8 Tips to Become a Successful Freelancer

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Chris: [00:00:00] No one starts out as a freelancer, hoping to one day be mediocre. No, like we all start out hoping to be truly successful. Maybe even the best in our field. The problem is is that after we get going, we start to realize, Hey, this is. Kind of tough there's obstacles that you face that you've never faced before.

You've got to make decisions and take risks without having all the information that you could possibly get about it, but you've just got to keep moving. And so you eventually come to the point of saying how. Do I do this? How do I become a truly successful freelance web designer? Well, that's what we are talking about today with a very special guest.

You might've heard of him before. His name is Chris Do. All right. Are you ready? Let's dive in.

What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the self-made web designer podcast. I'm I'm excited that you are here. I'm so excited about our guest this week. He doesn't need a lot of introduction, but just in case you haven't heard of him before. His name is Chris DOE and he runs a business called the future, and he has a goal of helping 1 billion people make a living doing what they love.

He's helped thousands upon thousands. Of freelancers. And over the years that he's done that, he's noticed a few things that sets aside those who are super successful and those who either are just okay, or just kind of average, or even those who kind of fall out by the wayside and he is sharing. His tips with us this week.

And I got to tell you, this is, this is one for the books and it's so good. In fact, we're doing another two part series. So Chris is going to be joining us this next week to tell us even more great info about how to become a successful free Lance web designer. And it's going to be great before we dive in, I got to ask, have you subscribed?

To the self-made web designer podcast, have you left a rating and left a comment on whatever platform you are listening or watching on? I want to encourage you to do that. It will help other people out there find this podcast. And learn and become successful. Self-made web designers as well. Should we call ourselves the self makers?

I don't know. I'm just thinking about that. Throwing it out there, giving it a shot, seeing how it feels on the camera. Think about it. Let me know what you think. Okay. Enough of that. Are you ready for Chris Do on how to become a successful freelancer? Okay, let's go.

Well, Mr. Chris Do, thank you so much for being on the self-made. Web designer podcast. It's so good to have you.

Chris Do: [00:03:06] It's my pleasure to be here, Chris.

Chris: [00:03:07] I'm sure there are tons of people out there who know you, but I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of background on who you are or where you started and where you are now.

Chris Do: [00:03:16] Sure the way I described myself as I'm allowed to introvert in a former life as a graphic designer, I ran a design motion design studio in Santa Monica called blind since 1995.

So I guess this is our 26th year running a company, even though we've deliberately stopped taking on clients, mostly because of what had happened with my second company. Company called the future, which I started in 2016. It's an education company. And we have a really big, hairy, audacious goal, which is to teach 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.

Chris: [00:03:48] Yeah. That is amazing. And I am a recipient of somebody who has benefited from that goal. Um, I've been a fan for quite some time, so I definitely appreciate the big, hairy, audacious newness of it. And I'm sure in the midst of you helping people and teaching freelancers, teaching designers, how to do what they love.

Um, you've probably seen a big swath of different types of folks. And I, I wonder if there's anything that has stood out from those who have gone on to be super successful. And those who have just kind of stayed at a moderate level or maybe disappeared. Have you seen any differentiating factors that have kind of come up as patterns over the years?

Chris Do: [00:04:34] The people who do well, almost always have this one trait. They have a heavy bias towards action. And sometimes in life as is the case, you never have the perfect plan. There's never the perfect time or the perfect opportunity you just got to make, do with what you have. And the people that advise on a coach when I see them winning in so many different ways and they share with me how they're able to double their income or overcome a previous obstacle that they couldn't figure out mostly because they operated with incomplete information with no assurances.

For me, that'll work. And they do it regardless. And no matter what, even if they fail, they're better off where they're at and then where they were.

Chris: [00:05:14] That's awesome insight. And I can say from the people that I've interacted with and chatted with, there's sometimes this almost anxiety and fear to the point where they're asking me, tell me what to do.

And so, you know, it's like, I, I could never, I could never tell you, like, you've got to make that decision for yourself and there's never going to be a risk-free decision that you make. So what, what have you found help helps people to kind of get it over that, that fear, that stepping out from the ledge and just kind of hoping that they learn how to fly on the, on the, on the way falling down.

Chris Do: [00:05:52] Usually I use the reverse psychology. Uh, technique, which is, I will say you don't need to change a stay exactly where you are. I mean, why even bother? And then they have to defend their own position to say, well, I don't like where I'm at. And I would then challenge me even further by saying, no, it doesn't seem like you're truly not that happy because you would have done something by now.

Is today the day that you're going to change your life, are you ready? Really ready and committed to doing whatever it takes to succeed. And oftentimes we can see this in fiction, like, uh, movies and the stories that we read that the hero or the heroine or the Shiro, however you want to describe it is really in a dire situation in, in will Smith's film the pursuit of happiness.

He is literally homeless. Okay. He lost his apartment. He's with his son. He's a single father and he's trying to raise his boy and he is locking himself in a public restroom. Cause that's where they're gonna sleep for the night. That's real motivation right there. I mean, in a fictional sense. And if your, if your friends are all counting on you, if things are going to fall apart, and this is your last chance, like with, uh, M and M B rabbit's character and eight mile, this is it.

This is, this one shot is one opportunity. He's not going to waste it. And I think in life, it's never that clear. It's never that binary of black and white. And so we think, Oh, well, it's okay. I don't mind the situation I'm in. The job I have is our right or the relationship I am in is better than being alone.

And we just kind of kick it down the road. And a day a week, a year, five years later, we're still exactly where we are. We haven't grown much, so I can't help people who aren't ready to help themselves. And you kind of have to really, really get tired of where it is that you are and feeling stuck for you to actually make that change.

Chris: [00:07:41] Yeah. And I've noticed that. It's not only, I mean, that was a key factor in my decision to kind of go for it within web design and UX design and things like that. There was a crazy situation that happened in my life and I kind of had no choice. Like I had to figure out something to make an extra income, to take care of my family.

So I turned to web design. I wonder if. You know, and I know we as humans, like we, we live for, for comfort. We live for the status quo and until something kind of pushes us out, you know, we have a hard time taking that step for ourselves. I wonder if there's something that. Would help somebody who isn't maybe in dire straits who maybe feels fine with their life, but just, they just know that they can reach that next level.

I wonder if there's some kind of motivation that you found that can really help people get to that next level without feeling like they're trapped and they have no idea.

Chris Do: [00:08:38] Yeah. You talked about, uh, this idea of being pushed out of our comfort zone. And I want to just hang on that for a second. Because a lot of times it is an external force acting upon our body, our mind, our soul, our spirit to go move and that's one way to move, but I don't love that way because you're waiting for something else to happen.

You have no control over it. And the timing, if you thought before, it was going to be tough, it's now going to be even rougher. Let me draw this analogy for you. You're on a boat and you're, you're in a river and you've never learned how to swim. And you promise yourself, you promise your father's now passed away.

You're going to learn how to swim and you never did. And now you're a middle aged man and you're on this boat. And then the engine breaks and the captain says, we're not going to make it. We have to swim for the shore. Now an external force has acted upon you to compel you, to learn how to swim. Chances are you're not going to make it.

Hmm. So the idea should be, I made a promise to my father. I'm going to learn how to swim. So you go to the local, Y the rec center, and every day you show up and you're afraid. I mean, it's a mortal fear that you have. And it's very real that if you're not careful, you will drown and you will die, but you.

Summon up the courage that you need. And then you get on that pool and you show up every single day you face the humiliation of the young kids are learning how to swim. And you're the old man in the water. And, and you, you live up to that or you face up to you your own shortcomings and you learn how to swim.

And you prepare so fast forward, back to the boat scenario. Now you're not as swim. And the captain says we're not going to make it everybody. We got to swim to shore. Now, instead of worrying about your own mortality, you're sitting here thinking, who else can I help? Who can I serve? There's somebody else here.

There's, there's somebody who's frail over there. Or there's a young child. Let me help the parents of that child. Cause I'm a good swimmer now. And so I think what we need to do is we have to stop. Looking for an external force to compel us to take action. It should come from inside of us. I'll tell you right now, the timing will be better.

And if you're afraid of change, the fear will be less than when the forces that are going to act upon you to change. Take a look at what's happening right now in the world. Where are our economies totally shut down. Uh, the pandemic is full fledge and it's not just here in the United States, it's everywhere and it's, it's drastically impacting businesses.

I live in a very affluent area in the West side here in Santa Monica. I drove around the other day. I don't drive around the city much. I'm driving around. I'm seeing, uh, many stores and shops saying closeout clearance furniture for sale fixtures for sale. Uh, and I've seen closures and plywood up over windows.

Those businesses were in trouble before the pandemic. They didn't change their business model. They didn't react in time. And so the times have acted on them. And now they're, there's closures everywhere in retail, in dining and, and all kinds of businesses that depended on people coming together in a large space.

They did not act. The warning has been here for years, maybe even a decade or longer that the retail experience is drastically changing. They didn't, they didn't address those changes.

Chris: [00:11:49] And I love that quote. They didn't act in time. So time acted on them. Uh, I think that's somebody should go and tweet that right now if you're listening.

Um, but I wonder if there are changes that are coming that are, are pretty recognizable, you know, so for instance, retail and things like that, um, But there might be some other things where it's a little bit tough to notice it. So I wonder how you would encourage somebody to keep their ear to the ground about the things that are happening that are changing.

And I think, you know, web design is, is probably a good case study. You know, their web design started that, you know, if. If you didn't know anything about front end development, good luck. There's no way you're going to be able to build a website. Um, then came WordPress, now's coming drag and drop builders.

And those are, those are getting more and more sophisticated. And so I think if you're not careful in this industry, you there's an opportunity for you to get left behind. So I wonder how you, how you see those things coming or what would cause somebody to miss that even, even if they are looking like, how do you, how do you keep that bias from happening or keep that blind spot from happening in your own life as a freelancer.

Chris Do: [00:13:03] The first thing I want people to know is this is that the world moves on without you all the time. If you're static, it isn't feel like you're falling backwards by virtue of everything else. Moving forward, you will be moving backwards.

So you just need to accept that that change happens, whether or not you believe in it, if you want it, or if you're prepared for it or not. This is just evolution and it's, it's a positive thing. It gives you a competitive advantage. If you evolve with what's going on. I recently did a talk for graphic and Manila, and I talk about this concept and it goes back to my old science class, I guess, in, in high school, Newton's third law for every action.

There's an equal and opposite reaction. So the idea is that, um, when, when something starts to, to, um, go away. Suddenly else rises up in its place. And this is constantly happening all the time because it's cause nature, abhors a vacuum. Right. So when we say what's happening right now. Okay. So we can just look and, and going back to the pandemic, we can't be around lots of people in closed spaces because the, this thing is very viral.

It tends to be very infectious. And so people can't go to the office space anymore. So the whole idea of work is being challenged right now. In, in the way that we used to do for the past couple of hundred years. And so what's what we're seeing is a lot of vacancies in commercial real estate, because what are people doing with large buildings?

Not a whole lot right now. And so that's going away, but what's happened to replace it is that residential real estate has skyrocketed. And so you can see like something going away and something rising to replace it. And so now home prices are very expensive, even in places where you wouldn't think that they're going to be expensive and we can see that.

And we keep applying that philosophy and just be vigilant and looking out for patterns and intelligence is pattern recognition. So I see a pattern happening. What can I do? What's the counter to what's happening right now. Right. And we can see this where, uh, say companies like, say blockbuster. Who made a fortune in a very short period of time and becoming the nation's leading video rental business, they saw a pattern that more and more people had higher end home stereo television and home theaters, and they wanted high quality content.

So the only place to get it was to rent it or to outright buy it. Well, they couldn't see what is the change in technology in that streaming services were coming online. And because we're having that, maybe people's consumption habits would change. And they couldn't recognize it. And they insisted that people love the serendipity and the service and being able to buy popcorn and gummy bears while they're checking out their videos.

But it's a pain in the butt to drive to the store to find a title. It wasn't available to wait in line and to deal with whoever was in line. And so Netflix rises. And then what happens is blockbuster goes away. And the genius of Netflix is they initially just built a business model to replace blockbuster, but they saw the next demand, which is we don't even need physical media anymore.

Yeah. So there will be a time. Now when, when people have only known about Netflix as a pure streaming service, they weren't old enough to know that now actually it started out by shipping you a little DVD.

Chris: [00:16:19] That's a good analogy. And I remember the fun times when somebody would leave. Their Netflix queue open on their computer and I would fill it up with a a hundred percent dog movies.

And so they'd get nothing but dog movies for months until they finally figured out they needed to go change the cubes. So I remember those days, that was a lot of fun. Um, you know, I wonder because there are folks like, like you mentioned, like, is this going to be day one for you beginning to make a change in your life?

And I think there's a couple types of personalities. Um, there's the kind that they, they have actually a hard time taking that first step, but they have a easier time sticking with it. And then there's the other type of personality that has an easy time taking that first step, but they have a hard time sticking with it.

Like they get, uh, you know, shiny object syndrome or they get frustrated with the process. I tend to be more of that person. So how do you encourage people to once they've started to stick. With it, through all the obstacles that are inevitably going to happen and keep them from being successful.

Chris Do: [00:17:30] I think what we need to do is we need to reprogram our brain to look at the obstacle as not as a deterrent, but a lesson to learn.

So every time you hit an obstacle, hidden inside the obstacles and opportunity. An opportunity to learn. And it's just hidden very carefully within, inside this very hard exterior and inside it, like every time I failed, I feel this. And I, I read about this in, in Ryan holiday's book, the, uh, what is it called?

Obstacles away. It's detailed instructions on how to succeed. Like whenever I'm I lose on a new client, um, new business opportunity, it's like, yeah, I could lament losing a $200,000 gig. Or I could use my energy to have a conversation with my team to say like, where, where did we go wrong? What did we do?

Right. And what can we do in the future? That's going to give us a better chance of winning. If we can increase our odds of winning by two to 3%, each time these lessons will be worth it so that when we're playing at the highest levels, when the stakes are so high, we can't afford to lose. We won't. And that's what you do.

And you, you have to look at the obstacle as part of the process and you have to embrace it. Because between where you are and where you want to be are tons of obstacles. And as you get closer and closer to what it is that you want, the obstacles get bigger and bigger. So when you're running a marathon, I think it's like, what is it?

Mile 24? Like people want to quit, but you got a mile left. And this is where people are really tested. Your, your legs are jello and you're dehydrated. You're all these kinds of things. You have nothing left in you and you've got to find your way through. And it's why that running a marathon is quite an accomplishment.

And so these are natural barriers to keep people out who are going to quit. It makes the price sweeter and more valuable, not just figuratively, but literally like if you are a world-class UX designer. World-class and you had to study it in school. You had to put in five years of, of just abuse, like in terms of apprenticing, under somebody who was great and paying your dues.

When you finally arrive at that place, you're invited to speak at conferences, you're paid top dollar. There's a head hunter coming after you every three months to recruit you to work for the next biggest tech company. And not only do they pay you a salary, they offer you shares in our company. So it's the prize is worth it.

It's sweet enough. It's just a question of your determination. If you really want to get there. And obstacles remember, are designed to keep the faint at heart out of the circle.

Chris: [00:20:04] Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, like a world-class UX designer and I think I've seen for myself, I've seen other people.

There's a, there's a very real. Barrier from going to, you know, like you start out and, and you're pretty bad and, and you're practicing and you're getting used to things and you're getting feedback. You're making changes. Then you get to a level where you're you're okay. Like you're good. You, you could, you could be a solid UX designer for, for a long time and live that way for the rest of your life.

But then there's another layer. And, and these are folks that go on to become world-class folks. And, you know, they're, they're top tier, they're the 1% of everybody in their field. So what is it that sets people apart from those who stay at good? And those who go on to be the world-class folks.

Chris Do: [00:20:59] I think it's a combination of talent. We can't dismiss talent. Okay. Of course. And when I say talent, I mean, what you're born with, what you can't influence grow or diminish you, you just have it. Okay. Like you can have physical gifts that other people don't have that allow you to perform a task better in, in boxing or martial arts. If you have a longer reach, you can hit your opponent before they can hit you.

So there's a competitive advantage with a prebuilt into your body. No matter of work in change that. So we take talent, but since you can't control that we won't focus on talent and everything else is about determination and practice getting through that dip where it sucks to do this thing. Like when, when they say like, when a boxer enters the ring, the outcome of that match has already been determined because of the work they did outside the ring, putting in the roadwork, which means running.

And getting into peak physical condition, monitoring their diet, getting their cardiovascular up, getting their recovery speed up and making sure they're in peak performance. And the last part to that is like the visualization, seeing the match all the way through to the end with your hand raised in victory or your opponent in defeat, you gotta be able to see it.

You gotta work for it. And that's where most people fail. It's like they do the work and the work sucks. It does suck. I'm not going to deny that it sucks for sure. It sucks. Well, we have to use into embrace the suck and then focus on the prize and be very clear about what it is that we want, because that's good and writes about this in his book, the dip.

And he said, well, you need to determine beforehand before you start something to be a hundred percent committed, because if you're not, don't start it. If you realize early on this, you, you made a horrific mistake, then you quit. But he's like, don't quit when you're in the dip. Because on the other side of the dip, on the other side of the struggle, the obstacle is, is everything you want in life.

You got to get through that part.

Chris: [00:22:47] Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And, and for me, it brings up the question of, you know, what's the best way to define success because I think a lot of, a lot of times when you start out on a journey, As becoming a designer, becoming a freelancer, building a business, um, you might have a general idea of what success is and then vision drift begins to happen.

And you find yourself nowhere near, like you come to what you thought was the mountain to climb. And you're like, this is horrible. I hate this. So how do you keep that from happening before you even started on, on that journey? Because I know like for myself, There are times where you question is this, is this really the mountain I want to climb, you know, like, so before you take that step, how do you know for sure?

Yes, this is where I'm going and I will reach it at all costs.

Chris Do: [00:23:39] Yeah. I, I think you have to have a lot of, self-awareness the internal dialogue about what it is that drives you. Oftentimes you can just ask yourself why like two or three times and get to the truth of it. And it goes something like this.

Like I want to make a lot of money. Okay. And why do you want to do that? Well, because, uh, I want to provide for my family. Okay. So, and why is that? It's because I define my own self-worth my own belief system is built around spending time with my family. And so now you can sit there and say, wait a minute, hold on a second.

Here. The whole point of you doing what you're doing is to spend time with your family, but the pursuit of it is taking you further away from your family. And so that's where we have some real problems. You want to make sure that what it is, do you want as an external goal matches the internal goal, which is your belief systems, your feelings, because otherwise it's totally misaligned.

And so when you, when you encounter and inevitably, you're going to encounter the hard times, the difficult moments, the moments, which the world society, the company, your customers, your boss will test you, and you're going to break. You're just going to break. So if you can arrive at that place, and you're really clear about what it is that you want in your life.

And I don't expect anyone to be able to pop out of bed tomorrow and say, yep, I'm very clear about what it is I want for, for many of us, it can take decades to figure out what the heck we really want. What's what's the thing that we want to leave behind the impact we want to make on the world. And, but once you figure that out, but I'd like to say is be inflexible with your goal and be completely flexible with how you get there, because we can also become committed to the wrong plan.

And when that plan doesn't work out, instead of switching and being smart about it, we just keep going down that because our need to be consistent to see it all the way through. And these are examples of the sun clause. What is that called? A sunglass fallacy or some clause bias. And you, you, you just keep putting more and more into a failed plan.

And this happens time and time again with companies that were once heralded as bright, shiny stars. And now are forgotten about tower records, uh, even Kodak because they, they couldn't figure it out. Like, you know what, we're not just about cellulose and emotion-based film. We're about capturing preserving and sharing memories.

And that's what matters to us and they couldn't see a different plan to get there. And it's a sad thing that, that Kodak actually invented the digital sensor and that technology for cameras and abandoned it because they thought, well, this is going to cannibalize our sales. So they traded a long-term plan to protect a short-term gain.

That's another problem.

Chris: [00:26:21] Well, I know that there's, there's a lot of advice out there. Um, you know, plenty of people and, and, and. Plenty of plenty of places to get help from when it comes to building a career, building a design business, and it can almost be kind of overwhelming on which device advice to take and which advice to kind of not listen to.

So I wonder, are there, are there things that you should listen to and focus on? At different stages of your career as a freelancer. And are there things that you should ignore at different stages of your car?

Chris Do: [00:26:54] Yeah. I think you should ignore any person who's giving you advice that the vibe doesn't feel right to you and that you've seen no demonstrative.

Uh, knowledge or experience or them helping you in any real way before making you buy something from them. I'm a big believer in giving upfront and asking on the backend. And so a lot of times you'll see these webinars, these sales funnels, and we encounter them all the time where the offer seems almost too good to be true.

They promise you things that, you know, in your hearts like is that possible. And the only way to find out is to actually spend money. That they don't have a, some kind of tiered system for you to enter into an ecosystem and see like, wow, that was helpful. I'll go make some money. I'll come back and I'll spend more money and I'll move up to tier.

Uh, so here are the signs that you can see that there's a charlatan out there. And if you hear my voice on this and you're like, well, let me double check with you. And I, I I'd like to think that I passed the smell test there, but here's a couple of things. If somebody promises you a way to make a living with no skill, with no money with no work.

It's bogus. I believe this. I believe this deep in my heart. You have to have talent. You must work hard and you must be consistent. So if anybody promises you the opposite of that, it's, it's, it's like just it's wish fulfillment. That's all it is. And it's a fantasy and you're going to throw your money at it and nothing will happen.

That's usually where you kind of have to be careful, but I also want to point out something here. Uh, I saw a comment earlier today on one of the, uh, somebody had commented on one of the videos we have on our YouTube channel. And they said, Oh, this person's father started the business. Therefore I'm not going to take any advice from this person.

They were handed the business and I was thinking. You know what? You have to look at the advice for what it is. Not necessarily if their background isn't total alignment with you because you'll search all of your life for something like that. And somebody had shared this expression with me and it's the first time I had heard it, which is you eat the chicken, you spit the bones out.

You don't have to take everything, just eat the parts that you want. And so despite the person, and I'm not saying this is the case, but even if they had a silver spoon in their mouth, right. One of the silver spoon. And they were successful and they were trying to teach you something. Look at the merits of what they're teaching you.

Not necessarily the backstory. If you can do that, the world will become your teacher

Chris: [00:29:21] Man that's one for the books. I want to encourage you right now. Go check out the future.com. That's the future without an e.com and Chris's YouTube channel, which can also be found by searching for the future without an E he's got so much incredible content.

Out there to help you 100% for free. Most of the stuff that he does is 100% for free. So there's a lot that you're going to be able to find and get help on without having to pay a dime. So I want to encourage you to do that next week. Chris is coming back again. We get this for round two. It's going to be just.

As good. So I want to encourage you to stick around for next week. Hey, so when it tell you, if you want to chat, if you just want some buddy to talk with about some things that you're facing as a freelance web designer, or need a little bit of help, need a little bit of strategy. I am there for you. There is a place on the home page of self-made web designer.com.

You can sign up for a 15. Minute call. This is something I do 100% for free and it is available to you. I'm not pitching anything, actually have nothing to pitch that costs anything. So sign up, we can chat and potentially become best friends. All right, can't wait to hang out with you again. Next week. The episode is dropping at midnight on.

Wednesday. It's going to be another episode with Mr. Chris Do. Hope you have a great one and don't forget if you don’t quit you win