[Progress] Graphic Designer Going Freelance & Fastlane

[Nicoknowsbest]

Small breakthrough this week:

I decided to outsource my book-keeping and my accounting.

Moving towards becoming a better operator, instead of learning another technical skill.

Despite the relatively high cost at this point, it's well worth the time I can now invest in growing my brand.

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

Very interesting development. Let's see how this continues...

Total number of downloads of my assets: - 2,53%
Sum of paid downloads: + 194,44%
Royalties earned: + 38%

Interesting fact: I didn't touch anything - neither did I add assets, nor did I drive traffic whatsoever.
Oh, and despite the total number of downloads decreasing, my paid downloads nearly tripled.

Digging deeper...

 

[Azure]

Great work man. Love the post formatting too - so easy to follow and concise.

 

[AdamMaxum]

Great thread, although your latest posts indicate that something has to change and it sounds as if you're making those changes so that's good.

You mention you considered hiring someone to do work, but didn't because you may not afford it, I would advise you to find someone who can do what you do at the same price or ideally lower at the same quality. Test them with some small projects. Once they pass those tests, use them to sell your service so that they start doing the work and you sell / oversee. As work increases, you simply scale the people to grow with demand. When you bring people in, pay them a fixed cost for the project if possible so you can break out the costs/profit.

Basically, you want to outsource as soon as possible and focus your energy on sales/material/managing. It sounds daunting when you don't have a lot of money to pay people but as long as they are charging fixed prices and only working when a project happens, it's hard to lose money. I do this with website design, development and various marketing services.

I know my web developer charges me $600 a site or a custom quote when needed. I then sell the website for 3-4k. Repeat. As long as you have a solid understanding of the service you're selling, you can begin outsourcing pretty quickly and scale as you grow/sell.

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Just came across this thread today. Thanks for sharing your journey. I recently (a few months ago) started freelancing as a web and mobile developer, so your experiences have shed a lot of light on some things for me. I have found some great information from your process. Thanks... Will be watching this.

Hi @GregDott, thanks for reading! Awesome to hear that you got value out of it - feel free to ask away and I'll try to help.

 

[Ninjakid]

Congrats on the progress!

Can we all just take a moment to thank @Lex DeVille and @Andy Black for their contributions? So much of us starting out would be completely lost without their guidance.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Oh, and feel free to ask away anything that comes to mind. Literally, anything. No borders. I think part of me dealing with this is to be brutally honest about it. And that encounters brutally honest answers to brutally honest questions.

Where will you go from here? What's next? How will you start to pick up the pieces and put them back together?

 

[Black_Dragon43]

100% agreed. Here's how it came to it... If you check this post here you'll see that I doubted myself for being a giver. I was taken advantage of for many years, in all areas of life. At one point, I thought, heck, I am too soft for this stuff.

My answer to this was: "Ok then, now it's only money that counts. I will only focus on money." This is how my head twisted this idea of being too giving into something more "business minded".

But that's resolved now ;-)

Yes, I see. The interesting bit is where does the "softness" come from? Why do you give?

Think about it...

Why is it that you want to give?

Seriously... just take a few moments and STOP what you're doing, and think about it.

Are you giving because others have something that you want, and giving is your way of obtaining it? Or perhaps of not losing it if you already have it?

Or are you giving because it's something that comes from deep inside... you are overflowing with something, whatever it is, and so you give... you get it out?

Because the two forms of giving are very different... one is giving from weakness, because you're looking for something to fulfil you on the outside, and giving is merely the means of getting it, and the other is giving from strength, because you have too much and it overflows...

And then... if you are giving from weakness, the real issue lies deeper. And until you find that strength within you, until you discover that you yourself are incredibly rich (maybe not financially yet), you will keep searching for something to fulfil you on the outside... and you will remain a slave to other people, since they will have the keys to the kingdom...

Hell yeah. And, something I JUST realized is, that you also OUTSOURCE YOUR THINKING. You automatically take every word these people say for granted and stop thinking for yourself. It went so far that I got so tangled up that I even asked for advice on how to write emails or on how to drink my coffee.

I handed everything that makes me me over to somebody else.

Yikes.

Yes... why did you outsource your thinking? What's the advantage out of that? Because there must be an advantage, why were you doing it?

What do you get by not having to think? You avoid making decisions to begin with... others make them for you. And what's the advantage of that? You no longer have to question yourself. And what's the advantage of that? You no longer get to experience fear and anxiety... When you no longer have to choose between A and B, you're no longer anxious which choice is going to be better than the other... You will no longer experience those ugly and nasty feelings of fear...

So outsourcing your thinking is a way to deal with fear. Find another way to deal with fear... and then this won't ever be a problem for you again.

This is really interesting. I haven't looked at it that way - thanks for making me look The truth is that I am in two minds about graphic design. It is something that has kept me afloat twice in my life before, but it is something I don't enjoy 100% anymore. I now have to figure out if my love for it is diluted by my previous experiences, or if it is the actual skill/work that started to bore me.

I do agree 100% with you though.

What I am planning right now is not to cut it completely, but to stack my skills on top of each other and give it a unique twist, as @Andy Black suggests to do here.

I don't "enjoy" many aspects of my work. I think there are always things you don't enjoy. It's not enjoyable per say to work out. It's hard, it's painful, it F*cking hurts man! You have to push yourself through feeling that you can't go on... it's not easy. Entrepreneurship is not much different. You will struggle, and you will suffer. So why do it?

The most mundane answer for me is that you will suffer less than if you hold a job. If you hold a job, you won't feel the fear, but the risks will be there... getting fired and not being able to provide for your family (because remember, you don't know how to earn money another way), getting humiliated at work, being forced to do something that you don't like... is that the kind of life you'd want to live, or would you be willing to face your fear to discover another kind of life on the other side of fear?

It's also useful to remember that you should be afraid of both A and B... typically we're afraid only of one thing, and forget about the other. Say you're afraid of a surgery (option A). Typically you forget to also be afraid of option B - not having the surgery. Many times carefully looking at my fear actually made me realise that I fear one option more than the other, and one option is riskier than the other. That has helped me take many decisions.

Good spot - caught me there. I neglected referrals as well as educating my existing clients with a weekly newsletter. Definitely something I could have done much better.

What I did do was monthly offers: I would decide upon a deal of the month, pick a product (for instance a T-Shirt, or a shopping bag), offer them the design at a discount and also handle the production. They only had to say yes and have it delivered to their doors.

Although it was a super warm list of around 35 existing clients that were also paying me at that time, nobody every took me up on this. So either I got the products wrong, the execution wrong, or it was just something that wouldn't work in my specific case.

I think the issue is that the products weren't fulfilling a need. They weren't solving a problem. I mean if I hire you to design a brochure for me (let's say), and then you advertise a T-Shirt design to me, why should I care? What's in it for me? If you don't educate your market before you sell, nobody is going to buy. Remember: people who buy graphic design etc. are typically people who own businesses in some form or another. This is a tough market. They're not the kind of people that you can sell Reiki crystals to just because they look good... There are such people as well out there, but they're unlikely to be the kind of people who pay you for graphic design. So you must create products aimed at these people - things that will be useful TO THEM.

This is the biggest problem I encounter at the agency. Most people struggle because of having an offer that doesn't fulfill a market need. Look at the stats... 42% of startups fail because there is no market need... people create a product, and then FAIL to find a market for it... because they approached it the wrong way around.

You need to start understanding your market. Are these the kind of people who think very rationally and long before taking a decision? Do they buy on impulse? What are their needs? What are their problems?

It's just sometimes that you have to have the distance to say: "Hell, f*ck it. This doesn't work. Let's change it."

Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come not from giving up your goal, but changing the methods you're using to achieve it. There is a time for giving up, and a time for persisting... the challenge that few people know the answer to is when to give up, and when to persist...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYYJDsj-rzI

This video contains much the same message that you have realised (even though it's more about life in general) - there are no Teachers in this. Entrepreneurship is a lonely road, and you have to figure out things for yourself. Every entrepreneur has figured out HIS or HER way... and they have barely managed to do that. Whatever they have figured out may have been saving grace for them, but may be poisoned water for you. Ultimately, YOU ALONE are responsible for your failure or success, regardless of what other people advise you...

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

Now that I have discovered a deeper issue, do you have any idea of how to proceed in this @Black_Dragon43?

I would say to train yourself to be aware and notice it as it is happening. The moment you notice something, you have already disengaged from it, it is no longer part of your identity, of who you are.

This overthinking concerns many aspects - from detailed business questions to overall life path decisions. To date, I haven't really found a means to deal with this efficiently, despite trying various strategies, such as mental training, meditation, etc.

From my experience, overthinking comes from not knowing how to take decisions in a particular situation. I don't mean not knowing what decisions to take, but rather not knowing HOW (the process of taking) decisions.

In business and entrepreneurship, we often deal with unknowns. Sometimes because we don't know how to do things, and other times because we don't have access to the information we need.

A large part of it is learning how to deal with these unknowns, without getting hurt.

Because that's what's causing most of us to overthink: FEAR of pain, getting hurt, etc.

And when you don't know how to approach a problem efficiently, then you keep thinking and thinking and thinking hoping that you will find out, and thereby reduce your FEAR and avoid getting HURT.

So overthinking from my experience tends to be a secondary occurrence.

And it's solved by dealing with the root cause - which is your response to fear.

How do you deal with fear?

Good question.

I have various strategies which I will outline below.

1. Sometimes I reframe the fear within a larger context. What's this fear trying to protect me from? What's the worst that can happen in the situation? Will I survived if the worst happens? Is it worth the potential reward?

2. Sometimes I remember that I'm fearing the wrong thing. I should fear not doing X instead of doing it. Or the other way around.

3. Sometimes I face it and cover my behind as much as possible. Sometimes you cannot progress without facing your fears. And you cannot discover what you need to succeed without getting, to a degree or another, hurt in the process. All that matters in these situations is that you have a plan. Say you've never done ads in the past. You can't expect to get it right from the first go, and the more you play with it, the more you'll learn. At the same time, you don't want to make your learning more expensive than necessary or more expensive than you can afford.

4. Sometimes I do nothing and wait it out... sometimes I'm just confused, and it takes awhile for things to settle down, and for me to be able to think clearly. Many times this is the kind of fear that is produced by shock... when something goes wrong, but you totally didn't expect that. That's shock.

But...

Here's my best way of dealing with the unknown and the fear that results from it -

Act like a scientist.

Make a hypothesis. Test it out SMARTLY. Fail. Learn. Repeat.

There was a time when we had no clue how the world worked. So what did we, as a species, do?

We made mistakes. And we learned from them. And our understanding improved a little bit.

So all that we have today is the result of repeating this process. It's an improvement over natural evolution since it's not entirely blind. It's guided by our mind, by logic, and by our rationality.

But logic without action doesn't go anywhere. You still need feedback from reality. It will help you understand where you're going wrong.

And when you bring both logic and action together, and you repeat the process, you'll steer yourself to success. Without relying on authorities. Without taking for granted what others say.

And why did I say test it out SMARTLY? Because you don't want to choose a way of testing it that will take you out of business or cause you significant losses if you fail. That would make the potential learning not worth it.

So hopefully this gives you some food for thought before our call tomorrow Wish you a goodnight!

 

[Ika]

Thank you for your answer!

• I am completing my UpWork profile as we speak. I want to get a direct comparison to Fiverr and see if I can find clients that are willing to spend more money and want to work with me outside of UpWork too. Similar pitfalls like Fiverr, but a different clientele.

• Finding clients locally by spending my money on "Diesel and Coffee" as well as cold approaching small businesses. I am working on different strategies and will post an update with details soon.

Sounds like a solid plan! You might look into more niche freelancing sites as well - For example sites excusively about Graphic Design or Ads. You wouldn't have as much users to sell to but on the other hand less competition. Or country specific sites, for example twago for the german speaking market. If you can stand out on UpWork though, grow there!
I'm interested to where this is going
Best of luck with cold approaching, escpecially since you are a on the introverted/shy site!

Underselling vs. Overselling: I approached "getting started" with a wrong idea in my head. I set the wrong stage for future interactions. I undersold myself and over-delivered at the same time.

That is a pretty good lesson to learn!

 

[MidwestLandlord]

Mid 4-figure volume, which leaves me with around 5,5x my hourly pay if you want to see it through employee's eyes roughly 6 months after quitting my job and starting out.

Outstanding!

• I started protecting myself. No more negativity, no more BS. I rigorously cut everything and most of all everybody who distracts, manipulates or influences me negatively in what I am trying to do out of my life. Protect your attention, protect your time, protect your sanity.

Easier said than done (for me anyway)

Something I need to fix about myself for sure, thanks for the reminder.

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

Thank you for the comment and the rep sent @MidwestLandlord!

Easier said than done (for me anyway)

Indeed!

I need to be more consistent myself, but have seen incredible results. The trick is to look behind the scenes - sometimes it's not so obvious. I sometimes only find out a while after that somebody/something had been draining my energy.

 

[Contrarian]

This is simply awesome @Nicoknowsbest. Amazing what you can achieve in only a few months when you make the decision and take action.

Sorry to hear about your experience of promised payment not materialising. Happens to us all at some point. I used to be uncomfortable with credit control, but the way I see it, your one and only obligation as a customer is to pay the damn bill on time.

What would you do differently next time?

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

@Contrarian - thanks for taking the time and reading through everything, all the likes and the rep sent - much appreciated!

Happens to us all at some point.

We all get burned, but we need to learn!

I am happy it happened, because it's another lesson right there in my pocket.

The situation was resolved last night, so it had a good ending.

What would you do differently next time?

In big letters on my wall:

"Money can't be in two places at once."

I won't start anything until the agreed upfront payment is in my account.

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Good to learn the difference between being helpful and being a mug. Or being productive and being a busy fool.

Not only good, but essential I'd even say.

Making good judgement calls in situations like this can lift you a level higher. Or not, if you miss them.

"Sales is a screening process."

"How you do anything is how you do everything."

"Your job is to find out asap whether they see the value or the cost in what you do."

All day, every day.

Don't take it personally and move on as quickly as you can.

 

[GregDott]

Just came across this thread today. Thanks for sharing your journey. I recently (a few months ago) started freelancing as a web and mobile developer, so your experiences have shed a lot of light on some things for me. I have found some great information from your process. Thanks... Will be watching this.

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Close two open leads and add MRR

Deal is sealed with one of the leads.

The second lead is waiting for an offer from my side - we agreed on after Easter.

Status Quo:

• 6 clients paying me MRR (not passive)
• 1 warm lead in the pipeline

 

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[nickgraham1234]

Hi Nico, can we get an update? I enjoyed reading through your thread!

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Damn, THANKS for your comment @Black_Dragon43 - many things fell into place in my head after reading this.

Let me elaborate...

I think another important point is that you need to get your priorities right: money is important, but it's not the MOST important. For example, it wouldn't be worth having all the money in the world if you had to be a slave for it.

100% agreed. Here's how it came to it... If you check this post here you'll see that I doubted myself for being a giver. I was taken advantage of for many years, in all areas of life. At one point, I thought, heck, I am too soft for this stuff.

My answer to this was: "Ok then, now it's only money that counts. I will only focus on money." This is how my head twisted this idea of being too giving into something more "business minded".

But that's resolved now ;-)

Money is valuable because it helps you achieve FREEDOM. So tying yourself to "mentors", "gurus", and the like is the opposite of freedom. You're exchanging your freedom for money, and the whole point was to get money to increase your freedom. So if you lose sight of the real purpose, then you can easily fall into traps.

Hell yeah. And, something I JUST realized is, that you also OUTSOURCE YOUR THINKING. You automatically take every word these people say for granted and stop thinking for yourself. It went so far that I got so tangled up that I even asked for advice on how to write emails or on how to drink my coffee.

I handed everything that makes me me over to somebody else.

Yikes.

I'm happy to hear that you're restarting if you want any pointers or advice at any point feel free to reach out. I own a direct response agency, and we work with many entrepreneurs online selling all kinds of products and services. I'd be happy to help you out with advice if you ever need it (not with our services because we're quite expensive and most people can't afford haha).

Wow, thanks for that - this sounds great!

I'll shoot you a PM.

1. Then you shouldn't try to sell your product by relating it to ROI. Maybe there are other benefits of having great graphic design - a website that you're proud of and that represents you, etc. Maybe it will be really hard to track the ROI and see how it improves it, but we all intuitively know that better, easier to understand design that is neat and clear WILL make you look more professional and bring in more buyers. And you have the stats to back it up. So don't give up on it. You've uncovered a problem. Solve it!! Start blogging about it, educate your market, and they'll flip out their wallets like you've never thought possible before. That's where it's at nowadays - education. It's all about that.

This is really interesting. I haven't looked at it that way - thanks for making me look The truth is that I am in two minds about graphic design. It is something that has kept me afloat twice in my life before, but it is something I don't enjoy 100% anymore. I now have to figure out if my love for it is diluted by my previous experiences, or if it is the actual skill/work that started to bore me.

I do agree 100% with you though.

What I am planning right now is not to cut it completely, but to stack my skills on top of each other and give it a unique twist, as @Andy Black suggests to do here.

2. Yes, the project is always finished and the client is always served, BUT... what's your referrals strategy? Every client should mean more clients. Have you thought about that? What about follow-up strategy? Keep your clients updated with news about graphic design through a newsletter. Then every once in a while you publish an article like "How A Well Designed Brochure Can Increase Your Revenue" and offer them a discount coupon for a brochure. If you build your list out the right way, these people are going to buy from you...

Good spot - caught me there. I neglected referrals as well as educating my existing clients with a weekly newsletter. Definitely something I could have done much better.

What I did do was monthly offers: I would decide upon a deal of the month, pick a product (for instance a T-Shirt, or a shopping bag), offer them the design at a discount and also handle the production. They only had to say yes and have it delivered to their doors.

Although it was a super warm list of around 35 existing clients that were also paying me at that time, nobody every took me up on this. So either I got the products wrong, the execution wrong, or it was just something that wouldn't work in my specific case.

Remember - don't run from problems. The obstacle IS the way.

Again, 100% agreed. It's just sometimes that you have to have the distance to say: "Hell, f*ck it. This doesn't work. Let's change it." It's something that I realized when listening to Dan Norris "This is the Answer." Many things resonated in this book (2 hour audio book). Because working hard on solving the wrong problems will not result in the desired outcome.

I think only experience will tell - I won't give up ;-)

Thanks again for your comment, this really helped.

 

[Vadim26]

@Nicoknowsbest sorry to hear about your story, Nico. I’m glad you are back on track and restarting!

I’ve had similar “horror” story, where I was approached by a friendly gentlemen dressed in a suit in the business section of the book store and was offered some coaching to become wealthy.. turns out (5-6 meetings later) it was freaking AMWAY and I was being suckered into it.

I doubted myself so much that I was ready to f*ck everything and go back to a job. Until I realized that entrepreneurship is not a personality trait (good with numbers, good with people, outspoken, etc.), but a way of thinking. I realized that I ultimately cannot run from it. So better get to it right away

Absolutely this! There’s no going back, once you’ve taken the red entrepreneurial pill.

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Yes, I see. The interesting bit is where does the "softness" come from? Why do you give?

Think about it...

Why is it that you want to give?

Seriously... just take a few moments and STOP what you're doing, and think about it.

Are you giving because others have something that you want, and giving is your way of obtaining it? Or perhaps of not losing it if you already have it?

Or are you giving because it's something that comes from deep inside... you are overflowing with something, whatever it is, and so you give... you get it out?

Because the two forms of giving are very different... one is giving from weakness, because you're looking for something to fulfil you on the outside, and giving is merely the means of getting it, and the other is giving from strength, because you have too much and it overflows...

And then... if you are giving from weakness, the real issue lies deeper. And until you find that strength within you, until you discover that you yourself are incredibly rich (maybe not financially yet), you will keep searching for something to fulfil you on the outside... and you will remain a slave to other people, since they will have the keys to the kingdom...

These lines stang me a bit to be honest. First, I felt confused that you even brought this up. I know you pushed a button because of the way I felt after reading it. I didn't really understand what was going on, so I decided to let this rest in my mind for a few days and observe.

And observing I did.

I have no idea how you spotted this, but you are spot on @Black_Dragon43. After looking at my past experiences as well as my status quo, I had to realize that a lot of my giving (not everything though) has come from a position of weakness.

There is a pattern that looks like this: I seem to be able to connect with many people due to "having too much". It is what you describe as the position of strength. For some reason, many relationships, no matter if business or private then turn into me giving from a position of weakness.

Because I think I am not enough?

I am still getting to the root of this (which is kind of hard without an outsider's take on it), but I am putting together the pieces day by day. The biggest realization was that it happens to me on all areas of my life. As you said, other people have the key to my castle and I realized this because I am emotionally pretty affected by what others do/say.

Now that I have discovered a deeper issue, do you have any idea of how to proceed in this @Black_Dragon43?

Yes... why did you outsource your thinking? What's the advantage out of that? Because there must be an advantage, why were you doing it?

What do you get by not having to think? You avoid making decisions to begin with... others make them for you. And what's the advantage of that? You no longer have to question yourself. And what's the advantage of that? You no longer get to experience fear and anxiety... When you no longer have to choose between A and B, you're no longer anxious which choice is going to be better than the other... You will no longer experience those ugly and nasty feelings of fear...

So outsourcing your thinking is a way to deal with fear. Find another way to deal with fear... and then this won't ever be a problem for you again.

Again, good catch. The explanation I found for myself now is that I am somebody who easily gets caught in his own head. If you asked me what my biggest weakness in business was, I'd say: execution. I tend to overthink and therefore kill any sort of momentum I managed to build up.

This overthinking concerns many aspects - from detailed business questions to overall life path decisions. To date, I haven't really found a means to deal with this efficiently, despite trying various strategies, such as mental training, meditation, etc.

So in this specific scenario I was happy that somebody who walked the walk would lead me the way to success. I thought to myself: "I tried so many things, failed with so many ideas/strategies that when somebody tells me what to do to reach my goals, I'll follow it to the "T". Big mistake.

How do you deal with fear?

I don't "enjoy" many aspects of my work. I think there are always things you don't enjoy. It's not enjoyable per say to work out. It's hard, it's painful, it F*cking hurts man! You have to push yourself through feeling that you can't go on... it's not easy. Entrepreneurship is not much different. You will struggle, and you will suffer. So why do it?

The most mundane answer for me is that you will suffer less than if you hold a job. If you hold a job, you won't feel the fear, but the risks will be there... getting fired and not being able to provide for your family (because remember, you don't know how to earn money another way), getting humiliated at work, being forced to do something that you don't like... is that the kind of life you'd want to live, or would you be willing to face your fear to discover another kind of life on the other side of fear?

It's also useful to remember that you should be afraid of both A and B... typically we're afraid only of one thing, and forget about the other. Say you're afraid of a surgery (option A). Typically you forget to also be afraid of option B - not having the surgery. Many times carefully looking at my fear actually made me realise that I fear one option more than the other, and one option is riskier than the other. That has helped me take many decisions.

Gotcha and agree - it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I still think that the bigger part of it should be enjoyable. The metaphor of working out is a good one and the weird thing is that the pain when going beyond thresholds in training is something I enjoy doing. Weird thing, right?

I agree with your view on why anybody would quit the comfort of a job. Part of what you are describing here is why I quit mine initially and started building a business. I wasn't aware of looking at both possible outcomes of a decision though. This is definitely something I will start doing from today.

I think the issue is that the products weren't fulfilling a need. They weren't solving a problem. I mean if I hire you to design a brochure for me (let's say), and then you advertise a T-Shirt design to me, why should I care? What's in it for me? If you don't educate your market before you sell, nobody is going to buy. Remember: people who buy graphic design etc. are typically people who own businesses in some form or another. This is a tough market. They're not the kind of people that you can sell Reiki crystals to just because they look good... There are such people as well out there, but they're unlikely to be the kind of people who pay you for graphic design. So you must create products aimed at these people - things that will be useful TO THEM.

This is the biggest problem I encounter at the agency. Most people struggle because of having an offer that doesn't fulfill a market need. Look at the stats... 42% of startups fail because there is no market need... people create a product, and then FAIL to find a market for it... because they approached it the wrong way around.

You need to start understanding your market. Are these the kind of people who think very rationally and long before taking a decision? Do they buy on impulse? What are their needs? What are their problems?

100% agreed. Looking back, MOST deals sold and projects completed were kind of vanity projects. Because ultimately, do you really NEED a logo to be in business. No. Do you need business cards? No.

Also, I had clients from many various industries, serving various target groups and fulfilling a bunch of needs. I definitely did not manage to really dig into their needs and give them what they really want. Why? Hmm... Not sure actually.

Looking back, I think a good way to proceed is to hustle to 1x while looking out for specific needs to be fulfilled, either within only one industry or maybe even within more. What I will change though is focusing on serving a specific need of a specific market in a specific way.

Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come not from giving up your goal, but changing the methods you're using to achieve it. There is a time for giving up, and a time for persisting... the challenge that few people know the answer to is when to give up, and when to persist...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYYJDsj-rzI

This video contains much the same message that you have realised (even though it's more about life in general) - there are no Teachers in this. Entrepreneurship is a lonely road, and you have to figure out things for yourself. Every entrepreneur has figured out HIS or HER way... and they have barely managed to do that. Whatever they have figured out may have been saving grace for them, but may be poisoned water for you. Ultimately, YOU ALONE are responsible for your failure or success, regardless of what other people advise you...

This has started dawning on me over the past few days. It is almost an art to know when to do what. Thanks for the video, I had to watch it a few times to really get it - and I believe if I watch it another few times, I'll discover even more layers.

@Nicoknowsbest sorry to hear about your story, Nico. I’m glad you are back on track and restarting!

I’ve had similar “horror” story, where I was approached by a friendly gentlemen dressed in a suit in the business section of the book store and was offered some coaching to become wealthy.. turns out (5-6 meetings later) it was freaking AMWAY and I was being suckered into it.

Thanks for your words and support @Vadim26! Glad you got out when you did. How have things been going for you since?

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

So, after a bit of blah blah, what are my next action steps?

• I will finish my concrete framework for my offer this week. I call it a framework because it's just a hypothesis I want to test. The market will tell me how to adjust.
• I will spend exactly one week (next week) to find a new client for this new offer. If I don't, I will pivot. No business cards, no logo, no website, no bullshit.

What happened meanwhile?

• Closed a deal for €500 for a brand design and got paid in advance this time, which was a nice experience.
• Closed a smaller deal for €100 probably resulting in more work later on. But if not, no worries. Give without expect anything in return.
• Will start working on a €1000 deal that is still open from the previous month.
• All of this will give me a bit of peace of mind.

Progress meanwhile:

• My framework offer is finished
• No new clients yet
• Managed to increase MRR to 4 figures/mth with an existing client
• Working on a whitelabel deal with a local agency owner

 

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[Andy Black]

Are you giving because others have something that you want, and giving is your way of obtaining it? Or perhaps of not losing it if you already have it?

Or are you giving because it's something that comes from deep inside... you are overflowing with something, whatever it is, and so you give... you get it out?

Interesting. I’ve always said that I can’t NOT do what I do. If I don’t get my thoughts and writing down on paper then my head will get all jammed up. I need to get it out to get head space, and it has the added benefit of giving me more clarity.

 

[nickgraham1234]

Hey Nico,
Well, I am glad I bumped this thread a while ago. That was an interesting read to say the least. It sounds like you are already getting back on track. Just remember, all of the events in your life, big or small will shape you into who you are. This bump in the road is just a part of your journey. I wish you the best of luck going above and beyond that 10K month, I believe you can do it. I'll be following your progress (please keep us updated)
Godspeed my friend.
Nick

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

Thanks @nickgraham1234 - I am very thankful you did. This brought up some important comments, thoughts and engagement.

Agreed. Somebody recently told me that if there was no pressure, diamonds would just be coal dust.

Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it. I will keep you posted.

 

[Andy Black]

Any updates @Nicoknowsbest ?

 

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[Bekit]

Ah, sorry to hear that @Bekit . What do you think will help you fully process or repair the damage done?

I've just reread this thread and it gave me goosebumps. I've messaged Nico outside the forum to see how he's doing and to yell him his thread was bumped. I don't know what Nico is up to nowadays.

Time has helped. For the longest time, I could barely even look back on that experience and process "WHAT EVEN HAPPENED?" I don't think there's much of a substitute for the passage of time. It's like healing from a broken bone. It just takes time.

Resetting my thinking has helped. I had to take a long, hard look at where I went wrong and how I had been "taken in" by manipulative tactics. I found two main categories here:

1. Areas where I was primed to fall for this because of PRIOR thinking patterns
- For example, I had a disproportionate trust in authority figures. "The leader should be deferred to." "The leader should be given the benefit of the doubt." "It's disrespectful to question the leader." This led me to dismiss red flags and trust a leader who turned out to be nothing but a toxic, evil person.

2. Areas where I went wrong because I drew bad conclusions in the AFTERMATH of the damaging situation.
- Once my eyes were opened and I quit, I drew a bunch of conclusions in my pain that tangled me up for a while. For example, "I can't trust anybody." No, just because THIS was a bad person doesn't mean NOBODY is to be trusted. Figuring out who to trust comes down to gaining skill in reading people, identifying red flags, doing better due diligence, and having the courage to ask hard questions. It takes a lot of work to parse these kinds of things out.

Talking about it has helped. For the longest time, I had a really hard time telling the story of what happened to me. But once I started to tell the story, I found myself far more able to process the experience, grieve over it, and come to closure. Interestingly, reading someone else's detailed story of their traumatic experience in a 100-part webcomic was incredibly instrumental in me being able to process my own experience. (Trigger warning for just about every intense thing on the planet if you visit that link, FYI.) The reason this helped me so much was that I could see SO many similarities between my own experience and this person's experience. Even though my actual circumstances were completely different, it was like the abusers were operating by the same playbook. And it felt like I wasn't alone, and I wasn't crazy for "falling for it" when I saw that other people had gone through the same kind of thing. (As a note - my experience was nowhere on the same scale of intensity as this story. Nevertheless, I could still see a lot of lessons and similarities that helped me.)

Where I said that "Even to this day I am still processing through some of the damage I suffered in that season," it's things like...

• I'm still gunshy about certain situations and certain kinds of people. This might make me hesitate or be more fearful than I used to be.
• I have repeatedly found myself in similar situations with similar people, almost as if I attract these situations like a magnet. Fortunately, though, I have become MUCH quicker at sniffing it out, and if I see the signs and the red flags, I'm out without hesitation.
• I keep finding areas where I have to parse out my thinking (similar to the example above of figuring out who to trust). I've run into countless unhelpful thought patterns that were holding me back, which could all be traced to conclusions I drew in the aftermath of that experience, which I then had to process through and figure out what was actually true.
• I have struggled a lot with feelings of hopelessness and meaninglessness after being wounded in that experience, which was something I never experienced before and have had to learn how to deal with.

@Nicoknowsbest I wouldn't be surprised if the last 5 years for you have been a similar journey of challenges and ups and downs. Hope you are faring well these days!

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

@Ika - thank you for reading it!

I'm wondering, what are your plans/how are you going to use your take aways after leaving fiverr?

My plan has two pillars:

• I am completing my UpWork profile as we speak. I want to get a direct comparison to Fiverr and see if I can find clients that are willing to spend more money and want to work with me outside of UpWork too. Similar pitfalls like Fiverr, but a different clientele.
• Finding clients locally by spending my money on "Diesel and Coffee" as well as cold approaching small businesses. I am working on different strategies and will post an update with details soon.

The biggest take away from my Fiverr experience was pointed out by @FastNAwesome here:

• Underselling vs. Overselling: I approached "getting started" with a wrong idea in my head. I set the wrong stage for future interactions. I undersold myself and over-delivered at the same time.

Lesson learned!

 

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[Nicoknowsbest]

Thanks for reading and for your awesome feedback @Azure!

Happy this helps one way or another

 

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[GregDott]

Hi @GregDott, thanks for reading! Awesome to hear that you got value out of it - feel free to ask away and I'll try to help.

You are most kind @Nicoknowsbest!

 

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