Transcript of WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE CHOOSING FREELANCING: HOW TO START TODAY || JAMIE BRINDLE || EPISODE 072

The majority of the American workforce alone is going to be freelancers by 2027. We're changing the shape of work. We're changing the shape of what work looks like worldwide. I mean, that statistic is unique to America, but I mean, across the world, it's going this direction.

Freelancing has become ever so popular, especially from 2020 due to COVID. Absolutely. When did you start?

I started freelancing in 2007, maybe. 2006, 2007. I was in high school still. 17 years old was when I started. My wife and I are business partners, but we were at a stage of our production studio career where we were looking to diversify our revenue. So it's like we had scaled our B2B client-based service substantially to where we had teams flying out to different venues to film, and we had editors, and what have you. But we wanted to de-risk the business a little bit and diversify the revenue pie. And so we started looking at digital products, and we're thinking, Well, that would mean we'd have to get on social media and start selling on the Internet. And the plan The A was take the byproduct of all the things that we developed for delivering for our customers, the templates and the animation rigs and everything, and sell them to people that maybe couldn't afford to work with us. So we were going to build an audience of our customers. And then COVID happened. And Courtney and I sat in our second bedroom office and said, what if instead of that, we helped people that looked like us build their business?

We take the byproduct that maybe we weren't necessarily accounting for, which our wisdom and experience of doing this for 15 years at the time.

My question now to you, what was the biggest mental shift going from surviving freelancer to a business owner that's thriving? What is that big mental shift that occurs?

I would say One of the biggest ones was realizing that business is the exchange of money for solutions, not the exchange of money for the thing I do. For years, I thought, Okay, people are paying me because I make good videos. That's dangerous because you get lucky enough times and you think that that's the reason they're paying you. Really, the reason that people are paying you is because you're solving a problem that's worth more than the money they're giving you.

The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. If you are interested in learning a bit more about freelancing, whether you want to start, upscale, or just in the freelancing business, this is the episode for you. I have a gentleman who is an expert in this field is going to be talking a bit more about freelancing. Yes, if you want to learn a bit more about that, we're going to have to just break down the fundamentals. We're going to break down the necessities, how to start, how to upscale, you name it. Without further ado, the man, the myth the very legend himself, Jamie Brindle. How are you doing today, sir?

Good, man. How are you doing?

Coach you off guard there.

I was going to say, I don't know, man. I should have brought a tie just for this shirt, though. We would have fit better together here.

You're good, brother. You're good. No, I've been watching your content. I know I reached out to you about a few months back. We just couldn't make it work.

We're busy men. But hey, we did it. We're here. We're here now.

I had a two-hour window off day. I did a few interviews yesterday. I went to the beach. I'm like, I need to get the ocean. If you're in Los Angeles, just go down there. I went down to Malibu Pier, and I was just getting the smell of the ocean.

How are you doing today? Just touch the Pacific. I'm doing good. Yeah. Traffic was reasonable, speaking of LA, getting down here. But we were hot off of a big meetup that we did three or four days ago with a bunch of freelancers in town. And then there's a bunch of freelancers here at a convention downtown right now. So it's a happening week for freelancers, for creative business owners, and just folks who are independent operators. So it's a fun week for us.

No, no, that's awesome. Andhow was the event? What was the set up like?

It was great. I told all that we started with the panel. It was me, Chris Doe, James Barnard, and Adrian Per, who are all creative entrepreneurs that have done extremely well for themselves and now have made a career out of inspiring others to do the same. I told the guys as we were headed up to the panel, I was like, Living room vibes, guys, living room vibes. I want this to feel like just a living with a bunch of creatives together. We're just family, just hashing it out. That matriculated through the whole night, and it was reported back to me that that was the sense that everybody got, which is just the insights that were being shared, the solutions that were being discussed. I guess the revelatory thing was that we're all dealing with... It doesn't matter what stage we're at, we're all dealing with a version of the same stuff. The message of the night It was a lot of the people walked into that room thinking that they were alone and building something on their own, and they walked out of the room realizing, Oh, no, I'm part of a movement. I'm part of something really big now.

Because the majority of the American workforce alone is going to be freelancers by 2027. We're changing the shape of work. We're changing the shape of what work looks like worldwide. I mean, that statistic is unique to America, but I mean, across the world, it's going this It was cool to get us all in a room and realize just how strong we are.

I love that. Freelancing has become ever so popular, especially from 2020 due to COVID. Absolutely. When did you start?

I started freelancing in 2007, maybe. 2006, 2007. I was in high school still. 17 years old was when I started.

So you're a '99 baby?

I am a '89 baby. When I got started, social media wasn't a thing. I'm in digital video. That was my career for 17 years. The only place for a digital video to go was television. 17-year-old Jamie would go door to door, knocking on local businesses, door to door. We got that in common. Knocking on local businesses and asking, Hey, do you a TV commercial. I do TV commercials. And so obviously, over time, I learned there's a better way to position yourself than I do TV commercials. Do you need one? But all it took was one. And then that person knew somebody, and then that person knew somebody. Before you knew it, I was 17, 18 years old. I'd go film a commercial and negotiate the air time with the local Fox, NBC, ABC, Comcast, what have you. That That's what got me started. Yeah, it's flash forward to today. Ironically, 2020, you mentioned is when we started our Instagram. Wow. Because we were at a stage... When I say we, I'm talking about my wife and I, my wife and I are business partners, but we were at a stage of our production studio career where we were looking to diversify our revenue.

It's like we had scaled our B2B client-based service substantially to where we had teams flying out to different venues to film, and we had editors, and what have you. But we wanted to derisk the business a little bit and diversify the revenue pie. We started looking at digital products, and we're thinking, Well, that would mean we'd have to get on social media and start selling on the Internet. The plan A was take the byproduct of all the things that we developed for delivering for our customers, the templates and the animation rigs and everything, and sell them to people that maybe couldn't afford to work with us. We were going to build an audience of our customers. And then COVID happened. And Courtney and I sat in our second bedroom office and said, what if instead of that, we helped people that looked like us build their business? We take the byproduct that maybe we weren't necessarily that we're really accounting for, which was our wisdom and experience of doing this for 15 years at the time, and put that on social media and help folks who are maybe losing their jobs or have a little extra time now that they're working from home for the year.

And let them know, Hey, something wonderful has just happened. As horrific as COVID is and the repercussions of COVID, you now have this opportunity to build something on your own. It's never been simpler to build something on your own. There's never been more ask that's available to somebody on that journey. That's what kicked us off in 2020. I think there was just a... We tapped into the zeitgeist because it was, I think, within a few months, We had a thousand followers on Instagram, and then two weeks later, we had 5,000 followers, and then two weeks later, we had 100,000 followers. It was just everybody was very interested in what this journey looks like.

Wow, that is crazy. But I also wanted to ask a few questions, obviously with freelancing. Do you think there is competitive edge for those that outsource outside the United States as compared to locally within the United States. The reason I say that, I have about half of the people that edit and do my work are locally. They have to be within Utah. But we release so much of content, and sometimes we have to be at a fast pace where we're still delegating and doing multiple stuff, where we also end up outsourcing outside the United States. Obviously, due to timing and how things work, they still get the work done. But do you think because of the stand of living and how priced are in the United States, it's a little harder for those that are within the US as compared to when they're outsourced out the United States?

I think it all depends on what problem you're trying to solve. If you're trying to solve the problem of, I don't have money, then, yeah, maybe Take a look outside the US where your money can move a little further and still do some good for the folks that you're hiring. But like you mentioned in Salt Lake, it's like if you're trying to solve the problem of something that's localized that you need somebody in the room for, then that's where you got to go. And I think that too many freelancers... But the other thing to say is that just because you're not speaking to freelancers that aren't in the US, that doesn't mean your only play is to play the pricing game. There are plenty of freelancers that are in the US that we pay way more than the freelancers in the US that we work with because we're spending against an expensive problem. So it's like we're happy to... If that person has got the fix, that's the person I'm going to hire. But looking for reasons, geographically speaking, that obviously budget could be one. Another one that's interesting is if you want your business to never sleep.

It's like if when you're sleeping, your team is on a different time in a different time zone, and they're just waking up and they're getting started. Then they go to bed and you're just waking up and you're getting started. That's another strategy to put the work as well.

I've noticed that because I'll be calling an Airbnb call center, and then you hear an Asian Eastern accent, and you could tell that it's been outsourced from a different country, that they can operate 24/7. When I did my internship in Bloomberg in New York before I graduated college, their call center was located in multiple different countries, and because they have to be able to work with customers that can always be on their terminal 24/7. So even though you're calling in the US and you got a problem with your terminal at like three o'clock in the morning, you're going to be calling and potentially it could be somebody in South Africa or in the United Kingdom that could be answering your phone call. So I think I completely understand what you're saying. Even for me, I've had multiple different editors, and the one editor that could edit the way I want my stuff, like Stephen Bartlet, the director of a CEO, where he just takes all the graphic. He was not in the United States. And I was like, I'm not going to underpay me. You did such a great job. You're going to get what I would be paying, if not even more as well, because you're my best editor.

And so I want you to do everything you do for me full-time from where you're at, and I'll just pay you. He's 100% full-time for me. But that's messed up my sleeping schedule because I'm like, Oh, I got this one thing. How about you add that thing at like three o'clock in the morning? But I got Jamie Brindle at like 10: 00 in the morning, so I got to get my sleep.

You look very rested today.

No, I love this freelancing thing. What would you say is the service right now that is going to be booming in the freelancing industry?

Here's the thing. I don't think there's any one particular market It that's better than the other. I don't think there's a such thing as a crowded market or an ideal market. I think really you cut through the noise and you succeed based on the specificity of the problem that you solve. So the market and the skillset are almost inconsequential. There are means to an end. And the business lives or dies by how specific, how urgent and how painful the problem you solve is. Choose a market that's interesting to you. Choose a market that maybe you have that's overrepresented in your niche. Maybe you got a lot of family in the restaurant business. So it's like they'll refer you to other restaurant owners, or you got a lot of family in Fintech, or you got a lot of your college roommates went into FinTech. Choose something where you've got a leg up or at least have some interest in it. Then once you pick that market, go find the problem that's urgent and painful, and then reverse engineer how you're going to solve that problem with what it is that you do. It's like if the problem is we're not getting the conversions we want to be getting on a monthly basis, basis, then you're a graphic designer, then it's, Okay, well, what can I do with graphic design to help these people solve that?

Or you're a web developer, what can I do with development to help these people solve that problem? I think that's the play. Obviously, AI is changing everything, everybody's business. I'm sure it's almost a cliché at this point to mention that. But I think if you want to pay attention to one thing or one trendy item, it would be that I would figure out how to implement AI in that solution, because then you can come at it and yield the results of a team of 10 or 20 as an individual. Right now, that's still a competitive advantage. I think that's going to be par for the course, like eight months from now. It's going to be the expectation. If you want to take advantage of a little bit of a window of opportunity, it would probably be that. Figure out how to wield AI now.

I couldn't agree more. A matter of fact, I think I even asked somebody a similar question, and they often said AI, number one, as a priority, but he also stressed on the fact that even if you learn something like Python and solving people's problems is going to be such a big thing because everything right now has become in the remote space where it's become a bit more convenient for most people. My question now to you, what was the biggest mental shift going From surviving freelancer to a business owner that's thriving, what is that big mental shift that occurs?

I would say one of the biggest ones was realizing that business is the exchange of money for solutions, not the exchange of money for the thing I do. For years, I thought, Okay, people are paying me because I make good videos. And that's dangerous because you get lucky enough times and you think that that's the reason they're paying you. And really, the reason that people are paying you is because you're solving a problem that's worth more than the money they're giving you. And so I got lucky enough times to skirt by where the clients sussed that out for themselves. Like, okay, Jamie can solve my problem. I'm going to hire him. But when I realized that that's what was going on, I started being able to position myself in that context and started talking about the business results of my service as opposed to the creative inputs. It's like, I'm no longer talking about shot choice and pacing and color with clients because they don't give a shit. And then I start talking about conversion rate. Hey, how are we deploying this? Is this going to be a captive audience? Are you showing this in a meeting room or am I hijacking attention here?

Is this going to be a free roll ad that I have to... All these things. It's, okay, here's the business result that I'm yielding you with my creativity, as opposed to you're purchasing my creativity. And I think that that shift in the way I positioned my offer made a significant difference in our business. A, because it's easier to market that way, because a business owner maybe is going to skip past somebody talking about their craft, but will lock in on somebody talking about how they're going to improve their conversion rate. But also, B, because in In the sales context, if I'm in a lineup with four or five other videographers or editors, I almost guarantee you I'm the only person asking them about success metrics and conversion rates and the context of the audience and where the goalposts are. I'm establishing myself as a strategic partner in that opening conversation in a way that I guarantee you none of the other creatives they're talking to are. So It sets me apart. It sets me into this new category of strategic partner that people maybe aren't used to when vetting freelancers. I would say that was a big one for me.

As a business, it's the exchange of money for solutions, not money for my creativity or whatever my service is.

Absolutely. I love that. How have you struggled? I know many people, usually when they start in a certain field, they seem to struggle a bit with the imposter syndrome, where they end up just charging way lower than their value as well. You see it a lot. But at the same time, how do you balance that with low ballers? Because some people are just low ball regardless. But how can people not get over and overcome that imposter syndrome?

I have been blessed that I have been able to talk to thousands of freelancers at this point, one-on-one in the DMs, on Zoom calls in our community. I can say with 99. 9% certainty, if you are a freelancer watching this, where's my camera? If you are a freelancer watching this, you're undercharging. It's just a thing. Freelancers just undervalue their solution, their service. Step one is to recognize that no matter what you're charging right now, you're undercharging. Start experimenting with your rate. I asked the question to so many, How much are you charging? And very few of them will... Sometimes I'll say, You should probably, just on the next five that come through, double the rate and see what happens. And a few of them will take me up on that and then hit me up and say, I got two people to pay me twice as much as I normally get. I'm like, Funny. Funny how that happens. I don't know what it is. I think maybe it's a confidence issue. I'm sure there's a little fear involved. Scarcity mindset, not wanting to lose the gig. But for the most part, freelancers undervalue themselves. So I would say just start there with that base fact that you're probably undercharging.

But then in terms of once you get past that, the next step of this process is realizing, back to what we're talking about, right? It's that your clients are spending against the problem. So it has very It has little to do with how much you cost and more to do with the certainty that you're going to solve the problem for them. Does that make sense? So anecdotally, when Courtney and I are hiring somebody to come into our business and solve a problem for us, it's very rare that we don't choose the most expensive option. We almost always go for the priciest freelancer in the lineup because that's the person that's going to get it done for us. It's Obviously, we vet and make sure our assumption is correct. But pricing is a form of communication in and of itself, where it's like, if you have a very do or die problem in your business, don't solve this, and your business is dead in six months, do you go to the cheapest option first or you go seek out the most expensive option and work your way back from there? You want to be that. It's It all ties into everything we've talked about so far today.

It's like you want to be solving that expensive, urgent problem where people are in the mood to just throw money at you to fix it for them. So part of that is done ahead of time with the work that you do on developing your offer, that specificity and figuring out what problem you solve. But then another part of that is done at the marketing stage where it's like, okay, you're targeting people that are in that moment in their business now, right? Because it's like if you catch somebody who's a year away from that moment or who's a year past that moment, they're not going to be customers for you, and you're going to think it's not working, but really, it's just you've mistimed your marketing, or you're not speaking to the right person. And then in the sales conversation, it's just pointing to all those pressure points and identifying what the solve is.

I couldn't concur more. When you were just talking about that, it reminded me. Obviously, I drive a Tesla, but I look back at the time where I could have bought a better model with better range for just an extra 25,000. I'm like, No. It was also a newera year, newer as well. Then looking back, I'm like, Let's just get this thing. Then you look back in time with the amount of travel I do, because I still like traveling with comfortability that I can do a few stuff. It's It's costing me way more than 25,000 in terms of time, in terms of value, because now it's an extra two charges. It's just multiple different stuff. That's funny. It just... Looking back, it's like those four years, I'm like, When you say the cheaper option I've come to the conclusion the cheaper option is not always the best. Matter of fact, sometimes it's always the worst option.

It's usually the more expensive option.

It's the more expensive. Because those charges have accumulated over time, which I'm telling you, I've already told you I'm going to three different states, four different cities in the space of this week as well. Just because I'm charging all these different stations, that's just one week. What I'm trying to say is the fact that the cheapest option always becomes the most expensive, because at the same time, if you pay what you value, it's convenience, it's more experience, it's knowledgeable, it knows what it's doing, and it takes a headache away. I couldn't agree more. I've seen that as well. I was telling them the other time at Aura House Studio, out of all the studios I've done. I've done also 10 different states. It's slightly the more pricier one, but then it's the one where when people come in there, they have that experience like, What a view. Oh, my gosh, that's so amazing. They're the first ones to go leave a review in my Apple podcast. What I'm trying to say is the fact that whenever the quote comes to, I pay it as quickly as possible, that I get the thing booked because the experience that the guests gain, I want people to have it, Oh, my gosh, I enjoyed the conversation.

I enjoyed the atmosphere. I enjoyed the scenery. I enjoy it. If they enjoy, I enjoy, the viewers enjoy, and it's a win-win-win. I could not agree when you said that it just rang so many bells and made me want to throw up an awful decision when I tried to low ball and go cheap because it just was such a disaster.

Sometimes you got to learn a lesson the hard way. No, I think it is important for anybody in business to realize what product they're actually selling, because it's like we're all selling selling one or more of three things: more money, more time, mitigated risk. It's literally... And what you just talked about was more time. They were selling more time with that $25,000 upgrade. And maybe the gentleman or lady who sold that car to you didn't do a good job of explaining that that's what they were selling with that upgrade. But that's, I think, an important part to how you communicate your offer. You don't have to come right out and say, Hey, I'm selling you more money with this. But it is... One of my favorite questions to ask at the beginning of a sales call is, Hey, what's our report card look like for this? What are the success metrics that we're tracking? It's funny how often they don't have an answer for that question, and then you get to, as a strategic partner, help them come up with what metrics they need to be tracking for this. But But usually in that answer, you identify pretty quickly, okay, they're interested in making more money, or they're interested in saving time, or they're interested in lowering risk.

And then the rest of that conversation is just pointing at that one thing, right? It's like this, and we're going to do this, this, this, and that's going to save you more time. And then we're going to do this, this, this, and that's going to save you more time. So it's identifying which of those products your customer is actually buying, 10 tends to do gangbusters in a sales setting.

Love that. Now with those, there's somebody out there is freelancing. It's got a few customers lined up. They're a bit more plateauing. It's just very relaxed. It's convenient. What are those steps they should take right now in order to try and upscale to become a six, seven, or eight-figure business?

It's funny. This year, I've had this conversation so many times with freelancers in the DMs that I've declared this plateau for freelancers. I call it the referral plateau. I think so many freelancers, when they hit that moment where it's like, Okay, I'm financially secure, happy with the work I'm doing, but I have no idea how to grow beyond this. That's why we laugh. It's like, My next question, I almost never have to ask, but I do for the hell of it. I say, Well, how are you generating leads right now? And 100% of the... Not even 99. 9, 100% of the time, the answer is, Oh, I only get leads through referrals. I'm 100% referral. And that's why I've called it the referral plateau, because what's happening is the freelancer's business has outgrown their network. So they've hit the point where we are in what got you here won't get you their territory. So it's like your network has done all it can do or ever will do for you. So if you're happy with the income that you're making now, if you're happy with the shape of your business right now, cool, keep at it.

There's no notes, nothing new to do. You're just going to work off referrals for the rest of your career. But if you want to grow past that plateau, it's time to start doing some different things. It's time to activate social media. It's time to start doing some paid media campaigns. It's time to maybe network with some hub and spoke clients, force some strategic partnerships with complementary freelancers or with clients that have clients, look at some product-type services, look at some digital products. It's what we talked about earlier, you're diversifying your revenue pie. Basically, you're looking for higher leverage opportunities where a referral is very one for one. You can play that game and comfortably get to a $10,000 to $15,000 a month business. But then you need to start looking at one for two opportunities or one for five opportunities. Bundles. Exactly. Higher leverage opportunities. You go to social media for that, you go to paid media for that, and you go to hub and spoke clients with clients for that, and maybe take a look at digital products or productized services.

But you also think the mentality behind It's the fact that I'm not a big corporation. I'm just a freelancer. Do you think that has a big impact with it? Like, you know what? I'm okay with about 20,000 a month. I'm okay with... Do you think that affects that?

For sure. I mean, the beauty of freelancing is choose your own adventure. Most of us are doing this because we love agency. We love that nobody tells us what to do, and we get to build the business that looks like what we want it to look like. If you're happy at 20,000, cool. You did it. Just enjoy it. You're where you want to be. Maybe two years from now, you're going to want to poke around and figure out how to get to 50. Then you'll have a couple of lovers to pull. But yeah, I think that a lot of people, although a lot of people... That's the good side of that. But I think the bad side of that would be people that use this, I'm just one person thing as a limiting factor, where it's like, I want to be making 50 grand a month, but I'm just one person. I can't do that. And that, I think, a decent portion of my content exists to call bullshit on, right? Because it is not my original thought, but somebody mentioned it, and I agree wholeheartedly. The first solopreneur billionaire has been born, right? With all the tools that are available to us now, with what you can do with AI today, there is no excuse.

If you're finding yourself in that mindset, you got to get real honest with yourself and call bullshit on it because the opportunity has never been more abundant than it is today, and it will be even more abundant tomorrow. It's just a matter of assessing what it is that you want to accomplish and then backing into that goal. Okay, so what does my behavior need to look like for the next six months for this to be my reality?

To follow up on that, you've often emphasized on the importance of three pillars in terms of marketing, sales, and fulfillment. Out of those three very crucial and important pillars, what do you think is the most misunderstood by freelancers, and then why?

Interesting. Most misunderstood by freelancers, I would say fulfillment.

Okay.

Because they think that fulfillment is doing the thing, which I'll give them a pass for that. That makes a lot of sense. But really, fulfillment is marketing and sales. If you do all three, it's an A plus. But if you just get fulfillment right, it's still probably an A. Because if you do fulfillment right, your marketing and sales will take care of themselves, at least 80% of themselves. So fulfillment, I think when you dissect a real pros freelance business, I think a key differentiator is that they don't just do the thing. They take their clients on an emotional journey that they've orchestrated. For instance, we know people remember the beginnings and the ends of things. It's just the way people are. We're in Hollywood. A good rule of thumb for a movie is if you nail the opening and you nail the ending and you have a shitty middle of the movie, people are going to still think it was a great movie because they'll remember how it started, they'll remember where you're getting the result. It's not how it ended. It's the same with fulfillment, where if in the first 24 hours, you overdeliver somehow, you really elate them, you knock something out of the park for them, something that they didn't think they were going to get for another two weeks, you deliver it in 12 hours.

They're like, Holy shit, we made a great decision. Then you do the same at the end where it's like, Okay, here's this thing that you paid for, but also I made this other thing that's just as much work. You're getting twice as much as what you paid for. Now, you know from the beginning that you were going to do those two things, but you didn't mention it because you're designing an emotional journey where you're delighting them at the beginning and delighting them at the end. And so what you're trying to do with this fulfillment is effectively effectively turn that person into a traveling salesman for your business, in addition to a repeat customer. So at the end, you want to take them by the hand and walk them to the next offer, where it's like, Okay, we just finished this, but if you don't do I guess this is only going to do 80% of what you hope it will. So let's come on over here and do this next. It's mapping out that customer journey. So if you do fulfillment, you've got repeat business. So it's compounding interest, essentially. It's all the work of acquiring one client, but you're going to get six or seven projects out of them, and you get a sales team, effectively.

Somebody who's happy to refer you to other people, somebody who's happy to broadcast to their network what an amazing collaborator you are. You're not fulfillment out of the park. Your sales and marketing are pretty much handled. Then from there, if you want to scale, you don't have to worry about the normal sales and marketing efforts that most freelancers You can just go all in on the more advanced stuff.

That's money. I love that. I love that a lot. Our business does not come without shortcomings, lessons, painful occurrences that happened to us. What would you say personally for you? What's a painful failure or rather a lesson that has occurred while you are a freelancer that ended up shaping how you run your business? Business today?

I would say probably I had one. This is probably year four or five into my career, where I got a really big agency customer, a client with a bunch of clients, and they became the entirety of my work. It was literally, I had no time to do anything else. I was a de facto employee for this agency because I didn't have any time to develop my own business. It took me two years I didn't realize the risky position I had put my business in, where it's like, Okay, I'm not growing. I can't grow right now. And if this business fails, my business fails. Going back to this whole agency thing that we're talking about, It took me too long to realize, oh, I am dedicating, I'm gifting them a lot of my agency. So it's like, I'm at their beck and call because if they fire me, if they're not happy with me, then I don't have income. I got to go figure this out. And so that, I think, was when I realized the spot I was in, that was a harrowing experience for me because I realized what needed to be done was I needed to substantially charge them.

I needed to charge them substantially more so that I could hire help so that I could go run my business instead of be in their business. And of course, it Many freelancers I've talked to found themselves in a similar position, so they all, I think, understand what that means. It's like, okay, I have to raise my rights in a way that could possibly get them to part ways with me, in which case I'm out. I don't have any income. I can't pay rent. And it's a rock and a hard place because you want to do what's right for your business, but you also want to do what's right for paying rent and eating food. So it took me a It took a long time to work up the courage to go for it or to hit send on the email. And I had this call scheduled with the CEO of this agency, the The day came, and I remember I was standing for the call. I couldn't even sit down for the call. I'm standing in the room on the call, sweating, and I pled my case to her. There was some initial pushback. She's like, Well, we're bringing you a lot of work, and I don't understand why the price is going up instead of down.

I said, Well, that's the thing. I appealed to her as a fellow business owner. I just said, I can't grow my business right now. I really don't want this to be a deal breaker because I'm really enjoying with you all. But with the current rates, my business dies. So I gave the same spiel I just gave you. I was like, I'm in a rock in a hard place moment here, and I have to literally double the rate, right? And maybe we can work something out to where... Or it's less money, but I do less to free me up more time. I just laid it all out. And there was a brief pause, and she goes, All right, yeah, it works. So just let me know if we need to sign anything new. And I was thinking, I hung up the phone, and after about a 30-second period of elation in a long exhale, I thought, How the fuck much more money could I have? If after all of that, she just said, Yeah, sure. I thought, How much money are they making off of what I do for them? So it was a revelatory moment in more ways than one.

But I would say that was it.

Now, I'm glad you... Because the next question I was going to ask you, which was, how do you deal with those that essentially want a low ball? You know your value. You don't want to lose customers by sticking to it. So how do you balance the fact that where you have to stand for the value that you offer, but with those that keep coming with low offers? Yeah, I mean, there are-whether it's new or whether it's an existing client.

Yeah, I would say, let's take it like two different scenarios. Like a new client coming through the door, low-balling you. Approach that with an abundance mindset. There are like millions of new businesses formed every day, every year. A freelancer needs like nine of them to have a great career, nine a year. So it's like, I'd say the odds are in your favor. So I would pass on those opportunities. It's just life's short and it's going to take a lot out of your business, right? The reverse of the cheapest is often the most expensive. Same with it. It's like the low ball clients are often the ones that you lose the most on. But I would say But then post-game and see, Okay, do I need to do something different with my marketing to get less of those people and more of these people that can actually afford me? But yeah, I would never... If you do need to make something work with thata direct customer, trying to keep it practical, because I know some people it's just like, Hey, I got to pay rent, and this is what's coming through the door this month. In that situation, try to find a way to negotiate the scope, not your rate.

If what you do, ideally, you're charging $5,000 for, as client comes through and says, We only set aside 1,500 for this, you go, Okay, get them on the same page about what that budget means to their success metrics and say, You're not going to find anybody who can get you this for 1,500. So I just want to make sure we're on the same page. But there is a $1,500 version of this idea. Let's find it together. And so, again, strategic partner, and you're negotiating the scope, not your fee. So you're not saying, Okay, yeah, I'll make it work for 1,500. You're saying, Okay, here's this big thing that we're going to shrink to this and do this for 1,500. And then when we're ready for the $5,000 version, you come to me and we'll figure it out. But then the second scenario is a customer you've worked with in the past who comes at you and low-balls you on something. And that's a little more textured, but the same basic premise, where it's negotiate the scope with them and try to find a way to set them up for the next project where it's like, Okay, this budget that you have isn't right for your goals.

And by all means, if you can find someone who can knock it out of the park for this budget, send them my way because I'm going to subcontract them. I'm going to add them to my team. But as a strategic partner, as somebody who wants to see you succeed, this ain't it. Here's something we can do with this money, though. It's like once a client is a client, think of them... You're almost like their co-CEO. It's like your job is to advise and to improve their business. If they're not making the right decision from a budgetary standpoint, You've got that trust with them because they already know that you're interested in helping their business. It's like take that opportunity to make a deposit on that trust bank and say, Look, you're not going to get what you want for this money. Let's talk about some other things you can get for this money, and try to help them out that way.

Now, we mentioned 2027, a majority of Americans are going to be freelancers. Where do you see the future of freelancing?

That's such an exciting question. I mean, I think, and this is big, but I think that we are very close to a reality where everybody has an LLC. Everybody is in business for themselves. A couple of those LLLCs will get together and activate towards a common goal, and we'll call that a company. We'll call that a corporation. I think we're already seeing it happen. Most agencies that I know, most agency owners that I know are going to this model where it's entirely freelance. I think that was first blood drawn on this prediction of mine. This was years ago. A lot of agencies started going to an entirely freelance model where previously they had three floors of a building, now they have one and a bunch of freelancers all over the world. That allows them to scale or to flex their team based on the size of an individual client's needs. Now, here we are in A lot of companies are hiring fractional execs. So suddenly now the freaking CFO of a company is a freelancer. It's a fractional CFO, a fractional CMO. So now we're seeing this happen, matriculate in the corporate world. I think in the very near future, it's going to make its way into the restaurant industry, into retail.

There's going to be a freelance a freelance show floor specialist whose entire job is to work at a retail store and get somebody from the front door to the cash register in the most profitable manner possible. And that person is going to be corded by Gap and Gucci. I just think that everybody's cluing into the fact that they don't have to hand their agency over to somebody to make money doing the thing that What they're interested in doing. The promise is no longer there because it used to be you were trading that agency for loyalty and security, and I don't think that that's the case anymore. We're seeing people are getting really frustrated with that where they're going, well, why the hell am I interviewing through twelve rounds to get this job for them to then fire me a year and a half in because they didn't hit their quarterly goal? It's just like it's not what it used to be. So why don't I just put that effort into building something for myself? In the time it takes somebody to interview nine times for a job, they could have built a freelance business that made more income than the job.

And it's not even a hustle culture thing anymore. It's fascinating. I do think that there's a comfort level maybe that some people have with being told what they're responsible for each week. So that's something that's probably a pump we need to get over. A lot of people trade their agency and their freedom, or a little chunk of their agency, a little chunk of their freedom for that luxury of showing up to work and being told what to do rather than being on the hook for what you need to do that week to improve yourself, to improve your business. But like I said, it's getting easier and easier. I mean, knowledge is a commodity at this point. If you I want to know the most valuable business advice, they're all online. It's like all of our wildly successful businessmen are all online talking about it. Or you ask ChatGPT, it'll read every book on the subject and tell you what you need to be doing. So it's just, yeah, it goes back to what we're saying. There's never been a simpler time to do it. And I think that's what the future is going to look like, is maybe our grandkids or our great grandkids are going say, Wow, there was a time when people didn't work for themselves.

That's episode of Black Mirror. We're going to say, Yeah, they used to go in and do whatever somebody told them to do. Wow, that's wild. Wow.

I love that. As To conclude, we always ask our guests what the definition is for winning for them as well, because code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. For you, Jamie, what does the term winning mean for you?

Oh, gosh. I mean, I think it means, I would say being able to wake up in the morning and do whatever the hell it is you want to do. Agency, right? It's earning yourself the ability to move through this world how you deem you want to move through this world. So whatever it takes to get to that stage of a career, I think, is what I would define as winning. But that's a personal definition. And I think that's the beauty of this is that everybody gets to define it for themselves. It's fun to see when you get a bunch of freelancers together in a room or just have a one-on-one like this, it's fun to see what everybody has to say about But I would say that's it. It's having the agency to live the way you want to live.

Jamie, if you could look at the camera, let the viewers know if they want to get a hold of you, if they want to get your calls, how do you get in contact with you, your Instagram handle and so forth as well?

Yeah. Hi, guys. Follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn and shoot me a DM there. That's probably the quickest way to get to me. Then, yeah, if you canI can't tell, I enjoy chatting about this stuff. So shoot me a DM and let me know what you're up against in maybe these next 12 weeks. I'd love to chat with you and strategize a little bit. I'll see you on social media.

The co-to-winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. If you want to learn about the business of freelancing, you want to learn about freelancing, this is the episode for you. Jamie's information will be in the description section. Without further ado, the man, the myth, the legend, Jamie Brindle. Thank you very much, sir.

Thanks, man.