Exploring Freelancing Pre-event QA feat. Stephanie Diggins, Lisa Crockett and Parker A Grant

Luis Malbas  
Hello, everybody, welcome to the training learning and development community. Thanks for joining us today. I'm gonna turn mine down. Welcome everyone. Thursday, we're doing a q&a pre event for our next week's large conference, which is called Exploring freelancing. Let me just double check in here we might have, I'm hearing a little bit of an echo. So if you guys maybe if you could just check real quick to see if you've got any, any extra tabs open with the broadcast running, okay, sounds like it's, it's disappeared for now. Alright, so, um, this is going to be fun, I want to just give some little backstory to this particular broadcast and also the event for next week exploring freelancing, I put a link to it also at the top of the of the chat, if, if you're in these in the session now and didn't know that we're having a free event next week, check it out, sign up with a bunch of people registered, it's gonna be really, really fun. And it's basically if you're an LNB, professional instructional designer, LSD, person, all that stuff, and you're thinking about freelancing or are freelancing, anything freelancing in l&d? We're gonna be talking about it next week, seven sessions, including a panel, it's going to be a big one, it's going to be a great day. So So So sign up for that one for next week. I'm Stephanie Diggins, who is a guest today. And Stephanie actually requested an event like this last year, I can't remember if it was November, December, something like that might even been. Yeah, and and so I kind of had to mull it around in my head, and then with the road to LMD, one from last month. And, and just the way that l&d is sort of shifting a little bit with so many educators kind of coming into instructional design, I thought, well, let's just do this will, you know, this will be kind of a follow up to the road to lnd event that Heidi Kirby helped toast last month. And so next week's event is a result of Stephanie making that request. And it's very, very timely, I think. And so what I'm going to do for this particular broadcast is, I'm going to let Stephanie kind of take over because she has a group of questions that she wants to ask Parker, and Lisa, who, you know, are the our other two guests on here, about freelancing. And so this is going to be kind of a quick, quick hitting, sort of q&a about freelancing, and I hope all of you enjoy it. And why don't I let Lisa, why don't we start off with you? Why don't you go ahead and give yourself let's let's hear an introduction.

Lisa Crockett  
Oh, sure. So I'm Lisa Crocket. I am a most oftentimes Learning Experience Designer, sometimes Learning Strategist. I also do career coaching. And I host a really fun podcast or webcast on CLDC with Monique St. Paul, which is meant to help connect more people together and introduce you to new people and learning development. So that's my thing. And I've been freelancing have my business for about three and a half years?

Luis Malbas  
Wow. Okay, great. Excellent. And then Parker from ID Lance, once you go ahead and give us a little intro.

Parker Grant  
Yeah, morning therapy. That's better. Let's try this again to see what happens. So yes, I'm Parker grant, co founder of IBD. And I've been feeling SCN since 2008. Was this corporate profile? 21 years before that? Sorry, I don't know if that's coming on way. Is very strange sound. Anyway, yeah. Hopefully, it's better now. So yeah, so I was a corporate for 21 years altogether in LAPD for about 30 years. So I think I'm just going to try to check the mic while you start the program.

Luis Malbas  
I muted Parker, I muted everybody else. And I think it's coming from your end. So just check if you have another browser window open with Crowdcast or anything like that. And that's usually the cause of it. And if not, maybe a headset might help. Okay, okay. And then what I'm going to do is, I will, Stephanie, if you could introduce yourself, and then I'm going to go ahead and just sort of exit my video and let you guys take over. I'll still be here to keep an eye on things. But Stephanie would love to hear more about you.

Stephanie Diggins  
Yeah. Um, so I'm Stephanie Diggins. I am a recovering teacher. Put it that I know literally just transition into the freelance space last month. And yesterday, I got my first big freelance projects since leaving teaching, so I'm like, super excited about that. Um, but like Lewis said, I met with him sometime last year, because when I was looking into freelancing, I was having trouble figuring out like the business side of it. So like the l&d side, got that down, business side, needed some help. So that's why I reached out to Louis and was like, Hey, can we do a freelance conference to kind of figure out like, the business side of freelancing? So a lot of the questions that I came up with, they're a bit of a combination of getting to know Lisa and Parker and their experience with freelancing, but then also, like, starting to get some of those business questions answered, as well. So we're gonna just jump right in. Um, so first question, what was your first freelance job? We say you're muted. You're still out. There you are.

Lisa Crockett  
There you go. Okay. Um, so my first freelance job, it's kind of funny, it was supporting an LMS for client that had just purchased that LMS. And I was referred by the LMS provider, but it never used the software. So that was my first job is and that was not my dream job, guys. Not even a little bit. But it smells so

Stephanie Diggins  
nice. But you Parker

Parker Grant  
okay, I'm unmuted. I'm sorry, I don't have a headset. Some people have asked about this. So my first job was being a facilitator, or United Way. And can you hear that? Oh, yeah. Alright, so I started out as a facilitator, as a certified professional facilitator. So I wasn't even in it at all that transition ideally to later so that was how I started freelancing.

Lisa Crockett  
Oh you're muted Stephanie.

Stephanie Diggins  
Um, so that does go into the next question. Um, where did you find your first freelance job?

Lisa Crockett  
That job? This is funny, actually, I spoke to the person who referred me this morning, that Job was referred by someone I went to a coaching seminars with. And honestly, why I want to bring that up is, you know, like, she's my angel. Actually, this woman has helped my business in more ways than I can tell you just by with referrals. And I helped her start a couple of businesses since then, and build websites. And it was literally from personal relationship, where she believed in me before she'd seen my work. And I can't emphasize enough the importance of creating those relationships, people that you've worked with in the past people that are in Seminar, stuff like that, because it made my business honestly, without her. I would not have had a business I can trace most of my clients back to her somehow.

Stephanie Diggins  
They're nice.

Parker Grant  
Alright, switching microphone I'm gonna log out and then come back here.

Lisa Crockett  
Close all your browsers out just in

Stephanie Diggins  
case. Yeah. So we'll see Parker in just a moment. Um, I like I know, when I was speaking, I actually spoke to Parker yesterday and there are a lot of different places that you can find freelancing jobs and like, these are all like places that I'm just finding out about right. Um, so definitely like connections. I've heard a lot of people that are in the freelancing space, talk about like connections like people that they've known, recommended them to somebody else and then that person reached out to them and that's how they got the freelancing job. course a lot of stuff like you can find contracted positions on LinkedIn and deed. The freelancing work that I've done so far I found on Upwork. But then you can also go into, like, work with consulting firms. Right. So, um, I'll have to find it in just a moment. But Parker actually gave me like a list of consulting firms that, you know, you look into and at least get into like their, their pool of l&d professionals. And then if they find something, or if they have a project that fits your experience, then they'll reach out to you. So with that, like you're not there, like assigning new projects, not you having to like go and find and apply to a bunch of different places. So that's all.

Lisa Crockett  
That's a great way to build your portfolio. If you can take even pieces of that. If you if you're allowed to do so. Or you're allowed to, on brand them are used pieces to show it's a great way to get started if you don't have that yet. Yeah, exactly. And I love that list, actually.

Stephanie Diggins  
Yeah. Parker, I was just saying that I was gonna share the list of the consulting firms that you gave me when we were speaking yesterday about where to find freelance jobs.

Parker Grant  
Yeah, there's quite a few. And if you Google them, there's a whole slew of agencies you can check out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How's it microphone better?

Stephanie Diggins  
Her Much better? Much better?

Parker Grant  
Yes.

Stephanie Diggins  
So I think the question that you you missed was, Where was your first freelance position? Where do you get that?

Parker Grant  
The first freelance position? Mm hmm. Well, that was actually United Way. There's a local chapter here in the Hartford, Connecticut area. And so I did a workshop for them for a few days. It was fun, you know, in, in another group of people, meeting new people. And I thought, Oh, this is kind of cool. You know, maybe I can do more. But I found quickly that define those kinds of facilitation jobs, it's, you know, far and few in between, you know, I don't know, I just didn't know if I was gonna be able to make a living doing that.

Stephanie Diggins  
Right. Oh,

Parker Grant  
this is, this is an interesting thing about the journey of going to freelancing is that you just don't know really what you want to do until you kind of dive in? Do a big here, get there? And you find like, Ah, this is my sweet spot. Yeah, actually get more work this way. I think I can have more fun doing this. So in the beginning, you know, it was sort of like a trial and error. So that was my first game.

Stephanie Diggins  
Nice. Nice. All right. So what tools do you use regularly in your business, such as project management software, accounting software, proposal templates, contract templates, like, that's something I'm just figuring out, like, with this job that I got yesterday? I'm realizing Okay, well, there's no, there isn't a document yet. That actually has my rate on paper, and the scope of work that I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm gonna drag that up, and then have them sign that to like, kind of see ya. Um, so like, what are some of the tools that you guys use on on like the regular?

Lisa Crockett  
Oh, you start this time?

Parker Grant  
Start, hey, all right. Well, project management software, I've been exposed to several, including base camp Monday Trello, only because the clients have different project management software. So I don't have a personal preference, per se, in. I mean, although ideally, as has subscribed to Monday, but we're just kind of trying it for a while and see how that works for us. So we use that QuickBooks Online. It's kind of nice, you know, in terms of accounting software. In the last couple of years, it's been spreadsheets, but this year, because idealliance is growing we, we better go to QB Oh, get the bookkeeper on and it's like, you can easily make mistakes. If you try it. Even if you try the spreadsheet method, you can still make mistakes. So cubio is something that we're using in terms of proposal or statements at work. One thing I learned early on, was really for my clients, I had one client based here in Connecticut. Lisa, you happen to know that small agency small company, and what they did with me is they had a one page statement work. I loved it. I mean, good ID for crying out loud. So you can make a simple I mean, you have to simplify it as an ID. So think of statements of work proposal as one pagers. So I know with ID last, our business development manager, I think she's out here at Laney. So we put together a proposal for clients, we try to keep it on one page, maybe it sneaks into the second page. But we look for simplicity. And usually, you know, we give two options to pricing option to give the client a little bit of flexibility for their budget. But in terms of the magical proposal out there, you're going to find a million different types. Every client has a different proposal. So I mean, there isn't any matching proposal. I mean, you can you start with a template if you want. But what I found, personally was, when I looked at the client proposal, I still have them, I have the statements at work, I still have the proposal, you can go back and look through the legal language. And you'll find that, you know, based on experience, this is nice to have, but you really don't need it. So you can forge your own statement of work or proposal. But a lot of times clients have their own that you have to sign anyway. So anyway, that's the bottom line.

Lisa Crockett  
Were very close, Parker, truthfully, on that I mean, really, project management software you are, what the client wants, you use what you use. I couldn't commit to any one thing just because I will multiple running multiple projects. I can't do it in a third piece of software, second piece of software. So I actually did go back to the Excel method for project management, but not for books, as Parker said, like QuickBooks was something I did my second year. And it's just because if you can hook into my bank account and do all that stuff for me, and all I have to do is hit category, you know, that's gonna make my life a lot easier. I haven't gotten a bookkeeper yet. Parker, I'm very much a control freak. So QuickBooks was awesome. For me from the perspective, the contract, I think we probably had different experiences. I have a one page statement of work can be half a page actually in my contract. But I did learn to put some language for myself based on some things that happened. As I as I had different types of clients and things that the what you said earlier, Stephanie, the cover my bottom right, you got to cover yourself. And for more on that, come to next week stop. And I'll talk about some of the things that made me update my contract. But I did start with a template, like Parker said, and then what I did was called a lawyer friend of mine and said, How much will you charge me for reviewing this contract and telling me how to cover my butt. And I did that and I paid her her full rate, she went over it for me. And then we changed it again a year later, when something else happened. And we recognize that it was just, you know, a clause here or there. But again, covering yourself so that if you get scope creep, you're paid. Yes, clients will pay you. Most clients are not going to try to do any you know, more hours you charge me more they get it. But some clients will fight you and yeah, that story. Next week. Stay tuned.

Stephanie Diggins  
Yeah. That's like that's one of the toughest things about freelancing is just make sure that you're covered in case a client turns out, not

Lisa Crockett  
be the best. Yep. Or like you said comp time like in the in the corporate world. It's yeah, we'll give you two days off for that. Yeah, she's not working. But in your freelance world, who's giving you time? I know my boss is really is really challenging woman. She doesn't give me a lot of time off.

Stephanie Diggins  
Yeah. Next question, how do you figure out your rates? Yeah, that's something that I've seen a lot about.

Lisa Crockett  
Trial and error.

Parker Grant  
Yeah, so So wait is a you'll find a lot of articles out there people posted survey results of rates or salaries or whatever income measures you have out here. I just found from my personal experience was, I use a what I call, well, there's three categories I love to reach into one is what I call a starting rate. So anywhere from 35 to $45 an hour. So if you're starting out, and you're making the leap to freelancing, you have very little to show for portfolio, but you want to quickly get clients. You have a company advantage by showing that you have skills, but you also can offer a lower rate clients like that. So if you wanted to quickly build up a portfolio, that's one way to, you know, get things going, it's just say, Hey, I'm here, I'm $40 an hour, they'll grab you. So then there's a middle rate that I call a growth rate, which is somewhere between 45 to $60 an hour, where you have maybe a couple of years under your belt, and you got a little bit more to show your work. And you become a little bit more competitive with other ideas out there. And then when you get to that experience rate, the third category is sort of like that 60, to 75, and up kind of rate. A lot of agencies, they typically go with around 65 an hour, sometimes 70 an hour. But as an individual freelancer, you can make whatever you want. I mean, I know people are charging over $100 An hour lesson, you know, it's harder to get those contracts when you start charging those rates. But you can do it. And then there's this fourth category, which is the the fixed project fee, kind of, you know, the value based pricing, where you scoped the project, and you get one fee. And then, you know, you completed however many hours within that fee. And the the upside of that is that your hourly rate might be really high, depending on how you've priced that. The downside is, if you're really bad at pricing, you can get very low. So, yes, but anyway, that was what I started out about 14 years ago, as a freelancer, I was around 45 an hour. I just want to get some gigs. And just kind of picked it up from there.

Stephanie Diggins  
So like, what kind of pricing? Would you say for like a one hour training?

Parker Grant  
Yeah, so one hour training? That is one of those. Take a dart dart board?

Lisa Crockett  
Yep. Fair? And is it live training? Is it elearning? Hands on what it is, right? And who your audiences? Yes, you're gonna be developing more,

Parker Grant  
all over the map, all of it. So kind of what I do is a rule of thumb is, is it level two, a lot of training, you know, that we build elearning is around level two, maybe l one and L two. But if I wanted to start with a rule of thumb, level two, one hour, 15,000, just a rule of thumb. So if you know that it's a little bit less than level two less interactions, then you bring the price down a little bit, take a closer look at it. But if you're looking into L three, you know more simulation based scenario based kind of training, maybe bring up picking up. So you kind of use that as your like starting point, right, and then gauge it from there. So that's kind of how we look at

Lisa Crockett  
it. And I would say like, when the numbers partners putting out there are very, very, they make a lot of sense from for elearning. Like when he said 15,000 to develop an hour, that is close to a little bit of a higher hourly rate, probably for us, but that's right, that's about the right amount of time and hours, if you're a more, I'm gonna say seasons, like a more seasoned, you'll get a higher rate for that you're gonna end up in a lower rate, but the prices in the right place. And that's what you start to learn. You know, when someone comes and says, I have an hour, but here's our, I'd love to hear what you would say about this, like, your client comes to you and says, I have an hour long training that I want you to put together. But at the end of the day, maybe that training becomes 90 minutes or I mean, so when you've contracted to do that, how are you? How are you building room for yourself? So you're covered in that sense?

Parker Grant  
Yeah. So so yeah. You want to watch for what you ate in a statement work? Yeah, 60 minutes. And usually, what time I look at is one slide a minute. Again, that is fluctuating depending on what's in there for interaction, but if you define what it is, in this statement work, then generally if and I've worked with many clients, where they say, if you have a little bit more than five 10% change in the scope, then you go back for a scope change, like an addendum, but, you know, give a little flexibility, just even if you go a little bit beyond. So what, you know, make them happy. But if you if you start to get up that 10% number, then you have to have that chat.

Lisa Crockett  
That's where it gets really itchy. I'm glad you said that. That's the number I came came out when I get above 5%. It starts to impact the work because it starts to impact my attitude. And you have to have that conversation early not when you've blown it out. 15% Because then everybody's upset.

Stephanie Diggins  
No, rice, hard conversations

Lisa Crockett  
are really important thing. Yeah.

Stephanie Diggins  
All right. So what's your favorite thing about freelancing?

Lisa Crockett  
Showing up is me every day, um, whoever mean is that they meet in a hoodie, or be in a suit, like making that choice.

Stephanie Diggins  
Right? And then the opposite of that challenges. Same thing, everything in your challenges.

Lisa Crockett  
Same thing, that means there's no people in my business. For me anyway, I know you have a bunch of people in your business, Parker. But being a solo, you miss people, like I get to make my own decisions. I also get to pay for my own mistakes. And I also don't have I'm, I'm trying to build that network of people to talk to about the work, but they're not in the middle of the work. Right?

Parker Grant  
Yeah, no, definitely. I love the flexibility of freelancing, that's probably my favorite thing. I have four lovely children, ages 15 through 20 points in college, three here at home in high school. By the way, you know that refrigerator, mine is filled with food one day, and three hours later is empty. Somehow they take the fridge and they just hold it. Unbelievable. But what I loved about flexibility is that I get to do things with kids at times, sometimes, you know, you got to take them to appointments, or you have to take them to their friend's house, or school event or whatever it was, I I remember being in corporate for 21 years, and you don't have that flexibility, at least back then. It didn't have that flexibility. Now, it might be a little bit different because a lot of people work remotely. But you know, freelancing, you can make your own schedule, and I do a lot of my work at night. Weekends, too, sometime. During the day, you know, you got you got to make a trip to the post office or go to the grocery store, whatever.

Lisa Crockett  
What a pleasure that is right in the middle of the day. Just nobody's there.

Parker Grant  
You go there and nobody's there. Yeah. You know, what I get worried is when I get to three o'clock in the afternoon, people start building up the stories. I'm like, No, I wouldn't go there.

Lisa Crockett  
Yeah, I don't wait till tomorrow. I started six most days sometimes earlier. If I wake up. You know, before I get everyone out of the house, and I have quiet time, it's great time to get work done. You're sharp. First thing I'm sharp first thing in the morning after at least a pot of coffee, but still it works. Yeah.

Stephanie Diggins  
Hey, um, what do you wish you knew before you started as a freelancer? Oh, so much.

Parker Grant  
Alright, I'll start on this one. Um, well, I really kind of wish I knew that I was going to head into the ID world. But you know, you know, I started out with different things and facilitating, or I do some special IPS learning. It was a session like concept mapping, which is I am not going to get getting into that here. But I did some kind of unique things around adult learning. But what I did wish that I knew was that instructional design was a much bigger industry than I thought I didn't think there was much out there, honestly, back in 2008. And I didn't think I was going to be interested in that kind of thing. But when the when you when you feel the pinch financially, you know that you got to do something. And so when I jumped into ID, I just did script writing, I just did storyboard. I didn't get into storyline or you know, back then was might have been studio right? Articulate studio. Yeah. You know, I didn't do that. I thought, well, I can make a living doing it. But as time passed, more and more clients were demanding the ID, no storyline and all that stuff. So I had to upskill in that area. But, you know, for me personally, it was just more of a trial and error type of thing. But if, if there's any message I can give out to anybody out here in the audience, is that You know, if you're still working full time, and you're thinking about making the leap, just trying to maybe think about sight taking a little bit, see if you're like that, or you make that leap. And then so you don't have to go floundering around after you make the leap, like, oh, yeah, I want to do this or that. So that would be something that I revised.

Lisa Crockett  
Right? I think, for me, it's something that literally, I came to getting ready for this event. And it was, it was a conversation I had with an ex colleague who said, I really like your version of success. And I went, Holy cow, I have a version of success. And that was funny, like, I mean, I know it sounds and I mean, it cheeky. But at the same time, what I realized was whenever I came in conflict, and this is what I wish I knew knew before, but I guess I wouldn't have learned what I've learned is, whenever I came into conflict with something, and I started getting anxiety around my business, it was because I wasn't looking at my version of success, I was thinking about what other people like, what they how they might judge me. And really, like when I started this, parkour, like, I was like, I mean, I'm a recovering corporate person, I went from the smallest job to the biggest job, and that was well fixed up for me. And that was great. And all but that was all about what other people thought, frankly, and it was about the money I needed to make. And that's fine. That was my version of success, then. And that's what I wish I understood was that I needed to reassess my version of success along the way. So when I get worked up, because I have to let a client go, for instance, and I start going, Oh, my God, there's some money. And if I could just, if I could just simple What's your version of successful like, today, my version of success is my mental health being strong, so that I can do the work that I need to do really well and interact with people, which is a challenge for me believe I seem really friendly. And this is over video, but I'm, I'm a very flaky individual. So Success for me is like, I would like to get in touch with Parker afterward and like, connect with him. And those are my success things. And if I stopped talking to people, or I stopped connecting to people, because I'm overly focused on something, I have to say, is this your version of success are there? You know, that's what I wish I knew. I wish I knew to address that when my anxiety came up and figure out what value I was hitting up against. And as a coach, I should have known that. And I could have helped you find it, but I couldn't find it till I found it. So now I have a little way, since like, what's your version of success? And I look at it when I start getting because I think you know, as

Parker Grant  
well, sadly, so yeah, yeah, everybody has their version, right? Everybody's success is different. And in

Lisa Crockett  
the end, it's not important if anyone else thinks you're successful. So what? No, but that's a that's a long life learned lesson. I am not young. And I wish I learned that a lot sooner. I do. I think we all are hope we all get there sometimes.

Stephanie Diggins  
Grace. Yeah, that's all mental health is so insanely important. It's so incredibly important. All right. Hierarchy. Yeah. All right. So what's your checklist for starting a freelance business like five things you need to do? And I'm going to combine this a little bit with what my mom's question, ideas about marketing, like marketing, even business license insurance, like all the some of the things, we'll do all the things next week, but some of the things today.

Lisa Crockett  
Contract, just sort of listening to what you heard Parker and I say today and thinking about what that means for you. I would say that's, that's important. Everybody talks about LLC versus Corp, an S corp, here's what I'm going to say about that. I'm I made a decision to be an LLC. That's what I am now. I've heard lots of conflicting advice. I'm always looking into what that would it means. Literally, someone said, You're doing this wrong. You shouldn't be an LLC to me a couple weeks ago, not a learning person. And I said, Why, oh, you're overpaying in your taxes. And I went really? Well. Let me check that out. And so I just listen as I go and know that you can be flexible. I mean, the business part isn't that expensive in terms of the setup. But so when before you start making a lot of money, that's when I say make, you know, you want to make sure you're doing it the right way. I'm at that juncture where I'm like, Well, let me just make sure now I trust the people I talked to know so trusting other people and way keep weighing it out. And I'm going to stop there. Let Parker

Parker Grant  
Oh, yeah, I mean, like the Chuck was at the top five thing. I don't really have top five but there are a lot of things. He said I know there's so many things you want to have. One of the things I find very important is not so much a physical or mental mirakl kind of item on the checklist, but more of a mental and what that is? Are you ready to make a personal commitment to make that leap? That is so hard for a lot of people? And that anxiety builds up when you're just thinking about to leave the company that you hate so much? Because the boss is horrible? No, you still have those reservations? Because, you know, two weeks from now, you you don't have that check coming in. Now what? So, you know, your your job is that lifeline for income? So, that personal commitment is really, I would say, that's the number one thing, you know, for me anyway, this just like, Yes, I can do this. So when you start thinking, Yes, I can versus I'm not sure it can think that, then you can go to the next level. And that is what I think the second item is having a financial plan. And that could be done differently. You know, maybe you have six months of savings, and you can live off that and build up your business over six months. Or if you don't have that, then you know, maybe it's like gigging, like you still have you full time, job, site, gigging, pick up that money and put it away if you can. So that you can prepare for that leap out of corporate world or, or out of your school that you're teaching that wherever it is. So that is important to have a plan. And then another item on this checklist is establishing an identity. Now, when I say that, I mean, don't just call yourself an instructional designer or developer elearning developer, there's some uniqueness about you. So what is that, and if you can take and think of a conjunctive reasoning, when I say that, I mean, this, plus this plus this, and combine it together, that makes you unique. And I'll give you an example. So one of our ID masters, I don't know if she's on here or not. But she is into our being. So she and her husband traveled around the country because her husband is field tech technician. And he goes to different states. And she works as an idea out of her RV. But she knows a lot about Arby's, she knows a lot about campground. And so one of the things that makes her unique is that she can offer her services with the RV office. And you know, she could probably put like pictures of her journey, you know, different parts of the country, on her website. So it kind of makes you unique. And also, if you want to do as a freelancer, you can sell your own courseware in addition to serving as an ID to client, but if she decided to make some courses around campaign management, or Arby's, that kind of thing, she could pursue that path. But what I'm trying to get to is, there is a uniqueness about you. So when you form that identity, is you're not just an ID or elearning developer, so you have to figure that out. So there's a lot of other things on the list, but I'll stop there.

Lisa Crockett  
That's a really good point, though. Yeah,

Stephanie Diggins  
I what you were what you were saying, like, you know, figuring out your identity, that's what you'll end up marketing. That's what you'll you know, really put out there so that people know who you are. And, and so they're like, oh, you know what, you got this, this is what I'm looking for, okay, let me hire you. You know, when

Lisa Crockett  
you're creating and when you're doing that, and creating materials, you don't have to like create crazy materials. I mean, I want to say when I started like I was trying to create all sorts of really cool stuff, and that's great. It didn't penetrate anywhere by the way to my knowledge. Um, so But what I've seen I've seen a bunch of folks doing this now and there's there are all these new different pieces of software out there for like, like LMS is like seven taps is when I see coming up a lot and people are doing projects on this and getting attention for that. And I think that that's a great way to start. People like build really simple things to really cool amazing things and some of the messages out there will feed your brand you know create something that you believe in that you want to create no one else's has to like, okay, it that's a good thing sometimes just you know, my what I'm so let's look at it before you put it in there just for you know, you're putting yourself out there and your names out there. And that's a way to get circulated on LinkedIn and people see you posted and tagged and jobs that way. Yeah, they really do. Yeah.

Stephanie Diggins  
Awesome. All right. So

Luis Malbas  
while I was gonna I actually I think usually I like these to run like 3035 minutes. I think we're gonna wrap it up now. But that's been amazing. I mean, if this is gonna be an event Apple have like, what next week some conference is going to be like, I can't wait. You guys have had so much incredible information to share. You know, and Lisa, that whole thing about your version of success I like that. And

Lisa Crockett  
I didn't expect her right something like that Luis and look at it. When it came, it literally came out of a conversation when I finished my entire presentation for the for the conference weeks before when I first asked me and I went, Oh, that's really it. I mean, it is.

Luis Malbas  
Yeah. Because it even resonates I mean, I'm not a freelance instructional designer or anything like that at all. But even just the the concept of it is so yeah, it's so universal. Yeah, yeah. And, and Parker, you're just like offering so generous with a lot of your experience to it's just absolutely amazing. I can't wait. For next week, I am going to selfishly ask my like one question before I wrap it up. And I get to do this. Okay, I get to do this, I get to ask you one question. What keeps you up at night? Parker? And Lisa? Like, what is it? What's if you're somebody that is? You know, if you were to talk to a fledgling freelancer, what is it that that you worry about?

Lisa Crockett  
full transparency? Um, it's funny, I have never, I always worry about not having another client. Right. I've not had the problem since I since my first client. But I'm always like, looking forward going well, you know, I have, I have, I have worked for the next eight months. And what happens if I don't get another client and I get myself worked up over, frankly, and I'm not gonna say it's over nothing, we should always think about these things. But the work is good. The referrals come in the clients are there. And it's happened for three and a half years. So I think that it's time to stop staying up at night, some nights worrying about that. But that's what keeps me up from a business perspective. We can get in some other things, but we're not going to

Parker Grant  
do it for 14 years and ditto still? No. Oh, yeah. So Lisa and I are on the same plane on that. So what keeps me up at night is not knowing who your next client will be. You live in a freelance world, you live in a world of uncertainty. You might have a world where you know, you have worked for X number of months, which is good. But you always have that little nagging voice in the back of your head said, Okay, what's happening after that? And so one of the things I recommend to freelancers is, try to get like three or four contracts going at the same time. Yes, because one thing about being in full time job is one day, you're there the next day, something happened to get laid off or whatever. And you're out of there. And so no income. But with freelancing, the good news is that if you have three or four contracts, and one gets cancelled, you've still got somebody coming in. Yeah, yeah. But it still is the world you live in. It's like, you don't know what's coming next. But I'm like, Lisa, that. You just say, Okay, this is the way it is I move on. Thinking about it.

Lisa Crockett  
Enjoy the time when you're down. I mean, that's the hardest thing, right? When you don't have work. February is traditionally like my slower month, some years, the first two years, it was really slow this year. It's just kind of nice. A nice change, right? And I've been able to do this the face things with Luis and get the intersections back up and running and all those things. Use your time. When you're slow to do things you love to do things you're passionate about. Enjoy it, you won't have a lot of that time all year. But try not to panic when you're a little slower. Especially if you know, you know that things are coming up. Are your clients that are all reviewing at the same exact time. Wow, my life. Yeah.

Luis Malbas  
All right, you guys. Thank you so much, Stephanie. I hope you know you got some questions answered. And this is, yeah, new. And I'm sure. Next week at the big conference, I'm there. There's just going to be so much more helpful information. So yes, definitely. Thank you all for participating in this today. And everybody thanks in the audience for being here. Um, sign up for that event next week. I don't know. Let's see. Do I still have it on my clipboard? I do. So make sure that you sign up for for next week event and show up. I think we'll have lots of conversations like this. And with that, I'm going to close everything out. Have a great weekend, everyone. Bye parkers.

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