
The freelancer's guide to good jobs and great pay - 3stripe
http://thecreativeclass.io/guide/
======
porker
I have seen Paul Jarvis' site before, and coupled with the teaser for this
course, have come away feeling I've missed something.

Great writing, good work, and obviously talented. But...

"bringing in more than $20K a month for over a decade"

"I started freelancing in the ‘90s and [...] had a full client roster and a
multi-month waiting list since I started freelancing."

What - not even one month without work set up for the following month/month-
after-next? Or one month in 120+ months where income has dropped below $20k?
[A decade ago, $20k was worth even more than now]

Now I've freelanced for over a decade, and my best months have been ~$18K -
but my average is a lot lower than that. Short of Mr Jarvis having some
advantage -- contacts and a foot in the door, ninja networking skills, or a
magnetic personality: how are the above two true?

I'm especially curious as his website doesn't show him as an expert in one
topic (per @bdunn et al's advice), but more of a generalist like myself. And
generalists aren't supposed to make such money.

[Edit: Redid the currency conversion and upped my best months]

~~~
aantix
"And generalists aren't supposed to make such money."

If generalist don't make much money, and the best you've done isn't to your
liking (because more is always better)... Why would you keep labeling yourself
a generalist?

Your best month isn't that great. And if you've been at it for over 10 years,
you probably have a lot of experience to share. Ever thought about re-
assessing yourself, giving yourself the credit you deserve and creating a
better pitch for your services?

~~~
porker
> Why would you keep labeling yourself a generalist?

Because variety and new challenges are the spice of life? All jesting aside,
if I had deep passion/believed deeply in something, I would be the specialist
for that ("Appointment reminder systems for equine vets") -- but I don't.

This is the best quote I've seen on the subject. Haven't made the transition,
and still trying to see what to define myself a specialist as:

"The generalist is drawn to the problem he has not yet solved. His curiosity
trumps all else. He feels no discomfort in operating outside of his area of
expertise because such an area is broad, shallow and loosely defined. He
pursues with passion the new and the different. When the transition is made
however, and he becomes used to the benefits of deep expertise—when the client
ceding control to someone deserving of such control becomes the norm—he will
not be easily enticed back to operating from the powerless position of the
generalist. "

~~~
queeerkopf
I'll save you other curious people the search: The quote is from 'The Win
Without Pitching Manifesto' by Blair Enns.

[https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/read-it-online/the-
passio...](https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/read-it-online/the-passion-
dichotomy/)

------
gambiting
This has a _horrible_ vibe of all of these guides on how to get rich quickly,
that a company would mail you for $19.99. Everything, beginning from having to
supply an email address to be sent the first lesson,to cheesy "testimonials"
like "now I can pay my bills 3 months in advance!" reeks of some sort of scam.

At the very top "A FREE EMAIL COURSE FROM THE CREATIVE CLASS"

And at the very bottom: "FULL DISCLOSURE: THERE'S A PAID COURSE ABOUT
FREELANCING OFFERED AT THE END OF THIS COURSE."

~~~
johnward
At the very top "A FREE EMAIL COURSE FROM THE CREATIVE CLASS"

And at the very bottom: "FULL DISCLOSURE: THERE'S A PAID COURSE ABOUT
FREELANCING OFFERED AT THE END OF THIS COURSE."

I fail to see anything wrong with that. They are giving away something for
free in hopes they can sell something else. Nothing wrong with that at all.
They are even disclosing that before you join the list, which most people
don't. I guess you may not see that before joining but I see no harm.

~~~
onion2k
The free course _cannot_ work.

There is a particularly good reason why the free course in how to be a
successful freelancer _won 't_ teach you how to be a successful freelancer: If
it did then there'd be no reason to buy the paid course.

They ought to be more clear that you're about to spend time on something that
they _know_ won't do what it says it does.

~~~
bdunn
Not necessarily true. I offer a free email course (also for freelancers), and
I position the free course as the _strategy_ \- how should a freelancer think
about sales? The premium course is the _tactics_ \- an actionable deep dive
into the content covered in the free course, along with templates, scripts,
video interviews, accountability, and more.

It's worked really well. People love the free course, and those who want a
more tactics and accountability buy the full course.

~~~
chc
People may love the free course, but does it actually make previously
unsuccessful people successful? I think the implication here is that the free
course is essentially just there to get you pumped up for the paid course, and
is not actually useful.

~~~
bdunn
It does. My business goal with my email course is to generate qualified leads
for my course. My personal goal is to make people better off than they were
before they started the course.

If the free course is nothing but the "sizzle" and a giant pitch for something
paid, that's a problem. You're probably not going to get many sales for your
paid course, and no one's going to refer others to the free course.

But if it's valuable independently of the premium course, and allows the
reader to determine if it makes sense to go pro, then it's a win-win for all
involved. At the end of my course, I ask people to reply back with what they
got out of the free course and what they plan on changing as a result of it —
I get a fair amount of awesome responses (which turn out to be great
testimonials) from this last email:
[http://i.glui.me/1A3VNtx](http://i.glui.me/1A3VNtx)

~~~
surreal
I can vouch for this. Not with the emails, but came across bdunn's free blog
and podcast 2 months ago. They earned me an extra $8,000 last month, and a
better end product for my client. Spending a fraction of this to get more
advice (the paid course) was a no brainer.

(Brennan, feel free to use as testimonial / ask me to elaborate.)

~~~
bdunn
That's great! We're actually running weekly profiles on people who have used
my advice to help grow their business, and I'd love to feature you. Here's the
link: [http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/student-success-
spotlight-a...](http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/student-success-spotlight-
application/)

------
andy_adams
The hostility towards the freemium model with content is ridiculous.

If you don't get something out of the email course, _then don 't buy the paid
course_.

If you do buy the paid course, there's a money-back guarantee
([http://thecreativeclass.io/](http://thecreativeclass.io/)).

It's zero-risk, free information that can likely help you level up your
freelancing. It's the same thing as a blog or other free resource, just
packaged in an email course.

------
rfrey
"34% of North American workers now consider themselves freelancers"

That is a very surprising claim. I'd have appreciated if they told us where
they got the information.

~~~
otakucode
I've been expecting freelancing to become the dominant means of finding work
for a long time now. It just seems inevitable. Think about it. What does an
employer offer you? Security? Nope. Pension? Nope. Predictable income? Nope.
Companies have abandoned absolutely every single thing they ever offered to
employees. They stagger along now just because people go to them out of habit.

Companies first came around because someone has to solve the distribution
problem. That was such a valuable problem to solve that it shaped commerce and
society for well over 100 years. It still shapes society. And it shouldn't.
The Internet solves the distribution problem. It makes it so any 12 year old
with a net connection can run circles around any mega-corporation when it
comes to distributing product from point A to point B. The only place the 12
year old CAN'T beat the corporation is the place that large corporations never
really managed to penetrate much in the first place - goods and service which
are actually intrinsically bound to geography. You need your hair stylist to
be physically near you. You need the plumber to be near you. And those people
do not work for a mega-multinational.

And I expect when the change happens, it will only take a matter of weeks or
months. There will be a sudden realization on all sides. Companies will
realize they can't get ridiculously profitable workers for dirt cheap any
more. Workers will realize their company has been playing them like a game -
and realize that if they play the company at the same game instead of
listening to myths their parents told them - they will kick ass any time.

Zero overhead, zero debt and obligations going up against a large organization
who relies COMPLETELY on the ability to hire workers who will accept pay less
than 5% of the value they actually earn for the company? It's not even a
competition.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Regular employment still has one thing going for it - the unbounded term.
Contract employees have to renegotiate every so often. Employment - no issue.
Also your insurance keeps renewing, which is convenient.

~~~
r00fus
Well, in the wrong place (i.e., downsizing org or stacked ranking), you do end
up "renegotiating" just that its' mostly on employers terms, and quite an
unbalanced contract.

------
avinassh
'YOU'LL GET ONE EMAIL FOR 8 DAYS AND THAT'S IT.'

I believe you don't want to/would not send any more emails, ads, any of your
product spams etc (since you make clear by saying "that's it") then why not
give whole thing at once and without asking for emails?

At the end of content, you could include an extra chapter explaining about
paid course. By giving at once, without requirement of email, a lot of people
would download the course.

~~~
malenm
I think there's a better chance of people reading it if delivered in small
chunks. He also gets to deliver 8 ads (or whatever marketing opp) instead of
just one.

------
sockgrant
Paul -- I'm sorry there's so much hate in the comments. Thanks for posting
this and thanks for sharing what you've learned :)

------
bhaumik
Seems like great content but I wish they offered a preview (the first lesson)
before requiring an email address.

On a related note, a Thinkful alum and I just launched on a guide together
highlighting the same process but direct towards the client. As the intro
paragraph states, we're hoping to help the client understand the hiring
process without any frustration and uncertainty. All feedback welcome.

[http://www.thinkful.com/learn/how-to-hire-a-freelance-
develo...](http://www.thinkful.com/learn/how-to-hire-a-freelance-developer/)

------
cubano
This is probably just me, but the fact that the page does not even load with
Ghostery running is kinda a red flag, and makes me infer that the author is
much more worried about his experience than mine.

~~~
pauljarvis
To be honest, I hadn't heard of Ghostery - I've tweaked the code to work with
it (just installed and tested it).

Cheers!

------
bequanna
FYI Paul: I get a black page when using Ghostery on Mac Chrome 40.0.2214.115
(64-bit)

~~~
drtse4
The problem is caused by Typekit, that appears to be blocked by default.
Providing an alternative font could be a partial "fix" for those using
ghostery (many).

~~~
pauljarvis
I've changed the way typekit serves fonts (no longer async, but at least it
loads the fallback).

~~~
drtse4
I can confirm it works :)

------
amelius
Anybody here successful with the strategy of _hiring_ somebody to find good
jobs for you?

~~~
white-flame
There's a word for that: Sales.

~~~
white-flame
In particular, view your freelancing as a service organization and
partner/contract/hire a salesperson to generate and/or convert leads. Offer a
commission on your revenue. We've done that before with a few jobs, and have
gotten opportunities we likely couldn't score on our own.

------
getdavidhiggins
There's a book which offers an alternative to freelancing as a serious career
choice: [http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Thinking-Like-Freelancer-
Evolutio...](http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Thinking-Like-Freelancer-Evolution-
ebook/dp/B00PJIDO9C) I wrote an article recently which concerns this, called
Stop thinking like a freelancer [http://blog.higg.im/2014/12/06/freelancing-
financial-freedom...](http://blog.higg.im/2014/12/06/freelancing-financial-
freedom/) Basically I was sick of all the drama that came with freelancing. I
exclusively do agency work now...

~~~
iends
Thanks for the book recommendation.

------
seandhi
The site owner may want to put a timeout on the font loading. I had to
manually remove the `wf-loading` class from the `html` tag to get the page to
appear.

------
bigzz
There are many sites from where you can offer consultant services quoting
hourly rate. For instance www.fiverr.com and
[http://hourlyconsultant.com](http://hourlyconsultant.com). The key is fixing
the right rate taking into consideration all the factors that define your work
profile.

------
Procrastes
I'd love to read a blow-by-blow on how you put together the site, course and
explainer video. How much did you do yourself, how much did you contract out,
did you use any firms as opposed to individual freelancers, how did you
decide, and where did you find your team?

~~~
pauljarvis
I wrote the course myself, I hired a local freelancer that I know to film the
video. I also programmed the site and design it myself. I hired a freelance
editor too (who I've worked with for 10+ years).

So the videographer was a recommendation from a freelance friend. My editor
I've worked with in collaboration on many client projects, so I know her work
is amazing.

The site runs on WordPress, payment through memberful.com, emails go out
through MailChimp.

------
alandarev
Are the courses suitable for the professionals who want to become freelancers?

Thank you for sharing, I have signed in.

~~~
pauljarvis
It would give you a framework for starting to work on gigs with clients, yes.

------
sheraz
Damn, that was a good pitch video. Nice work, Mr. Jarvis.

Definitely one of the best I've seen. Clear, concise, relatable, human, and
funny.

I wonder if the classes are like the pitch video?

~~~
pauljarvis
Thank you!

The classes/lessons are slideshows - as I've found people retain more of what
I'm talking about if there are words on the screen.

It's all the same stunning personality though, haha...

~~~
EC1
I bought this out of desperation. Quit my job a few days ago and I only have
runway for at MOST 3 months. Going to try the freelance thing again.

I mostly got inspired by this site + [http://ivomynttinen.com/blog/freelance-
business-report-2014/](http://ivomynttinen.com/blog/freelance-business-
report-2014/). Ivo is a fucking beast freelancer.

------
ProAm
Wow that whole site doesn't render with Ghostery blocking Typekit by Adobe.

------
bsder
Seriously, this is the kind of garbage that makes me long for a downvote
button.

------
imaginenore
$20K/month is not an impressive claim for something that has "great pay" in
the title. You can make that much on a W2.

