Make Money Online

Anyway, Kai, uh, so uh, this isn’t working.

This is the last episode of Make Money Online. And it’s because I just don’t feel like doing it anymore. I 100% hear you on that. Can you tell me a little more about what’s leading you to this decision? No. I’ve revoked your access. From basically everything. I deleted your Skype account already and uninstalled Audio Hijack Pro for you. And I think I might have shot the editor. Sorry. But it was in the leg, so like he’s he’s probably he probably got the point. Did you shoot him with an arrow? No. This is Chicago a point. But yeah, so you know. Absorbing the idea of being fired, right? Like, that’s something that it’s never easy. Parting ways with a client is never easy. Telling them to fuck off is never easy, even when it’s the obvious right thing to do, right? And there’s kind of two sides to this. One of them is you fire them and the other is them firing you. And how many times have you fired a client? A number of times. Okay, that’s very specific. How many times have you been fired by a client? Four times. Four times. Okay. I’ve fired I fired probably four or five times and I’ve been fired a bunch of times. Um Or it’s just kind of this mutual deflation of the balloon, so to speak, where we kind of mutually agree that this isn’t working and it’s nobody’s doing the firing, it’s just there’s a like conscious uncoupling happening, right? And so it’s challenging to be thinking about all that. And I tell you, sometimes I’ve gotten fired and it’s been just shocking. I remember there was one time I got on a call with a client where things were going really well for a long period of time, and I was just giving them the status update. And the status update was resoundingly positive. I had made them a lot of money that month because that’s the way with A-B testing. Sometimes you just make them money. And they’re like, Yeah, your engagement ends on the 26th, right? I’m like, Yes. And you know when somebody says that, you’re fired, right? Like and and guess what? I was fired. Shocking, and there was nothing I could do about it. And it was because they had decided to like take things in a different direction internally. It was dumb. It was dumb. And I. I was shocked, right? Because I had just had a huge win, right? And I came to this call feeling like smug and self-assured and really great about myself. And then I got fired. Right. And that’s the way with a consultant. Like you’re useful until you aren’t. And you’re it’s like any employee relationship, you’re expendable, right? And you understand that Things aren’t so definite. And this was a client that, you know, just two or three months ago was wanting to hire me for a longer period of time. And I said no, because I wanted to not take a huge lump sum at the end of the tax year. Not unreasonable. And then I got fired, right? Which is, you know That’s it for the dirty laundry airing. There’s nothing else to say about it. It’s fine. They’re fine. I love them. I’ll miss them. I replaced them within four days. Right. Now, I think one important thing to remember is we think about a client engagement. It’s a client relationship. And, like any relationship, it could end at either time. There’s two people involved in it. And It ends up being some days you wake up and you’re just like, oh, I’m not feeling it anymore. And it takes a couple of days and then you’re like, I’m really not feeling it. And you decide to end it. Or. The same thing could be going on the client side. Like one fundamental rule of let’s call it humanity that I carry with me is: I never know what type of shitty day somebody else is having, and they don’t know what type of shitty day I’m having. And it might be Something’s been festering and boiling, and a problem on their side, and it’s just manifested itself in the form of, and our engagement is over. And I think good communication plays a part in that. You want to make sure you’re communicating. with your clients, understanding like, well, are there problems or are there objections? But even if you are A plus on the communication front, you might wake up one day and they’re like, we’re heading in a different strategic direction. And you are now made redundant or you are no longer essential because of said change in direction. And Well, there’s not much you could do with that aside from say, okay, how do we move forward from here? And I draw a lot of parallels with Breaking up with somebody or being dumped or ending a romantic relationship because you could feel, you probably will feel terrible when you’re fired by a client. Or when a client, or when you fire a client. And you’ll feel pretty terrible when you break up with somebody or you get broken up with by someone. And in either case, I think. Reacting to that situation by saying, okay, how do we move forward from here? What information do you need? What information do I need? What makes sense as that next step? Because in any client engagement, I’ve seen sort of two different ways they could go when that firing happens. One is what I think is the better way, is saying, okay, you know, we’re ending our engagement. We’ve got X days left. These are the top priorities on our side. How do we do knowledge transfer to make sure we could move forward effectively? And whenever I’ve left a job or left a consulting engagement and we’ve ended on that note. I’ve been like, you’re making the right calls here. We might not feel like we could work together anymore, but there is information I know that’s valuable to you. So let’s make sure we do that knowledge transfer. The shitty, terrible way, which I’ve gone through a few times, is you know, the engagement ends, or the engagement is about to end, or you’re fired. And I say, What information do you need? What will make this transition seamless? And they say, Nothing, we’re good, we’re done. And I’m like, Well, obviously, you can’t. There’s information that I know that probably is relevant to you. There probably are questions you are preparing to ask. Why are we dismissing the value of that conversation? So I think post-engagement ending, having that opportunity to say, Is there information you need from me? What makes sense as a next step? Is valuable. They might say there’s nothing we need, in which case you’re like, okay, great. Chose that path, or they might say, if you could help us understand, like strategically A, B, and C that you were working on so we could move forward with it. I think that’s a positive knowledge transfer to have. And I think a lot of it comes down to the type of relationship you’ve had with that client. Is it positive? Is it negative? Have there been external issues? All of these things, just like in any relationship, end up affecting. What that breakup or that cessation of working together looks and feels like.

I look at it sort of qualitatively: like, how do I feel like emotionally about this client or this project or this relationship? I do a thing with my friends called Five Finger Shoot, where just to like do a quick check-in, you’re like, we might be at a party, or we might be hanging out, or we might just see how people are doing. I’m like, somebody could say five finger shoot. And then you put out, you know, one through five fingers. One is like, I’m doing absolutely shitty. Five is like, I am ecstatic and everything is wonderful. And choose your own variants in the middle. And like, if you do a five-finger shoot on a client relationship and you’re consistently saying, like, one, two, one, this sucks. I’m not happy. That sort of tells you qualitatively, I think, it’s time to cut the rope. We did that fabulous episode, and I could never remember the episode number on brown MMs and client onboarding and the warning signs and the red flags. I think those are. Very, very useful even during a client relationship. Since the relationship might start off perfectly from a great spot, and then three months in, you’re like, oh, they’re terrible at communicating. And had I known this, I might have said no. So Red flags could pop up even when you’re in an established relationship, even in a romantic relationship. I’ve definitely been in romantic relationships where, you know, the first three months, the first year, it’s perfect. And then they start doing the thing, and the thing just infuriates me. And you look, and I express, like, hey, you do the thing, can we not do the thing? But the thing keeps happening. And the thing is the brown MM, the thing is the red flag. And this could happen in a client relationship as well. You start off with perfect communication, you are meeting regularly, information is passing to you. Then meetings start being skipped, and you aren’t included in the necessary conversations. And you start feeling like, well, I’m not getting the information I need to do my job as a consultant to provide you with value. And then I think it starts transitioning to, well, Let’s have a discussion about it. Let’s have feelings time about it. Let’s express, like, hey, to succeed in this, I need A, B, and C. I’m not getting AB and C. How can we provide me with AB and C? And if not, let’s just end it, go for that no early on. But I think it comes down to feeling internally like: am I still enjoying this? Do I enjoy this work? Do I enjoy what we’re doing together? And if not, start and open that conversation about: well, you know, I’m not feeling it, I’m not digging it anymore. How do we change this? Or is the change that’s necessary a cessation of the relationship? I’m going to add one more thing. If the client no longer fulfills your business’s broader goals and you just have them around because they’ve been around for a while or because they pay a lot of money or whatever have you, and You know, we’ve talked a lot about focus and positioning on this podcast, and so I will probably not shock you to hear that that is a bad idea. Having just anybody come in the door and pay you, it. Is very, very, very reasonable and strongly encouraged by the two gentlemen on this podcast that you. Part ways with clients and not look back if they are not fulfilling your business’s goals. It is not enough to just have them pay you because it’s You are pruning the bonsai tree, right? And you do that in order to let it thrive and not look like a butt. Don’t want your bonsai to look like a butt. I found my Christmas gift for you this year. There’s that, you know, cliched phrase when one door Opens another door, or one door closes, another door opens. And I think it’s really true when it comes to providing services to clients. Like, as a consultant, we might get stuck in the frame of mind: like, oh, yeah, I have five occurring clients, that’s all the clients that there are for me. But the truth is, for any market you pick, there’s at least two dozen, three dozen, four dozen potential companies for you to work with. So when one relationship ends, Well, now you have space and time to say, okay, who is there out there that I have not yet met? Who is there out there that I could reach out to and start a relationship with? Who else can? Fill the slot that better aligns with my mission and purpose. And I think you are entirely on the right track when it comes to understanding your mission as a business owner. What is it you’re exactly building towards? Or the metaphor I use is: what are we playing towards? I just read this fabulous book, The One Thing, talking about the importance of having that mission or that idea of that big thing you’re moving towards. And it was amazing the amount of clarity it gave me to understand what the big thing I’m working towards in my business is. So. As I evaluate speaking opportunities, travel opportunities, potential clients I’m able to say, hmm, this either moves me towards or not towards my big mission. And if that big mission is truly and honestly the one thing I want to accomplish this year or over the next few years I really want to go into every opportunity with my eyes wide open. I want this to either be something that’s synergistic and helpful, or something where it just, you know, doesn’t. Doesn’t work. So, why am I investing my time in this?

And I think that’s kind of the flip side of saying yes and continuing to say yes to commitments that you need to be getting rid of, right? Because you know you need to be getting rid of it. You when you show up to work every day, you are making a conscious decision to take on the clients that you take on. I firmly believe that. And so, in terms of, you know, taking on engagements that shouldn’t be working, like, it is time to be pruning that, right? I think towards that end, to maintain those relationships and be intentional and continue to be intentional about it, I actually take a page from a band’s playbook that I like. And this is kind of a way to Either make yourself relatively immune from getting fired, put the process of and we should dedicate a whole episode to this at some point, the process of a periodic check-in. like every week or every fortnight or something like that. And I take it from a band called Perfect Pussy, who they’re a grindcore band from Long Island, and they have what is called Feelings Time. Where every week they meet at a diner and just talk about their feelings. It’s really great I stole this from their playbook like months ago, and it’s amazing. You just get on and you’re like, what’s going well? What’s not going well? What can we change? Is there anything that’s stupid right now? How are you feeling about me? And that prevents the, you know, I increased your monthly recurring revenue by $140,000 thanks to your fired conversation. You know, because you see it coming. It heads off a surprise. And it also lets you get ahead of the maybe we should be parting ways conversation. Because I love, I love firing myself. Because then I come off with as the one with integrity in the relationship, right? I know when I’m not providing value to my clients. I know when I’m not generating an economic benefit for them. And I have a moral obligation to screw off in that situation, for sure. So um yeah, that’s that’s basically that that bit um There’s a wonderful book I’ve talked about before on the show, but I just want to mention again Nonviolent Communication, Language of Life by. . Marshall Rosenberg. We’ll have a link in show notes. It’s a wonderful book about communication. It’s really, really applicable in relationships. I’ve had a couple friends recommended to read it by their therapist as they were going through marriage counseling. And it really is a wonderful book that changed my life and how I try to communicate about clients or with clients or with people or in any sort of relationship. So If you’re looking for a way to level up that type of communication, especially with something like feelings time or check-ins or just regular communication, to Figuring out like, oh, there’s an issue here. We need to address this issue before we part ways, or maybe we’re able to salvage the relationship and not part ways. I highly recommend the book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. It’s changed my life for the better, and I recommend it to every person I date, every consultant I know. It’s very, very good. Yeah, agreed on all fronts. I’ve read that book. It’s very good. I’m going to shift a little bit and talk about business ramifications. We haven’t really talked about this very much, but what happens if you have a whale client and they fire you suddenly? I hope you’ve been saving money. It’s scary, and I’ve been in that position before. When I. When I was about two years into freelancing, I had one client that basically had me full-time. And we had negotiated a couple increases. I started off at like 20 an hour, and I negotiated my way up to 40 an hour. I felt like big dog on campus because of that. And one day they call the CMO calls me into her office and says, Hey, you’ve been managing Inno XYZ projects. I’m like, Yes. And she says, Well, We found somebody on Craigslist who could do what you’re doing for 15 an hour. Can you match their rate? And I say, no, no, I cannot. And they said, oh, in that case, we’re going to have to part ways. And This client represented like nearly 100% of my income. And it was scary and shocking. But because I had a budget, I use you needabudget. com. And because I had three months of savings to sustain me, I was freaked out. I was emotional. I was sad. I had a drink. I had feelings times with friends about like, ah, this sucks. But I was able to say, like, okay, I’m not completely fucked. Like, I’ve been socking money away. I have a couple months’ worth of savings, and I could cut costs. Like, let’s eat out less, let’s buy less books on Amazon. And that three months suddenly turns into four months. And I was able to give myself a runway. So if anybody is listening and isn’t living a couple months ahead in terms of their budget, I highly recommend two things. You need a budget. com. It’s the best budget and expense tracking software I’ve ever used as a business owner or an individual. And follow the four rules that they recommend with UNETA Budget, one of which is Make sure your money has a purpose and you’re living a couple months ahead. So, the money you earn this month, well, that’s what you’re budgeting for April or May because you have enough in savings that you’ve already made your January, February, and March budgets. By approaching my personal finances that way, it’s helped me weather the storm. When and if I lose a large client, I’m able to say, you know, income’s, you know, down. I might be in the red for the next month. That’s going to urge me on to make more money and find a new client, but I’m not going to be unable to pay rent because I’ve planned ahead in a sense and said, Well, there might be a shock to the system. I’ve already budgeted this money, I’ve already saved up, and now let’s move forward from there. May I recommend a level up strategy? Don’t have the whale client in the first place. It’s a very good point. That’s something, honestly, we could contribute a whole episode on, but I’ve soaked around that point where it seems like in consulting relationships where you naturally provide a lot of value or you’re good at identifying opportunities to add more value to the client’s business. It slowly, it’s not scope creeps since you say, like, oh, I could solve this problem for you. This is how much it costs. And the scope grows, but the compensation grows.

I can’t think of anything else to say. I guess my closing thoughts would be for anybody in the audience, your homework, like the one action I’d encourage you to take. Look at where your income is coming from and see: does somebody violate the one-sixth of your income rule that Nick highlighted as? The trigger for somebody being a whale client and then start thinking through: okay, what happens if they part ways with me? What happens if I part ways with them? How do we move forward from this? How do I Diversify my risk or make my business a little more solid and steady if we did part ways. It’s a good exercise to go through just so you know where your revenue is coming from and can start to plan for these contingencies, to start to plan for