Keith Perhac and I recorded our 3rd podcast episode with special guest Brennan Dunn. Listen to it (or read the transcript) for:

why you should increase your freelancing rate
how to discuss your value with your clients such that they’re happy to pay your increased rates
how to scale to a multi-employee consultancy, without being bankrupted by poorly timed receivables
three stories from successful consultants on three very different trajectories in their businesses
how you can use drip email to sell more product (and consulting gigs, too)
a bit about the business of selling info-products: pricing anchors, marketing tactics, list building, and more

If You Want To Listen To It

MP3 Download (~90 minutes, ~211 MB) : Right-click here and click Save As.

Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store.

[powerpress]

Transcript: Running a Consulting Business, With Brennan Dunn

Patrick McKenzie: Hi everybody. My name is Patrick McKenzie, perhaps better known as patio11 on the Internet. This is the, I think, third episode of the Kalzumeus podcast, with my buddy, Keith Perhac.

Keith Perhac: Hello.

Patrick: And our special guest, Brennan Dunn, of Planscope and “Double Your Freelancing Rate.”

Keith: Woo!

Brennan Dunn: Hey there.

Keith: That was our live studio audience. Last time, we had a theme song. But I don’t know. Do we have a theme song this time as well?

Patrick: I think we are totally theme‑song‑less.

Keith: OK.

Patrick: This is still a third‑rate podcast.

So, Brennan, recently you had a product launch. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that, and we’ll segue into the discussion about it.

Brennan: Absolutely. So, for the last few months, I’m been thinking about putting together an info product, specifically one that is targeting, really, a passion point of mine, which is freelancers who undercharge for their services.

It’s something that really came from my own experience. For way too many years, I charged dramatically less than what I was worth, and only recently have I fixed that. And since I’ve fixed that, not only has my income gone up, but the caliber of client that I work with has gone up also.

And I really wanted to just not only spill the beans as to how I got there but also back it with pricing research that I’ve done. So I’ve done a lot of reading of really executive‑level books on the science of pricing and really targeting factories and massive companies that produce products, and I wanted to find a way to distill that into something consumable for an independent service provider.

So I took that knowledge. I took my background. I interviewed, I think, six or seven what I deem “premium” freelancers, people who either charge a lot or have, really, a very good business around themselves. They’re not just developers. They’re not just designers. They’re true businesspeople. I condensed that into a book that...

For the full transcript see here.

MARK MASLIN - Author of How To Save Our Planet: The Facts - Professor, Earth System Science, University College London