Notes

Only growing through referrals, interesting.

Basically he says you need to outsource some part of the programming if you want to find clients because otherwise you won’t have time to find those clients.

Section 3: Planning an strategy

Value proposition: What exactly is that you’re delivering to your customer e.g.: taxi app –> Can get you to whatever location faster.

YOu can be good, cheap or fast. 2 of the 3, but not the three. Think which ones you want to focus.

DO things that do not scale? e.g.: if Facebook ad, do a tiny investment instead of big, you don’t know yet if it works.

This section was pretty much useless and taught me nothing

Section 4: Setting up your presence.

Clients judge you based on your website (sure, common sense)

Start simple and improve later because you don’t know what works yet (on your website).

Use templates. Use this to find the templates. Finally something useful. Check them and get ideas for your site. Also ThemeForset

JUst google TAilwind templates

This one for quick and cheap changes

Selecting a name

Use al literal name of what you do then compress it. PIck a feeling you wan tto convey. e.g.: TrustCoding

Compare with Benjamin’s Tech City Labs

Section 5: Finding freelancers

The thought that he wastes 1h42 minutes to enumerate three sites….Jesuschrist.

Elance, Upwork and Freelancer. It’s very dated because Elance and Upwork are now the same.

Section 6: Building a portfolio

I can’t find anything here that is any useful to me.

Between 5 to 10 items.

If you ever want to grow your portfolio doing free projects use CatchAFire

Section 7: Getting clients

This is the core reason I bought this course.

Who is your ideal client base?

Email scrape is pointless due to GDPR.

Offer adjacent services to those tryign to hire in-house: That means someone who wants to have you as employee, offer them to do it as service. For example find full-stack jobs in Linkedin and instead contact each company offering the service. This isn’t a bad idea. Use ChatGPT to write down the email, Foundation to give it a nice format. If you can find the CEO and their socials.

Email permutator is a tool that can help you find the email addresses.

Offering discounts to groups works better with white papers but he’s talking about ugly, old, insuferable Meet-Up site. Think of associations, or chambers of commerce for each different group

USe the cloud computing notes you have in pdf in the downloads folder for a white paper.

Affiliation increases trust. Feeling of community (Mastodon?)

Tag your work (same as you put that on the frontend of survation in the console). Discounts based on tagging or advertising of the code.

Larger clients don’t like tagging, not that it isn’t obvious.

Maybe go after another startups.

Sell things that reuqire maintenance = predictable income. One of this was the idea of a clackey isnstance. You should have a section on your site with products.

I still think you should add Stripe on yoru site and charge 3 different brackets of time in it.

This sucks let me fix it: It’s the strategy of going to websites and telling them you can fix X,Y,Z with a budget and telling them “hey I can see X and I can fix it for Y and it’ll cost Z”. You get first entry with a lot of new people and referrals that way too even if they don’t hire you. If they have one thing to fix they might have plenty more and keep coming back to you. Don’t insult their website, just show how things could be done better.

The perpetual discount: There’s nothing to say about this, you know exactly what it is. You’ve been 4 years charging Survation a perpetual discount. It’s useful to add value having a higher value and also for negotiation being able to discount. Don’t lower it too much.

BUild something and give it away: This is nothing new, is just the same tool as working for a charity. But here is about targetting exactly what you want to do for a client to just show your competence. You like Terraform, create Terraform basic stuff for each cloud. This strategy would be specially good if you want to build repeatedly similar solutions as products. There’s less of a negative reaction with free stuff. ANd it is still advertising.

Tutorials. No reason to explain this one. It’s the same as building something and give away. It can be videos, blog posts, pick something you are really good at and your clients are interested. You lower the “purchase barrier” when you do tutorials. It’s like a warm call vs a cold call (you already know what these mean). You can pick something that your niche (if you have one) wants and use it.

Basically deliver value always.

Some procedure from this section I came up with:

1. Remember your clients, what do they have in common? What are their similarities?
2. Who is most likely to purchase from you?
3. Who is your ideal customer?
4. Use NerdyData to find those clients.
5. Offer adjacent services for those trying to hire in-house. Try to contact the CEO of each ocmpany, use Email permutator if needed. (metricsparrow.com)
6. Use your affiliations: people you know.
7. Develop affiliation strength. Think of all the affiliations you have an improve how this network can lead you to more clients.
8. Tag your work. And if you cannot, then use it to write a white paper where you describe a similar issue being solved.
9. Sell stuff that requires maintenance, from Mastodon servers, to Wordpress maintenance, you already have plenty you can do maitnenance for. You can also look for things that already exists.
10. Contact websites that have something to fix. I suggest you have a template ready for this (Foundation).
11. Offer first a higher price, if they don’t accept it offer a discount. Higher anchor prices increase perceived value.
12. Do stuff for free: Because this establishes you as someone competent and puts your foot in the door with lots of people.
13. Do a tutorial: Is a good way to drive traffict back to your site. Pick something you’re really good at.

You need a proper catalogue of services. This 13 list points is enough of value to have done this course. This is why I paid them for.

Section 8: Building proposals

You need to become profficient at doing this QUICKLY

Proposals always start from vague ideas from the client.

You need to convince your proposal is the best possible solution. Compare the market. It’s the final opportunity to make an impression before signing a contract.

There are three types

• Casual (ballpark estimates). What do you need to have an estimate? Figure that out.
• Semi formal
• Formal.

Use casual for very small projects. To make them feel they don’t require a big amount of paperwork and you can do it quickly. e.g.: Jero’s BIO page.

Use S.F. for a timeline, total hours. Use Excel, go through each item.

Use Complex/Formal for: projects that require multiple people to approve it so you need something that they can show to others on the team. This can take a full day to write. Use a presentation. For example a PDF. Introduction of who you are, then go through each part of their project.

Components of proposals (complex)

You can use this even as a FAQ in your page

When you write a proposal you want to minimise friction.

1. About you (no more than 1 page, what you have achieved in the past).
2. Overview of the project (pitch the project back to the client, show then you understand the project). Do soem background check.
3. How you work (agile? describe your step by step process, tech you use, how would you provide feedback)
4. Timeline (this is your Achilles heel, the area where you should improve the most because you normally finish quicker than expected, it needs a basis of how long it might take, don’t give excesssive details or you’ll set yourself for failure)
5. Price (the one they’ll check the most, don’t be vague)
6. Next Steps (payment terms, deliverables you need)
7. Disclaimers (if there’s changest then timeline might change, NDAs, if any new features are added blablabal, stuff to avoid requirements creep)What could cause delays

You could add case studies if you added something related before.

Don’t add development contracts on your proposal, those are for once they say yes.

Types of estimates

You want to be clear, easy to understand, digestible.

• All Together. Just a ballpark cost, no itemised. Save you time. If the client already trusts you and knows how you work.
• Section by Section. THe name defines it.
• Piece by piece. Even more detailed, you’ll use it in Agile, the sprints.

The more you show, the more itemised, the more trust you build.

There are tools for complex proposals. He shows Proposify, it also has templates.

You typically want to add due dates for estimates because it might only be valid for certain time.

Nusii is another one, you can find more with “proposal generator”. Cost 29 USD per month minimum.

You could use 99design for people to compete on designs you need (eg. your company logo).

When giving a ballpark always use a range and ALWAYS tell any changes will affect the range. Give always quick ballpark estimates because you need ot be the first giving one before they go elsewhere. Take your time to give a ballpark.

Constant estimation

ADDONS: For every sprint, include extra estimations for other features the client might have forgotten and might want.

Customise the proposals, otherwise the clients will notice. Some parts will always be the same.

Managing clients

Plan for growth. Underpromise and overdeliver. One of your USP is exclusivity.

The right amount of distance

1. Gauge each client
2. Set the tone (in the proposal). Clients usually default to your judgement.
3. Make them feel they are in the loop.
4. Enforce your own schedule.

This can on itself be a selling point thought carefully.

When you don’t know something, give a time when you’ll knwo when something can be fixed.

Jargon

This is all common sense.

Do not minimise it but don’t use too much, balance is key. Too little jargon makes it sound like a project is simpler than it should be.

Sniffing out their budget

If you know you can adapt what you deliver to their budget, also avoid wasting time if they don’t have any budget at all to spend on you.

Never ask teh budget upfront. Some ways to figure it out:

1. They assure you that their project is really simple = signaling budget is a concern.
2. How much specificity they give you = More aware of how big a project is = no budget problems.
3. I vs We. If they use “we” then you know multiple people = they can pay for it.
4. Consider how much you know about the client. <– What a stupid advice. What were you doing on the previous 3?
5. How quickly they go through their process –> Fast = money is no issue.
6. They ask for extra estimates they don’t use –> They can’t afford it. Constrained budget
7. Give ballpark estimates to avoid wasting time with people who don’t have a budget.

Speed is important when replying.

Clients are anxious people. Don’t give them time to worry. Even if you just reply with “I received your email, I’ll respond in X time”.

Clients can be wrong

Again common sense. Document everything.

Best practices

Let’s make a summary.

1. Under promise, over deliver. Cost/features/timeline mind those 3.
2. At the beginning cost is something you need to negotiate more because you need clients and a portafolio first.
3. If ability is a limit, negotiate on cost or time, “I can do that but it might take an extra month” because in that month you’re learning that tool.
4. Decide on whether to use or not agile.
5. Bigger budgets = better projects. Succesful projects = portfolio. Nothing stops you from rewriting the Survation Panel without ever looking at the original code in React instead of Angular and use it as a Maikel OU project instead of something you did for them.
6. Look for clients that have depth (ambition and tech kwnowledge are best).
7. Web presence clients aren’t worth it. Those are the clients that just want a design to exist on the internet. These projects can be done with Wix/Wordpress, they don’t help your portfolio. There’s a lot of competition to do what they want, pointless. They have small budget. They don’t stick around after you finish, you want long-term clients. So in a nutshell they are a distraction and not worth it. You want to build relationships with your clients not one offs. You can merge step 7 and 6 into one.

Should you: Agile?

You could deliver stuff in chunks/sprints fully tested and ready to be deployed. It’s more flexible. That’s the point of Agile, nothing new to you.

Another advantage of using Agile is that the client can back out and still has code that other people can finish .

He didn’t really explain the advantage of not using it.

Getting paid:

Two ways: price-per hour and price per project.

H = estimate, then charge aftwards, if you use agile that’s no issue.

P = You break it down in tasks and you get paid for whatever the task took.

Time is always better because estimations are hard to predict.

Clients don’t like PPH because it doesn’t give them control upfront of the cost.

PPP waste your time in estimation a lot more.

PPP you can compete with other projects.

When you’re starting you might have to use more PPP tha PPH.

Competition

You shouldn’t be worried about it because there’s much work needed than developers. No company can dominate the market. There are infinite opportunities.

Just worried about what are they doing to stay on the edge and learn where you can improve.

Hedging your launch date.

Sticking for timelines clients are the worse and most unrealistic.

Set a range of dates. Plan to launch on a day but say the client you’ll be launching 7 days later. Always leave more time and deliver early.

Designers matter

Who you work with to design a site ultimately is what you show in your portfolio. The behaviour si what you design, you adapt what THEY design, your’re the developer. If a client has a designer and their designs are shit and you have other clients you might not want to take that client.

Have your own designers too.

Design is the first thing clients see. You can’t show off bad design.

Running without contracts

Same as I did with DCH.

Just ensure you get a deposit to prove they actually have funds. Is always better to have a contract OBVIOUSLY.

Never relay on verbal agreements.

Red flags for bad clients

Clients to avoid

Common scenarios

• Disagree with your estimates.
• Their project idea makes no sense (you know who did this….in Linkedin).
• They try to haggle with your rates.
• They give you multiple proposals at once…(?) they are not focused, not serious
• They argue over trivial items. = Aren’t able to prioritise, insecure, immmature, is going to drive you crazy.
• They are unprofessional.

Rich vs successful

Don’t go for big budgets but successful. Consistently pick ideas and do things with it. They’d be consistent business, similar referrals, they’ll use your project for long while rich just get them to show off to investors then drop them (Survation). Both are fine but given the choice, you know who to go with.

Tell when you’re getting fizzled.

Getting fizzled is when a client is backing off.

Signs:

• Pyramid conversations. Initial abundance of information, then they start giving you less and less info, losing motivation. Their commitments is obviously gone.
• Slower and slower response times.
• Asking the same questions…..they are talking with too many people asking the same question.
• Using vague timelines (to hire you or extend a project). If they are interested they either give you a month to make a decision or a timeline to make it. You should also ask about it too.

Don’t quote on the fly

We’ve been here before. Above you already wrote about it. Take your time even for a ballpark.

Meeting in person

• Preparedness
• Confidence
• Present your work
• Demo what you did.

This is all opintless common sense. But write it down anyway. Is the same as when you do a job interview.

Emphatise with them and focus on listening.

Most meets are redundant, unless you MUST make them, avoid them.

Try to look like them if you’re trying to sell you’re a good fit. Dress professional but relaxed in case of doubt (smart casual, nothing new)

Delivering early?

Try not to do it. Finish early but do not deliver early. Just try to find bugs in that time. Delivering early might make you look like you overestimate it and they might get used to it and assume you always do.

Repeat customers are the best

Getting new clients takes MORE TIME and effort than old clients work.

Repeat clients = you’re doing something well. Repeat clients bring you referrals.

Repeat clients build momentum.

At some point you can just work on referrals.

Avoid assumers

This is the worst possible client. They aren’t use to the level of specificity that is required for your job. They use imprecise language and assume you know what they need. Always ask for more details to know if they keep using vague versions. Avoid them if you notice they keep doing it. Never agree to something vague.

Only accept detailed work.

Section 11: Internal management is crucial

This looks like an ad of Assana. Just fluff

I’m done