses that are going to need a website, and I can make a name for myself there.
[00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:05.640] Absolutely.
[00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:11.960] The web design market is certainly changing, and it has changed, and it will continue to change.
[00:07:11.960 --> 00:07:15.840] So, from when I first started, it's even harder now to get into it.
[00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:25.600] And so, I don't think you should ever come into something that's a side hustle with the idea of I'm going to learn a skill and then bunker in and be set for the rest of my life.
[00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:44.960] I think you have to come at it of I'm always going to be learning, I'm always going to be adding new skills, I'm always going to be discovering what it is that my clients can really value from, could really benefit from, and then adding additional skills or bringing other people on your team and adding other components to what you have to offer.
[00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:52.160] Because it was 10 years ago that if you wanted a website, you had to know how to do web development, but now that's that's just not the case, right?
[00:07:52.160 --> 00:08:10.880] There's so many off-the-shelf platforms, and whether customers are educated on those or not, or they just like hey, they want a custom job, then they come out and they can hire you for that versus picking a template off of Wix or Weebly or Squarespace or even any of the thousands of free WordPress themes.
[00:08:10.880 --> 00:08:11.440] Exactly.
[00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:19.920] You know, I liken it to the fact that fast food restaurants will never shut down really good steakhouses.
[00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.040] There's just no way.
[00:08:21.040 --> 00:08:26.640] And so, there will always be a differentiation between what you have to offer versus what somebody else has to offer.
[00:08:26.640 --> 00:08:33.920] So, as long as you're coming about it with eyes wide open and saying, Okay, what makes me different than everybody else?
[00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:37.360] And who can I connect with better than everybody else?
[00:08:37.360 --> 00:08:38.960] You're going to find a place in the market.
[00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:42.400] You're going to find a place of people to find projects from.
[00:08:42.400 --> 00:08:42.880] All right.
[00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.960] Tell me about the self-education phase.
[00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:48.320] Was this just a matter of Googling how to be a web designer?
[00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:59.920] Like, curious, what queries or like what gave you the base-level education to start to feel confident to put a price tag and charge real money for customers?
[00:09:00.760 --> 00:09:01.320] Yeah.
[00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:05.480] So I first started with a platform called Code Academy.
[00:09:05.480 --> 00:09:08.120] And at the time it was 100% free.
[00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.600] Every single thing that they offered, you didn't have to pay for.
[00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:17.320] It's since gone on to have like a tier of paid courses and a tier of free courses.
[00:09:17.320 --> 00:09:23.000] And honestly, what is free now is the equivalent to what I took when I first got started.
[00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:29.960] So that gave me kind of the basic essential knowledge that I needed just to start building things.
[00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:38.760] But what I always encourage people to do if they're looking at getting into web development or web design is to just start building projects.
[00:09:38.760 --> 00:09:43.000] After you get the fundamentals, you learn most from doing.
[00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.600] And online courses can be really tricky.
[00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:51.240] They can give you kind of a false sense of security and that you know what you're doing.
[00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:58.920] And then, you know, all of a sudden you've got a job for somebody and you're tough out of luck because there's not somebody there typing the code out for you as you go.
[00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:01.800] Yeah, it's all theory until you put it into practice.
[00:10:01.800 --> 00:10:02.440] Right.
[00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:07.880] And so I took a course at my community college close to me had a course online.
[00:10:07.880 --> 00:10:14.200] But after that, like it was me and Google being best friends for months as we tried figuring stuff out.
[00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:18.600] You know, it's a slow process at first and you definitely get frustrated.
[00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:25.480] But the crazy thing is, like, I just went full-time this last year as a UX designer for a company.
[00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:36.520] And I thought I was going to come and sit amongst all of these web developers who didn't ever have to look anything up or never ran into any errors or like they, every code that they wrote was absolutely perfect.
[00:10:36.520 --> 00:10:40.920] But they were doing the same things that I'm doing and what I was doing when I first got started.
[00:10:40.920 --> 00:10:46.640] So there's this real big misconception that in order to be a web developer, you have to know absolutely everything.
[00:10:46.640 --> 00:10:48.320] And that's just not the case.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:53.280] I'm really glad you said that because I do the same thing, like how to do such and such in WordPress.
[00:10:53.280 --> 00:10:57.840] And I end up on some help desk thread or plugin support thread.
[00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:01.280] And yeah, I'm out there Googling stuff every day.
[00:11:01.280 --> 00:11:06.800] And that's kind of a technical element, but it's like the same thing, like how to set up such and such in Google Analytics.
[00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:09.040] Like the answers are out there.
[00:11:09.040 --> 00:11:12.080] And it's like you have the confidence to say, yes, I know how to do this.
[00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:13.760] Yes, I know how to find these answers.
[00:11:13.760 --> 00:11:18.560] You don't expect nowadays to have like this infinite knowledge bank in your head.
[00:11:18.560 --> 00:11:19.440] You don't need it.
[00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.160] And I'm curious what school will look like for our kids.
[00:11:22.400 --> 00:11:24.480] It's like, why do we have to memorize this stuff?
[00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:26.640] I can access this in 15 seconds.
[00:11:26.640 --> 00:11:27.040] Right.
[00:11:27.040 --> 00:11:28.560] Well, I remember being a kid.
[00:11:28.560 --> 00:11:42.880] And in order to know anything outside of what you were taught in school, like you either had to spend tons of time in a library or your family had to subscribe to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was, you know, a huge chunk of money.
[00:11:42.880 --> 00:11:45.040] And so it's just so different now.
[00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:52.320] There's so much knowledge at your fingertips that if you want to learn something, like whatever it is, it doesn't have to be web development.
[00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:53.280] It could be copywriting.
[00:11:53.280 --> 00:11:54.560] It could be digital marketing.
[00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:56.480] It could be Google Analytics.
[00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:02.160] There's a market for it and there are places and avenues to learn it for free.
[00:12:02.160 --> 00:12:03.280] Yes, absolutely.
[00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:17.840] So trying to figure out what is the large and growing market segment that you're something, at least somewhat interested in, and you have the competence and maybe persistence to figure out how to learn and how to become good at it, right?
[00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:24.240] The passion, I imagine, follows doing the work in most cases, or at least that's the Cal Newport bit.
[00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:26.400] It's like, don't start a business around your passion.
[00:12:26.400 --> 00:12:30.920] Start a business around something you are good at, that you care about, and then watch the passion follow.
[00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:32.920] And I always give the example of podcasting.
[00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:35.640] Like episode one, I had zero passion for podcasting.
[00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:36.440] I didn't know what I was doing.
[00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:37.400] Nobody does, right?
[00:12:37.400 --> 00:12:41.240] It's like, but over the years, I've become super passionate about podcasting.
[00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:43.480] So that is an important point as well.
[00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:56.680] And like you said, we're looking at this through the lens of web design, but we've seen it from other guests in the world of knife sharpening, in the world of bookkeeping, in the world of, you know, any skill, you name it, right?
[00:12:56.680 --> 00:12:58.040] You can go out and learn the skills for that.
[00:12:58.040 --> 00:13:05.000] It's just a matter of, is this something you can see yourself doing long term that you care enough to put in the education effort?
[00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:06.680] So I like that part.
[00:13:06.680 --> 00:13:11.400] Where did you go from there to saying, now, hey, I'm Chris, I'm a web designer.
[00:13:11.400 --> 00:13:12.600] Hire me?
[00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:20.520] Well, eventually I built enough websites for friends that I didn't have any more friends to build websites for.
[00:13:21.160 --> 00:13:23.880] Were you doing that stuff just for free for practice?
[00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:26.120] No, well, the first one was for free.
[00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:38.760] And then after that, I would approach it and just say, hey, I'm learning web design and I'd love to do a website for your business and I'll give you a great deal because I'm just getting started.
[00:13:38.760 --> 00:13:42.040] So after that first one, I never did it for free.
[00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:48.600] And most of my friends were gracious enough to know that I would put enough work into it to be valuable to them.
[00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:53.400] And I think a lot of people who get started think they have to be free for a really long time.
[00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:55.560] And I don't necessarily think that's the case.
[00:13:55.560 --> 00:14:04.600] I think you can start to charge fairly soon if you know that what you're giving brings value to the person that is getting the website, right?
[00:14:04.600 --> 00:14:11.160] So every time I got a project, like let's say my first paid gig was like 500 bucks for a website, right?
[00:14:11.160 --> 00:14:14.880] And so then every single one after that, I would double my rates.
[00:14:14.880 --> 00:14:16.560] So my next one was $1,000.
[00:14:16.560 --> 00:14:18.320] And then my next one was $2,000.
[00:14:14.680 --> 00:14:20.240] And my next one went on to $4,000.
[00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:29.360] And eventually I got to a place where, like, okay, this is, I'm getting a good value and I'm giving a good value to the people that are getting my services.
[00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:30.800] Yeah, so that went on.
[00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:34.800] And eventually I had to start looking outside of my social network.
[00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.160] Everybody you know has already done them, built them a website.
[00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:38.560] Okay.
[00:14:38.560 --> 00:14:39.520] Right, exactly.
[00:14:39.520 --> 00:14:42.880] And we laugh at that, but I think a lot of people dismiss that.
[00:14:42.880 --> 00:14:54.960] I feel like there's a lot more people in your people's world to be able to say, hey, let me give you this service, build you this website for money that might be connected to you, that might be close to you.
[00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:58.640] Because I've talked to a lot of people who are like, I just don't know anybody that would need one.
[00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:04.560] And I'm like, okay, go sit down, write down a list of 100 people that you know.
[00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:12.800] And then everybody that has a business or is connected to somebody that has a business, you reach out to them and see if they might need your help with a website.
[00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:14.480] And surprisingly, they all come back to me.
[00:15:14.560 --> 00:15:15.680] They're like, oh, yeah, you were right.
[00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:17.760] There was this person that needed a website.
[00:15:17.760 --> 00:15:18.240] Yeah.
[00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:22.080] Was it uncomfortable in any way pitching your direct network?
[00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.240] I mean, there is always, there is always that little bit, especially when you're first getting started.
[00:15:26.560 --> 00:15:33.200] There's that feeling of like, oh man, I want to make sure that I'm not just pulling the wool over my friend's eyes.
[00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:43.280] But I think if you are a good person and you come at it as like, if this fails, I'm not going to take their money from them because they're taking a risk on me.
[00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:49.840] And so because of that, I'm going to take a risk that if I can't figure this out, it's just going to be my own wasted time.
[00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:51.600] That's the thing with sales in general.
[00:15:51.600 --> 00:16:03.720] If you look at pitching your services to somebody as the greasy snake oil salesman, then you're going to feel that way no matter how good of a person you are, no matter how good of a freelancer or web designer you are.
[00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:15.320] But if you look at it as I have something valuable to offer people and people are willing to pay for it, then it becomes more, much more you're a servant to their needs more than anything else.
[00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:15.720] Yeah.
[00:16:16.040 --> 00:16:23.160] I've always had such a hard time with that, especially like in this particular space, because it's like, oh, you know, but I could do it myself for free or something.
[00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:26.040] But it's like, maybe the client doesn't have time to do that.
[00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:27.160] They don't want to do that.
[00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:29.640] They're just happy to, you know, have a custom thing.
[00:16:29.640 --> 00:16:34.040] And so it's like, you know, get out of your own head if you're kind of thinking in that sense.
[00:16:34.040 --> 00:16:35.080] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:45.160] And I think when it comes down to it, building a website, designing a good website that's actually going to benefit a company or a business is a lot harder than people think it is.
[00:16:45.160 --> 00:16:51.240] And I've had so many clients that come to me and say, We did our best with this website and it's just not any good.
[00:16:51.240 --> 00:16:52.600] Can you help us?
[00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:53.080] You know?
[00:16:53.560 --> 00:16:55.240] And so then it's like, yeah, for sure.
[00:16:55.240 --> 00:16:57.720] Like, those are the clients that would come to me.
[00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:05.000] More with Chris in just a moment, including how he expanded his client base beyond his personal network coming up right after this.
[00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:11.160] With our partner, Mint Mobile, you can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money.
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[00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.520] See Mint Mobile for details.
[00:18:05.520 --> 00:18:08.240] I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode.
[00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:17.680] OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy-to-use centralized hub.
[00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:22.560] But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
[00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:24.160] You probably don't remember this.
[00:18:24.160 --> 00:18:31.440] This is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups.
[00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:34.400] And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours.
[00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:49.360] Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work.
[00:18:49.360 --> 00:18:53.120] And those posts got us some of our first customers.
[00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:53.920] So thank you.
[00:18:53.920 --> 00:18:55.600] It's a full circle moment.
[00:18:55.600 --> 00:18:56.560] Oh, that's super fun.
[00:18:56.560 --> 00:18:57.360] Very cool.
[00:18:57.360 --> 00:18:59.520] That's Doreena, the co-founder of OpenPhone.
[00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:01.760] And sure enough, her posts are still there.
[00:19:01.760 --> 00:19:08.000] OpenPhone is offering SideHustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:13.280] That's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E openphone.com slash sidehustle.
[00:19:13.280 --> 00:19:18.480] And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
[00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:22.400] It's more than just putting pretty pictures in the right places.
[00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.040] It's testing designs and layouts out.
[00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:28.720] It's making sure that things are converting the way that we want them to.
[00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:36.840] It's making sure that things are set up automatically to where a client doesn't have to check their email every 10 minutes.
[00:19:37.080 --> 00:19:53.880] Like they just have a funnel and a system that just brings them to a place where they're getting leads and nurturing leads and then making sales in a way that they would never be able to do if it weren't for my expertise of having done the dirty work and gone in and figured this stuff out.
[00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:58.840] So in that sense, you should never feel bad about what you have to offer somebody.
[00:19:58.840 --> 00:19:59.400] Sure.
[00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:00.120] All right.
[00:20:00.120 --> 00:20:01.800] So you tap out your personal network.
[00:20:01.800 --> 00:20:06.360] You keep doubling your rates until people start saying, no, you're out of the warm leads.
[00:20:06.360 --> 00:20:07.960] So what happens next?
[00:20:08.280 --> 00:20:08.840] Yeah.
[00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:11.880] So then I went to a platform called Upwork.
[00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:14.680] And at the time, it was Odesk.
[00:20:14.680 --> 00:20:26.440] Did everything, put my profile up, got accepted, like dialed in my biography, started bidding on projects, and absolutely nothing happened.
[00:20:27.080 --> 00:20:31.320] And because you have like no reviews on the platform, you got no track record.
[00:20:31.320 --> 00:20:33.480] You're like, I'm not going to take a risk on this guy.
[00:20:33.480 --> 00:20:35.160] Exactly, exactly.
[00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:39.880] And I've heard most people had much quicker success than I did.
[00:20:39.880 --> 00:20:44.840] But for me, I was putting in bids and putting in looking for projects.
[00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:51.080] But if you don't have a lot of clout, if you don't have reviews, then it's a lot tougher to get people to trust you.
[00:20:51.080 --> 00:20:58.920] But I think there's also this aspect of you're kind of learning how to work within the platform, right?
[00:20:59.080 --> 00:21:00.200] Of Upwork.
[00:21:00.200 --> 00:21:12.680] There's a system and then there's a method with which is the best way to look for projects and to filter through projects and then to bid on projects that it takes some time to dial in.
[00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:14.800] Well, let's talk about some of those best practices.
[00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:19.200] So, Upwork is probably the largest freelance platform in the world right now.
[00:21:19.280 --> 00:21:24.800] I imagine they're blowing up with tons of qualified candidates as lots of people are out of work right now.
[00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:29.120] But it's featured in the book Buy Buttons as one of these mini marketplaces.
[00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:30.720] Go where the cash is already flowing.
[00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:38.640] Upwork is one of those sites where people who need work done and are willing to hire remotely are going to look for talent to do that work.
[00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:42.320] So, what made it start to hit for you?
[00:21:42.320 --> 00:21:44.640] It was a mixture of a few things.
[00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:51.920] So, eventually, I got one of my first gigs, and that went well, and I got good feedback from that.
[00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:53.440] And that was super helpful.
[00:21:53.440 --> 00:22:05.360] But I will say, the only reason I got that gig was I got some advice when I first got started that said, whenever you're laying out your skills, don't say everything that you're good at, right?
[00:22:05.360 --> 00:22:13.280] Don't say, I'm a web designer and a graphic designer, and I can do, I can edit your audio and edit your video, and I can do voiceovers.
[00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:17.280] Like, that's actually going to harm you more than it's going to help you.
[00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:20.880] And so, I dialed in what I had expertise in to three things.
[00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:25.760] So, it was WordPress, it was Adobe Photoshop, and it was Optimize Press.
[00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:30.320] And Optimize Press at the time was much bigger than it is now.
[00:22:30.320 --> 00:22:39.440] But sure enough, people who were looking for optimized press work done were the ones that were reaching out to me in those early days.
[00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:45.360] For those of you who don't know, Optimize Press is essentially a plug-in within WordPress that's kind of like a site builder.
[00:22:45.360 --> 00:22:53.680] And it was one of the first drag-and-drop site builders on WordPress whenever that started to be a more popular route for building websites.
[00:22:53.680 --> 00:23:00.920] Okay, I was going to ask if there was any sub-specialty, which, you know, you can go really deep on, you know, web design is hopelessly broad.
[00:22:59.840 --> 00:23:07.000] So, yeah, you mentioned I will design in WordPress and then specifically with this plug-in, kind of carving out a niche in that space.
[00:23:07.320 --> 00:23:08.520] Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:08.520 --> 00:23:17.240] And my encouragement to a web designer getting started is you need to take a risk on a specialty, like you mentioned.
[00:23:17.240 --> 00:23:32.360] And the specialty either needs to be for a certain group of people, like saying, Hey, I'm a web designer for HVAC companies, or I'm a web designer for course creators or podcasters.
[00:23:32.360 --> 00:23:37.960] So that's the group of people, or you need to have a specialty with a certain tool.
[00:23:37.960 --> 00:23:55.240] So if you are really good at HubSpot, which is like a CRM platform, then you need to be putting that at the forefront of what you do as a web designer because there are so many people who are looking for good HubSpot freelancers.
[00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:55.800] Okay.
[00:23:55.800 --> 00:23:58.200] Why do you call that taking a risk on a specialty?
[00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:04.520] It feels risky to say, like, I'm going to narrow down what I do and who I do it for, right?
[00:24:04.520 --> 00:24:08.280] Yeah, I'm going to say no to 99.9% of the market.
[00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:09.320] Right, exactly.
[00:24:09.320 --> 00:24:14.600] And when you're first getting started, you're like, why would I say no to anything and everything?
[00:24:14.600 --> 00:24:17.080] And listen, sometimes you just have to say yes, right?
[00:24:17.080 --> 00:24:21.800] I think there's a lot of people that are hammering niches down people's throats right now.
[00:24:21.800 --> 00:24:24.920] And when you're first getting started, you might not even know what you're good at.
[00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:27.560] You might not even know who you serve best.
[00:24:27.560 --> 00:24:33.160] But eventually, some patterns start to kind of come together and you can kind of look back.
[00:24:33.160 --> 00:24:40.040] And the reason why I was able to say I'm good at Optimized Press was because the first website I ever did, the person used Optimized Press.
[00:24:40.040 --> 00:24:42.600] And so I learned it like the back of my hand.
[00:24:42.600 --> 00:24:44.520] And so I was just like, you know what?
[00:24:44.520 --> 00:24:46.480] That's the thing I know the best.
[00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.800] And so I'm just going to go with it.
[00:24:48.800 --> 00:24:54.160] And so it was a little bit of jumping in with both feet and going, let's hope this works out.
[00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:55.840] And thankfully it landed.
[00:24:55.840 --> 00:25:01.120] And the equivalent today may be Elementor or Thrive Architect or there's a bunch of these.
[00:25:01.120 --> 00:25:02.000] Right, absolutely.
[00:25:02.160 --> 00:25:03.920] There are so many different things.
[00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:09.120] And as certain things get more and more popular, like Elementor is getting super popular.
[00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:13.760] And so you have to, I've heard it called the down-down niche.
[00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:21.200] So I do Elementor websites for local businesses or mom and pop coffee shops.
[00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:29.040] So the bigger a tool gets, the more people are going to learn it and the more you're going to have to learn how to differentiate yourself.
[00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:29.680] Okay, yeah.
[00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:35.520] So originally it was to take a risk on a specialty either for a group of customers or within a certain tool.
[00:25:35.520 --> 00:25:42.000] But if that tool is super popular, you might have to claim a specialty within that tool and for a certain group of customers.
[00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:42.720] Absolutely.
[00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:43.600] Absolutely.
[00:25:43.600 --> 00:25:53.920] Okay, so this guy or this customer hires you on Upwork, you get good feedback, and your bid to success ratio starts to improve after that?
[00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:59.840] Yeah, well, honestly, it was another three months before I got another gig.
[00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:01.520] It was a great copywriter.
[00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:06.720] His name's Ed Gandia, who has a podcast and is a copywriting coach.
[00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:13.520] And so he connected with me through Upwork and had me build out a landing page within Optimized Press.
[00:26:13.520 --> 00:26:19.360] From that, he gave me a few more jobs, and slowly but surely, the reviews started to stack up.
[00:26:19.360 --> 00:26:28.400] And then rather than having to go out and bid on certain projects, people started coming to me because they were seeing the array of reviews.
[00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:34.840] And one of the things that I always encourage people on Upwork is: if after a project's done, you have something to show for it.
[00:26:34.840 --> 00:26:55.320] Like if you can take a screenshot of the website that you've just created and attach that to the review, it's going to help you out a lot more than if you just leave the review by itself because you're trying to help people connect the dots between the work that somebody was pleased with and the quality that it actually was.
[00:26:55.320 --> 00:26:57.400] Yeah, make it visual if you can.
[00:26:57.400 --> 00:26:58.280] Absolutely.
[00:26:58.280 --> 00:27:00.040] And so I just kept doing that.
[00:27:00.040 --> 00:27:03.240] And then from there, it was kind of a snowball effect.
[00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:06.440] I ended up becoming a top-rated freelancer.
[00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:12.760] And then Upwork, right around the time I became a top-rated freelancer, went public with their stock.
[00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:17.880] And so I was actually featured on one of their advertisements and featured within the platform.
[00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:18.280] Oh, wow.
[00:27:18.360 --> 00:27:22.600] That really helped me to gain a lot more visibility for a certain season of time.
[00:27:22.600 --> 00:27:27.640] It's not, it didn't last for forever, but it certainly helped within the interim.
[00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:29.480] Yeah, that's awesome, man.
[00:27:29.480 --> 00:27:30.920] Yeah, thank you so much.
[00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:47.880] One of the inevitable pushbacks against Upwork is that it's global in that, okay, as a freelance web designer in Arizona, I'm competing with freelance web designers in developing countries who are often willing to work for far less than I am.
[00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:57.000] Did you stick to your guns on your rates, or did you find some filtering on which projects that you bid on?
[00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:04.520] Like, I'm curious how you avoided the race to the bottom that some of these freelance platforms are known for.
[00:28:04.520 --> 00:28:09.160] There's a season of time where you have to learn how to filter through the jobs that you're looking for.
[00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:21.600] Because if you take the default filtering, you're going to get anything and everything to bid on, and you're going to be wasting a lot of your time bidding on projects that are worth pennies to the amount of time you're going to put in them.
[00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:24.080] And so there's a filtering process.
[00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:41.840] So when I first got started, you can filter through the experience that the client has, the level of experience that the freelancer that they're looking for, the amount of projects that, or freelancers that have bid on the project, and the price range.
[00:28:41.840 --> 00:28:48.080] And so when I first got started, I just kind of said, okay, who would be looking for me, right?
[00:28:48.080 --> 00:28:50.320] What would my ideal client look like?
[00:28:50.320 --> 00:28:53.360] Or who would see me as the ideal freelancer?
[00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:58.560] And so I figured it was probably somebody that was new to the platform that was willing to give me a shot.
[00:28:58.560 --> 00:29:04.080] And I figured I was probably about like the mid-level range of experience and skill.
[00:29:04.080 --> 00:29:09.280] And then I was looking for somewhere between the $1,000 to the $2,000 range.
[00:29:09.280 --> 00:29:18.640] And so you can filter all of those types of projects within Upwork to where what you see is exactly what you're looking for.
[00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:19.520] That's what I did.
[00:29:19.520 --> 00:29:23.120] And that was a really successful strategy for me at the very beginning.
[00:29:23.120 --> 00:29:25.920] And then as time went on, my skills increased.
[00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:30.000] And so I started looking for more experienced projects that were higher paying.
[00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.960] And so you can filter out most of the projects where there are going to be people who would work for much less than you.
[00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:50.960] And at the same time, there are a lot of clients who are wanting to work with A, someone local, but B, someone in the same time zone, and then C, someone within the U.S.
[00:29:51.520 --> 00:30:00.520] Is that an actual filter, or are you just kind of gauging that based on their expected price range and desired freelancer experience little toggles?
[00:30:00.760 --> 00:30:02.360] No, it's an actual filter.
[00:30:02.360 --> 00:30:06.120] You can search for projects that are US-based only.
[00:30:06.280 --> 00:30:12.840] I occasionally will search for ones that are outside of the U.S., but it's very rarely that I find one outside of the U.S.
[00:30:13.080 --> 00:30:16.280] that is at the level that I'm looking for.
[00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:24.440] And so it's an easy on and off checkbox that really helps you dial in the projects that are kind of worth your time to bid on.
[00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:25.320] Yeah, that's helpful.
[00:30:25.320 --> 00:30:33.320] And imagine even if overseas workers are bidding on those, they're not a great fit in the client's mind because they're like, hey, that's not what I asked for.
[00:30:33.320 --> 00:30:33.640] Right.
[00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:39.320] And there are even, you know, a client can set it up to where restrictions on exactly what they're looking for.
[00:30:39.320 --> 00:30:45.080] So they can say within their project, I don't want anybody to bid on this project that isn't from the U.S.
[00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:50.360] If somebody does, then they don't get pushed to the top of the pile.
[00:30:50.360 --> 00:30:59.800] So if you're from the U.S., you have a much more likelihood to be seen and be connected with by the client who is looking for the freelancer.
[00:30:59.800 --> 00:31:01.800] You know, the same is true for locally.
[00:31:01.800 --> 00:31:10.120] Like if you bid on, like I'm in Arizona and I bid on a few projects in California and they just never landed, even though I knew I could do a really good job on them.
[00:31:10.120 --> 00:31:10.600] Interesting.
[00:31:10.600 --> 00:31:12.120] They're like, ah, that's too far away.
[00:31:12.120 --> 00:31:12.600] Yeah.
[00:31:13.160 --> 00:31:14.360] I can't deal with that.
[00:31:14.360 --> 00:31:20.280] Is Upwork still driving decent business for you today or have you shifted off platform?
[00:31:20.600 --> 00:31:25.640] Yeah, I'm in a kind of a new season of starting self-made web designer.
[00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:33.880] And so I've kind of started to do less freelancing and tried to help more and more people figure out how to do what I've done.
[00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:39.960] But Upwork still remains a good, consistent source of projects.
[00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:42.200] And sometimes it's different.
[00:31:42.200 --> 00:31:48.480] For instance, I just had a company reach out to me through Upwork that wanted me to create an online course for HTML and CSS.
[00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:57.600] So that's not necessarily building a website, but it's still a great project and it's of great value to me because I love teaching and they're paying really well.
[00:31:57.600 --> 00:32:07.120] So it's not like it is not as, you know, it's not as steady, but it's only because I'm not actively putting as much effort into it.
[00:32:07.120 --> 00:32:17.200] So I'm still getting, I'm still getting interviews, I'm still getting requests, but if I were to put more time in it, it would definitely be just as much of a freelance side hustle as it once was.
[00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:30.880] Yeah, that's an interesting note, too, on Upwork and even other freelance platforms and other marketplaces is as your reputation builds and grows and as your portfolio and your feedback grows, all of a sudden you kind of become featured, right?
[00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:42.080] It's like as I'm going into post a job on Upwork, it's showing me like recommended people that I could either hire outright without any sort of back and forth or at least invite them to bid on my project.
[00:32:42.080 --> 00:32:46.880] So it's like, you know, you're no longer having to do this kind of like search and filter and shotgun approach.
[00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:49.680] It's like now people at least have some familiarity with you.
[00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:53.920] They've seen your profile, they've seen your past work, and they're like, this guy looks legit.
[00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.800] Let me invite him to this thing and see if it's a fit.
[00:32:56.800 --> 00:32:58.480] Yeah, and that's exactly it.
[00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:06.560] And there are even some clients who they haven't even posted a job yet, but they're just doing exploratory messages with certain freelancers.
[00:33:06.560 --> 00:33:10.800] And so that happens real consistently: of people saying, I haven't posted this job yet.
[00:33:10.800 --> 00:33:11.760] I saw your profile.
[00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:13.760] I'm very interested in working for you.
[00:33:13.760 --> 00:33:14.880] Can we talk?
[00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:20.560] So eventually, after you've built up a reputation, it gets much easier as time goes on.
[00:33:20.560 --> 00:33:23.040] And that's by Upwork's own account.
[00:33:23.040 --> 00:33:37.080] Like, they're trying to make the best freelancers connect with the best clients, and they get a lot of grief for certain things that they do, but I'm convinced that the decisions that they make are trying to serve both the freelancer and the clients who are looking.
[00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:41.000] Anything else that worked to market the business?
[00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:48.440] Chris's response, plus the surprising full-time career pivot this side hustle led to coming up right after this.
[00:33:48.440 --> 00:33:55.960] Years ago, this is probably 2009, I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara, and the presenter asks this question.
[00:33:55.960 --> 00:34:00.040] Are you working on your business or are you working in your business?
[00:34:00.040 --> 00:34:07.880] I saw myself as this full-time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that, no, I was still very much working in the business day to day.
[00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:11.160] So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full-time hire.
[00:34:11.160 --> 00:34:21.240] It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks.
[00:34:21.240 --> 00:34:28.040] Now, when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
[00:34:28.040 --> 00:34:32.280] Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
[00:34:32.280 --> 00:34:37.160] There's no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results.
[00:34:37.160 --> 00:34:40.280] That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed.
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[00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:04.200] Hiring, indeed, is all you need.
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[00:36:04.640 --> 00:36:05.840] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:16.320] I always tried to come at it: I want to have more than one avenue of projects coming in because at any moment, Upwork can say we're done, right?
[00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:25.680] And then if I'm leaning completely on Upwork, then I'm going to be up a creek and I'm not going to have anything to do for quite a few months.
[00:36:25.680 --> 00:36:30.720] So another thing I did was I tried focusing on something called local SEO.
[00:36:30.720 --> 00:36:37.120] You know, I'm by no means a SEO expert and have never touted myself to be that.
[00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:49.680] And anytime a client has come to me asking for SEO, I always try to encourage them to either get somebody to work with me or if they need somebody that can do SEO and web design, by all means, if you find that unicorn out there, go for it.
[00:36:49.680 --> 00:36:56.400] But something that I did that was really smart was I put my home address on my website.
[00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:03.960] And another great strategy, and I started writing this blog post for my freelance website, but never got through with it.
[00:37:04.200 --> 00:37:11.480] A friend of mine encouraged me: write the blog post that says the 10 best web designs in whatever city you live in.
[00:37:11.480 --> 00:37:13.000] So for me, it'd be Gilbert, Arizona.
[00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:17.080] So it'd be the 10 best web design firms in Gilbert, Arizona.
[00:37:17.080 --> 00:37:22.840] And put some other people that you know that are good, that are close to you, but also put yourself.
[00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:36.840] And what happens when you focus locally, it drives people who are looking for your services to your site a lot easier because Google is setting it up to where they're wanting to connect people that are close to each other.
[00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:45.400] And so I've had quite a few jobs of people saying, I was looking for somebody that was in my city and you're right down the road from me and I love your work.
[00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:48.520] And so that was a super helpful strategy.
[00:37:48.520 --> 00:37:54.280] And then it eventually gets to the point where you've built up a network amongst other people.
[00:37:54.280 --> 00:37:59.160] Even jobs I've gotten on Upwork, those clients went and told their friends who weren't on Upwork.
[00:37:59.160 --> 00:38:01.160] And so then they reached out to me directly.
[00:38:01.160 --> 00:38:14.040] So if you're doing a good job, if you are, you have a certain level of expertise, but are good at things like project management and just staying in touch with clients, words going to get around and it's just going to kind of be a natural progression.
[00:38:14.040 --> 00:38:23.000] Now, outside of punching in your address on your website, and there are ways to do this in Google, My Business, that you can just type in, like, this is the area that I serve.
[00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:26.600] Like, if you don't want your home address public, I totally understand that.
[00:38:26.600 --> 00:38:28.840] Was that something that was like automatic?
[00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:34.920] Like, once you did that, it would like the algorithms kind of figured out, like, this is, this is the guy's business, this is where he is.
[00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:35.880] And that was it?
[00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:44.280] Or did you have to do something specific so that you showed up when I type in Gilbert, Arizona Web Designer, I find Mysteric Web Design?
[00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:48.960] Well, you know, I don't think there's anything that's super easy with Google and SEO.
[00:38:44.840 --> 00:38:51.520] Good God, sometimes you want to bang your head against the wall.
[00:38:51.520 --> 00:38:58.640] But it wasn't instant, but eventually, so many web designers quit within the first two to three years, right?
[00:38:58.640 --> 00:39:08.560] Like, I remember when I first got started, I would just go look at people's websites that I knew were web designers, and there would be a website not found 403 error, and they were done.
[00:39:08.560 --> 00:39:10.160] You know, it was two to three years in.
[00:39:10.160 --> 00:39:18.400] And so, eventually, if you stick with it long enough, you outpace all of your competition.
[00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:21.280] And so, you become the person that shows up first.
[00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:30.640] And another thing that I did, which I think really helped me, was I had those friends that I did really cheap or free, that free website for.
[00:39:30.640 --> 00:39:34.000] And I just said, Hey, you know, I'm doing this website for you.
[00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:37.680] Will you go leave a review in Google for me?
[00:39:37.680 --> 00:39:47.680] Having some type of social proof within Google is so important, and they really favor that type of method with testimonies.
[00:39:47.680 --> 00:39:50.960] And they would prefer that you get rated on Google itself.
[00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:54.320] But any type of rating anywhere is going to help you.
[00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:57.200] And getting a rating from a client is not easy.
[00:39:57.200 --> 00:40:04.320] Most of us think we did a good job, and the client says they love it, and they pay us, and they're going to go leave a raving review.
[00:40:04.320 --> 00:40:06.720] No, it's just simply not that simple.
[00:40:06.720 --> 00:40:13.040] You have to have a good system of follow-up with a client to make sure that they are actually giving you feedback.
[00:40:13.040 --> 00:40:16.720] And a lot of times, like I would tell clients, like, hey, I'll write this for you.
[00:40:16.720 --> 00:40:18.400] Like, what do you think about this paragraph?
[00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:20.080] And they're like, Yeah, sure, great.
[00:40:20.080 --> 00:40:21.920] I'll put my name on it and I'll put it in.
[00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:24.720] You've got to be intentional if you want to get good feedback.
[00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:26.560] Yeah, that's 100% true.
[00:40:26.560 --> 00:40:36.840] And so few businesses have that system in place to solicit, especially Google reviews, but even Yelp reviews and these other platforms where these are really high-authority domains.
[00:40:36.920 --> 00:40:39.480] Like they show up really prominently in search.
[00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:52.120] And so if you can find your way to the top of those rankings, and I should check my wife's business, like for a long time, they were on the first page for Livermore wedding photographers because, again, it's kind of a suburb.
[00:40:52.120 --> 00:40:53.720] It's kind of a smaller town.
[00:40:53.720 --> 00:40:55.240] It's not that competitive.
[00:40:55.240 --> 00:40:58.280] You do a few things right in terms of on-page SEO.
[00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:00.520] Like there wasn't any proactive link building.
[00:41:00.520 --> 00:41:03.480] It was just asking happy clients to drop in a review.
[00:41:03.480 --> 00:41:07.080] And all of a sudden, there you are, like free traffic.
[00:41:07.080 --> 00:41:07.560] Yep.
[00:41:07.560 --> 00:41:10.120] And that's really similar to my story.
[00:41:10.120 --> 00:41:13.240] Like, I wasn't doing a lot of link building.
[00:41:13.240 --> 00:41:15.480] I wasn't even writing a ton of content.
[00:41:15.720 --> 00:41:23.240] I just said that I was in this city, put my address there, and then I asked people to write Google reviews.
[00:41:23.240 --> 00:41:27.880] And I wish I could say there was more secret sauce to it because that sounds so simple.
[00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:36.600] Now, I'm curious: was there ever a thought to go after Phoenix web designer, or is it like, I can't compete, that's too big.
[00:41:36.600 --> 00:41:38.840] I'm going to go for my little suburb.
[00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:40.760] Yeah, well, little suburb.
[00:41:41.080 --> 00:41:43.720] There's still quite a few people here in Gilbert.
[00:41:43.720 --> 00:41:47.320] Like all of the cities surrounding Phoenix are pretty big.
[00:41:47.320 --> 00:41:53.400] And I knew there was enough business here to keep me busy for the rest of my career as a web designer.
[00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:53.800] Okay.
[00:41:53.800 --> 00:41:56.200] That's a really positive way to look at it.
[00:41:56.200 --> 00:41:56.520] Right.
[00:41:56.520 --> 00:42:01.160] You know, and I think there might be some people listening who live in smaller towns.
[00:42:01.160 --> 00:42:04.760] And I mean, this might be a little bit different of an equation for you.
[00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:14.880] But even let's say if there's 30,000 people, there's 20,000 people in your city, there's still good work to be done within that small group of people.
[00:42:14.520 --> 00:42:17.840] And so don't just necessarily dismiss it right away.
[00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:26.880] But I have seen a few people use the strategy of really focusing on building content around three cities that are close to them that they want to focus on.
[00:42:26.880 --> 00:42:34.000] But I just knew, like, okay, there when I Google Web Designers Phoenix area, there's a lot of competition there.
[00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:39.280] When I Google Web Designers Gilbert area, there's not nearly as much competition.
[00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:43.760] Maybe one day I go for Phoenix, but for now, I'm a small fish in a big pond.
[00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:50.240] And so I'm happy to take my little corner of the world over here and just be content.
[00:42:50.240 --> 00:42:50.640] Right.
[00:42:50.640 --> 00:42:59.280] Better to be on page one for a lower volume, highly targeted search term than be on page eight for a higher volume search term.
[00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:01.040] What's next with this thing?
[00:43:01.040 --> 00:43:04.240] So you mentioned you're working on self-madewebdesigner.com.
[00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:05.760] Chris has got a podcast over there.
[00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:10.240] If you're interested in this business model, so you're not actively bidding on new work.
[00:43:10.240 --> 00:43:11.520] If it comes to you, fantastic.
[00:43:11.520 --> 00:43:12.480] I'll take a look.
[00:43:12.480 --> 00:43:14.400] Or are you building like an agency?
[00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:16.320] Like, you know, do you want to go full-time?
[00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:19.520] Like, I'm curious, what's coming down the road for your work here?
[00:43:19.840 --> 00:43:23.760] Well, the biggest pivot that I made was this last year.
[00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:31.440] I went from my full-time job as a worship pastor for a church to being a full-time UX designer at the company that I'm at right now.
[00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:32.640] It's called Show It.
[00:43:32.640 --> 00:43:35.200] And so I knew I wanted to go full-time.
[00:43:35.200 --> 00:43:47.120] And I was honestly considering just going full-time into freelancing, but the company Show It, like, I just resonated so much with their mission and the heart of the people that are running the business, the CEO.
[00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:49.600] And it just seemed, it was four miles away from my house.
[00:43:49.600 --> 00:43:52.480] So it seemed like a no-brainer to go, you know what?
[00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:56.720] I think there might be a little destiny here for me to be a part of this business.
[00:43:56.720 --> 00:43:59.680] So that was kind of my big step with web design.
[00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:05.000] And then really my focus right now is to build self-madewebdesigner.com to really help people.
[00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:06.360] And that all started.
[00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:13.320] There was a young guy who's on our staff at Show It, and he's actually going to school for computer science.
[00:44:13.320 --> 00:44:16.920] And we were on our company retreat, all relaxing in a hot tub.
[00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:21.240] And I was like, hey, man, like, why aren't you doing any web design work?
[00:44:21.240 --> 00:44:26.520] Like, you know more now than what I did when I first started telling people I was a web designer.
[00:44:26.520 --> 00:44:28.280] Like, why aren't you going for it?
[00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:31.480] And his response was, well, I'm just afraid.
[00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:32.200] I'm just scared.
[00:44:32.200 --> 00:44:34.280] Like, I don't know if I'll be able to find projects.
[00:44:34.280 --> 00:44:36.360] I don't know if I'll be able to do a good job.
[00:44:36.360 --> 00:44:40.840] I don't know the ins and outs of all these things that it seems like are so complicated.
[00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:45.240] And I was like, oh, man, like, let me help you take the next steps.
[00:44:45.240 --> 00:44:46.040] Let me help you.
[00:44:46.040 --> 00:44:48.680] I'll walk you through the process.
[00:44:48.680 --> 00:44:54.520] And so, sure enough, he was up for it and helped him find his first gig and kind of helped him through that.
[00:44:54.520 --> 00:44:59.960] And then after that, he just skyrocketed, started getting his own gigs and now has more work.
[00:44:59.960 --> 00:45:00.840] He's a college student.
[00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:03.880] He's making like $120 an hour on the side as a freelancer.
[00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:05.000] Oh, it's awesome.
[00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:05.240] Yeah.
[00:45:05.240 --> 00:45:07.240] And you're like, hey, if I could do it, you could do it.
[00:45:07.240 --> 00:45:07.800] Right.
[00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:12.920] And so my thought was like, man, there's got to be more people out there like Josh.
[00:45:12.920 --> 00:45:19.240] And my heart is always to build, like, I don't necessarily want to build a business as much as I want to build a legacy.
[00:45:19.240 --> 00:45:28.440] And so I'd love to build a legacy of people who can learn how to do what I've done and have it change their lives like it changed mine.
[00:45:28.440 --> 00:45:35.240] That really, like, I wish I could tell you, like, yeah, no, I'm automating everything and farming out the work, but no, that's not.
[00:45:35.240 --> 00:45:36.600] I've never had a heart to do that.
[00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:40.520] I've more had a heart to teach people and to help people along their own journey.
[00:45:40.520 --> 00:45:53.360] Well, and it's kind of this domino effect for all of the businesses that you've served and all of the customers that they serve and now all the people that you're helping get started in this business and the domino effect, the ripple effect of all that.
[00:45:53.520 --> 00:45:55.120] You're touching a lot of lives.
[00:45:55.120 --> 00:45:56.560] Yeah, well, you too, Nick.
[00:45:56.560 --> 00:46:06.720] You know, I mean, everything you've done, when I was first getting started, I was desperately looking for any type of insight as a side hustler and as a freelancer.
[00:46:06.720 --> 00:46:13.280] And back in the day, your podcast was one of the bright shining beacons out there, and it still is to this day.
[00:46:13.280 --> 00:46:15.840] So just really appreciate everything you've done.
[00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:18.560] Well, I'm always looking for more success stories like yours.
[00:46:18.560 --> 00:46:21.360] So if you're listening in and have a similar one, definitely hit me up.
[00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:26.800] So, Chris, very much appreciate you reaching out and joining me and sharing the story.
[00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.440] Selfmadewebdesigner.com.
[00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:30.960] Check them out over there.
[00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:35.520] Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
[00:46:35.520 --> 00:46:38.480] Yeah, my number one tip would be don't quit.
[00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:48.080] And I know that sounds simplistic, but it's going to be so incredibly enticing just to give up as soon as you face resistance.
[00:46:48.080 --> 00:46:52.000] But I always encourage people: if you don't quit, you win.
[00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:52.480] All right.
[00:46:52.480 --> 00:46:52.960] I like that.
[00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:54.160] If you don't quit, you win.
[00:46:54.160 --> 00:46:55.600] Keep playing the game.
[00:46:55.600 --> 00:47:01.840] I just read The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, and he said that was the hallmark of infinite leaders.
[00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:03.440] He called them infinite leaders.
[00:47:03.760 --> 00:47:06.480] They don't play to win the quarter or the year.
[00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:08.160] They play to keep playing the game.
[00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:09.040] But I like that.
[00:47:09.040 --> 00:47:09.840] Don't quit.
[00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:13.040] Chris, thanks so much, and we'll catch up with you soon.
[00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:19.120] All right, my top three takeaways from this call with Chris.
[00:47:19.120 --> 00:47:22.160] Number one is to always keep learning.
[00:47:22.160 --> 00:47:29.760] Like Chris explained, you don't need to be the best in the world to get started, but you do need to embrace a lifelong learning mindset.
[00:47:30.040 --> 00:47:34.680] It's hard to imagine an industry that's stood still over the last 10 or 20 years.
[00:47:34.680 --> 00:47:37.800] So there's always going to be new stuff to learn.
[00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:47.800] I think that's one thing that makes my job these days so exciting and rewarding is that I get to learn new skills, experiment with them, try stuff out in real time, and try and get better.
[00:47:47.800 --> 00:47:49.400] Everything is learnable.
[00:47:49.400 --> 00:47:51.960] Everything is Googleable or YouTubable.
[00:47:51.960 --> 00:48:02.920] And I really loved Chris's attitude here of continuing education, not just being a requirement to check off, but being a requirement to stay relevant and to fuel your own motivation.
[00:48:02.920 --> 00:48:05.000] So that's number one: keep learning.
[00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:08.040] Takeaway number two was to start with your network.
[00:48:08.040 --> 00:48:14.520] This is a common theme in many a side hustle show episode, but it's that for an important reason.
[00:48:14.520 --> 00:48:19.960] You probably already have a bigger, quote, audience than you give yourself credit for.
[00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:23.880] These are people who are hopefully rooting for your success.
[00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:28.840] And if they may not be ideal customers themselves, they might know someone who is.
[00:48:28.840 --> 00:48:36.680] But if you don't tell people about your work, remember Chris said he started introducing himself as a web designer, they can't make those referrals.
[00:48:36.680 --> 00:48:46.120] I know I've told this story before, but when the show started, I didn't have any audience to speak of, but I did have a decade of personal and business contacts.
[00:48:46.120 --> 00:48:50.920] So I reached out to those people individually to tell them about this new project.
[00:48:50.920 --> 00:49:02.520] If you're just sitting back and waiting for SEO or some other algorithm in order to get found, it might eventually work, but I think you can accelerate that if you start spreading the word yourself.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:04.240] So, that's takeaway number two for me here.
[00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:05.560] Start with your network.
[00:49:05.560 --> 00:49:11.160] And takeaway number three is the only known cure for imposter syndrome is doing the work.
[00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:20.000] Chris didn't call this common entrepreneurial hurdle by name, but he did talk about the fear and mindset issues that sometimes come up.
[00:49:20.240 --> 00:49:22.320] So, how do you overcome imposter syndrome?
[00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:23.520] You practice.
[00:49:23.520 --> 00:49:27.120] I think everyone will face this at some time or another.
[00:49:27.120 --> 00:49:30.160] But remember, every expert was once a beginner.
[00:49:30.160 --> 00:49:36.720] If they let that fear and imposter syndrome paralyze them, they never would have gotten past that beginner stage.
[00:49:36.720 --> 00:49:44.720] I know it's tough, I know I've been there too, but from all the interviews, I think I found the cure, and it's to do the work.
[00:49:44.720 --> 00:49:53.440] Only through practice and repetition are you going to build that confidence and be able to silence that inner critic that says you're not good enough.
[00:49:53.440 --> 00:49:58.160] So, if you're thinking you're not good enough, you're not going to get good enough sitting on the sidelines.
[00:49:58.160 --> 00:49:59.440] Go get good enough.
[00:49:59.440 --> 00:50:00.560] You got this.
[00:50:00.560 --> 00:50:10.640] Once again, notes and links from this one, plus the full text summary of our call with all of Chris's top tips, are at sidehustlenation.com/slash self made.
[00:50:10.640 --> 00:50:11.520] That's it for me.
[00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:13.120] Thank you so much for tuning in.
[00:50:13.120 --> 00:50:15.920] Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen.
[00:50:15.920 --> 00:50:19.120] And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
[00:50:19.120 --> 00:50:20.080] I'll see you then.
[00:50:20.080 --> 00:50:21.600] Hustle on.