Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Hi and welcome to the WP Innovator podcast, the WordPress podcast for design and web agencies. Let’s make WordPress work for your business. Hi and welcome to episode 17 of the WP Innovator podcast. This is your host, Lee Jackson. And today we have Matt Inglot on the show from Tilted Pixel and Freelance Transformation. Now this was a great interview, especially because I myself have run an agency from different locations and have had access to some fantastic tools for development and for project management and also built some relationships up with some awesome developers from around the world. So this is going to be a completely fascinating and no doubt eye opening episode to everybody out there. Be you an agency with a physical building or be you somebody who is working virtually or hot desking, etc.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So sit back, relax and enjoy. But before you do, please be sure to go along to our private Facebook group where you can meet other like minded individuals and share your stories, share the WordPress plugins that you absolutely love, ask questions, etc. And all of that can be found on Leejacksondev.com group. That’s Leejacksondev.com Group. All right then, enjoy the show.
Lee Matthew Jackson:Inglot
Today I have with me Matt Inglot. He is an entrepreneur, he’s a podcaster, he’s, he’s an agency owner, he’s a business coach. What else are you, Matt?
Matt Inglot:
Woodworker. Rock climber.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
He’s a woodworker, A rock climb. You fit a lot in. That’s pretty impressive.
Matt Inglot:
I try.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, Matt’s the presenter of the Freelance Transformation podcast. That’s a podcast focusing on freelancers helping people run a better business. He provides coaching and like I said, he also a full service design and web agency. So buddy, that’s my introduction, but I’m sure you can do yourself far more justice. Do you want to say hi to everyone and just give us all a bit of a background about who you are, what you do?
Matt Inglot:
Thanks Lee, and happy to be on your show. Yeah. So I’ve run my web agency for the past 10 years. It started with literally me just working out of a moldy basement apartment, trying to make some money for tuition. And then fast forward a couple years, I realized I could actually make a go of it. Next thing you know, I had an office, I had employees, I had a bigger office. And then I kind of tore everything apart around 2011 because I realized I had basically built a job for myself. Kind of a 9 to 5 job, except it was really more like 9 to 9 job.
Matt Inglot:
And I realized that this was not how I wanted to run my business. So I virtualized the whole agency so now I can work from anywhere. I’ve traveled to a bunch of places while running my business and recently moved several thousand kilometers across to the other end of a country and my business keeps running. And of course, as you mentioned, I run the Freelance Transformation podcast. So that’s where I’ve interviewed over 50 consultants now about how they run their business.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s incredible. And I’ll put or the podcast URL in the show notes for people to go check out. I’ve been an avid listener and mate, you’ve got a really good voice for the podcast. Got kind of this nice deep voice.
Matt Inglot:
Thank you. Honestly, that’s mostly been playing with the microphone. When you’re a podcaster, you know this. When you start a podcast, the first thing you realize is how much you dislike the sound of your own voice.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yep, I pretty much don’t listen back to them. Well, I do, but I kind of fingers in my ears whenever I’m speaking, going la la la la la la. And then I listen to whomever’s saying I think I’m doing pretty well, though I give myself a little bit of credit.
Matt Inglot:
You’re doing great.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. You moved your business from one side of the country to the other. That just kind of blew my mind. How did that pan out for you with local clients and then moving to a completely different location?
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, it panned out surprisingly well. So the business did have mostly local clients because I mean, quite frankly, local clients are the low hanging fruit. And we can talk about that later if you want. But I did have mostly local clients and one of the things I was, you know, I didn’t really know what would happen was whether they would still stick with us after we moved and whether they’d be understanding or just kind of hate my guts for moving. And I did expect that maybe I’d lose a client or two. But the surprising thing, it was basically a non event. I mean, we were already working mostly over email and phone. In person.
Matt Inglot:
Meetings were relatively rare. And because I have such great relationships with my clients, every single one of them was absolutely fine with it. And now that I’m several thousand kilometers away, I gotta say nothing’s really changed.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I guess the only thing. Do you have like a time difference issue as well or I guess you’re in the USA, aren’t you?
Matt Inglot:
I’m in Canada and it’s a two hour time difference from most of my clients now. And for the most part that’s also not an issue. There’s been a couple times where the phone has rang really, really early because of that. But for the most part it’s mostly an advantage because by the time I start work at 8 or 9am, it’s already 10 or 11am there. So I can basically check my email two or three times a day. And I’ve basically got everybody covered without being stuck on email all day. And by the time 3pm rolls around for me, it’s already 5pm for most of my clients.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s great. Your clients are in the future and you’re two hours in the past.
Matt Inglot:
They do live in the future.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Whoa.
Matt Inglot:
It’s weirder with Australians, though, because they’re really in the future. Oh, yeah. Like they’re the next day over.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s right. The Sarah Moore who does my social media, she. She’s often calling me from the next day afternoon and it kind of blows my mind a bit. It really confuses me. She’s like, I’ll talk to you on Tuesday. I’m like, I don’t know when that is. I know what it is for me, but I don’t know when that is for you.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah. And on that note, since I moved, I’ve done 100% of my scheduling with this software called Calendly, and there’s a few other ones out there, such as Acuity Scheduling and Schedule Once, but basically I never try to set scheduling manually anymore because once you get into time zones, it’s basically impossible to figure it out. Whereas with scheduling software, you just send the person you’re trying to set a meeting with a link to your calendar and they can book it in their time zone and to their convenience. And you just eliminate a ton of email that way.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s great. I’ve put that down. Schedule Ly and I’ll put that in the notes as well.
Matt Inglot:
Calendly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, sorry, Calendly. I couldn’t read my own writing there. Calendly. Come on, Lee, catch up. I use Doodle at the moment, but I’m definitely looking for an alternative because I think it’s over. Over Simplistic. So I’ll go ahead and check that one out. Now, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be dropping tons of other software products throughout because this is your area of specialism, you know, freelancers, digital virtual agencies, etc.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So I’m super excited. But mate, over the last few years, what have you found to have been the biggest challenge to your business?
Matt Inglot:
The biggest challenge. I think the biggest challenge has been figuring out the business model of consulting. And I think a lot of website developers, a lot of agencies get that all wrong. And myself I’m including in that. And that kind of comes back to me having an office and employees. And that itself wasn’t really the problem, but the problem was that I was running a business that had highly variable revenue. Basically we had small projects that would come in, we do them, and then we’d wait around for the next small project. But meanwhile we had a lot of fixed expenses like office space, payroll, and all of that.
Matt Inglot:
And the root problem, I think, when really reflecting on it, was not focusing in on what are what the right clients were for our business and putting all of our efforts into finding and nurturing those. So now I have a stable of clients where many times we’ve had a 10 to $20,000 website project turn into a high five figure or even six figure client relationship over the years. And those are the kind of clients that actually make consulting financially feasible and make it into a viable business model, is when you can find a client that you can kind of keep working with. So now I do very little selling. I’ll take on maybe two or three new clients in a year, but I put a lot of my effort into figuring out who those two or three clients should be. And I spend a lot of my time saying no to leads that come in and just referring them elsewhere. Because if I don’t see the potential for this to become a longer relationship, then it’s almost not worth taking on the client. Because you have to spend a lot of time selling to them.
Matt Inglot:
You have to spend a lot of time onboarding them, managing the project, and then, you know, $10,000 later, you’re never going to hear from them again. Then that’s not really sustainable.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s really fascinating because the idea of kind of loosening the chains of a physical office and kind of a large payroll at the end of every month to some form of virtual agency where you’re freer to go after that specific type of client. Where instead of. I think I understand you’re right in saying instead of just being the hey, here’s the 10k website, thank you and goodbye, you’re kind of fostering a much larger ongoing relationship with them where you’re becoming a part of their team, helping them with strategy, et cetera, and evolving the products that they have. Is that right?
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, exactly. Because if you find the right clients, you can keep delivering value to them. Right. Like we had. I think my best one to date has been a roughly $15,000 project that’s now been about $150,000 just in ongoing work. And these are simply companies where their website is very valuable to them. It can actually push significant levers for the business in terms of growing their sales, getting leads for them and so on. So for us, that’s where we’re really good, is we will help you build the initial website, but then as your business grows, as your sales grow, we’re able to do so many more cool things with that website so that your sales are increasing more and more and more and more.
Matt Inglot:
And that, that’s what a great client is to me. Whereas if it’s just an informational site where, you know, we’re going to, we’re going to do a great job for you, but we’re not going to keep working together, then again, it’s, it’s just not very sustainable for the business. And on the other side of things, by virtualizing, yes, I was able to turn most of my fixed cost into variable cost. So in a way I’m cheating if you look at how most people run their consulting business versus how I run it. Whereas I used to have highly variable revenue and highly fixed expenses leading to feast or famine, now it’s basically the opposite. I have highly predictable revenue and highly variable expenses that are tied directly to the revenue I’m making. So if we do have a dry spell, then my expenses plummet. Whereas if we’re doing really well, then the expenses are a bit higher because then you’ve got more work that needs to be done.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So if you’re listening to this and your ears are pricking up at the sheer wonder of this sorcery that Matt is talking about right now, I recommend you go and check out Freelance Transformation.com and listen to the podcast as well, because I’m pretty sure you cover a lot of these sorts of ideas as well through your podcast and through the information you’re putting out there. Because this is absolutely fascinating and a lot of the agencies I work with are, you know, are looking for other ways to do business, they are tied to those fixed costs, etc. So this, this kind of concept, this idea of freeing yourself from those and also targeting customers that, you know, that will be a more long term relationship, I think is a truly attractive goal for, for many agencies. I think one of the issues as well is because there are fixed costs, you kind of find yourself saying yes to certain projects because it will create that relevant cash flow that you need or that revenue that you need. So you then end up Being stuck in kind of a never ending cycle as well.
Matt Inglot:
And that is absolutely, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, but that is absolutely disastrous. And I’ve been there, I’ve been there many times where the primary goal has been to meet rent or to meet payroll. And therefore we take on this project that wasn’t really a great fit. And the problem with that, of course, is now your resources are tied up in managing and completing this project that’s going to bring in very marginal profits instead of spending that time going and getting sales. That is an advantage of not being up against the wall by having tons of fixed costs. But part of it is also discipline. Like you have to learn how to turn down most clients. Like when leads come in, I assume that I’m turning them down.
Matt Inglot:
Like that’s the mindset. I go into it and, and then as we’re talking, I try to find reasons to turn them down first. And then if they pass that, you know, that gauntlet of reasons that I don’t want to work with them, then and only then do I start thinking, okay, this is a potential client that, you know, we should really look at working together. So my default answer is no.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Default answer is no.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, because if I say no to a lead, that’s okay. I mean, I’ve spent maybe 10 to 30 minutes with them, it’s no problem. But if I say yes, then I’m potentially entering a multi month, or hopefully multi year relationship with them. So I really want to make sure that I’m building out my client roster to be the exact kind of clients I want. Otherwise it’s a very costly mistake.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So at what point do you think was that kind of transformation in your thinking from being the fixed cost digital agency? What was the catalyst for change, as it were, for you to go down this completely new path? What helped you figure out this way of consulting this path?
Matt Inglot:
So that was a very dark time in my life because I was basically up against the, I was between a rock and a hard place. I guess because I had my office, I had my employees, and I was working extremely long hours. I mean, an 18 hour day would have not been unusual. Those are the kind of hours that bankers work. But I wasn’t making the kind of money that bankers were. In fact, because of the way I had structured my business model at that time, I wasn’t even making great money at all. I, you know, outwardly I looked very successful because here’s this young guy barely out of school and you know, he’s got this growing business, but the financial realities of it were very different. So I was getting just mentally and financially exhausted.
Matt Inglot:
You can only work that long every day. You can only wake up at 5am and get your extra large coffee and cream cheese bagel and go into work before everybody else and then leave long after the cleaning staff have left. You can only do that for so long. And I was just at my wit’s end. So I just knew that something had to give. Either I was going to fix my business or it was going to fall apart, but I could not go on the way it was going on. So that’s when I finally took the deep look into my business that I probably should have earlier. And I really tore it apart.
Matt Inglot:
I really looked at what exactly in the business was working and what wasn’t working. So what wasn’t working was obviously the high overhead. A lot of these marginal projects that would come and go, but not really create any sort of long term asset for the business. The work hours weren’t working. But I found that probably about 20% of our clients, it’s that old 8020 rule, probably about 20% of our clients were responsible for most of the actual profit for the company, not just marginal work that covered the bills and didn’t really do much more, but actually made profit for the company. And I realized that these were the clients that we had longer relationships with that continued to give us work. And there I realized there was a gem of a successful company there. If I could focus on just those projects, if I can get rid of some of that overhead and a lot of a marginal work that we did, which also meant we’d have to have a lot less staff.
Matt Inglot:
Then I did the math and I started thinking, holy cow, this could actually very easily be a six figure business that’s hiding in the rubble here. I’ve just been doing it all wrong. And when I had that moment of realization, I thought, okay, well I’m going to give myself a bit of time and see if I can change this. And so I made the big hard decisions to get rid of the office, even though I was locked into a very long lease and just do everything I had to in order to completely change that business model. And it took a couple years, but the result was crazy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I was actually going to ask whether you went kind of a hard and fast the minute you had that realization or whether that was a long transition.
Matt Inglot:
No, it’s a bit of both. Like I got rid of the office pretty much as soon as I decided because there were important Changes that had to be done right away. Getting rid of the office, transitioning everybody to contract work, and some of it was very quick. But to go from that disaster zone to the way things run these days did take a couple years, because you’re adjusting, you’re learning. You have to find more of these great clients. You have to kind of work through some of the old projects that maybe weren’t that great. It did take time.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I suppose you can’t just drop those projects. You’ve made commitments and promises, so you start to deliver on those. But then once they’ve gone, you were kind of focusing on the new type. Well, not the new type of client, but the client you should have always been pursuing in the first place, I think.
Matt Inglot:
Exactly. Yeah. And that brings up a good point, too, is I really do think clients do have to come first and your commitments have to come first. So I never want to give you the impression that I just, you know, woke up, got out of bed and decided to drop a bunch of people, because it’s not like that. I do believe in honoring my word, but once those projects were done, we definitely moved forward and learned from those lessons and focused on the type of work that would really make the business grow.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s absolutely fascinating. Did you. I mean, with your staff and that, did you come across any difficulties there in transitioning people to contract work, or did they enjoy the freedom that that gave?
Matt Inglot:
The ones that stayed enjoyed it. But I also got very lucky because it just hap. This realization also happened at a time where one person had left for just completely unrelated reasons, just found a completely different job, and then one person just genuinely, you know, decided this wasn’t the right fit for them. So I had two people leave in about three months, and I hadn’t replaced the first person. So it was actually very good timing because it was at a point where I was probably at the lowest employee count in a long time. So it meant very minimal disruption. And at the same time, I had already had started working with more and more contractors. So it just kind of worked out, to be honest.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. I mean, this is so inspiring. And we hear things like the 8020 rule. Many times we hear about focusing on your avatar as a client, you know, really honing down who it is your ideal client is, and then serving that client to the best of your ability, etc. But, you know, here you are, you are demonstrating how it absolutely really does work. And yes, it sounds great when you hear it in lessons, etc. But also, here is an example Matt and his team rocking it in real life. So I’m well impressed, mate.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thank you. I am absolutely inspired by this.
Matt Inglot:
I got, I got the scars from all the mistakes before I finally got here. So, you know, don’t think I’m a genius. If anything, I’m a slow learner that just finally figured it out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think we’re all slow learners. And it’s a shame, isn’t it, how we sometimes we struggle to learn from other people’s mistakes. We still have to go right through them ourselves just to come out the other side and realize, oh, that was a dumb decision.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, that seems to be the case. And I think this goes back to a very problematic mindset I had when I first started my business. And I want to share this because I don’t think it’s all that unique of a problem for me. I think a lot of people have the same thing where I just had the wrong idea of what a business really was. And this is weird because I went to business school, but I had. Or maybe that was kind of a contributing factor, but I had an idea that a business was offices, it was employees, it was, you know, people in suits. I think that’s just what the popular culture has us believe a business is. And that’s what I wanted because I wanted to be Donald Trump and all of that.
Matt Inglot:
But I didn’t really consider what I actually wanted out of life and what I wanted my day to day work life to be and what I needed this business to do in order to support that lifestyle. So I went into this default mode that growth must be good. Whereas a slightly more battered, slightly more mature me realized that there were certain things I wanted out of life. And what I really should be doing is building a business that is optimized for those things. And it turns out the business that really delivers on that promise looks nothing like the kind of business you’d picture in popular media. Like I said, my business is virtualized. So for example, my, my insurance, or. Yeah, my insurance agent emailed me the other day asking what’s a good address to email us some newsletters and calendars and stuff like that.
Matt Inglot:
And I’m like, well, just save yourself the postage. Because we have a person that checks the mail and they have very simple instructions. Deposit the checks, pass along anything from the government, and shred everything else. Meaning even if you’re a vendor that works of us, you have to bill us electronically because if you send us a paper, paper bill, I’ll never see it. Yeah, and that’s not, you know, how a normal business operates.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I got to admit, I don’t think I know of anyone who does do paper invoices anymore. I still get copies, but everything’s still done digitally anyway from. From my suppliers. So it’s all digital. And then there will be the odd person who still has someone who’ll send a copy of it, a physical copy for our records. But that’s.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, and I think, because you’re probably more like me than a traditional business as well. But I think it’s more like when you start working with accountants and lawyers and insurance people and stuff like that, a lot of them are in that old mindset. But you’re right, the world’s changing and I’m so glad for it because the day that I can just get rid of checking physical mail altogether, I’ll be very, very happy.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Really. The only thing I found in our family is that whenever the letterbox goes, we all charge to the letterbox. We so rarely get mail now. And I remember as a kid having pen pals and looking forward to those letters. It’s kind of an anti climax now because there’s hardly any ever anything sorry that comes through the mail. So I guess if anyone’s listening, they fancy writing me a letter just for the hell of it. Go to leejacksondev.com the address is on there. I will gladly receive a letter.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, but that’s different than business mail. I get very happy when packages come, but those get sent to my own personal address and usually from Amazon.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. What have Amazon done to me? It’s like I’m super lazy now. Entire Christmas this year was Amazon so good. Just sat there a month before Christmas, put in gifts for her, job done. I was a happy guy and she was a happy wife on Christmas Day. So obviously worked.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, I’ve done that many times too. Although I got to say that this year, everybody for Christmas received handmade gifts.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Wow.
Matt Inglot:
My wife and I just made something like 15 cheese boards and she carved like this cool little mouse on each one. So it was so much fun. So for some people that meant actually going to the physical post office and mailing them, which is why some of them went out massively late. But we pulled it off. It can be really cool.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I can’t imagine me and my wife doing that. I think it would just end in arguments. But maybe we should try something a bit easier though, like maybe paper cards that you could fold. I’ll start there.
Matt Inglot:
People do like that personal touch in business as well. If you can send Little physical gift. That’s something that we have done in the past and strive to do anything to build that client relationship that actually gets remembered a lot.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome, man. Well, I’m just thinking of you. Now you’ve got your virtual team. Is there any particular online application that you and your team use that kind of facilitates and you could not do without, that enables you to run your agency online?
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, so there’s a few applications that we use and the great thing is that these days, these services exist. Because when I opened my first office, not 10 years ago, first office was I think in 2008, a lot of this stuff still didn’t really exist. So you had to have your own file server and you had to have VPN and it was just a mess. So now we have, we use Dropbox and Google Drive. I don’t know why we use both, but we do probably because we use the Google Apps services as well like Google Docs and so on. So anything cloud based really. We do use a project management software, but we’re actually switching because that software has been discontinued. But probably if you’re managing a virtual team, finding the right project management software that works for your team, whatever your workflow happens to be, and making sure that that is in fact the main source of communication in your company is huge.
Matt Inglot:
That is why all of our projects get done and why stuff doesn’t keep falling between the cracks. I’m very picky about that. Everything is in the project management software. If it’s related to a project, you don’t email me about it, you don’t do anything else. It goes into the project management software and we have a record of everything. So you do have a lot of choices available. I don’t care which one you use, but make sure you have that system. Also make sure all of your processes are documented.
Matt Inglot:
We used to have a company wiki, but we’re slowly transitioning to just a series of Google Docs because that’s just kind of, I don’t know, I guess Google Docs has gotten better and wikis haven’t. So we’ve kind of kept up with the times. But documenting your processes is huge. We’re incredibly picky about that. So if you’re doing design work for us, for example, we have just a shocking amount of little details that we pay attention to of our designs because it’s something that we’re really known for and chosen for is a lot of our modern websites. You know, I got to say, they look really nice. And part of that is having a really great designer. And part of that is from every project, we learn the little details that we need to be paying attention to, and we actually do document those.
Matt Inglot:
And that’s the same for every other part of our agency.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And when you say document, do you mean you go right down to the degree of if it’s going to be handed over to the developer, you’re talking about things like margins, line heights, stuff like that. Like going right down to that granular level.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, exactly. So we’re very picky about typography. I have, I think, a good paragraph on the way lists should be styled, which sounds absolutely insane, but we have gotten client feedback. We’ve seen how what you see is what you get editors work. And we know if you style list a particular way, clients are going to be happy. The readability will be a lot better, and you’ll just avoid these mistakes that you end up having to go back and fix anyway, because you want to do a great job for the client. Such as if you have a list item and it wraps on two lines, you want to make sure that the second line aligns with the text in the list and not with the bullet. That’s a huge pet peeve of mine.
Matt Inglot:
Style that correctly.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
We documented that as well.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, exactly. We’re very picky about which JavaScript libraries we use, and we actually have a system where we have a tag that we use to include the common ones like jQuery, jQuery UI and so on. And so we make one central decision to update those libraries, and all of our sites get the latest and greatest. And that way we never have problems with like, three or four different versions of jQuery being included. So we’re very picky about things like that because we do things at enough scale and volume that some of these things start to matter.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Yeah. So how does Dyno feel about having you working at home all the time?
Matt Inglot:
So, for those listening, Dyno’s my cat. He’s a savannah, which is just this breed that originally came from a mix of cat and jungle cat. So he’s very energetic, and he definitely does keep me company for most of the time when I’m work. Since we’re recording a podcast right now, I’ve actually had to close my office door and not let him in because what he would do is he would. You know how cats are. He would definitely take immediate interest in the microphone and guarantee that I would just have a cat’s butt blocking my microphone the whole time.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s hilarious. I was looking earlier today at the video of him discovering water in your sink on your Twitter feed. That was funny.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah. If you follow me on social media, it’s gonna be a weird mix of freelancing advice, cat pictures and woodworking stuff.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I know. And cat pictures of all things. Amen.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, well, the Internet loves cats.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
It does, doesn’t it? It’s unusual. So are there any particular blogs or online resources that you kind of go to regularly that kind of feed you that you’d recommend to other people?
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So it depends what I do. Check things regularly, probably. One of my favorite newsletters is the Moz top 10, where they aggregate the most important search engine developments of the past couple of weeks and email it to you. I think that’s a very well done newsletter. So for keeping on top of web development stuff, I really like that. For more business related stuff, I’m a big fan of Ramit Sadie. He writes incredible newsletters and he has a writing style that’s just simultaneously really entertaining, really educational.
Matt Inglot:
So those are probably the two that I visit most often.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Is Ramit the person who does I will teach you to be rich?
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, exactly. Which is a really scammy sounding title. But his stuff’s really good, I promise.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Well, I’ve only just, I think two days ago, started to subscribe to his stuff again. I had that kind of knee jerk reaction to the I will teach you to be rich, but I’ve quite enjoyed so far the emails he’s been sending through because like you said, they’re very humorous.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah. And he makes fun of that naming choice as well, so he realizes it. But I mean, if you want to look for a marketer to emulate, I think he’s one of the ones that are constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s amazing. Cool. So we’ve got the Moz top 10 and I will teach you to be rich as two of your top recommended resources. And yes, speaking of emulating people, that’s definitely something I’ve been, I think for my. I’ve done that both personally and in the business. I’ve been trying to emulate other people in my industry, see what they’re doing well, and then trying to learn from them rather than making all my own mistakes or too many of my own mistakes because I’ve made a whole load of mistakes over the last eight years of running agencies of. I’ve had a design agency that just focused on design and I’ve also got the digital agency that I have now as well. So it’s definitely been a roller coaster.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
But one of the things I’ve realized is I kind of need to look out at other people now because there’s so much I can learn from my own experiences. But there is so much more that you can learn from other people who’ve already been through it, and they can give you some fantastic ideas. Including you, mate. You’ve been dropping value every second. And I’ve been writing things down. And I hope I can read my writing afterwards, although I can listen back, I suppose.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah. And, you know, that’s a mistake I made as well, I think. It’s not that I didn’t do a lot of reading because I read a ton of business books. I went to business school. But what I didn’t do is when I started my agency, I never really talked to many agency owners. And what I should have done is found some that are doing a really good job running theirs, and taking them out for coffee would have been very simple to do. Now I have the Freelance Transformation podcast. So in the span of less than a year, I’ve been able to interview over 50 consulting experts, many of who have their own agencies or are solo freelancers.
Matt Inglot:
But either way, there’s just so much to learn from those people. And if I could rewind, I would want resources like that when I was starting out.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
So you’d have started the podcast first, almost like your virtual cup of coffee.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. Or, you know, just take people out for real coffee. But I do got to say, podcasting is one of those little hacks for getting to talk to experts really easily.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And here is proof, because I’m getting to talk to you and I’m benefiting no end. So I really appreciate it.
Matt Inglot:
It’s great to be on your show. No problem.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Thanks, buddy. So one of the things that I’ve tried to do, trying to do with the podcast is to. The idea is when I listen to podcasts, it’s always full of amazing information. And my brain’s like, I must remember that. I must remember that. I must remember that. But is there one thing that you would recommend people could. One simple thing that you recommend people could start doing today in their business that you really feel would make a difference.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Be like a starting point for change.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, definitely. I think the starting point for change would be to evaluate when you. When you get a lead coming in, evaluate whether this is a project that you actually want to take on. Because remember, there is massive opportunity cost, meaning that if you do take them on, then you do have to do that project. You do have to invest significant time into it. Whether you’re a solo freelancer, whether you have an agency, there’s a lot of your own personal time and resources that’s going into that client, or it’s your money that’s going into that client. And those resources could be used in order to find the clients that you really want to work with instead. It’s very difficult to find and take on new clients when you’re constantly already working 120% of your capacity, but all on the wrong types of projects.
Matt Inglot:
So very simple advice is the next time a lead comes in, next hundred times a lead comes in, really evaluate that project first of the mindset of turning them down. And then when you realize that it is a good fit, then you can switch gears into thinking, okay, how do I close this?
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s really good advice. And it makes the prospect of change seem less overwhelming. I think what you’re saying is moving forward as stuff comes in, evaluate from now as you go, make a decision to evaluate from now as you go, rather than trying to rip everything out and start all over again in your business, which would kind of probably be very detrimental anyway. But yes, something you could start right now.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think for most people the slow transition is the better transition. And obviously there’s a lot of information on freelance transformation on how to do that. But definitely, I think it comes down to first and foremost, really evaluate who the heck you’re working with, client wise. And do not be afraid to say no.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’ll add to that. Don’t work with family either.
Matt Inglot:
Yeah, definitely. Those are an instant no.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
That’s awesome, mate. I really appreciate you taking the time out to just give us such an intriguing insight into how you’ve set up your business, into what you’ve learned. And I really appreciate it. I’m sure people would love to connect with you. They’d love to be able to follow the information you put out. So what are the best ways for people to connect with you?
Matt Inglot:
The absolute best way is freelancetransformation.com especially the newsletter there. Because there are things that I send out to my newsletter that I don’t send out anywhere else. Especially because sometimes I can just have a looser tongue there than I could on like publicly posted websites. Because, you know, I do still run my agency. So there’s, you know, there’s certain topics that I’ll only talk about in my newsletter. So that’s where you’ll get me I guess uncensored. Get the inside scoop. Exactly, of course.
Matt Inglot:
Feel free to subscribe. You’re a podcast listener if you’re listening to this. So please subscribe to the Freelance Transformation podcast. You can find it anywhere you find podcasts like itunes. And of course, if you do want to connect with me personally, I’ll suggest that Twitter is probably the best way. I do very much enjoy Twitter and my handle there is just my name, Matt Inglot. So I’m sure Lee will link that up.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I will definitely make sure. That’s the hardest part, actually, of making any podcast I’m finding is getting all the show notes together in time.
Matt Inglot:
I’m very lucky because my wife does that for me.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I think I need to go and have a word of mine. Yeah, mate, you’ve been an absolute star and like I said, I totally appreciate you being on. So I’m sending you a virtual high five. And thanks again, buddy. Have an awesome evening and take care of yourself, mate.
Matt Inglot:
Thanks so much for having me on.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Cheers. Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
And there you have it. That was the end of episode 17. Now, I’d really like to hear from anybody who uses Periscope. We’re looking for beta or beta, however you want to say it, but we’re looking for people to test the new beta product that we are launching. This is a WordPress plugin that will enable you to repurpose all of your Periscope content. We’re going to be giving it away for free, and that’s free forever, which is pretty awesome. But we want to make sure that we’ve done the job right before we give it out to the world. So anyone who’s using Periscope, you’ve got content you would like to repurpose.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
You’d like to get it into your WordPress website. Benefit from keywords, benefit from the commenting system within WordPress so that people can talk about the media content that you’re loading. Benefit from those SEO brownie points, or whatever you want to call it from, from Google for having that sort of content on your site. Then do get in touch. That’s Leejacksondev.com Leejacksondev.com contact and now, finally, we’d love to get together. Let’s have a party [email protected] group. That’s the Facebook group where people who listen to the show are coming in, they’re connecting, sharing information, asking questions. Let’s grow the group, let’s get in touch, let’s help each other out, let’s add value.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
I really look forward to seeing you over there on Lee Jackson Dev forward slash group. So all that’s left for me to do is to sign out with a.
Lee Matthew Jackson:
Keep innovating.
