Make Money Online

How should you effectively schedule projects? (ex: no deadlines on a Monday) How do you best estimate a project length? How do you schedule work around a break (sabbatical, etc.) How do you ensure that client's respect deadlines? How do you 'reset' expectations if there has been a bit of drift?

What do our writing practices look like? How did we get started writing? How should listeners work on building their 'writing muscle'? Is it necessarily to write daily? Should you just write? Write and publish?

When should you say no to clients? What's the best way to give a no? How should you politely turn down small projects? How do you avoid making compromises in scope? How do you fire bad clients?

How do you have a good phone call with a prospect? How do you prepare enough? How long should the call be? Should you leave a buffer after the call? Should you prepare an agenda? How do you determine who is leading the call? How do you end the call?

What's a good balance between educational content consumption and doing the work? Time management Reading may just happen. Optionally: intentionally schedule time around it Implementation: when you finish a book, how do you decide what to read next? -- Tape flag ("This is a thing I want to remember") -- Highlighting -- "This is an interesting thing to know about" and then apply later Rereading to extract notes / directives

Subject of meetup People at the meetup Go to one before speaking If you don't have a good meetup, start one, but don't be the first to speak Good places to host a meetup Good places to announce a meetup Scaling/growing your meetup (as you grow, make sure there isn't an in-group and an out-group) Avoiding Groupthink in Meetups (Creative Mornings: Someone manages it for a fixed term and then passes it off)

How do you transition from being an "overthinker" to a "doer"?

"Obviously there's a diminishing return if you hit specialization of 'There's one business in my region I can market to' -- how do you know when you've specialized enough" Know your target market, like Ecommerce Know niches within your target market, like Women's Fashion and Beauty or Every Day Carry Identify if there are 20-50 companies in your niche in your target market Identify if of those 20-50 there are 15-20 companies that are paying for consultants, have paid for consultants, or are looking for help solving a problem Iterate. Too many companies come out? Become a little more specialized, based on your research. Too few? Become a little less specialized ("SEO optimization for women's fashion and beauty stores selling $1,000,000/yr and based in New York" → potentially too specialized)

"Obviously there's a diminishing return if you hit specialization of 'There's one business in my region I can market to' -- how do you know when you've specialized enough" Know your target market, like Ecommerce Know niches within your target market, like Women's Fashion and Beauty or Every Day Carry Identify if there are 20-50 companies in your niche in your target market Identify if of those 20-50 there are 15-20 companies that are paying for consultants, have paid for consultants, or are looking for help solving a problem Iterate. Too many companies come out? Become a little more specialized, based on your research. Too few? Become a little less specialized ("SEO optimization for women's fashion and beauty stores selling $1,000,000/yr and based in New York" → potentially too specialized)

Why follow-up What outcomes are you looking for What makes good follow-up What resources do we recommend How often should you follow up What should you say in your follow-up Who should you be following up with? What's your next step

Why run a webinar What outcomes should you look for What tool(s) should you use How do you prepare? How do you prepare your content/presentation What's the format to follow (20/30/10 -- 20 on presentation, 30 on questions, 10 on pitch) What do you do with the webinar video after the webinar

You work with a client. They have a great team. You part ways. Their team members eventually part ways, too. Then they reach back out.

Why use a welcome packet What's included in a welcome packet When do you send a prospect a welcome packet How do you update your welcome packet When shouldn't you use a welcome packet How do you get started? What tools do you use to create a welcome packet?

What do we do when we lose deals?

Why is it important to close enrollment in courses, and what's the strategy and thinking around opening enrollment?

What do you need to do when you want to get more specific and double down on an industry?

Money-back guarantees are helpful in some situations, and really harmful in others. When should you offer a money-back guarantee, and what should the conditions be around it?

How do you know when to raise your prices? Quantitatively and qualitatively, what signs should you look for?

What defines success for the product? (Increasing rates, early rung of product ladder, general + focused w/in your positioning, etc.) What type of info product makes sense What's high impact / low risk How do you figure out what to make? How to promote it if you have a small (or no) list? What should you aim for after you've created your first educational product? (Speaking, podcasts, conferences, etc.)

In this episode, we dive into The Travel Rig that Nick bought for recording interviews and group panels at conferences or events. If you want to learn more about on-the-road podcasting hardware, listen to this one. (A 'nuts and bolts' episode)

Description: In this episode, we answer listener Max's question from Twitter: "Why aren't the two of you making more money?". We go inside our own businesses to examine what we're working on. We discuss when you can say "I have enough" as a business owner and stop focusing on growth.

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss if you should offer a free strategy call as a consultant and where an intake call should fall in your client intake process.

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss how to care for yourself when you're running a business.

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss recurring revenue for freelancers and consultants: What are the different options for recurring revenue in your business? Taylor Swift is mentioned exactly once.

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss how to manage your business when you have a whale client. What should you do? How do you future proof your business?

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss how to get started making infoproducts as a consultant and how they fit into your product/service ladder.

In this episode, Nick and Kai have a deep discussion on coffee and tea. Come for the nuanced opinions, stay for the recommendations.

How frequently should you publish? It's probably more often than you're currently publishing.

Have either of you ever attempted to make the leap from consulting to running a SAAS business or other type of online/tech company?

How do you identify and work with your best customers?

What are our quarterly goals? Why are goals important? What shape should they take?

In this episode, Kai and Nick discuss how you can write more as a consultant and revisit the importance of reusing your existing writing as 'grist for the mill' (repurposing it for other uses). This is a good one!

In this episode, Kai and Nick discuss what to do if a prospect, lead, or client stops responding after you send a proposal and different systems and strategies to use to overcome this obstacle.

Episode 69: Nick and Kai do a deep dive on important business strategies that you need to know about. Also, if this is your first episode of Make Money Online, we're so sorry.

In this episode, Nick and Kai discuss the importance of the 'first thing' that a customer or clients buys from you (be it a product or a service) and how that transaction sets expectations for the duration of the relationship. Nick and Kai also briefly discuss how to get started with your first product.

Cramming Your Work in a Retainer Hole In this episode, Nick and Kai talk about how retainers function for freelancers and consultants and the benefits of costs of offering retainer based offerings. Nick and Kai also discuss alternative to retainer based engagements to increase your client lifetime value.

This is another in our series on how to travel well as a freelancer or consultant. In this episode, we talk about treating your vacation as sacred time, what (and how) to pack, how to deal with airlines, and how to vet restaurants.

In this episode, we answer a listener question: If you woke up and had 0 clients and wanted to start filling your pipeline, what do you do?

Responding to a listener question (write in, listeners!) Nick and Kai discuss what you need to know about UI (User Interaction) and UX (User Experience), the 80/20 when getting started, and recommended books to build your library on the (very important) subjects. Thanks for the wonderful question, Max!

You've been listening to this podcast for a year now -- Thank you; we're so sorry -- so we've provided a retrospective episode to look at the highs and lows of Make Money Online. Enjoy.

What do you do? Wait -- before that -- how do you figure out what exactly it is that you do?

You are staring at a computer screen for too long. Stop that. Get off the internet. Pause this podcast if you have to. Leave your phone and smartwatch at home. Go to a park. Sit on a bench. Stare at a pond. There are ducks in the pond. Ducks are kind of jerks, but the way they swim is cute. You don't know what time it is. You can hear traffic faintly in the distance. Others care about going someplace, it seems, but you don't.

Who is Basil, the world's greatest organism, and why is he so wonderful?

How do you research expensive problems and craft offerings to solve them?

We're working to provide the maximal amount of value from this episode, and we'll be delivering it then – at which point we'll be permanently raising the price to $1,000. We're terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

Why don't we work with recruiters or any other third parties?

Are products a way to replace services, or do they help augment your services?

How do you price yourself as a consultant? What's the difference between pricing as a consultant and a contractor? What's the difference between pricing on time versus on outcome?

We discuss Nick's new book, The A/B Testing Manual. That's it. That's all we do today.

How do we present ourselves to different groups of people? Folks who have no idea what we do, folks who know too well what we do, ultra-nerds, etc.

You have $38 and need to get to Hong Kong in 18 hours. How you respond determines what kind of business you get to run.

You're incompetent and don't deserve to be a consultant. Except you're great. How do you resolve that?

As a consultant, setting boundaries in work and life is absolutely critical to running a successful business – and not letting it take over. You never learn this in school. There is no Boundaries 101. How do you start? What do you do?

What do restaurants have to do with independent consulting businesses? We try, and partly succeed, at answering this question.

Kai interviews Nick about what he does, what A/B testing is, how he started draft, the type of projects he's worked on in the past, and the types of projects he wants to work on in the future.

Nick interviews Kai about what he does, what outreach / digital public relations is, how he started his business, the type of projects he's worked on in the past, and the types of projects he wants to work on in the future.

It's one thing to be totally awesome at traveling. It's another thing to travel a lot. But how do you preserve your client relationships while traveling?

How do you get in a sky tube in a way that does not cause you to hate Earth? We spend a lot of time figuring this out.

In this special episode of Make Money Online, we talk about automating systems for client intake and email management with our friend Kurt Elster. This was recorded in front of a live audience at Double Your Freelancing Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

In this episode we talk about the advantages and what goes in to free offering in a consulting business

Kai and Nick discuss incorporation, taxes, and insurance and give you, dear listener, a bit of advice on the steps you should take to secure yourself in these three areas. Needless to say, neither Kai nor Nick are lawyers, accountants, or insurance brokers and are not qualified to give legal, tax, or financial advice like a qualified professional. All information in this episode is simply our personal opinions. For best results, you should consult a lawyer, accountant, insurance broker, or bookkeeper local to you with knowledge of your industry.

What are masterminds? Why should independent business owners join one? What do you need to watch out for? How do you grow one? How do you grow the group as business owners? What if your mastermind starts to suck?

Yes, the system is fundamentally stacked against you and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes, you are abetting a series of societal problems that are probably larger than you – and which you are probably too busy in your own life to address. No, there’s no way to know whether you’re doing the right thing. Yes, there will be a dog – eventually. No, the dinner parties won’t get any better. Nor will your friendships. But the house is something. Your stuff looks better in it. Block everyone who doesn’t understand.

Kai and Nick discuss the important of repurposing your content as a consultant, 'using your sawdust,' so to speak. You can turn one piece of content (like a podcast interview) into a series of articles, a webinar, or additional pieces of content that are all relevant to your audience. Also? Jam bands and what you, as a consultant, can learn from The Grateful Dead.

Positioning 101: Why positioning is important? The mental aspects of it? Refining your positioning: deleting 2/3rds of your website Plug for ThePositioningManual.com

What would your job look like if you didn't have computers?

What is negotiation? How much money do you leave on the table by not negotiating properly? How do you negotiate as an employee vs. as a consultant?

Mailbag! It sounds like you both have expertise in the products you're selling, but feel like any expertise you have in the business side is learned via trial and error. Is that so? If so, why not consult yourselves with a business expert? Entirely so. We both do work with business consultants, belong to masterminds, invest in educational resources, and attend industry conferences to learn. Just like with anything, there's no sure or absolute or true best practice way to learn these things, so while we're both very aggressive about cramming as much knowledge into our heads as possible, there's still an element of trial and error. Example: one of my friends has had a lot of success with Facebook ads. A colleague of ours had success with LinkedIn ads. My friend tested LinkedIn ads to see if they'd work as a marketing channel for his business and the cost per leads was ~20x Facebook. Different strokes for different folks. There's always an element of trial and error, even when working with a business coach or expert.

In this third and final mailbag installment, Nick answers the question "how does he counter the many low-cost, ‘stack em high sell em cheap’ so-called Designers online currently bidding in 99Designs?"

In this second part of a 3 part mailbag episode, we talk about our prerequisites in working with somebody who we think we can get the best results for.

In this first of a three part mailbag episode, Kai talks about podcast outreach.

Discussing product ladders today. What is a product ladder? Why is it important? How does it connect with your positioning? How do you upsell people effectively? When do you know to create a second ladder? What does a second ladder look like?

In this episode we talk through the ups, downs, and considerations of hiring an assistant for your business.

Today we're revisiting Nick's Kickstarter campaign – and reviewing what we learned from it.

Good research is essential to anyone wanting to excel in any business, and in particular any online business. We break down how and why we do all of our research for our projects.

We often reflect about what A Week In the Job of an online entrepreneur looks like. Today we dig into it, with all its glory.

Nick went on vacation. What happens before you go on vacation? What happens after you return? How do you manage client expectations? What happens if a client oversteps their boundaries?

Today we're digging into onboarding clients, students, and customers. Why? How? What does this mean?

Writing a book is high on most content creators list. But why? What is the allure of writing a book for makers?

How do you scale your business without sacrificing the quality of work your customers have come to expect?

In which our hero learns about the Supercomplication and other sundries.

How did we begin our businesses? Where did we come from? And because scale is the only thing that matters, how do we do so?

Now that we are talking to one another, how can we make money online? Methods are discussed; sacred cows are thrown into volcanoes.

Who are we? What is this? What gives us the right to run a podcast? This is horrifying.