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[Music] hey everyone welcome to another session of the strategy supper club this week we are talking about the nuts and bolts of freelancing when I first started freelancing about 10 years ago I knew how to do strategy but I didn't know how to do anything else I didn't know how to do contracts I didn't know how to do Day rates I didn't know how to do project fees I didn't know the difference between a w-9 and a 1099 and in this strategy supper club we talked about all of it we talked about how you can best set yourself up to kill it in freelancing so I hope the session is really useful to people I know there's a lot of people out there that are new to the freelance game so we hope that this came at a good time as ever if you have any questions at all hit me up on Twitter email me I'd love to talk about this stuff and I hope to see you at a session soon okay let's talk about the 101 so freelancing this is a very nuts-and-bolts strategy supper club today we're gonna get into things like Roth IRAs and stuff like that it's gonna be super exciting and super fun but this is super important because as we are living in this ever-changing world and all these structures are breaking down agency model we've been talking about it forever but my god this is like continuing the death knell for the traditional agency model it just means that we all start to navigate like badasses because this idea of like locking into a company and staying with it for a really long time although there still will be people that are doing that we have been going towards a freelance model for a long time for a lot of workers and this is just accelerating it so how do you be a badass freelancer how do you navigate it in a way that feels really good to you you're doing the kind of work that you want to do you're getting paid the right way this is what we're gonna be talking about today so there are three sections that we have today the first one is marketing yourself then it's all about the money and then it's how do you show up as a freelancer versus how you potentially show up in a full-time context so let's jump into marketing okay so congratulations you are now a brand hopefully for and strategist this shouldn't be too intimidating but it's just as much about the nuts and bolts of what's on your LinkedIn as to the vibe and the energy and the ideas that you put out into the world so it's really I would really just encourage you to embrace that brand and think hard about how that brand is different and how that brand communicates much in the same way that we work on every other brand that we get hired to put our expertise towards and I think one big clue in this is how we can differentiate ourselves from other brand strategists is really helping people help you and having a really great story so that people can help you bore so some of you participated in this I've been chatting with a lot of different strategists in the industry for the last five or six weeks I think I've talked to like 50 or 60 people different brand strategist slightly different backgrounds different geographies different ways of coming into the discipline and there really is a difference between somebody that comes to those chats and is there to help me understand who they are quickly and how they I can deploy them versus other people and I've not only figured this out with the chats that I've been doing or seen this with the chats I've been doing but my first company that I started wolf and Illumina we had an agency structure that we calls a blob with a spine and what we meant by that is that we had a spine of full-time employees that understood the culture understood how we did things understood our clients pretty well but it was really important to us at [Music] www.andyjenkins.com works the first thing that I would really recommend everyone do is know your tea so in brand strategy or in any skill set we're gonna talk about breeding strategy specifically but I know there's people that are on this today that aren't Fran strategists there are certain skills that are core to the work that you do so in a brand strategist like we should know how to write a creative brief we should know how to do a competitive audit we should know how to write a discussion guide we should know how to work with a research vendor these are all those core skills that we build up over time but if you're doing your job with your eyes open which I know everyone on this call is you start to realize that there are things that you are particularly good at there are things that you enjoy doing more than the other core skills there are things that you get known for doing and that's your special sauce and this is the idea of the tea that you have the base of everything it's like an upside down tea you have the base of everything that you need to do your job and of course you can write a discussion guide of course you can deal with a client of course click-click-click got it got it got it but then your tea are these particular skills that you love and you are a rock star and that's what people should hire you for so I really encourage anyone that's going to do freelancing to of course continue to build your core skills but also be able to tell the story of how you are special now let me give you a hint in the last few me because I've been doing these strategy chats when I ask a lot of people like what do I hire you for what makes you special like what do you do most people are saying I'm a really great at telling brand stories and I would say about 80% of the people that I've talked to say that that's the thing that they're all about it's not that special if 80% of the people are saying it right so another thing you just have to be aware of is how is your tea different than what other people are saying in the marketplace and really think about the differentiation in my career my tea changed by era so when I was in my 20s and I was interviewing close and full-time jobs then people would say to be like what's your thing and I'd be like yes I can do all the different strategy stuff but the thing you really hired me for is that I'm a street strategist you can throw me in any market with any culture and if I just spend you know a day or two walking the streets hang out with people spending time in people's homes I will understand the target market in a really nuanced and interesting way that is my special sauce when I hit my 30s and I was properly freelancing and I would interview with heads of planning because I was freelancing in agencies at that point they say what are we hiring you for and the thing I would say is you hire me to run teams I am really good at coming in and working with multidisciplinary teams getting all the peoples who work together all the pieces to work together and to deliver the product that the client needs now that I'm in my forty's lives tea is a little bit different my spike now is I'm really great at working with founders CEOs people who are in executive leadership positions because I've run companies before I've built teams I've managed cultures I've built brands I deeply understand what senior leadership goes through when they're trying to navigate through the world and I'm a really good partner to these senior leaders so your key can actually change by era but the most important thing is that you though your tea okay we spend a lot of time on sea but it's really important we're gonna go a little bit faster through the rest of the slides once you have your tea super important to slay your 60 second story I can't tell you how many people I talked to that they waste 80 percent of the time I have with them by telling me the rundown of their LinkedIn I can read your Linkedin I'm actually more interested in the story of your career journey what motivates you why did you make certain decisions why did you move from one job to another I don't need you to rattle off what I can read so make sure you have that 60 second maybe for a minute story you probably get four minutes to say it really tight about what you're about as a freelancer and what you're about as a professional that being said even though I just kind of slagged off LinkedIn a little bit LinkedIn is super important so make sure it's cleaned up and make sure it's sharp make sure it leans into the tea and it's communicating the story of what makes you different and special because honestly folks we've seen it like we've seen it all over the place especially the last month or so the market is flooded right now with brand strategist there are so many brand strategists on the market so you've got to make sure that your tea is coming through a very beautifully that's LinkedIn and then finally work that network now I am the last person in the world that wants to go to a networking thing i freakin hate classic networking the way that we think about it from like a let's go to cocktail let's exchange cards it's awful right but all of us do the course of our career have met people we've worked well with people we've intersected with people and it's not always a people that we automatically think of can do something for us it's not always a senior people it's not always a clients networks are lateral as well networks go deep people that have worked for you whenever I'm starting something new putting myself in the market started to freelance again I sent an email to all the people that I know think I'm great and I tell them this is what I'm doing this is what you hired me for this is how I can really kick ass because you never know when somebody's sitting at a dinner somewhere and someone's like oh I need someone to help me do XY and Z and they're like I know somebody I know that person so make sure that everyone in your life knows what you're up to and knows what value you can bring to the table okay so that's marketing in a nutshell now let's have some fun let's go to money so most people when it comes to money this is usually the reaction that I get people don't want to talk about it it stresses them out it freaks people out if you are freelancing you need to get over it because you are your own business manager now you are your own CFO and you have to have your money on luck so the first thing that we do when we're freelancers is I tell every single person that starts to going to freelance kinas know your house maybe your house is a cottage maybe you don't need much to live maybe your overhead isn't that high maybe you're a castle person maybe you need a lot of money every month to be happy I don't care what it is just know it no your monthly budget know how much money you have to have coming in because when you have that security or that that deep knowledge of like this is what it takes to be Heidi four months a month then down the road you can negotiate that much more strongly the next thing you need to know is your day break now and those day rates can get extrapolated into hourly lates or project fees however you want to do it we can talk more about the discussion that people want to hear more about that I roughly put down de braids here what I would really recommend you do is check out the planner survey the annual planner survey that Heather Lefevre puts out heather Lefevre go find it I don't think she's done it for a couple of years but there was a good like 10 year period where every year Heather sent out a survey to branch strategist and planners and said where do you live what kind of work do you do how much money do you make it was all anonymous but it really put an amazing like lens on how much money you can expect to make at your level and in what market you're working in so go find that this is kind of a rough estimation of what I think of when I think of ranges for different levels of strategy but again go check out how there's work as well it's a better resource than I am okay then when you start to get paid a lot of times especially for working through agency it's I think it's only if you're working through agency they're gonna ask you do you want to get paid w9 or 1099 the difference w9 it looks like a normal pace sub they take out your taxes 1099 they don't take out your taxes so if you're doing 1099 all of that money that's coming in is not yours thirty to forty percent of it is for Uncle Sam so make sure you're keeping that straight in your head and you're setting that money aside which leads to my next point I'm not your mom but something I would recommend is that you do have separate accounts especially if you're getting paid 1099 I always have a separate bank account that's called taxes and as soon as those 1099 payments come in that money goes over to the to the other account and if you are able to at the very least feed your Roth and again not a financial adviser there's plenty of information on the internet here but my sister is a financial person and she has been harping at me and my retirement account ever since I was a young girl so I would be remiss if I didn't say make sure you were thinking about the long term as well as the short term when you're thinking of your budgets your overhead and the money that you need to put away okay mom moment over and the maximum for this section when it comes to money is you have to assume the worst especially when you're dealing with contracts and you're dealing with people they're supposed to be paying you and I know this is kind of like a crappy way to start an assignment it may even feel like inappropriate because you've just pitched to get yourself on a project and everyone's excited and the energy is good and now you need to hammer out the contract don't worry about it advocate for yourself because if you don't make sure that certain things are sorted out ahead of time and laid out in writing then you might get screwed later on and unfortunately I've been in a position a couple of times not that many times where I haven't gotten paid or people paid me less than we agreed to and thank God that I went through some of this process and about to take you through because I did get paid eventually and this is how I did so the things you have to hammer out when you're entering a contract with an agency or a client there are core questions what's the scope this is super important what are the deliverables what are the timeline and what fee are you going to get paid to do all this stuff the next thing you want to hammer out is when you get paid a lot of times agencies won't pay you until they get paid by their clients and a lot of times clients are either on net 30 net 45 net 60 sometimes net 20 terms so it's sometimes an agency well if they don't pay you until they get paid you might invoice them they might get paid by the client say 45 days later the agency themselves may have a net 30 terms and there's and then you don't get paid till 75 days after the initial invoice so make sure you are getting super clear with companies as to how that cascade works for them and how and when you're going to get paid the next is how you get paid w9 1099 what accounts things like that that's kind of nuts and bolts and then the one thing that you want to get ahead of is starting to poke around of what happens in the event if there's a delay or a scope change just so you understand like where they stand if the project stretches out or conversely where they understand where you stand if a projects stretches out so for example @ww we used to give clients a two-week grace period over a scoping where if they if the project slid by two weeks we're like okay fine it happens but that once the project started sliding past two weeks then we instituted a weekly fee on top of our fee for the time that we were spending towards their projects so you can put things in place like this if you have the conversation up front now it's also a good - good idea of who you're working in - how do they expect you to communicate where do they expect how do they expect you to work where they expect you to work although the where is that that's important anymore and how they expect you to interface with the clients but the things you really need to get writing are those core questions do not fail to get those in writing and one of the big things in this is get comfy with negotiating I remember when I first started freelancing I was freelancing for an agency they were great I talked to the head of planning and we talked about like how I was going to come on we talked about the project I was gonna work on the scope deliverables we talked about my day rate and then he said great I'm gonna turn you over to the head of HR when I got to the head of HR she was trying to cut my day rate and actually there's nothing wrong with that like we're business people who are negotiating I'm a business person I negotiate all the time if someone gives me a fee I will go back to the counter fee hoping that I can get some money off of it it's not an insult but the thing that really struck me the first time I did it I was like I got like really flustered and I started to act like these foxes I started to feel like I wasn't being valued that I was being undercut that they didn't really want me all these really weird narratives started in my head when actually at the end of the day they're just negotiating because we're in business so when you think about negotiating don't channel the Fox energy as much as you channel the Beyonce energy like advocate for yourself be strong but also be joyful and be confident in yourself that like they want you they want you there negotiating is just a part of the product but part of the process and then finally the number number one rule is get it in writing so if you agree to scope deliverables fee any of the stuff I talked about you have to get it in writing sometimes what happens is I will have a verbal verse Asian with somebody about what we agree to the parameters the project are within an hour I write them an email just want to recap everything we talked about and agreed to do to do to do can you please respond to let me know you agree with us and you've got to get that email that says agree the reason why you've got to get this stuff is that if at any point they don't pay you the way they say they're going to they start to treat you badly the scope slips whatever if you have it in writing you can lawyer up and no one really wants to lawyer up like agencies don't want to deal with lawyers like they're gonna deal with you like they're gonna take care of it it's like you're starting to be shitty to you but even just knowing that you have it in writing is going to keep them on their toes so make sure you get full contracts full agreements in writing and then be ready to invoice I'm not gonna go too deeply over this invoicing is not a complicated document there are plenty of templates online it's super simple the first time I invoice I was like oh my god it has to be this big official thing it really doesn't the only thing I want to note here is that you write a short description of what the invoice is for and I'm serious like sometimes it is a short description it is like competitive audit or strategic services it I'm literally usually my description is two to five words is the amount of the description I'll put on an invoice okay the last part and the run gets a discussion and I'm going to stop talking I'm you're really excited to hear people have to think and ask is showing up because showing up as a freelancer is a lot different than showing up for a full-time agency gig here are some of the big differences that I feel one is that when you're in an agency or you're in a full-time position a lot of times there's a lot of warm fuzzy cultural team-building kind of stuff and you're a part of this team effort when you're a freelancer not really you're not participating in that stuff that's not why you're there another thing that happens when you're working full-time somewhere is that you have a manager that cares about your growth and is or should care about your growth I should say and is helping you navigate your career helping you navigate projects helping you navigate how to be very successful in the position that you're in when you're freelancing no you don't really have that you cannot expect that kind of attention from the person that you are working for or reporting into the final thing that happens a lot when you're inside of a company is that your manager will purposely stretch you they will put you on things that they know you don't quite know how to do yet but but because they know your abilities intimately and they're going to surround you with help they will push you and kind of throw you into the fire they will kind of expect you to fake it till you make it can you do that in freelancing hell no no you cannot walk in and say I know how to do this thing and actually not know how to do it your reputation as a freelancer will be in tatters so please don't do that when you are freelancing my supper club maximum for this is you really need to embrace and be an assassin you need to get in there you need to grab that assignment you need to wrestle it to the ground you need to deliver things that are really helpful you need to not cause any political ripples inside of the company unless you know the company's in a total but you don't I mean like don't like go create drama inside the company that's unnecessary you just need to get in there get it done and get out these are the kinds of freelancers that companies love people hire freelancers because they have something really specific that they need help with and if you go in at that assassin mentality them I'm gonna go and get that thing done you're gonna be great in the marketplace a second thing to think about is when you're freelancing you also have to be captain of your own growth you do not have the managers saying here's your growth plan here's how you need to be thinking about your next steps I would advocate getting a coach or getting a mentor I have both of those things I use them a lot but figure out a way that you were gonna chart your own growth because you're not going to get it from the places that you are working okay that is what I have for today I would love to hear thoughts questions I'm going to stop sharing and open it up to the room how do you know freelancers kind of the move like the next step you want to get into I guess what they're like symptoms of that you see throughout your career or there's like a personality thing for now but also like there's no shame if you go to freelancing because you've gotten fired right like I've gotten fired there's no shame in getting fired right a lot of times getting fired is a universe telling us we need to be somewhere else but I think when you are you know you when you are taking the shift out of agency into freelance for me it was for most people it's burnout they're tired of I mean at the end of the day like I think of agencies as bands so you have like the big bands like the gray McCann BBDO band and then you have the medium band which is the droga 72 and sunny widen BBH mother band and then you have like the bunch of small shops right I kind of think of them in bands like that and one of the things that blew my mind was freelancing was that when I was younger I always thought it was just about finding your agency home right and that you would find this place and that like it would be unique and different and like that's the place you stay and then when I started freelancing and hopping through the shops pretty quickly I realized it's a lot of the same people it's a lot of the same processes it's a lot of the same stuff right and I just kind of grew tired of it and I wanted to have more control over my schedule I wanted to have more control over sleep I wanted to have more control over the kinds of clients that I was working on I think the thing that I really wanted the most control over were the teams that I was working on because a lot of times when agencies staff a project it's about who has bandwidth versus who's right for the project and I find that to be quite exhausting right so it's really about having that autonomy and a lot of people reach a point in their career where they're like I don't want to I it I can't I don't want to work like this anymore because it is an industry that rings you out the way that agencies are set up so people make money is that you have a lot of cheap talent in your 20s and then you have a couple of figureheads who are making a ton of money right and the younger talent is getting booked out at a hundred to two hundred percent and getting pretty like worked pretty hard right and then you and they're not making a ton of money and then the people at the top are making a lot of money right and there's a lot at one point I'm like why am I do why am i doing this why am i why am i feeding someone else why am i paying for someone else's Hamptons home you know so I think they're just fatigue sets in but I'd be really interested Adrian you were twenty years and you went freelance like if anyone else why did you drop out why did you leave I was part of the big layoffs in work and I was completely shocked and so I had been doing freelance on the side just from having different chapters of my life and you know my friends but I always had an agency job and like based on where my life stages meaning I'm a mom with a kid and we're not moving cities and before you know I've been afforded to live in Miami New York and Chicago so like it hasn't sucked it's been amazing but I'm not right now we're in lockdown and I've got a mortgage to pay so it's I mean my mindset and life stage are different and so that security of an agency is to me it's evaporated like I don't think I'll ever see it again so that's why this crossroads of like health insurance is important oh yeah health insurance yeah other things are important but to your point like it is the kick in the butt that I needed and as I've been saying I got kicked out of jail so I am trying to use my running away from this not running away but getting kicked out of jail I really would like to use this Bazaar time to really get me where I want to go which is coming in and out not being a neck to choke and if I'm getting paid to be in neck to choke to your point you know what you're gonna pay me for and I'm not gonna pretend that I can't do anything the one thing I will say is though it is not a moment to fake it till you make it because to your point of like you are at this point to Heidi's point a brand so like I will never tell anybody I am a business planner I am NOT I'm I I can help you understand the map I can research it to death I can do everything else but if you who are paying me for doesn't strategy you have so got the wrong girl and I will own that like all day long but it's interesting because I've had when I've interviewed with clients for freelance jobs in last few minutes they're like so you don't bloody buys like new no and we will I you will hate me I'll eat you like this is not like you have to just own your like that's what which is why the website is really helpful in going through that exercise because I'm like I don't I can't do this without having a digital strategist or a comms plan or whatever it is because I'm like that unless I'm I know I can put a team together yeah so far I think no no Adrian you said something I forgot to put in do not say you can do something that you can't do as a strategist like news travels fast if there's a strategist that blows it on a project people are gonna like oh yeah yeah like your reputation is everything yeah I don't know okay you don't want to be this sandwich they remembered like I mean it just doesn't work well cuz nobody can forget what I should say much chase like and if your face is tied to it it's not awesome sure I will just leave it yeah a quick question on your special sauce is what you were saying and I really like that idea of like don't be afraid to kind of own that one without diluting the rest of your skill set based on kind of what you're hiring for what you've seen would you say there's kind of a certain skill set that you'd probably consider more versatile than others does it look like research-based skill set or does it look more kind of like an EQ based skill set like what what feels that do you think would be kind of more versatile to stand out yeah that's a really good question I think lately the thing that I'm really looking for are people that can land the plane and what I mean by that are people who can take the theory of brand strategy and then actually operationalize it and a lot of times that you you're not seeing that right now you're seeing a lot of brand theorists but not a lot of operators and so for me that that being able to make that step is a really important step and that's something I've been probing on a lot lately I would expect that almost anyone who is somewhat senior can do consumer interviews especially in this day and age where we can't go talk to people so it's all over zoom I'm expecting you can do that Rubin I don't know your level but as soon as you hit like strategist level I'm expecting you can do cultural competitive audits you can write a discussion guide you can write a creative brief you can go find some really juicy insights but for me right now again repeating myself that operational operational thing the thing that we do when we operate that to me is golden and not just seeing it operationalize into it campaign to see operationalize into like and we went and made this thing we went and did this thing like that that's me is like I'm using yeah it's that's really really helpful just cuz I was I feel like most people I was shifting into freelance just you dacovia and one of these things that I was trying to figure out is like out of all the skill sets that I have what is the one that would kind of shine out the most and going close to like six years of just working in different strategic spaces I was like okay like what do I have to show for it and out of all that like what is that one skill that you're like oh that can be spun many different ways yeah that's something that I was trying to flip between okay like when you were saying IRA's from operational like what does that look like of just idea into action type of thing or yeah it's like we got it we had the strategy and we knew we had to fix the website right away or we knew there were issues in the consumer the customer service journey and so we fixed it you know like showing that right away but let me let me also back up for a second and let me tell you what my my spike was in errors of my career like my spike in my 20s was I'm a really good Street strategist like you put me on a street anywhere I feel the culture I'll be able to understand really quickly like what's cool what's not cool those nuances that you need to connect with an audience so for my 20s Street strategist was kind of my jam cultural highly culturally tuned highly street tuned right in my 30s when I freelance then so that's what I interviewed with in my 20s glad wasn't a freelancer in my 20s but I have freelance in my 30s I'm and I freelance in my 30s my thing was I can run teams so you can bring me in and I'm like if you have a multi-dimensional team or you have like a complicated client you have four different types of strategists that are coming in I can run your teams and that's what they did and literally they'd be like okay here you go and like go off and run someone's team for them right now what I'm doing is wolf the thing that I say that's my spike is like I can solve problems with senior leaders so senior leaders c-suite founders executive directors I understand what it's like to run a company I understand what it's like to have internal issues external issues I understand the whole engagement ecosystem and I understand what it means to be a leader and you need to fix some things that your brand works again I know how to do that and so every era of my career the spike has changed based on how I've evolved as a human and as a professional it was that helpful Ruben did that make sense at spike thing what the age was golden and that will never I can't hear that so thank you very much how is the first height first a confession I think I think I was one of those fools who said yeah I'm really good at telling brand stories no I don't think so Adam but I guess my question is it kind of about that tea as well I struggle sometimes because you know I want to take on things that are outside my zone that I'm super interested in and I want to be flexible and it's like I have this sort of negotiation between that team and I have a couple I have like two teas maybe but versus just like being open right but you don't want to seem like floppy generic right do you have any reflections on that dad process yeah that's fair um yeah it's just cuz you get called out as a freelancer like if you're like I can do a comm strategy and you can't and then you deliver it you just I mean you get a bad name and freelancers people check up on you as a freelancer you know they're they're gonna call around especially now since the market is so competitive so I mean there is something to be said I I used to say to clients like I don't do this like what you want to hire me for and they'd be like that's fine we'll teach you you know sometimes they'll just they'll do it they'll teach you because they want you on the project right other times I've asked friends who work in the area if I can intern for them for like a couple weeks and just like ride shotgun on one of their projects so I can really understand how it works so there are ways to get around it but I do think just being honest being like this isn't the core of what I can do I think I can figure it out but I just want to be straight with you that this isn't like my bread and butter and sometimes they go with you and sometimes they don't I am a freelance photographer printer and retoucher and like I just got to this place where like all of my clients come to me for the retouching which is like fine but it's like it's a slog and I just have so many other skills that I would love to get hired whether it's like for a consulting basis just to like come in and do like file organization or whatever like I have so many different skills and I just somehow ended up like in this one lane oh I don't know I guess I get kind of nervous about just trying to like send out a mass email to like everyone I've ever worked with and like I don't know what does that look like how do you how do you just like reach out to people and be like hey I also do XYZ I mean you could just just say that right like this is this is what I do now this is the kind of services and yes I'll do your retouching if you want but this is the stuff that I'm really great at and I've been doing it with a couple different people it's always great to have some case study around that as well so people really understand it I'm gonna take a little story time detour here because it's one of it's like one of the grounding stories of my career so buckle up everyone here we go so when I started WW we got we got called by like a massive client and we were at a point ww-where cash flow was going to run out in like four weeks and I didn't have anything in the new business pipeline and this big ass you all know the corporate is a huge corporation came in and was like we need a woman run agency so can you come and set this all up and do all this work for us and the thing is is that they wanted us to do advertising and when I started wwm like I don't want to do advertising anymore I want to do upstream positioning brand strategy that kind of work and I was really wrestling with this as like a private business owner I was like I have employees I have payroll I have insurance to pay and we're gonna be set for three years if I do this like we're gonna be good but we're gonna turn to the company that I always never want to WWE turned into so I called a really good friend of mine and I was stressing out and I said what do I do and he gave me the best piece of advice he said you have to make room for the right things to come in and if you say yes to the wrong things there is no room for the right things to come in and it was just this eye-opening thing for me he's like you'll say yes to it and you think you're still gonna get the phone calls asking you to do the thing that you really want to do but something energetically in the universe is not gonna like is gonna know that you've gotten distracted and like you're not doing what you really want to do and it was this big like moment for me right and so I called the massive client the day later and I turned on the project I called my team first and I said we might be out of business in a week like we've always said this isn't what we were going to do so like I have to like do this call right called the client told them they were lovely if they got it and then like literally three days later the right phone call came through and that happened like five times during wmw happened five times like where we said no to the wrong thing and sometimes a financially precarious moment and the phone call came through it was weird it was it was too regular to say that it like coincidence right so my that's just my little added layer of telling you what someone very wise told me once is like you got to make room for the right things to come in and sometimes it means saying no to the things that you're really good at but you're just not want to do anymore they just don't want to do I was wondering what happens when a project terminates early and if yet what the expectation is is there I know obviously it's gonna depend on terms but it's totally in your contract terms a lot of times you'll want to put there's usually terms that you get paid up for the work that you've done so far and then 40 percent of the remaining fee or 60 percent of the remaining fee that is something and you're like assume the worst assume that the projector that canceled about then what will happen and get those terms written into your contract I was wondering so in freelance I've had an instance for example where the company actually gave me a contract rather than me giving them so in that kind of situation how would you navigate that yeah this happens a lot like a lot of times when a company is working with a client they have an MSR or MSA excuse me it's called a master services agreement that basically overrides any sort of contract that an agency would bring for engagement right so a lot of times the contract can come from either side right so if you're lucky and you can afford to have a lawyer on retainer I'd like to have lawyers look at that stuff if not read every word of that contract to not sign anything that you don't need or have a friend read it with you it's perfectly fine to use someone else's contract as long as you agree with the language and what's in there okay and is it kind of just a follow up to that is it normal or like okay to just kind of go back to that and kind of counter if there's something even if it's like a standard thing just say like and can dis change basically oh yeah totally it's called a redlining so here's some jargon for you here some lawyer jargon when someone gives you a contract and you don't agree with the language and you want to propose different language to it number one know that you unless they're being generous isso usually won't be if you have something you want to change in the contract they're not going to be like okay fine we'll pay our lawyers to go change that language for you you have to send them a red line and what a red line is is basically a doc that has it's almost like using suggestion on word or or in Google Docs where you literally redline the piece of language that you're trying to change and then in read write the proposed counter language and a lot of times red lines go back and forth quite a bit when you're getting to a final contract awesome thank you you're welcome how you doing hi hi good to see you again good to see you um I have two questions the first question is so being out here in the Bay Area with all these tech companies there's a lot of contracting opportunities which is what I found slightly different from freelancing and I feel like there's a bit of this idea that if you're contracting for a big tech company and if your contract is for like six months the expectation is that you as a contractor eventually want to convert to a full-time employing and I've been in a scenario where that was not I did not want to convert I just wanted to be there for six months and then step out how do you like I'm just curious to know like what's your point of view on those types of roles and do you advocate for people to take those types of positions or are just just your thoughts I'd be curious to hear yeah no it's a great question I've taken those types of positions before when it was in the day I was working for Google and I did that I think it's just you know what you're dealing with right and like you don't have to read up the contract you never do so don't ever feel pressure this is the thing I would like I say to people that drop out of agencies I say this with people that are interacting with other companies at the end of the day and I notice things sound really harsh but an agency will drop you right like it's like no it's my family it's my people it's like no they're gonna drop you like they really the companies don't care about you as much as you think they do I know that sounds awful right so you are allowed to have a little bit like well you know what you would drop my contract if it wasn't convenient for you yeah so it doesn't mean you're a dick about that or like that you're rude it but just know that like well you're like when you're a contractor you owe them what you agreed to in the contract and that's it and nothing else you know you can be really kind about that but you don't have to feel guilt it into anything more than what that contract says okay yeah that's helpful because I was in a situation where the expectation was well you're not going above and beyond like you're not you're not like you're not really sure that you want to be here yeah you know I mean that you know and again like I don't know what happened with that and I have nothing to say but like what I will say is this for me goes back to the assassin thing right like when I hire a freelancer and and I'm very clear about scope deliverables and stuff like that I expect them to like slay it because this is my company and I need I'm hiring you and I'm probably paying you pretty well so I expect you to come in and like show up every day and I think that is something actually Lexie I'm glad you brought this up this is something that is a little bit different about freelance right like when you're a freelancer it doesn't matter if you broke up with your boyfriend it doesn't matter if like you had a bad weekend you didn't sleep last night like a lot of times companies and managers will have a bit more empathy for their full-time employees in that situation a lot of times when it comes to freelancers they don't give a it's like I am paying you to do this thing right so again assassin mentality your job is to get in there and slay and then get out get out right and the nice thing is then just one more thing on let me just one more thing the nice thing about this is like what I found it I found freelancing really liberating when I first started because I didn't have to worry about interviewing people to hire for cultural fit I didn't care that they didn't do the off-site at one location instead of another location when the rest of the company was bitching about it you know like all that stuff that I do get in messed with with a company I was just like I don't care this isn't my company and I could actually get my work done between 10:00 and 2:00 every day where is that my old company to get that amount of work done would take me between 8 & 7 because it was just like I'm just here to slay this thing and I'm out and so I used to go in from 10:00 to 2:00 every day like I've done so there is something nice about it as long as you show up and as long as you just like hack through it and get it done yeah cool thank you for that can I ask my second question yeah of course of course um have you ever had an experience where you were engaging in a full-time conversation but then converted that into a freelancer or consulting opportunity yes so like flipping it yes any any any thoughts or tips around that I just tell them straight up like I'm not looking for full time right now but if you're looking to fill this gap quickly and I can even help you hire the next person we can write that into my my scope you can bring me on I can start tomorrow you know in a lot of times like oh my god we just think it's awful because it's come in and outlets for a few weeks right so again I think a lot of this is about being really honest upfront about where you're at and then a lot of times because people need the talent pretty deeply I get hired to do like a month long gig just to fill a gap while they're looking for the full-time person lutely a conversation with the higher or the person making the hiring the hiring versus like a recruiter that's a good I usually I don't want the recruiter to look bad because you don't want to piss off recruiters you don't wanna piss off anybody when you're a freelancer really you don't so you can offer that up to the recruiter you can say look I'm not doing full-time but a lot of times this is how it goes and I'm happy to have that conversation with the client and a lot of times freelancers I mean sorry recruiters will still put you in front of the client with that wondering if you have any sort of lections on if when you start kind of when you engage with an agency and you understand the project scope you know the timeline and then they you're you're feeling very comfortable about like if you were to be brought on on boarded like the next day you know that you can deliver you know quality work giving the timeline that they've presented to you but oftentimes I find that the agencies like disappear for a week or two and then they bring you on maybe a week before the deadline and then you're you're expected to basically deliver the same quality work as you would if you had like a month versus like a week how how do you handle that this is another mantra that we preached at WWI still preach it here in it every day the facts are neutral right so if you were going to bring me on for a project for a month but you're only gonna bring me on for a week the fact is I'm not gonna be able to deliver the same way that I could have if I was in for a month I'm happy to do this much more I'm happy to try but this is what I think I'll be able to deliver and I think like this is the thing with negotiating with scope changes with the conversations that I used to feel really uncomfortable around I used to feel really uncomfortable about money conversations I used to feel very uncomfortable about scope changes I didn't want anyone to dislike me I didn't want anyone to think that I was difficult as soon as I got that mantra in might have that the facts are neutral it really helped me it helped three-center me so they okay scope changed the fact is that's gonna cost you more money and like just because you're too gave more of my time and I think if you're very reasonable about it people actually get it do you want to jump in uh yeah I just want to jump in that like I hate the question like well how many weeks is it gonna take you to do X and like my flip answer is always like as well as long as you'll give me I'm curious to know how important you feel liability insurance is I never had it as a freelancer I've always had it for my LLC's or like is this insurance and business liability you know yeah I I never did it as a freelancer it tends to be I do it when like I'm building teams around me so like what I do now is I adds all strategy which is basically my consultancy it is an LLC that allows me to deal with clients procurement departments because they'd like to see an LLC they'd like to see an illegal entity not just a individual social and it also gives me the infrastructure that I can pay other people in the teams as soon as I get to that level you get the you get all the liability you get the insurance you get the other kind of stuff when I've done like freestyle assassin freelancing which is what I did when I was in my 30s I didn't have that kind of stuff I don't know if that's the right thing to do it just feels slightly overkill to pay all that stuff when you're just like a singular hired hand I have my own clients as opposed to working within agencies and I see a very marked difference in like attitudes and how I have to show up compared to an agency because agencies get it they know it do you find there's a lot more with independent individual clients there's a lot more upfront work that you'd have to do a lot more education where it's where it's free and you're not charging how do you navigate that without it becoming giving too much away without getting the feedback sure I think that's a really great question and that's something that I've run into a lot of specialist startup clients who don't have sophisticated marketing departments yet and they're head of marketing is probably somebody that understands SEO better than understands brand right we used to have a document at WWE silver version of it it's wolf it was called the day one and it was basically a a question of like what's your problem what are you trying to what's what a success who are you trying to talk to and it was basically having a client write a brief for us and then once they would write the day one and we also put how much money you spent on this project so pay for it like redesigning something terribly then we would make sure they were all clear on the day one which a classic client you don't have to do because they know how to write a marketing brief and then once they did the day one then we would write the proposal for them and that was the extent of how much I would quote unquote giveaway before starting to work for a client under a paid scope are you finding that you're having to give away more before you start working yeah I think it's more of an education piece it's not necessary that I'm giving away skills or strategic advice it's just their knowledge is so low that it just takes a lot of legwork and I'm fairly new to own client freelancing and it's so it's just so markedly different but I was just wondering if I've just not got lucky with my clients no I think it there are certainly like a band of clients where that education is really needed and where you need to set the tone of like this is how it works this is when this is what feedback is right like this is so they're definitely like not all director clients are like that but especially if you're didn't like again smaller companies startups things like that I run into that a lot there and basically I just set the rules I'm like this is how it's gonna work it's kind of nice in some ways because they don't have any rules in place is how they do it so it can kind of be a blessing and a curse yeah it's really nice to be able to flex that like I'm the consultant I'm gonna control all what's going on so that's really nice but it does have the downsides definitely definitely yeah so to the topic that you're speaking to earlier about you know getting paid what you're worth I'm finding that it's a lot easier for me to find those smaller clients who I really want to help but their budgets yes yeah any advice on breaking into the bigger brands like I just think the bigger brands are so used to working with these like fancy consultancies and agencies so like I'm this solo person coming and knocking on the door like do they even work with freelancers they do they do it's not as common you know it's it's not as common and when I first started freelancing the purser dependence I was like 31 and I only freelance two agencies I didn't freelance the clients cuz I didn't believe that they would want to work with me right it's a little tricky I mean like they do they do want to work with individuals it's not that they don't it's that they just don't know you right and when they go to like try to fix something they had like the same slate that everyone else has they're like oh I better call Drogo I mean everyone called you don't even like because there's just a lack of imagination and there's also a lack of PR because we don't have our PR things like we don't pay to be at the top of those lists like a lot of the agencies do like I mean newsflash all of those lists about the best agents agencies and stuff like that that's a PR play like that is not like because they actually are the best places they just have the right PR companies that do that right so it's like how do you break through that and I you know the a couple of ways you could do it is like when a friend goes client-side like you know make sure your friend knows like this is what I do this is where the network thing comes into play right because because there is so much porousness between the industry and client-side like make sure you're tracking when friends go client-side something that I think helps with procurement and helps with clients taking you seriously is having a website and an LLC so that they know they're working with an entity like that makes them feel better as soon as I got the entity of WNW client business started coming in and we just put up like a Squarespace website but having that simplistic website makes a big difference and putting a brand name on it right like as wolf strategy is essentially me and now this freelance network and I can take on big projects if I need to but essentially it's a coding for me right there's nothing that wolf-like can't does that Heidi hacker Merc can't do but it's a it's the shell that makes me that allows me to put a philosophy out into the world and clients will hire smaller shops because they are looking for a different point of view they're looking for something interesting and so if you can figure out what your coding is and what your point of view is then you know you can attract clients like that but it takes time I do a quick question about like do you pursue cold calling what you're bidding on that and what's been your experience as an employer with cold calls cold calling isn't always bad if it's tailored I think I'm Taylor cold calling is awful like when I can tell that I'm on a copy and paste email drives me crazy but if somebody's taking the time like look there's plenty of about me online right so like if you've you've taken time to listen to one my podcasts or you know dig into some of a medium post and then write me a thoughtful note about like how we could work together then yeah I'm cool with it you know so I would just say you can tell when the form letter is coming through and don't indulge in the form letter I think one of the things you you mentioned something when you were talking about your sort of trajectory through 20s and 30s and 40s and I think you had said in your 30s you talked a lot or positioned yourself a lot about as someone who could come in and lead a team and that to me is something that's never actually crossed my mind as I'm considering becoming a freelancer is this idea of not being this sort of singular assassin type entity but potentially having to lead a team and I'm just kind of curious is that is that something that often happens as a freelancer is that often an expectation that will will come with with being a freelancer does it maybe depend on the the level that you're coming in at yeah that's a great question yeah there definitely is it's happened to be at multiple agencies where a client come the client needs to be taken care of they don't have someone that's director level that has the bandwidth to do it and they just say hey we just need someone to run this account we need someone to take on this project and we need somebody that can make sure that our younger strategists feel cared for and they're not like banging on a charged door and that can work with the creative teams well and yeah so it's actually it is actually something I got a lot of gigs positioning myself as that sometimes I think I should go back to position myself because it's a great way to position yourself and I think one way to think about it is there to the earlier conversation there are definite holes and agencies right now because so much so much talent does not want to be an agency walls anymore especially as you get older right there's this useful you know rush to the agency so like I'm gonna get my first job I'm gonna do it like everyone's excited for like the first three or four years five years six years maybe and then the reality of this lifestyle sits in sets in for a lot of people and I think like you see I mean all the best strategy directors I know do not work for agencies anymore things don't like why would they put up with it they don't need to so it especially as you get more senior there's those holes in the departments and you can fill those holes so part of it is knowing like where talent is leaking out because it's not that the demand always goes away it's just the talent leaks out so how can you fill some of that demand I was just gonna say you said you wanted to be the captain of your own growth in regards to project and projects and different things like that but outside of that are there how would you manage your growth other than just managing oh I want to work on these type of projects but like since you really wouldn't have a senior director or like like your say because I feel like I'm very much on the cusp of going on like six years of this type of work I'm like okay like like we're like how do I manage my own growth now like what does that look like I've managed a couple people the first gig I had was a really large team that I was so unqualified for that I just kind of just jumped into it because it was a start-up and the person believed in me which was dope but like other than that I was like how where would I get like my learnings from other than things yes and what does that growth look like it's a good question I mean look like when I freelance an anomaly for a while I became really good friends and learned so much from Johnnie Vulkan who was one of the founding partners of anomaly because I was going in as a director level but like I still knew I had a ton to learn and Johnny was there right when I was freelancing at droga it was Johnny Bower so Johnny's so it's like when you're freelancing like yes that you're not gonna get coddled and loved you're not gonna be brought into the department but like you can still learn a lot by the agencies you're surrounding yourself by and the people you're surrounding yourself by and I don't think I could have ever started WW had I not had this freelance run through a bunch of different companies because there are a lot of leaders that I learned from very quickly there were a lot of structures that I saw in play and how things worked and it was a very good primer of like well if I were to build it this is what I would want to build right so a lot of times it's like what environments you're gonna put yourself into and who you cuz like once you are kind of ingrained this I can't go get coffee with someone go have lunch with somebody get to know somebody there you know so I think there are ways to learn through freelancing I just when I say like be the captain of your own learning unlike an agency situation where like when I worked at WWF one come to me like what's my growth plan thank you Frank there's topic for another supper club about who controls your growth plan but like that was more of an expectation that I had to make sure that you know employee acts had their plan that's you you can't expect that from people but you can still land them as resources [Music]