Starting Your Freelancing Career

Kasim: 00:00:11

Scottson with the Daily Google News and I'm here with my buddy Jan Slonik.

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Yes.

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How did I do?

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Good.

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Yeah.

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Long time YouTube subscriber,

asks brilliant questions.

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One of the sharpest guys that

shows up to our live regularly.

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How long have you been

watching us on the tubes?

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I think I've subscribed

before you had 1k subscribers.

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Nice.

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I was going to say back when we

didn't know what we were doing.

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The truth is we still don't

know what we're doing.

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Yeah.

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But in the infancy of the YouTube

days, super appreciate you, man.

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You've always been just like so engaged.

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and you bring hard questions and

those are my favorite people.

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Cause it means you're thinking, so if

you're watching this, Jan moved from

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the agency world to the freelance world.

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And I love those stories because

I feel like so many people.

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Need to do that in art, maybe, or want to

do it and don't know how, we're going to

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hopefully get there a little bit young.

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Tell us if you don't mind

just a little bit of your

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background, a little of the story.

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Yeah, maybe I just want to touch

on, because you said a lot of

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people don't know how I think a

lot of people are scared to do it.

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Yeah, because.

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Like it's a hard, like move

to make, whenever something

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is hard, I feel like you grow.

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I think it's really important

to ask yourself those questions.

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If you are a right person to do something

like this, and if you can do it, or

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at least try to do it, it's going to

make you grow no matter if you go back

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to work for someone else, or if you're

going to stay a freelancer, I think I

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grew like personally and on a business

level the most since I've moved.

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So it's been good three years now.

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started in an agency, because my

brother is an agency owner, but

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I quickly figured out it wasn't

for me, like the nine to five.

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I'm not a morning person.

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It was really hard for me to get up.

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like to stay up late at night.

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I figured and also he figured out

like after a year and a half ish

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that it just wasn't working right.

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This isn't where you're most effective.

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I want to meditate on

that for just a minute.

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we, for some weird reason globally, like

to shame people that don't fit in the box.

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I agree.

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there's something about it.

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It was like, Oh, you don't conform.

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And so you need to feel

bad about yourself.

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You're doing it wrong.

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it's such a flawed model

because often not to pander, but

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those are the sharpest people.

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Those are people that really should maybe

be given the flexibility that they need

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to go do the thing that they're doing.

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And my business partner,

John Moran is he's like that.

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John's a night owl stays up

two o'clock in the morning.

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John is horrible at.

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Following processes, John doesn't

do a bunch of things that if we were

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a night, not brick and mortar, but

ivory tower, white glove agency,

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like he wouldn't have lasted 30 days.

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And yet he's the best Google

ads guy in the whole wide world.

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what I'd love to do, and this is more for

our listeners and our viewers, Yohan, than

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it is for you, but I love what you said.

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Oh, I figured out this didn't work for me.

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Yeah.

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That's okay.

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Stop trying to smash yourself into a box.

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Like you're Play Doh you're not, if

people really like the nine to five

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and they feel really comfortable

with the security and they're like,

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gosh, I have a ton of fun being here.

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Awesome.

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If not, there's nothing wrong

with you and do what Jan did and

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take the leap, which is scary.

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So talk to us about that.

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Like year and a half in the

agency, you figured out like, all

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right, this isn't really my jam.

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Were you scared?

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Were you ready?

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How did that feel?

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I definitely wasn't ready.

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I wouldn't say I was scared 'cause

I'm, not such a person to be like,

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intimidated by something I feel.

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I just go with the flow.

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What happens.

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I'll figure it out in a way.

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but can just step back a bit ' cause

I think it's important ' I think

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it starts in school, right?

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Because you just, learn.

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A wide variety of topics and you can

be only good at one, but the school

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system tells you are you're bad, right?

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But if you're good at that one

thing, just do that one thing, right?

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And just do it great.

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And things are going to

work out for you, I feel.

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don't think I was scared but yeah, now

that I have eight clients I manage eight

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clients with my girlfriend as well.

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Business is going great.

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how did you get your very first client?

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Cause that's every freelancer's

biggest problem is where does

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my first client come from?

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basically my girlfriend was working

with a guy that was working as a

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freelancer for another company.

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And he said that they needed a Google ads.

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Advertiser.

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It was easy to get the first one.

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so that's the story that I hear from a lot

of people is they started their freelance

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career after a client fell into their lap.

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And so really for those watching that

want to start freelance, maybe that's

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the key is run a flag up the pole,

on LinkedIn, put the word out, start

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talking to your network and just let

people know, Hey, I'm interested.

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And you don't have to

quit your job, by the way.

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You can work your job, work freelance

on the side, and then figure it out.

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How did you decide what to charge them?

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How did you know what to bill?

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basically the agreement it was

about a minimum wage for Slovenia.

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So let's say you get about a

thousand euro net in Slovenia.

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It's a bit lower or it was

a bit lower at the time.

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when I went as a freelancer, you

have to open a sole proprietorship

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and you have to pay taxes.

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So it was like a thousand

plus the taxes, let's say.

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So I knew I was covered like,

on the lowest level I could be.

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And then I was like, okay, I'll get

through the day with this kind of money.

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and the initial agreement was

that I will be working, eight

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hours a day for that company.

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and I also did, and I still do

some Facebook advertising for them.

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but nowadays don't do closely to

eight hours a day for that company.

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But I don't think that matters At the end

is what you bring to the table, right?

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how well you can do your job, right?

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so you just said something that

I think is really brilliant.

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The 1st piece of the freelancing

model for me is you have to cover

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your nut, make sure that you

can cover your core expenses.

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And then once you've done that.

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Now, you can start to be branch

out, be more sophisticated, have

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higher end clients, but covering

your core expenses is critical.

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Number 1 number 2, the thing that I really

liked is avoid anything that's hourly.

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It's not about the time in.

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It's about the output.

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What is it that you're doing?

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What is it that you're pushing out?

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that's the freelance model.

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If you're going to be paid hourly,

go be an employee somewhere.

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That's my opinion, I don't

want to project that onto you.

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Do you agree or do you work

on an hourly I totally agree.

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I really rarely work on an hourly basis.

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If I know it's going to be a really

short project, for example, I might

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go with hourly rate, but I really

try to avoid it as much as I can.

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Yeah.

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And so if you've got eight clients,

how did you get the other seven?

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I think for about a year, I

only had that one client and I

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didn't feel like even I was capable

enough to take on more clients

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because I was still figuring it out.

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So I was mostly working for on

Google ads Sometimes I felt like

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had no clue what I was doing.

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And that's where your channel came in.

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It doesn't go away, by the way,

Jan, I still have this doing

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something, I still have this.

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but at least now I know, okay, I can do

it at the decent level, To put it mildly.

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I was still figuring out a lot of stuff.

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I was watching your channel, like I

still do basically daily and that's how I

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leveled up my knowledge everything I do.

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And then, I got the 2nd client

after, I think it was just about

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a year, maybe a year and 2 months.

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After the first one, and they

reached out to me on LinkedIn.

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It was, an agency that, was looking for

a digital agency that was looking for a

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Google ads advertiser because, they didn't

have a proper one in house, let's say.

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and I, still work with them to this day.

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And, I work on two projects with them.

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is awesome.

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I love that they came from

LinkedIn, by the way, I feel like

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LinkedIn is, Underappreciated.

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And it's a really good

opportunity to do some networking.

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not that cold outreach jump in your

DMS BS, but like some honest to

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goodness, real networking and outreach.

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if a meteor hit my business tomorrow and

I had to just pound the pavement and get

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new work, would be on LinkedIn for me.

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it's just so many people are so

accessible and if you'll take the time

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to really get to know them and their

needs, I get that question a lot.

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What do you find clients?

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I think LinkedIn is a good place,

but it's not just Oh, can I do your

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Google ads via direct messenger?

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it's being, intelligent and sophisticated

and having good conversations.

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I don't even do that much

on LinkedIn on its own.

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So it's surprising to me how many.

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outreaches I get, like how many

people write to me that they need help

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with something or even job offers.

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And I basically always decline them

because they want someone, on the site.

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And I'm like, no, I'm really grateful.

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I can do this freelancing work from my

home, especially I'm a big introvert,

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even though it might not show.

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I learned how to be an extrovert,

let's say, but, In my core, I'm

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still a huge introvert and I really

don't like big groups of people.

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And that's why this didn't work for me.

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most of my clients came

from LinkedIn or referrals.

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Someone knew someone that needed

help that's the easiest way.

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and I feel like the longer you

are in business, More people

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will just reach out to you.

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Work flows to the competent.

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That's exactly right.