#30 - Tom Hirst of tomhirst.com
[#30] - Marketing yourself consistently with Tom Hirst
Listeners are in for a treat with this final episode of the season featuring prolific freelancer Tom Hirst. Tom is a WordPress developer, business owner, author, creator, mentor, and Twitter guru. Tom has a passion for helping others get ahead by sharing his experience and learnings with people from all corners of the globe, guiding them to become better freelancers through his newsletter, courses, books and mentorship programmes.
In this jam-packed episode, Conor and Tom dive into the world of freelancing, discussing how to generate leads, pricing your work and marketing yourself consistently. Main points covered throughout the episode include:
Tom’s introduction to becoming a freelancer.
Obtaining new clients through your network.
How a personal website generated new leads.
Discovering your unique selling point and standing out from the crowd.
Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Tapping into SEO and the importance of learning the basics.
Identifying your ideal customers.
Pricing your freelance services & pricing mistakes freelancers can make.
How to market yourself consistently.
Healthy competition – your competitor is not your enemy.
Embracing social media and overcoming the fear of sharing in public.
Advice on building your personal brand.
Why authenticity matters.
Tom’s tips for finding your first 10 customers.
Connect with Tom Hirst:
http://www.tomhirst.com/products/10-steps-to-becoming-a-better-freelancer/
http://www.tomhirst.com/mentorship/
Connect with First 10 Podcast host Conor McCarthy:
http://twitter.com/TheFirst10Pod
http://www.linkedin.com/in/comccart/
Resources:
Book: Hourly Billing Is Nuts by Jonathan Stark
https://jonathanstark.com/hbin
Produced in partnership with podlad.com
Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
freelancers, people, freelance, clients, marketing, website, tom, twitter, pricing, freelancing, thought, book, personal, customers, creating, seo, bit, learning, share, wordpress developer
SPEAKERS
Conor McCarthy, Tom Hirst
Tom Hirst 00:01
You don't have to see competitors as your enemies. You can follow another freelance WordPress developer and hit them up in DM's, see how they're doing, you know, build a bit of rapport. And then who's going to be the first person that they come to when they have an overflow project. Social media, especially Twitter, is such a powerful tool for marketing stuff.
Conor McCarthy 00:20
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the first 10 podcast. I'm your host Conor McCarthy. And in each episode, I interview Business Builders on their first 10 customers, who they were, how they found them, how they talked to them, and what effect they had on their business so that you can learn what worked and what didn't. When I'm not recording podcasts, I help Business Builders find their first 10 customers and grow their businesses. I do that with one to one coaching, and a series of online workshops. Please do check out my website Conormccarthy.me for more details and sign up to my regular newsletter. I hope you enjoy the show. My guest today is Tom Hirst. And I'll be totally honest, when I decided who I wanted to invite onto this season of freelancers, Tom's name sprang immediately to mind. But simultaneously I thought, Tom is one of the most prolific people I follow on Twitter and Twitter isn't even his day job. He's a WordPress developer. So he'll probably say no, but thankfully for us, Tom said, yes, this episode is packed full of simple and actionable things that you can do to start or improve your freelancing career. Tom really is that freelancers freelancer, he's actually written a number of books, to help us all get better clients, to improve our freelancing craft, and to take some of the mysticism out of what success as a freelancer really looks like. A few things we talked about in this episode include getting over the fear of sharing in public, we talk about understanding how your competitors aren't necessarily your enemies. We talk an awful lot about one of Tom's specialities and that's pricing freelance projects and he actually has a book of the same name. Also, check out the show notes for a link to Tom's ebook that's called 10 steps to becoming a better freelancer, it's actually free on Gumroad. It is stuffed full of value. I'm amazed it's free on there. I've actually referenced it a good few times, on doing some my freelance work, but if you want to pay Tom a little something for it, you definitely won't regret it. This is the last show of this season. And I'm really, really excited that I can end this with Tom's interview. He is a must follow on Twitter. The books and courses that he produces are some of the most high signal, low noise resources out there for freelancers. So please do enjoy the show. with Tom Hirst. Tom Hirst, first of all, thank you very, very much for taking the time to be with us here today.
Tom Hirst 02:40
No worries. Thanks for having me, Conor.
Conor McCarthy 02:42
Do you wanna tell us a little bit about what you do before we get into the the time travel machine and go back to your first 10 customers.
Tom Hirst 02:48
Yeah, sure. Um, so I'm a longtime freelance web developer. I've been programming for around 16 years now and freelancing for around 12. In the last couple of years, I've started going more into creating things, products, in particular, to help other freelancers get ahead in their careers too and just experimenting more really, with social media writing, and all that. So yeah, got it got a lot of stuff going on.
Conor McCarthy 03:15
Yeah, it's very, I've said at the top of the show, since I've discovered you on Twitter, I've read like everything you've posted, you are prolific, but also the the stuff you put out on Twitter and gumroad. And all your projects they are, they're really, really valuable because they're they're so true, I guess is one word that will come to mind. You like the the lessons and the advice you share are born of things that you've gone through yourself. So it's very, it's very real when you talk about these things.
Tom Hirst 03:48
Yeah, I try and be like fairly blunt and raw about everything that I share, because I think that that's what resonates best, and it's the most helpful to people.
Conor McCarthy 03:55
Yes, absolutely. So, so going back to the freelancer for 12 years, and you've been developing for 16 years. So when you first started freelancing, why did you jump into freelancing?
Tom Hirst 04:06
Um, I mean, there's a little story about about this decision, really. So I'll tell that real quick. So I left University at age 22. And I had these programming skills. So I just applied for a job, like what you would you know, typically the path that you would go down, you know, leave education, apply for a job, learn, you know, the ropes and things like that, and then perhaps go freelance if it's suited later on. But anyway, I applied for this job at a local college doing just it was going to be like a web development role as a junior under someone else. And I just despised the whole process. I can remember sitting in the waiting room waiting for my interview, and I'm thinking, I just don't like this environment. I don't like the hierarchy. I don't like how it makes me feel. I don't like being dictated to, I guess really, I just, I just kind of had this epiphany that I can't work for a boss. And I had that just sat in that room. Right. And But anyway, I went through the, I went through the interview process, and I got feedback that came a close second. And it probably told that my heart wasn't really in it. And I thought, well, what should I do now with this discovery, this learning about myself? And I thought, let's go freelance. Let's just give it a go and see how far it'll take me. And, yeah, 12 years later, still here.
Conor McCarthy 05:25
So how did you get your very first client?
Tom Hirst 05:28
So that after I'd had this realization that I was going to go freelance, I had to obviously scramble for clients? I guess? That's what everyone's like, Oh, you know, that's the first thing you think, Oh, my God, I'm gonna need to get these these clients in straightaway. So the first thing that I did was just tell everyone that I knew already with the skills that I had, basically. I mean, I'm lucky that I've been brought up in quite an entrepreneurial family, my dad's got his own accountancy firm. So I just said to him, I said, Look, any any clients that you have, that you're doing financial work for, you know, just just mentioned that I'm doing this web development, specifically, WordPress is what I focused on. And anyone mentioned that, you know, that word, then put me in touch with them. And I'll see if I can get some, some work done for them. And I eventually got my first client, actually, through my dad, it was an associate as of his, so by telling him that by making them aware of my skills, because he's got no idea about technology, things like that is very old school. But just by sharing that with him, and it opened up an opportunity, and then I ended up working with that client for a long time after that.
Conor McCarthy 06:34
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You never get your first client. That's really cool. It was through your dad, I haven't heard that before. I think the the idea of going to your network, and you said it, so simply just telling people what you do. Here's what I do. If you hear this word, this trigger word WordPress, send them to me.
Tom Hirst 06:49
That's exactly what I said.
Conor McCarthy 06:51
Yeah, that's, that's pretty smart way to do it. And then so after that first one, then did you how did you get the following few clients?
Tom Hirst 06:58
So as I had that, one, I had a bit of money coming in. So that allowed me to have a bit of, you know, stability, I guess. And then from that point, I just focus completely on my personal website. And that's something that I'm a massive proponent of that I think that everyone should have a personal website, I think that it's more important than your CV nowadays, especially with the way that the world's going. And it's just been such a big source of leads for me really over the years. I mean, it's it's literally fueled my career. Basically, after that first client, I just focused completely on my personal website, trying to build landing pages that were more targeted towards customers, rather than peers. So what I mean by that is, instead of like, you know, showing off my fancy portfolio, which is pretty hard to do, as a developer, anyway, with it all been code, it's not very visual. I tried to look into like, landing page marketing, and copywriting, and things like that, and really focusing on who I actually want to attract and writing messages to them, thinking about what their problems are, and how I can solve them, and did a little bit of digging in, in the SEO world as well, looking at keywords that I perhaps can compete with. So yeah, I mean, the keyword I picked, right, right back at the beginning was freelance WordPress developer. And even now, if you search for that, I'm probably still pretty high up there now. And that's, that was really the source of that, you know, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. And then obviously, you get into like referrals. And so when you've had, you know, five clients, they'll refer you to, you know, people that they know, we're in similar industries that you can do similar jobs for and then it all just spiraled from there. So, yeah, it's interesting how it all pans out. But yeah, the first couple really are the hardest. And I know it sounds cliche, but it's cliche, because it's quite true.
Conor McCarthy 08:44
That's fascinating. Obviously, your work was of a quality that people went, No, you got to hire Tom, this is this is good stuff.
Tom Hirst 08:51
Yeah. And I think not just the, I think something else that stood me in good stead really was not just the quality of the work that I was producing, but how I've always tried to be like really personable as well. And I think that I'm a big believer in that you need like differentiators as a freelancer. If you're going to go out on your own, you need something else that's going to help you to stand out. So you're not just, you know, providing a commodity service. And I think that what's always stood me in good stead is that I've always tried to be like a really personable developer, because of the early feedback that I always used to get was, you're not just going to go away and never talk to us are you? You're going to actually like, but that's the stereotype, right? And it is largely true with a stereotype kind of for a reason, I guess. And I tried to like break the mold with that even though I am fairly introverted. I always thought this is gonna be how I stand out. I'm not going to go missing. I'm not going to be scared of answering the phone. I'm going to try and be really personal with the way that I develop these web projects and it really helped me out.
Conor McCarthy 09:49
That's fascinating. that's a that's a good listening. There were there's obviously a fear in it when hiring a freelancer, you know, for their perspective, they're going to give you a bunch of money to do an important job for them. And yeah, the Hear that you would be difficult to work with or just disappear. I love how you address that upfront. That's a great way to develop an edge. And you could do that for anity. Any freelance service you offer?
Tom Hirst 10:09
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's not, I think it helped me stand out because of the development service that was offering. And there's the stereotype that developers are like very introverted, and don't really want to be disturbed and things like that. They don't want to open lines of communication if they don't have to. So that helped me But yeah, definitely, like soft skills that you can learn them course you can you know, if you, like, I mean, try and tell a story about this, I was frightened of answering the phone. That's why I mentioned it earlier. I didn't like it at all. I was really scared to answer the phone. But I just thought I need to get over this if I want to have a successful career in business. So I used to force myself to phone calls, I used to arrange them. I used to purposely arrange phone calls, and just check in on clients and things like that. And if ever they called me I'd be I'd answer it straight away. And you know, have a conversation. And that really helped me build not just a client base, but confidence too.
Conor McCarthy 10:58
Yeah, that's very smart. I like that literally, the only way out is through, you're really heading into it. That's really cool. Just to go back for a second, you mentioned there, like your personal website, and you do have a product on gumroad. That's called the personal website playbook. So you, and again, this is bored of your experience. And you have an amazing website, I have to say, and I'll link to it in the show notes. Everyone should check it out. But when it when it gets into things like SEO, I mean, SEO itself. There's people whose entire job is SEO. Do you have any any tips or advice for people starting out to sell themselves through SEO specifically?
Tom Hirst 11:34
Yeah, I mean, like, I'm not an SEO expert, but I think that everyone should have an eye on it. If you're selling services or products online, you need to be aware of what's going on. And I think it's a very smart play. So my advice really would be to, you know, do some keyword research in tools like h refs, and things like that, and just try and try and get an idea on who you actually wanting to attract and what they might be typing in. Because you don't have to go down the rabbit hole too far. And you can always hire someone, you know if it's something that you want to try and improve specifically. But I think as an individual who works online, ourselves themselves online or sells products online, you need to be aware of at least, you know, five to 10% of the basics.
Conor McCarthy 12:20
And that's what you said there like getting clear on who you want to attract. I think that's Yeah, before you even jump into the jungle of SEO, that's the really important question to ask how, how did you figure out who you wanted to work with?
Tom Hirst 12:33
Yeah, good question. I think I, I knew that my skills in web development were specifically in WordPress, that's where they were best. And WordPress, I mean, and now, it's absolutely massive, you know that there's niches within niches of WordPress. Now, about 12 years ago, it was kind of, even though it was smaller, it was still fairly big as an audience of people to target. And I realized early on that what I enjoyed doing was just to modify, you know, like, to not not to modify themes, but to create custom sites. So I tried to think, who is the type of person that wants a custom site who, you know, how much money have they got to spend? What do they look like? Who do they work for? Where do they hang out, things like that, you know, all year positioning kind of questions. And so I just like, and I also kind of took a bit of experience from the clients that I'd worked with already as well. So the first client that I had, you know, it was it was an agency who they did all the selling and the marketing for me, and they just handed work to me. And at the beginning that suited me, because I didn't have much experience in it. I just wanted to do the coding, I wanted to improve my skills. And so yeah, I suppose then that positioning really, over time, just evolved, really, because I kind of then wanted to start doing more direct client work, I wanted to talk to the, you know, the decision makers, I wanted to do the marketing, I want to do the selling myself. And so yeah, I think the way the way that I landed on really want to target was I first looked at, you know, that the CMS in particular that I was skilled with, I looked at the work that I was enjoying, and I looked at, you know, who what kind of clients suited me at that moment in time as well. So right at the beginning, I wasn't really keen on doing the selling how scared of answering the phone, so I wasn't going to be doing much much selling and but then as the years progressed, I obviously adapted that over time, and to where I am pretty much now.
Conor McCarthy 14:29
Right? It's fascinating it's, yeah, to get learning, learning over time and honing and and always, always figuring out as you go, and integrating that back into your Who's your sales process or your marketing? What I would build personal websites for myself, I would get so bogged down to them. After a while I get so annoyed doing them. After I realized I shouldn't be doing my own personal website. That was my rule of thumb. Did you find it difficult to settle on the let's say the personal website you have now?
Tom Hirst 15:00
I think this is probably like the sixth or seventh iteration over the years. So I think that being being a developer, you're always going to be tweaking certain things. And but I mean, this one's probably been around for about three years, two or three years, perhaps. And so I mean, it didn't really take me that much time to settle on it. And I think that, that is a stumbling block of a lot of people, they think our personal website, I need to code it from scratch, I need to have a design that's, you know, super fancy, I need to have this and that, which is just not true. And, to me, it's all about the content that you're putting out, as opposed to how it looks. And something that I teach in the personal website playbook is that it's better to get an MVP out there, the never launch personal website at all. And that's very much how my personal website started as well. I just got something up. That was I think it was just a homepage to start with. And then I expanded it over time with more and more pages.
Conor McCarthy 15:51
Hmm. Okay, yeah, that's smart. Yeah, definitely getting something out, there is always the always the way to go. I hope you are enjoying this episode and that there’s some actionable and insightful advice that you can take to your business. Helping you identify and create those First 10 Customers is what I do, so if you like what you hear on this podcast and want more information, including a bunch of free resources on how to find your first customers and grow your business, check out first10podcast.com or find me on Twitter @TheFirst10Pod. Now, you probably hear what I'm about to say on every podcast you listen to. And it makes a really big difference to the show. If you find this podcast in any way useful or enjoyable, I'd be so grateful if you left me a review on iTunes, it really does make a big difference in terms of other people discovering the podcast. Also, if you leave a review, you will get to see your name and the review in lights. What I'll do is I'll design your words and post them online, taking you on your project along with it. I know it's a pretty sweet deal. Okay, let's get on with the show. The other the other big chunk of work that I that I see you talking about is pricing and I've leaned on on one of your pricing freelance projects, is what you created to talk around that topic. How did you settle on creating the body of work around pricing?
Tom Hirst 17:15
Um, it all started with a with a thread related to a thread. And he's always something that I've been super fascinated in pricing like how much this thing's worth? How much will someone pay for this and, you know, open up like the value of discussion and things like that. So it's always been something that I've been fascinated with from a young age really, obviously, I've had a lot of experience with pricing projects in the freelance career, I've done a lot of reading on the subject as well. And yeah, I just tweeted one day at a massive tweet thread, just like any other day, really and it just went absolutely crazy. And I think it's at the minute, it's got something like 3.5 million impressions. So three and a half million people saw the message, the body of work, I guess, the beginnings of the body of work for what later became the book. And I just, I just thought, you know, people like this, there's obviously value here, people are really interested in hearing about my experience of this. So I decided to write a book in 30 days, and it came pretty easy to be honest, because it was all it was all top of mind. You know, it was all already there. I had the structure of the book from the thread. And I could see what resonated more than what didn't. And yeah, I just I just wrote it out and made the book, put it on gumroad. And yeah, it's done pretty well.
Conor McCarthy 18:35
Yeah, I still see it being passed around on Twitter, oh, someone asked for pricing questions like, go check out Tom's book, go download it. Again, like that. That's a great example of a good MVP, you put out a Twitter thread of just thoughts. And it really resonated three and a half million impressions. It's pretty incredible. When you when it comes to pricing, and I know this struggle myself being a freelancer and I talk to other freelancers all the time about it. What's the main thing that people get wrong when they think about pricing their freelance services?
Tom Hirst 19:06
I think the the first thing that they get wrong is they stop marketing when they're busy. And that might sound like it's a marketing question and not a pricing question. But it's not like pricing is so much easier when you've got a full pipeline. And I think that that is the number one problem that freelancers have with pricing, because then they feel like they have to give an ultra competitive price just to keep the lights on. So I always say that Pricing starts with marketing and keeping you know, the pipeline full because it's easier to walk away from a project when you've got you know, a month runway in the bank. Yeah, yeah, that's why I always try to teach you know, keep marketing yourself even when you're on a project, because as soon as that pipeline dries up, you need to start thinking this price, you start automatically like edging lower and lower and lower. With what you you know, you're willing to quote.
Conor McCarthy 20:02
That's very smart. I'd never actually thought of that through that lens before pricing is, I suppose to a lot of people, myself included, it's just a number. And you're you're trying to figure out well, what's the value versus cost versus time? Blah, blah, all these things suddenly gets very complicated. But yeah, to start with marketing, that's, that's a really smart way to go. How do you? Are there any ways that you consistently market yourself?
Tom Hirst 20:25
Marketing myself now? Do you mean? Yeah, well, personal website number one is like the, the ultimate lead magnet for me. I have like three or four specific landing pages that bring in at least one or two leads every day, so. So it's pretty it's pretty regular now. And I think, I mean, obviously, I've kind of gone a different way with how I use Twitter. I'm kind of trying to pivot on my professional career a little bit, you know, going into the teaching side of things, educational, authorship, mentorship, and things like that. But I think that there's a definite avenue for freelancers to really build strong connections on Twitter, especially. I think that it's a super overpowered platform right now. You know, like, look at the virility potential of you know, any thread that you share. It's, it's like someone on Twitter yesterday, I think it was jack butcher. I don't know if you know him. I think he retweeted someone else who said, What do you say now that every tweets like a lottery ticket? And I think it's just about getting the right message to resonate. And I think that, yeah, even even for freelancers wanting to sell services they supply, you know, and it's not just about tweeting out and not expecting anything back, it's about using it for for its purpose, being social. So you know, connecting with people on DMS, even people who you might see as your competitors, this is one thing that I always try and say like don't, you don't have to see your competitors as, as your enemies, you know, you can follow another freelance WordPress developer and hit them up in dm, see how they're doing, you know, build a bit of rapport. And then who's going to be the first person that they come to when they have an overflow project? It's social media, I think is a specialist Twitter. It's such a powerful tool for marketing.
Conor McCarthy 22:14
Yes, that's, that's really smart. Again, another another great idea of looking at your, your competition aren't enemies. That's great. Like, when people first decide to market their freelance services, on social media, I think there's an immediate flood of, there's so many How do I do it? You know, it's, it's, all of a sudden, the idea becomes too big. How would someone begin? Or if someone is on social media already? How would they actually strategically try and grow an audience on any platform? I know Twitter is yours, but you can speak to any platform.
Tom Hirst 22:49
I think, first of all, you've got to get over the fear of sharing, or what people will think, like, your school friends, not not your customers anyway. So you just need to get over what they're gonna think, you know, my mates, call me the guru now because of what I tweet, and like, I'm alright with that, you know, I mean, that's fine. Yeah, they're not buying anything else from me, sir. Fair enough. You know, I mean, I'll take that on the chin. But then what that's allowed me to do is break down that mental barrier of being scared to share, I just, I just don't care. Like, that's the first thing that you need to do. If you're going to be strategic about marketing yourself on social media, or trying to build any kind of credibility anywhere, really, I guess, you just got to get over the fear of sharing your own ideas. So that's number one. And then in terms of like actionable tips, you've just got to be I don't know, this is really cliche, again, but consistent. You've just got to be relentless, you've got to show up for people, you've got to be that source of knowledge, you've got to be that value provider over a long period of time. And I think that, in the beginning, it's really useful to try and niche down a little bit. So try and speak from you know, your own earned wisdom about what you know, best stuff that comes naturally to you. So obviously, for me, that was like freelancing price in business, in small business marketing, things like that, you know, it's stuff that I've been doing over the last decade anyway. So I always used to try and stay in that box at that point. But then you will get to a, I think that people always say, Oh, you need to be like that forever, which I'm not a believer in that I think that your personal brand can evolve over time, you know, because you're doing a lot of discovering about yourself as well, when you share when you share your ideas, you refine them yourself, and you decide to take, you know, left or right at certain points and your personal brand can, you know, go along with that. And so I think after a point of just, you know, being in the same room for a year or so, I think that people do start to care about your wider views. And then you're more free than you know, the shackles are kinda off really to share a bit more broadly about all the things that are interesting you. So yeah, that's where I'd start for sure.
Conor McCarthy 25:02
That's great. Yeah. And I love how it's all kind of feeds into this idea of the personal brand and the personal brand again, as well. Another thing that people buy, hear about and go, Oh, that's, I need to do huge branding exercise. But like, we've kind of hinted at a few things like having a really good personal website is a great thing you can do to enhance your personal brand or being being consistent, and committed to a to a platform, whatever, whatever you decide, is there anything else that you would say around personal branding, that would really help?
Tom Hirst 25:33
I think you've just got to, don't lie, don't lie to yourself, and don't lie to other people. Because I think it shows I mean, just to recite a personal experience, like I'm kind of entering a world now, you know, creating books and courses and things like that. And I think that there's a bit of a stigma sometimes around around that kind of thing. And people who may, you know, share figures that are not accurate? Or they might, you know, say certain things that you're thinking, Well, you know, you're only you're only 12 years old, you can't have had five businesses, you know, I mean, it's, I think there's, there's a bit of a stigma around around the world. So I think that if you, you need to come across as an authentic, credible person, when you're trying to build some kind of personal brand and I think that people have to understand that what you're saying is coming from earned wisdom, it's not just something that you've just seen on Twitter and regurgitated. I think that that's really important. And if you can try and get that across, that's really beneficial. And I think that, I think that I mean, a lot of people said that to me that it can, that's how I come across. And I'm really proud of that, you know, the authenticity that I've managed to create in my personal brand. So that's something that I take really seriously and I'm really proud of. And I think as well, I don't be if you're starting to build a personal brand, don't be put off if you don't have earned wisdom, like what I just said, you know, if you don't have a lot of experience in the tank, I think that it's equally as valuable to share what you're doing right now. Because sometimes the best time to teach something is when you're learning it yourself. So a lot of freelancers have come to me before and said, Well, how I'm only just learning react or WordPress, or whatever it is, how can I, you know, build a level of credibility for my personal brand. And I always say, well document everything that you're doing now share it, tell people, because there'll be tons of people who want to follow the same path as you. You know, and you probably know, you're in the guts of learning react right now, you might know more than what I know about a certain thing, because that's what you've just studied. So you know that there's an avenue for everyone, whether the beginning of your career, 10 years, in 20 years in whatever to build a strong personal brand in mind.
Conor McCarthy 27:43
I love that. Yeah, just sharing what you're going through. Because Yeah, I think we all kind of sit behind our laptops or just scroll away, but there's so much value in the journeys, that we're each on to develop some kind of mastery or to, to work on our craft of what we're doing. So yeah, like that. Yeah, to share, and be brave about sharing. So yeah, so you're getting into what you've done so much writing, and you've released the books on gumroad, etc. Are there any books that you have re read or that you highly recommend when it comes to freelancing or marketing or anything to do with your craft?
Tom Hirst 28:18
I mean, the best book or the book that most changed, slash solidified, my view on freelancing was Hourly Billing is Nuts by Jonathan Stark. And that's the book about pricing. And it's essentially Jonathan's experience Manifesto, a guide, about moving away from hourly billing, really. And that's something that when I read that it really struck a chord with me, I think it must have been about six, seven years ago that I read it, or maybe a little bit less, I can't remember when he released it. But it really kind of solidified solidified what I discovered. And the fact that like hourly billing really is a bit of a bit of a trap, really, in terms of creating a stress free freelance life and building up, you know, relationship, relationships based on trust and things like that. So yeah, that was that's the one I always recommend if someone's looking for a place to start freelancing.
Conor McCarthy 29:13
Okay, good one. Yes, I'll definitely add that to the show notes. There's, there's just one more question I've asked you. And that's, I asked this of all my guests like, what practical advice would you give to someone just starting out to find their first 10 customers?
Tom Hirst 29:27
First 10 customers, start sharing what you're doing. start sharing what you know, straightaway. Tell, tell, tell everyone that you know what skills you've got. Tell them what you're working on. Do it locally, you know, with your friends and family. You never know where you might find a client. Do it on social media, do it on your personal website, just share and document everything. And it's like, it's just an opportunity magnet. Basically, that works for you while you sleep.
Conor McCarthy 29:51
Like that. There's, there's a lot of good quotes that come out of this podcast. I'm thankful for that. Tom, you're very very good to dedicate some of your time on a busy day to come on this podcast. There's a ton in there that I know my audience freelancers will love and obviously, in the show notes, I highly, highly, highly recommend that everyone check out your personal website, because it's brilliant. And it's you really do walk the walk and and your Twitter feed is just constant. You are so consistent in what you do. And like, I feel with your Twitter now that you've kind of gotten into this flow not not that I knew you back in the day, but you're in this flow where like everything you put out I will definitely read because I know there's two or three layers of thinking going on to it. So yeah, I highly recommend people check those out.
Tom Hirst 30:40
Cheers, thanks Conor.
