Freelancing

As a small business attorney, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein helps entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches, artists, etc, get all their legal affairs in order so they can focus on their businesses.

In this episode, Elizabeth agreed to answer some legal questions from members of the Side Hustle Nation Facebook Group. We cover disclaimers, business registration requirements, entity selection pros and cons, trademarks and copyrights, and licensing.

In 2011, Joshua Lisec landed his first freelance gig–on Fiverr of all places. He said he wound up making $1.67 an hour from that job, but it sparked his entrepreneurial journey.

Since then, he’s gone from “dumpster-diving for clients” to consistently landing 4- and 5-figure contracts and earning $167 an hour on one recent project, effectively 100x-ing his hourly rate.

In this episode we take a deep dive into what I’ll call the OPA Plan: borrowing other people’s audiences to grow your business, a strategy that’s earned Joshua $9000 in just the last couple months.

Rachel Pedersen was using social media to bring customers to her hairdressing chair, but never really imagined it would turn into a full-time business of its own.

One of her hairdressing clients owned a popular restaurant chain, but was struggling with online marketing and social media. Rachel offered to help and the rest is history.

Today her little social media management side hustle is a 6-figure business and she has even built a training program to help other people follow in her footsteps.

Scott Tarcy reached out to me with a listener success story of taking some of his on-the-job skills and turning them into a business on the side.

Scott’s a mechanical engineer by trade, and his job involved lots of product design work, including computer aided drafting and 3D modeling. Recognizing that other individuals and companies might have a need for those skills, he took to the interwebs.

Matt Inglot was following the hustler’s path.

He built some skills on his spare time, and began selling those skills as a freelancer. The first project he sold was to build a website for $300.

Soon, he had a full-time freelance business, and decided to grow into an agency. But before long, Matt found himself working 80 hour weeks and stressed out during down months about covering rent and payroll.

While outwardly successful, Matt knew the business was broken.

Jesse Gernigin is a professional stage hypnotist and online freelancer. He used to do up to 200 shows a year and even sold his own products, but realized there was always going to be a ceiling to his earning power.

Turning to the world of online work, Jesse applied his performance and sales skills to land freelance work in his spare time. Today he specializes in copywriting for email sequences, sales letters, and crowdfunding campaigns.

He shares some of his favorite tactics for figuring out what type of service you can offer, identifying high-value clients, and writing winning proposals.