The Conscious Freelancer

I don’t like spending too much time on social media, but that’s the best way to get clients in 2022 right?

Well, it doesn’t have to be. In the past couple weeks I got 3 leads for new potential clients. 3 leads that perfectly fit the clients I want to work with. And I did it the old school way.

Today I talk about how there’s not a right wat, or even a better way to get freelance clients and how you should just figure out what works best for you.

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Yeah, this is freelancing 101: never stop looking for clients. If you do stop, the result is inevitable: 1 month (or more) with barely any clients. Case in point 🙋‍♀️

In this episode I rant about how it’s difficult to actually apply this basic concept in our work routine and share some ideas I have to try to fix this issue.

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I have big dreams. I can paint you a pretty clear picture of how I want my freelance business to be in 10 years from now. But how to get there… now that’s the difficult part for me.

Our vision and dreams allows us to have the motivation needed to keep going through the hard times, but I think we need to find a balance between being visionary and being practical.

In this episode I share my experience with this and what you can do to try and find this balance.

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Saying no is HARD, but essential for actually being able to build a business from the ground. It’s specially hard when you have many events hapenning around you and you have to deal with FOMO (fear of missing out).

I’m dealing with this since I arrived in Bansko and as the Nomad Fest approaches. in this episode I share my experience with this and give you some ideas for managing this that I’m trying to implement.

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This month I hired other freelancers for the first time. I realized I could deliver more value to my clients by collaborating with people that are good at stuff I’m not, like illustration.

It was a terrifying, but it was worth every cent!

If your freelance business is at a point where you can afford to take some risk, then this idea is for you: deliver more value to your clients by hiring someone to do stuff you’re not so good at.

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I believe that posting intentionally and in an authentic way on one social media, is better than just firing random content on all of them. Last week I started posting consistently on Linkedin for the first time. This time, not aiming for the likes, hollow comments or views, but aiming instead for creating meaningful connections.

This is my challenge for you this week: start sharing your knowledge on social media, in any form. Just make sure it’s authentic and intentional. Let’s do it?

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If you are confused by the first 20 or so episodes, or are not sure if this podcast is for you, then please listen to this short introduction about what's a conscious freelancer and why I started this podcast.

Here I share a weekly actionable idea to help you grow your own conscious freelance business. Besides subscribing, you can also:

I once listened to audiobooks every day while driving to work. Now I've been building the reading habit again (this time really reading) and thought it could be interesting to share what stood out to me the most about all the books I've read or listened to. In this episode I share 1 insight that stuck with me from each of these books:

• The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind - T. Harv Eker
• The 4 hour work week - Tim Ferriss
• Good morning good life - Amy Landino
• The subtle art of not giving a fuck - Mark Manson
• The four agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

My links:

My biggest fear when I started freelancing: selling my services through a Zoom call. It's tempting to avoid discovery calls, but they are a really important part of (almost) every freelance project.

I decided to talk about the basic basics. Not about sales techniques, or how you should structure them, or schedule them. I speak about how to be less nervous, actually connect with the person on the other side and most importantly: actually start doing the calls!

My links:

Perfectionism... one of the creatives biggest struggle. It stops us from delivering work in reasonable time, but, most importantly, it stops us from showing unfinished work for feedback. I have struggled with perfectionism my whole life, and I finally believe I've gotten pretty good at managing it. In this episode I share my perfectionist story and what helped me get better at dealing with this feeling.

My links:

How the f*** do I price creativity? I think this is one of the most common questions among beginner freelancers, and also something most people don't talk openly about.

In this episode I try to deconstruct how I price my design services in the most honest way possible. I cover pricing per hour vs per project, how to know your hourly rate, what else to consider when pricing your services and why you shouldn't think about "market price". Hope this helps you!

Audio editing: Raquel Silvestre

Stuff I talked about:

If you set goals, but don’t have an action plan for them, they don’t serve you much. But if you set random daily habits just because it’s a “healthy habit” or a “successful habit”, you probably won’t stick to them. This month I had a major breakthrough about why I can't stick to any goal for a long time: they aren't exciting enough. In this episode I talk about what I did to create more exciting goals and how I'm approaching the creation of daily habits to achieve them.

Audio editing: Raquel Silvestre

Stuff I talked about:

One of the first things you need to do to become a freelance designer is to create a portfolio. And if you're already a freelance designer, it's very possible that you don't update it as often as you want to. Yeah, I also don't...

On this episode I give you my take on what makes a portfolio good, and also a strategy to make yourself update it more often.

Audio editing: Raquel Silvestre

Stuff I talked about:

After spending 2 years earning less than the minimum wage in Portugal with my freelance design business, I managed to hit the 2K mark in March 2022. So what did I do differently? This is the question I try to answer in this episode. I take you through these past 3 months where I finally fully commited myself to my freelance business, and share the biggest shifts I made to reach this goal.

Audio editing: Raquel Silvestre

Stuff I talked about:

Ever wondered if you are really helping your client's business? Do you want to increase your freelance income, but you don't know how? Today's episode is all about brand strategy and how it is a super important skill for freelance designers, specially if you want to start charging higher prices. 

I'm no expert on this (not even close!), that's why I invited Mike to discuss this topic. He's an experienced brand strategist and in this episode he takes you through how he started learning and selling strategy to his clients. Big, big value on this one!

Audio editing: Raquel Silvestre

Stuff we talked about:

Freelancing can be quite the rollercoaster... I became a freelancer to have freedom, but it isn't all rainbows and sunshines (like anything in life really). It's up to us to implement strategies to help us create that freedom and security. In a nutshell: use the up phases to prepare for the down phases of our freelance business. In this episode I share some strategies that I'm using to achieve this balance.

Work-life balance is a tricky topic... one I didn't feel comfortable tackling on my own. So I decided to speak about this with my friend Raquel, who works as a project manager and also has some side projects going on like me.

We talked about different project management strategies and how we both try to achieve a healthy work-life balance in different ways. The key word is: try. We have a lot to improve in this subject, like everyone else, but we hope you can learn something from our experiences :)

Things we talked about: