Ditching Hourly

The funny and talented Bob Beverley joins me to brainstorm ways to create more leverage in his psychotherapy practice. Bob's website: The Sharp Club ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

FE International founder and CEO Thomas Smale joins me to talk about what to do before building (or buying) a SaaS.FE International website ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

Full stack engineer Kyle Miller explains how he bootstrapped a SaaS and sold it for a life-changing amount of money a few years later. Kyle's LinksWebsiteLinkedIn ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

Learning consultant Ant Pugh discusses the difference between niching and specialization in freelancing. Topics include niching vs specialization in freelance e-learning, the role of storyboards in e-learning, the diagnostic phase and niching in learning development, the importance of nicheing and specialization, packaging expertise and positioning, niching down and leveraging expertise in freelancing, and overcoming challenges and expanding offerings.

Coaching Call with educator Kristina JarenoKristina's Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/kristinario_/Automated Transcript: Jonathan (00:00:00):Hello, and welcome to ditching hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. And today I'm joined by guest Kristina Jareno. Did I say that right?Kristina (00:00:09):Almost... Jareno.Jonathan (00:00:10):My apologies. Um, so Kristina, could you tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do?Kristina (00:00:17):Sure. Um, hi everyone. I am a mom. I, my daughter is four I'm born and raised in long beach, California. I am starting a homeschool co-op and I am also an intern trainers and entertainer. So I make films and music and I've reached out to John to help me, um, regarding both of these industries and how to play hourly billing to both.Jonathan (00:00:45):Yes. Okay, great. Um, so let's, so you sent an email, thanks for that. And you talked, um, let's focus on the schooling piece first because I think that's, um, that's, uh, I could be wrong, but I feel like that one has more moving parts. So why don't you give folks a little bit of a backstory on how you came to put that together? What, what need you feel like it's addressing or you want it to address?Kristina (00:01:11):Sure. Um, so my daughters for a couple of years ago around when she was two, um, I started having the itch to really quote unquote, get back to my career, um, or just have help with childcare so that I could have some me time as a mom. Um, so I started researching different daycares and preschools in schools, and that journey led me to tour like, you know, over 25 to 30 schools in Los Angeles. And this was like Montessori, organic daycares, Waldorf Reggio, progressive private schools, like elementary on. And I didn't know what I was looking for at the time I was looking for emotional safety. I was looking for, um, I was also looking for parent education and that journey led me to starting my own co-op um, you know, uh, we'll be working with, uh, uh, Ryan associates and PT instructor to kind of help all the parents. Um, and that's kind of how I, I ended up coming to starting it over at the end of this two year journey is really out of necessity just because I couldn't find what I was looking for.Jonathan (00:02:26):Hmm. Okay. So can you drill into those? You use two terms though. I'm not familiar with Bri associate and PDT.Kristina (00:02:35):Um, so arise associate rise stands for resources for infant educators. And I found out about raw resources for infant educators. Um, actually from one of the co-ops that I, um, was touring. And when I found them, my daughter was too young to enroll at the time and I didn't want to wait a whole year to start getting, um, you know, educated as a parent. The reason why I liked them was because did like monthly workshops and it was parent participation. So parents were really, really, really, really involved in given support and guidance and that's what I was craving. And so I asked them if there were any podcasts or resources or books, people to, to look out for, um, just to get started. And they recommended Janet Lansbury as podcasts and resources for infant educators, which I think is one of the, kind of more becoming more mainstream approaches to respectful parenting.Kristina (00:03:30):Um, and then parent effectiveness training is also another approach that some rye associates, um, recommend for after age two, because resources for in financial cares is more for infants and up to age two. So after age two, when they start getting more conversational, they want, uh, collaborative problem solving is more required. And like in a conscious awareness of your, uh, abuse or lack of abuse of, of your authority and power is more required. So PT is really, really great. It stands for parent effectiveness training and it was created by, uh, Thomas Gordon. Who's a psychologist that was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. Right. So, um, those two approaches were like the main things that I sunk my teeth into in addition to self directed education, which I think I saw on one of your videos, you're also a homeschooler, always willing parents. Yup. Cool. You, it,Jonathan (00:04:31):So, okay. So now you, uh, you weren't finding what you were looking for, so you decided to, uh, take a leadership role and put something together. What, and you said it was, uh, a co-op. So can you kind of, that's all a black box to me. So can you kind of describe what that structure means? I mean, I have a vague, vague understanding of what co-op like food market is, but like what, what's the structure, if you could just make it kind of more tangible for me?Kristina (00:05:02):Yeah. Um, well, uh, from what, from what I know from the preschools that I've toured and I've toured a few different co-ops here in LA, um, it's basically parents, uh, it's like a preschool, um, where parents can volunteer in the classroom, um, to be more involved and kind of witnessed what their child is being exposed to from the education standpoint to the people, teaching them to the other families that are involved and their children. Um, so it's basically parents coming together. Um, usually the premise of it is if parents are volunteering, then there's more resources in the classroom. Um, and there, that means that your tuition is going to be, I don't know, cheaper. Um, although I've found that some co some parent participation clubs and preschools, they can, even if they're both high end or depending on what their product is or what, you know, education being the product, the quality of the education or the, um, the environment they're providing, it could be like the same price anyway. So, um, but it's basically parents coming together as a village and, um, collaborating with each other, arranging for childcare, with a lead teacher, like a director and other lead teachers.Jonathan (00:06:30):Okay. Yeah. Okay. That, that clicks with me because, uh, there are homeschool organizations around here that have a similar sort of thing like that. They, yeah. That, you know, it's kind of like, um, volunteer to teach, uh, Oh, you know, how to play violin. Could you teach a violin class, that kind of stuff, you know, for, not for, uh, preschoolers, but, um, so sort of similar sort of, yeah, I sort of get the idea. And then it's a question of, um, I'm kind of stuck on the, I'm kind of stuck at the beginning where you were like, I was looking, you know, this, this small child and I'm looking for some meantime, but now you're going to be with the, with the kid, all the kids anyway, um, is this is really for parents, for parents who don't work or what's, what's the, is it,Kristina (00:07:21):So the structure of what the unicorn is thing that I'm creating? Yeah. I can go straight into it. Um, well, the reason why I'm creating this, this thing, and this is, it's like a preschool club, except that when the child, when any of the children turn age six, they will, they, all they have to do is file a PSA. Um, and then, which is the private private school affidavit. And that's for you to legally become like, uh, uh, an unschooler, I should say, or like a homeschool, or if you want more control, because if you don't have a PSA and you're a homeschooler, then that means that you're going to adhere to the state mandated curriculum, um, through different, through a charter, like I lead or inspire or whatever.Jonathan (00:08:06):I believe that's different from state to state, but that's how it happened.Kristina (00:08:10):Yeah. Sorry in California here. Um, that's how it is. Um, so it's kind of like, um, world schooling or unschooling together type of a thing. And it's really attachment based becaus...

Lawyer Digby Leigh joins me to share his experience converting his 30 person law firm from hourly billing to up front pricing. Digby's Links:Leigh & CoDigby's LinkedInAltFeeCo.com ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

The lovely and talented Blair Enns joins me to explore the question: WHAT IS STRATEGY?BLAIR'S LINKSWin Without PitchingBlair's TwitterINTERACTIVE TRANSCRIPThttps://www.rev.com/transcript-editor/shared/m4jr6P_aQ9TmpdBKT3aCBIwyEF8RQOW6iVR4dv8w_tR26FKubH_uHjRLazDIaBMaGii5Y7IGnLKWWyV6XLOhdZXkG_E?loadFrom=SharedLinkTEXT TRANSCRIPTJonathan (00:00): Hello and welcome to ditching hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. And today I am joined by a very special guest Blair ends. Blair, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Jonathan. Great to be here. So I feel like you need no introduction, but can I put you on the spot and for anybody who hasn't heard your name before you maybe give them a, a quick name, rank and serial number. Yeah,Blair (00:22): Name rank. So I'm the founder and CEO of win without pitching the sales training organization for creative professionals. I've written two books the win without pitching manifesto in 2010 and pricing creativity, a guide to profit beyond the billable hour in 2018, three years ago.Jonathan (00:47): Great stuff. Love it. Okay. So the, the sort of impetus for this conversation was a tweet that you tweeted, obviously something you posted on Twitter about strategy. So what's the, what's the sort of backstory here.Blair (01:01): Yeah. And I forget exactly what the exchange was, but you and I were trading some pretty good definitions of strategy. One of my hobbies is I collect answers to the question, what is strategy? Because strategy is one of those words, like time and money are in the same category. They're they're words. We think we know the meaning of them until we're asked to define them. And then it turns out very few people have satisfactory answers to the question of what is strategy. And then when you get into that, then it's, it begs all kinds of other questions around this topic of strategy. So it's a rich vein for a podcast episode that's for sure.Jonathan (01:43): Absolutely. Well, so what are some of the answers that you've collected? I mean, do, do you feel like there are, do you feel like they sort of coalesce around a correct answer or is it just like people have different definitions and if it works for them great. What do you, what do you, what are your findings?Blair (02:03): I I've, I've asked hundreds of people this question, and I've asked it from a stage, you know, many times as well. So, you know, easily, I've heard hundreds of answers where, or in excess of 100 answers. And the most common answer is just an insufficient answer is an answer that, that says this person hasn't thought about the question, which isn't, you know, I'm, I'm sure there, there are a hundred words that I think I know the definition to that. If you ask me to define, I couldn't have a strategy, is, is one of those words. Usually the answer is some variation of a really smart plan. But the origin of the question why I first started asking it was so win without pitching is a training company, but we used to be, we used to be me a solo consulting practice. And I used to hear from my clients a lot.Blair (02:53): So creatives who have made their creativity, their business. So some designers starts at design firm. I used to hear from my clients when they were talking about their competitors, they would say, Oh, they're a really good firm, but they don't do strategy. Meaning they're not as smart as we are. Right. And so I started asking what strategy and people were just absolutely flummoxed by the question. So the answer is, tend to coalesce around a plan. Well, let's strategy is a plan. It's a detailed plan. Okay. So strategy is the plan. No, no, it's more than a plan. It's a really smart plan.Jonathan (03:35): It's a really smart piece that I think people get hung up on. Like what does really smart mean?Blair (03:39): Yeah. And then strategic as a modifier when you're positioning your firm we're a strategic design firm. Okay. What does that mean? Well, it means we're smart. It means we do the strategy. What strategy it's planning. Okay. So strategy is a plan. No, no, no. So we ended up in this circular discussion.Jonathan (03:59): Right? Right. So w the ones that, so a couple things to just chime in and kind of pile on there. I hear a lot of people use the word strategy incorrectly, which is different than defining it wrong. Cause I think if I asked the very same people to define strategy, they would say something like it's knowing what not to do or same, same with you. It's like a really smart plan. But I hear, I hear like a different, I hear people just use the word in the wrong place. Like people ask me like, what's a good SEO strategy or what's a good email marketing strategy. And what they're really asking for is tactics. And, you know, and they're asking about something extremely low level, they're looking for tips like tips and tricks on how to use drip more efficiently or something, or how to use social media more effectively.Jonathan (04:49): And you might, and some of those things would come out of an overall, like a higher level strategy. And, you know, based on the strategy, they're going to be tactics that are aligned or misaligned with the strategy, but they don't, but they have a tendency to just use the word synonymously with tactics, which is always something that I makes me nervous for them. Because if they, if they think that, you know, what, you know, like picking a time of day to tweet is a strategic thought process, then I'm like, okay, let's we need to have a conversation here.Blair (05:22): Well, Oh, so we're going to have to unpack both of these words, strategy and tactics, because, you know, I, the more I learn about it, the more I see there, isn't really a universal universal definition. And there are three definitions that I've heard that I like. And I remember I don't, I didn't go back and look it up. I remember liking yours. So there would be, there's probably five ones that I've heard that I've liked. And the three that there are three that I've held onto. And the, and the most recent one is one that really challenges some traditional ideas of what strategy might be. So what's, you've got a, you've thought about this question. What's your definition of strategyJonathan (06:03): A bit long, but I can't, I can't make it shorter and not lose something I think is meaningful. So, so from memory it's, as strategy is a high, a concise high-level approach to achieving an objective that applies strengths, your strengths against some things, weaknesses in a surprising way.Blair (06:23): Yeah. So there are a lot of keywords there, so I've thought of high level. Yeah. What else did you have? It's a high level, concise and high level, high level and put, goingJonathan (06:35): For achieving an objective. So that, that's the most important, like to me that's the, the most straightforward piece of it. It doesn't give you any direction, but it does say that it's gotta be, it's gotta be short. It's gotta be clear. It's gotta be high level. It's not a list of things to do. It's an approach to it critically to achieve an objective. So if you don't have an objective, there's no strategy. You can't have a strategy without an objective. So to me, any strategy meeting would, or, you know, discussion or thought process would start with what...

Specialization guru Philip Morgan joins me to talk about when to niche down and what to do about the fear of doing so.LINKSphilipmorganconsulting.compositioningcrashcourse.comTRANSCRIPTJonathan (00:00):Hello, and welcome to ditching hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today. I am joined by special guest, very special guest and old friend, Phillip Morgan, Phillip, welcome to the show.Philip (00:09):Great to be here, Jonathan. ThanksJonathan (00:11):For having me. So for folks who maybe haven't heard your name before, could you give us a quick 32nd name, rank and serial number?Philip (00:19):All right. Start the timer. My name's Philip Morgan. I help independent consultants thrive. I've arrived at this weird made up job for myself, starting with an interest in how specialization is the beachhead that provides this really outsized advantage. And I've ended up becoming generally interested in how sort of indie experts, you know, folks like yourself, Jonathan me, to an extent like how do we cultivate expertise and turn that into economic output. Hmm.Jonathan (00:51):Awesome. Love it. Yeah, totally aligned. Of course. So the, the sort of impetus for this particular interview was an email you sent out to your list with a subject line perpetually fascinating specialization. And you know, I guess someone sent this question into you.Philip (01:10):Yeah. When folks opt into my email list, I just redirect them immediately to a survey that says, Hey, you know, what's on your mind. What sort of questions do you have? It's totally optional whether they fill it out, but this question came in through that channel.Jonathan (01:23):Gotcha. Cool. And the question was, how do I discover the area of specialization that is both perpetually fascinating to me and valuable to the market? An age old question. Yeah. That's what we all want. Yeah. We, I get this all the time where people, you know, I, I talk about it in the context of positioning and, and, you know, becoming the go-to person for a particular something, you know, and, and it's, you're kind of like with, with me as a solo person or people that work with me who are solo, you're kind of dead in the water. If you don't have some kind of differentiator, because if you're just presenting yourself to the market as a, just another one of these things, you know, coder, developer designer, then you're not meaningfully different from anyone. Then you're going to have really powerful, downward pressure on your prices.Jonathan (02:16):No leverage in the negotiation. It's, this is a terrible place to be. It's much better to be the one and only of something instead of just one of many. And it just has a dramatic effect on the prices that you can charge. And also the impact that you can have, all of your marketing suddenly starts to work. Imagine that so, you know, we're super aligned on this, but the thing, the pushback that this reminds me of is that people have the fear as you coined it many years ago about specializing and, and there's a bunch of different ones, but a bunch of different fears of sort of three or four different fears it'll crop up. And, but this one comes up all the time where say to me I, I totally buy in on the idea of positioning and I understand why that would be good for me, but which position or which specialization, or they're not the same thing, but which focus do I pick? Like how do I pick the thing?Philip (03:15):Yeah. And it's, I mean, it really kind of gets to the heart of, I think, what is intimidating and scary and mysterious about this decision? It's a decision is maybe the first thing we should point out. Like we could, I could make 10 specialization decisions in the next minute. If I wanted to, the decision is free. It costs almost nothing, right? Like I could say, well, I want to specialize in actually the person who asked this question went on to say, I could specialize in underwater basket weaving, but I would not want to sink a lot of time and effort into marketing that unless I have some confidence that there's a market for it. So there's a lot going on there. But the first thing we should point out is like the decision costs, nothing. I think what people are worried about is the potential negative cost of the decision of like, Oh, I made the wrong decision or I made this decision and it looked great on paper and then it didn't pan out.Philip (04:22):So that's one thing I think we should talk about more today. And then the, there's another really, almost headline level aspect to this question, which is the question is saying, I want this to be perpetually fascinating. Yeah. And you know, when these questions come in through this form that I send people to, I don't have all the context. Right. So I feel a little, it feels a little risky to assume too much, but I just don't feel like anyone would use the word perpetually by accident, you know, like that's, that's associated with things like tombstones and, you know, big structures then, you know, in perpetual living memory of so-and-so it's, it's just not a word you toss around casually. So I assume that this person really was looking for a way of specializing. That would for them be always interesting.Jonathan (05:17):Yeah. Never boring. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's the afraid they're going to get bored.Philip (05:21):Right. The answer is it doesn't exist. Like that's, that's the simple one sentence answer that that specialization does not exist for anybody. Yeah.Jonathan (05:31):It's kind of like, it's kind of like an oxymoron. Like if you're actually specializing it almost can't get boring.Philip (05:38):That's the thing is I I'd be curious about your experience with pricing. It probably like your specialization Jonathan in pricing, because I don't think it'll quite fit the pattern, but if there is a pattern, I think you could say you do need to be prepared for things to temporarily get and I'm pausing on purpose because I'm not sure boring is the right word. Maybe simpler, maybe less chaotic. And then after you get through a phase of that, things will get way more interesting.Jonathan (06:16):Yep. Yeah. It's like S-curves and you keep breaking through, so you go up, you go up the learning curve that you're on and you get to the top and you're like, Oh, I guess, okay. I guess I look right. And then you're like, Whoa, new door opens. Right. And it's, I mean, the S-curve thing is generally in an ascending, you know, learning curve going up. And, you know, if you imagine an S curve, it's sort of like as a steep incline at the beginning, and then it tapers off it plateaus and then it another steep learning curve and then it plateaus. But really there's a reverse metaphor of, you're just going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole and finding new caverns to explore. Yeah.Philip (06:55):I, I have this sort of mental model of the human skin, this grosses some people out, which makes it even more fun for me to use. But you know, when you specialize, it's like you're getting a hypodermic needle so that you can Pierce the outer layer of the skin, the epidermis, it's mostly dead skin cells. It's very thin. There's not much going on there. There's something there, but you have to get through it to get to the good stuff, which is the dermis and the hypodermis of the skin. I thought, you know, when I first laid hold of some of these ideas about specialization and started exploring them and I was like, Oh, I'm an expert after six months in this. But that was the epidermis that was, you know, the thin dead layer where everything is kind of over simplified. And there's not a lot of nuance....

RevThink honcho Joel Pilger joins me to talk about how and why to consider fostering a community of clients. Joel's BioJoel Pilger helps great creatives run great creative companies. As a RevThinker, Joel has advised hundreds of creative firms based in 23 countries around the world. He is the host of the RevThinking Podcast as well as the host of regular QOHORT retreats and dinners for creative entrepreneurs in New York, Los Angeles, and London.Related LinksJoel's websiteJoel's previous appearance on Ditching HourlyRevThinking PodcastQOHORT ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

Positioning consultant Emily Omier shares her secrets for finding clients on LinkedIn without being an annoying spammer. Emily's LinksEmily's articles: The New StackEmily's podcast: The Business of Cloud NativeEmily's blog: Positioning Open SourceEmily's LinkedIn Profile ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!