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SUMMARY
- Freelancing can be a lonely journey. And without the right community to cheer you on, it’s easy to give up on your freelancing dreams. In this installment of our Freelancer Interview Series, you’ll meet Chris Pearson, who knows what it’s like to go it alone and then found the support he needed in The No Pants Project. Delicia Ivins, NPP Growth Director, interviews Chris on behalf of The No Pants Project founder Mike Shreeve.
- Chris is a website traffic extraordinaire from Northern Colorado. He helps his clients generate more leads and sales online by increasing organic traffic to their websites so they can make a bigger positive impact on the world. A jack-of-all-trades who has worked in different industries, he’s still testing things and figuring out which industry he wants to focus on.
- Despite having been in The No Pants Project for just a few months, Chris has made solid progress in his freelancing career, having already replaced 20 percent of his day job income. He attributes his success to the strong community, something that all the other programs he has tried in the past didn’t have.
- Chris aims to replace all of his full-time job income in 2019 and has no doubt in his mind that he can double or triple it in the following years. He currently spends 2-3 hours a day on freelancing while working 40-50 hours a week at his day job.
- Delicia believes that Chris can achieve his income goals in an even shorter period. In her case, she was able to replace her and most of her husband’s income after just a couple of months of being in The No Pants Project.
- Prior to NPP, Chris dabbled in freelancing. He tried different programs but would always get stuck because he couldn’t figure things out on his own. He almost threw in the towel but decided to sign up for NPP because of its involvement with charities; having a bigger reason is extremely important to him.
- Recommended readings: Find Your Why by Simon Sinek; Daring Greatly, Dare to Lead, and Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown; Grit by Angela Duckworth.
- Going into The No Pants Project, Chris knew he wanted his freelancer superpower to have something to do with communicating with people through words or helping businesses help people. As a jack-of-all-trades with many interests, he initially struggled to define his freelancer superpower before learning to work on one thing at a time.
- Chris manages to freelance while having a full-time job by blocking out time and sitting down to do it. He admits that it’s hard to miss out on watching Netflix or grabbing a beer with a friend, but he knows that carving out time to build his business is essential.
- Chris’s top freelancing tips: Start with what you want to achieve; have a goal in your mind. Take care of yourself emotionally, mentally, and physically. Test your tech before an important call; don’t assume that it’s going to work.
- Chris’s top SEO tip: Quality and comprehensive content is king.
HOT NEWS & DEALS
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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT: Freelancer Interview Series with Chris Pearson
Chris Pearson: It is a wonderful group and a wonderful program, and it’s a great foundation to get going.
Delicia Ivins: Hey guys. Delicia Ivins here, on behalf of Mike Shreeve and the No Pants Project, and today I have the awesome, awesome, super fun, exciting opportunity to speak with Chris Pearson, who is part of the No Pants Project, and Chris is going to tell us a little bit about his freelance journey and how he started with the No Pants Project, and the ups and downs and how he’s landed to where he is now, and to motivate us and get us going. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. I’m super excited to have you here.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, thanks Delicia. I’m excited, too, because I think having these testimonies and stuff, a lot of people like seeing these. It helps, so I’m excited to contribute.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. Yeah, and I think whether you’re inside the No Pants Project or you’re just in the open community or you’re just a freelancer who likes to even watch these case studies, for me it’s very helpful to see where other people started from, and to see the ups and downs. Because a lot of people get in their mind like it’s a straight trajectory, and to be able to see other people push through and continue to have little blocks and then to overcome them, it’s really nice to reaffirm a lot of us, including myself, “Oh, it’s okay. This is normal.”
Chris Pearson: Yeah, no. I think you make a good point there, but I think that’s the biggest struggle I’ve had up to this point, is feeling alone in the process, but the No Pants Project community, whether the open or in the training and stuff, that has been a key thing for me. Because when you hit that block, I can go to the community and say, “Hey, I’m stuck. Help.”
Delicia Ivins: Definitely. Me too.
Chris Pearson: And there’s somebody there.
Delicia Ivins: Yep. I think community is key, especially when building a business. So, tell me a little bit about your business. What is your superpower? How do you help your clients?
Chris Pearson: Yeah, so right now I’m working off the superpower, I help businesses to generate more leads and sales online, by increasing organic traffic to their websites, so they can make a bigger, positive impact on the world. Yeah, so I’m working from that. It might sound a little general, because I’m kind of a jack of all trades when it comes to industries. I worked in the oil field, construction, marketing agencies, written about tons of things. I’m still figuring out which industry I want to dial it into. I’m still testing, honestly. I’m still testing things.
Delicia Ivins: That’s cool.
Chris Pearson: That’s kind of where my superpower’s at.
Delicia Ivins: But you can have a generalized statement like that and you can totally use it to test different things. Like, you could use that same statement to test content writing, you could use that to test SEO and a whole bunch of different services and just kind of detail it down in the email, if you’re sending cold emails, or add or lead offer.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, for sure. I think that’s the strength of it, is that it’s outcome based, not feature based. I think it’s a big thing that Mike, and I think Peter too, in one of the training videos, or his Q&As, that I’ve heard him say is you want to deliver the outcome. The client’s not really worried about it being a blog post or a website optimization or paid ads. They just want the outcome of more leads or more sales, or whatever that outcome is. I think that’s key.
Delicia Ivins: I think that’s pretty smart. That’s really awesome. So, how long have you been freelancing so far?
Chris Pearson: Coming up on the end of the 90 day mark I think, with No Pants Project.
Delicia Ivins: Woo woo. That’s awesome.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, I’ve got my accountability call I believe it’s tomorrow or Wednesday, with Emma.
Delicia Ivins: Yay.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. It’s been a fun ride.
Delicia Ivins: So you’re enjoying it then? You like it?
Chris Pearson: Oh yeah. I love it. I’ve tried a few other programs in the past five or six years, and the one thing they all were missing was a community. I think that’s the biggest struggle, like I said earlier, getting to a point where like I don’t know what to do, or like I’m feeling this way and I don’t know how to work around it or through it, I need a little reassurance, like, “Is it worth it?”
Having somebody or a group to ask, “Hey, am I crazy? Is this supposed to happen” and then reassure you, like it’s so powerful.
Delicia Ivins: I know. I think like at least for me, I’ve purchased courses and stuff in the past too, and when you get to that point where you feel stuck, even the best laid out course, even someone who lays out their course perfectly, someone’s going to have a question, because you lay it out perfectly for one type of person, and you’re going to have 1500 people who might take that course, so it’s super helpful to have that available to you.
Delicia Ivins: I’m going to pause this. Okay. So yeah, sorry about the small little feet. I was just explaining to Chris, if you guys heard small little feet running around in the background, that we homeschool, so that’s one of the benefits of being able to freelance, which is super awesome. My kid, my oldest kid is seven and she’s a huge proponent of the No Pants Project.
She likes to stay in her pajamas throughout the school day, and she only gets dressed when she’s finished with her homeschool. She’s like, “It’s cool, mom. We’re in the No Pants Club. We can do this.”
Chris Pearson: Yeah. Already recruiting the next generation, it’s wonderful.
On His Freelancing Goals
Delicia Ivins: I know. So, tell me a little bit about your goals with freelancing. You just started you said you’ve been in the No Pants Project for 90 days or coming up on 90 days. What are you looking forward to?
Chris Pearson: Yeah, so I’ve kind of got two different layers for goals. For 2019, I mean initially the first 90 days of the No Pants, I just want to get everything figured out. I’m very, I go through things one piece at a time and I figure out how it works, and then I set it aside and I go to the next piece, and I go to the next piece, and I just kind of cycle through that way, and I put it all together in a way that’s kind of intuitive or nuanced to how I’m trying to run things.
That’s kind of the first 90 days. I’m just testing things and breaking things essentially, and trying to figure out how it all fits together on top of how Mike and everybody else has been helping and teaching and things. The first 90 days was, my goal was 25% of my total day job income, and right now I’m sitting at about 20% so I’m really freaking close to hitting that goal. And then 2019, every quarter I want to take another 25% jump away from, or replace 25% of my day job income.
Basically, 2019 for me is a transition year and if I can just replace all of my day job income, I have no doubt in my mind I can probably double or triple it. That’s probably the goal, 2020, 2021. I’ve got a longer plan set but depending on how things run, how I do, all those things, they’re all factors.
Delicia Ivins: I think you could totally shorten that, though. I guess depending on what your daytime income is, but for me, like I was able to within I think a couple of months at least replace mine and most of my husband’s income. But it was really dialing in and then I switched audiences and testing some new offers, some new markets and things right now.
But it was just that initial hitting that number within like 60 days and being in the program, and being like, “Holy crap, I can do this.” That was amazing to me, to be able to hit that point where I was like, “This is totally possible.” So yeah.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, I know. I agree. I think it will happen sooner. I’m giving myself longer runway because I tend to take more time on implementing than I am branding and theorizing and stuff. I think Mike put it in the Facebook group, he asked, he put that goal post up in the open community I think. The one thing I’m trying to change in 2019 is implement more, don’t think about it so much. Because I’ll think something to death before I do it and that’s like 70% of the work. The rest is actually doing it and getting the data back. As soon I start implementing more, I think for those first two quarters I think are really going to be huge.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. I think too, because you’ll be getting some data back a lot faster, that’ll shift your trajectory and it’ll help you get there a lot quicker than what you’re expecting. That’s really cool, man. Kudos to you. You’ve already laid it out. Good for you. So, before you started NPP, you’re kind of doing freelancing on the side right now, I’m assuming, in addition to your day job still?
Chris Pearson: Yeah. I’ve got that setup. I’ve got a full time, 40-50 hour a week day job, and then two to three hours a day I’m spending on NPP and freelancing. The trajectory for ramping up and transitioning into freelancing full time, I think that’s kind of the piece. How much time am I going to actually commit every day to it? I’m still learning how … This is something I’m learning, is balancing work, freelancing, and me time.
Delicia Ivins: Oh yeah.
Chris Pearson: I think it’s a huge time, taking care of myself is something I’m learning right now is like, “Yeah, I can work 14 hours a day, but it’s not sustainable at all.”
Delicia Ivins: No, and you’ve got to have time for beard oil and beard maintenance, and there’s a whole thing right there.
Chris Pearson: And craft beer. I mean, I need Northern Colorado. There’s 20+ breweries in Larimer County. It’s like, it’s insane.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah. Well, you’ve got to include time for that. How many can I sample within one hour a day, or within-
Chris Pearson: A day?
Delicia Ivins: If you do a flight, you’re doing all right, right?
Chris Pearson: Yeah. 8-12 flight, yeah.
Life Before The No Pants Project
Delicia Ivins: All right. Before you started NPP, were you freelancing before you started the No Pants Project or were you just doing the day job?
Chris Pearson: I dabbled. I didn’t really commit to anything. It was kind of like, “I want to try this program” and it got to the point of I got stuck, and I tried figuring it out on my own, I couldn’t. Couldn’t figure it out really, so I just kind of said, “Wow, I’m done dumping money into this because I ask questions, I’m trying to find answers to questions I can’t find on the internet.” Just really frustrating. I’d get to a breaking point and I’d break back off into, “Okay, I’m done doing this. I’m not going to try anymore.”
That was a big worry when I got into NPP was like I didn’t know the community, I didn’t know the group yet. The big reason why I decided to sign up was Mike mentioning in his webinar with his work with charities and stuff. Having that bigger reason why you’re doing something is super attractive to me. Because at the end of the day, when you sit down for two hours after a full day of work, you’re like, “Okay, after the fourth, fifth, sixth day of it, it’s like I have to have a bigger reason.”
Because I don’t feel like doing this at all, I don’t want to do it, but I know that a year from now, this is where I want to be. That bigger reason why is paramount for me. That’s the big reason why that rolled out that way.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah. I think there’s a really good book you might like, I think it’s Simon Sinek, I’m going to say his name wrong, Sinek or something, but it’s Find Your Why. It’s a really good one.
Chris Pearson: I’ve read that one.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, you know.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, I’m actually on a Brene Brown kick right now. I don’t know if you’ve come across her stuff.
Delicia Ivins: Nice. Very cool.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, so she-
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, I’m going to add it to my list, though.
Chris Pearson: Please do. She’s got five or six books. Actually, also on the shelf there. She’s got five or six books, but it’s all about Daring Greatly is the name of one of them, Dare To Lead, Braving The Wilderness. Basically the whole idea of failing forward, or falling on your face, and if you mess up, how to actually get back up and keep going. She covers that gap.
Delicia Ivins: Oh, and that’s great, because I can see that in all your posts and everything that you’ve been doing. I can see how that has started to help implement in your brain. That’s really cool.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, just noticing that’s where I struggle, this is when I focus on self-work, and this is where I need to work on. I want to fail more. And figure out how to do this.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely. When you were doing the day job, so is that construction? Is that were you said you had the construction background? I think you mentioned before that you’ve done some digital marketing, too.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. When I first moved to Colorado about a year ago or year and a half ago now, the first year I built with my dad. He builds, so construction, construction industry. He’s owned his own business for almost 40 years now, so for the last 40 … Or, 28 years, he’s been whispering in my ear, “Hey, do your own thing, do your own thing, do your own thing.” But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I figured out that writing and marketing as a part of writing, but just writing in general is my thing. That’s what I like to do.
Yeah, construction, oil field. Right now I’m at a marketing agency, just a big agency. So, like I said, I’m a jack of all trades. You give me a topic and I will go figure out how to write about it. That’s where I’m at now, where I was before is just a day job, and come home at night and be like, “Do I want to write fiction? Do I just want to read?” Really no direction, just hanging out. It bugged the crap out of me.
Delicia Ivins: There’s Grit by Angela Duckworth is a really good book, too, and she talks about even the younger age, the younger stage of life, children being allowed to explore a lot of different opportunities, a lot of extracurriculars and a lot of, because you have to figure out your passion. You’ve got to figure out what it is that you really enjoy doing, and so even for people who are just starting in the idea of freelancing, or in entrepreneurship, it’s okay if you need to take some time and test a lot of things to figure out what you want to be when you grow up. I totally did.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, no. It’s so true. I feel like my life’s a testament to that, because I was an athlete for about 13 years. Made it to the collegiate level, and then after all that ended and I decided to stop playing, that’s what it was. Every year, year and a half, I was in a new industry, working, doing something, because for the last 13 years, it was just baseball. Period. That’s all I did.
I’m having right now this period of like, “Oh, I’ve tested a bunch of stuff. Now I know what I like to do. Let’s dial in again” and then over the next 3-5 years, I’m going to dial in again, or find something else, or whatever that is. I’ve combined that with freelancing giving me the freedom to do that.
Delicia Ivins: Most definitely.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. Like obviously there’s more responsibility, everything falls on me, it’s always my fault, it’s always my responsibility. Everything’s on me, but the payoff to it is once I get a system in place, kind of like how Mike teaches with everything, once that system’s in place, it’s just fine tuning it. That’s kind of what I’m doing right now, and this last 30 days is fine tuning it so that in January upcoming, it’s just turn it on and go. Just find other ways to fail.
Delicia Ivins: That’s all it is. That’s all it is. You’re working full time, you’re working for a digital marketing agency and doing all that, and that got you doing a lot of different stuff. Did you know what you wanted to do? You kind of knew that you wanted variety, but did you know that going into the No Pants Project? Did you know what your superpower would be, or you were still kind of exploring at that time?
Chris Pearson: I had an idea that communication or writing or something to do with communicating people with words was the direction I wanted to go. I like reading about psychology, I like behavior, I like people, I like asking why. And then marketing was another way, another challenge that I enjoy, specifically just helping businesses help people, mission driven, kind of like the website, your angle you’re doing with your stuff. Mission driven companies and businesses and stuff.
That’s majorly attractive because there’s a why behind it. Coming into it, it was like it’s kind of fuzzy. Doing that first I guess you want to say first third of the No Pants Project, I was everywhere. Just like, “Oh, there’s this, there’s that, there’s this, there’s that.” I struggled through that first part, because I was like, “I don’t know. What do I choose? I don’t know.” And now that I’m on the other side of it I’m like, “I could do a superpower for each of these things and start a business with it. Run some ads, set up a system. It’s all there now. You’ve just got to pick something and go test it and come back.” That’s kind of how that unfolded.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, and you totally can. Like, I still have a whole deck of ideas for other businesses that I could start from experience and stuff that I have. It’s just kind of the same thing. You start one, you get it going, you come back to the others and then you can implement others as you go along, if you want to add onto that.
So, you mentioned you’d already purchased courses before, so you were kind of curious about NPP going in, like okay, Mike had already mentioned that he had in his webinar, that he gives back, he does stuff with non-profits and stuff. But how was your confidence on your end going in? I think he mentions in the webinar and in the training that he does offer coaching, that’s part of the package. But did you have any questions like, “Okay, well there’s coaches, but can I do this?” Because you’d already done so many other, like was there a question on … I guess trying to figure out how to phrase it.
Was there a question on if you could plug yourself into the program well? Or, did you have any questions related to how that would work?
Chris Pearson: I think you hit that right on the head. The primary thing was what’s the support system inside of the program? Because like I said before, that was the big roadblock for me in the other ones that I’ve tried, is that the support system was either kind of there or not there at all. It was just an information thing, which is fine. Some people work great that way, I don’t. I need you to give me a bucket of stuff, I’ll go run off and play with it, when I come back I’ll have questions for you.
Give me another bucket and that’s how I work. I’m introverted in that way, I guess. But yeah, that was kind of the question of like, “Okay, what’s the coaching actually involve? What’s the community like?” I had yet to see the open community at all. This was just like, I saw, I think it was an ad on Facebook he was running.
Delicia Ivins: Oh, wow, so you came straight in.
Chris Pearson: I came straight in. There was no exposure to any of the community at all. Webinar and I was like, “Wow, this is actually, it seems pretty awesome.” A different feeling than what I’ve had before. I think it combined with the fact that I was like, “Okay, I need to do something different. There’s things I want to do in my life that a day job doesn’t really allow me to do on my time, when I choose to do it.” So yeah, that’s my state of mind going into it. It was like, “Okay, I’ll try it but if the coaching and stuff doesn’t work, we’re just going to rule it out and go off and do what I was doing before.” But it works. The coaching and the support in NPP is phenomenal. I love it.
Delicia Ivins: It really is. Not because I’m in there, but because all the other people are in there who are way cool.
Chris Pearson: Oh yeah. And the community itself is like, if you ask a question, you’re going to get more than one answer most of the time.
Delicia Ivins: Oh yeah. You get multiple answers from different people.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, with different angles, different experiences, different, “Hey, try this. Hey, test that.” That to me is a playground. I love that.
Delicia Ivins: It’s your own personal sandbox.
Chris Pearson: It really is.
Delicia Ivins: So, since you started NPP, you said that you replaced, what was it, like 20% of your daytime income?
Chris Pearson: Yep.
Delicia Ivins: Have you done that with one-off clients, or with retainers, or explain to me how that’s worked for you?
Chris Pearson: Yeah. So, I started out working in the lighthouse angle, with the client getting faucet. I was struggling with it because I was like I don’t know who to target. I’m not really sure who I’m targeting. I just jumped into the Fast Client Getting Workshop, and started just cold emailing. I sent out about, including sequences, I think it was around 7 or 800 emails, including sequences. Three to five email sequences. About 250, 200 emails, something like that, for the initial one.
And off of that, I had four discovery calls, and I landed one of those clients. And then I used, this is the funny one. I got a second client who’s a retainer client. He’s a plumber in Texas. I’m targeting mental health service with all my cold emailing, and I see one of my buddies in Texas invites me on Facebook to like his plumbing business page. I liked it and I message him, and I used the introduction, one of the cold email templates in the Facebook message.
“Hey Terry, I haven’t talked to you in a while. I saw your Facebook page, it looks great. I’m excited to see how this all rolls out. I didn’t know you were a plumber, that’s awesome.” I just sent him, “Here’s my superpower. You want to talk?” He called me in two hours. He was like, “I was actually about to buy these services from this one guy that I have no idea who it is, but I know you and I trust you, so when do I pay you?”
Delicia Ivins: Yay. Love it.
Chris Pearson: I was like, “All right.” I mean, it worked. I guess the takeaway from that is like if there’s an opportunity, try it. I mean, see what happens.
Delicia Ivins: Yep. You can always uncover a hidden or unknown superpower, or even just discover a new niche or a new group of people that you’d like to help, which is super.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, it really is. But yeah, that came up, he’s on a retainer. The other client that I have is a little slower progressing with the trust and the services and stuff. Somebody I don’t know. It was just off a discovery call. We’ve done some work together now this month and then the next month we’re going to follow up and see a retainer deal is what I’m going to try and pitch to him.
But yeah, it’s a little slower progress, but just delivering on the promises that I made him. I’ll never be late, if I say it’s going to be on this day, it’ll be that day or before. Things that I can control. Especially in SEO and marketing, it’s like these are all the things that get you traffic, but I can’t control how much it’s going to be. But I can deliver on these things. Yeah, so just staying open with that in mind and asking a lot of questions on the discovery calls is so positive. It helps so much.
The Struggles
Delicia Ivins: Okay, so when you started NPP, so you obviously are working 40 or 50 hours a week in your day job and then you said you’re slicing out time to work on building your freelance business. Is that a struggle for you, trying to find that time? Did you have any struggles when you were working through the program?
Chris Pearson: The biggest struggle was sitting down to do it. I think that’s to me, when I talk to other people that are doing stuff outside of work or just extra, that’s like, I hear that over and over again, however they want to say it, but it’s like just sitting down to do it. Once you get going, it just falls into place. Yeah, so finding time to do it wasn’t a struggle for me, because I can control that. I can control when I block that time out. I think that’s important too, is like sitting down Sunday or Saturday, whatever the beginning of your work is and just like, “Here’s two hours on Monday. Here’s 30 minutes on Wednesday. Here’s” and just put that block there.
You don’t have to define what’s going to be there, but just put the block there so when you sit down, it just gets you to the desk, or to the computer, or whatever it is. That’s how I approach that. But it was more so emotional, of just like, “Wow, I’m spending an extra two hours every day doing this instead of watching Netflix or going, having a beer with a friend.” You know what I mean?
Delicia Ivins: Yeah.
Chris Pearson: It’s a trade off. That part was tough, because I don’t like missing out. I like my friends. My partner and I spend a lot of time together, so it’s like yeah, “I’m carving this out in my life. You guys are going to have to wait for the next 90 days and see how this turns out.”
Delicia Ivins: I totally get that. But as far as how that’s worked out for you, carving that time out, have you had any points during the program, during the last 90 days where you had this high point, or like this, “Oh, my gosh, this is totally going to work?” Or an “Ah-huh” moment where it just clicked together for you?
Chris Pearson: Yeah. It was that first payment I got through PayPal. It was all, I think yeah, I did post about it in the NPP group, in the training group. But I had a discovery call, that’s the client that I have now. The proposal, or basically the packages, like A, B, and C. Here’s the super aggressive, here’s the moderate, here’s the really easy peasy, not that expensive one. Sent it to him and said, “Hey, let me know if you have questions. I’m here, I’m available. If you want to talk money, I’ll get creative, but otherwise here’s where I’m seeing this is going.”
I woke up the next morning with a notification on my phone saying I had money in my account. So I was like, “All right, so this actually is a thing. This is real.”
Delicia Ivins: The best. I love it.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. It was crazy to just like, “Oh, here’s money.” I didn’t have to be salesy, I didn’t have to do anything weird or, just having a conversation. Like, “You have a question, I have an answer. Here’s how I help. If I can do that for you, do you want to move forward?” That’s pretty much how it ended, that discovery call. I was like, “All right, well this is possible. I’ve just got to get people on the phone.”
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, and then you get paid in your sleep.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. Especially those retainers, when the 5th or the 15th rolls around, you’re just like, “Oh wow, I got paid this morning.”
Delicia Ivins: Oh man. I remember seeing that post and I was so, so excited about it. I was like, “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.” Nobody ever believes me. When you guys post wins like that in the group, I’m like dancing around. You guys don’t know how goofy I am. You can tell a little bit on camera, but you don’t even really know how badly I sing when I’m excited and I’m dancing around the living room for you guys. So awesome.
Chris Pearson: No, it’s a good thing. I won’t lie, I did do a little dance. I got up and danced around, I was like, “This is awesome.”
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, bring back the cabbage patch roll.
Chris Pearson: Oh heck yeah. That’s how you do it.
Tips To Aspiring Freelancers
Delicia Ivins: All right. For those people who are watching who are thinking about getting their freelancing career up and running, maybe they’ve been freelancing a little bit like you, or they’ve dabbled in it, what would be your top suggestion for like okay, they’re dabbling on the side, but here are my top three tips or something like that to really get you focused and get you moving in the direction that you need to go?
Chris Pearson: Oh. That’s a good question. I think people need to start with what they actually want to achieve. They need to set, dream a little bit, and then set that vision, and set a goal. I like to do things this way where I’ll put something out in front of me, and then I’ll reverse engineer how people have done it. If somebody can at least put that goal of like, “I want to replace my day job income” or, “I want to make an extra 1, 2, 3000 on the side doing something I enjoy doing, but I still need to keep the day job for benefits” or whatever that may be. Have that in your mind. I think that’s the first tip I would give, have that goal in your mind.
And then once you get committed, take care of yourself emotionally and mentally and physically and everything. Even though you’re blocking out 30 minutes to an hour every day, spend 15 minutes, go for a jog, go for a walk. Fill yourself up, read things. Take care of yourself. That’d be the second tip. And then the third one, which I have an anecdotal thing, test your tech. Don’t assume that it’s going to work, because I assumed that because I have gone onto Zoom meetings on my phone, that I could start one with my phone, and I didn’t know my password and I just downloaded it and said, “Oh, let’s do this” for one of my discovery calls that I was supposed to have, and it didn’t work.
And I’m too far away from home to get back to my computer, so I missed a call. I didn’t test anything, I just assumed that it would work, and I lost out on helping that client. Followed up with some emails, no response. Test your stuff. test your tech. Once you’re involved, because it’ll get you.
Delicia Ivins: Well, we almost had that happen today because I accidentally sent you a password that I had accidentally changed, so I totally get that.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, no. It is a, I don’t know, it’s a nightmare to me. Because it’s like, “Oh crap, I had this all set up, I did all this work” and because I didn’t test this one thing.
Delicia Ivins: “I sent all these emails, I finally got somebody who wanted to talk to me” and then yeah. No, I got it, I got it. What about for SEO and all the really fun stuff you do? You have any special tips for people there?
Chris Pearson: Yeah. There’s a few things. The foundation that Mike lays is really great. The stuff that he taught with the types of blog posts, how he outlines everything, how he delivers that with the written word and stuff, SEO wise. It’s fantastic.
Delicia Ivins: Are you talking about in the No Pants Project, or are you talking about in the Happy Writer?
Chris Pearson: Happy Writer, the way he sets that up. Yeah, it’s phenomenal. It’s great. It’s a great foundation. But there’s two things that I would consider telling people is quality content, so stuff that people are actually looking for, and then comprehensive. Most of the time, very large majority of the time, I would rather see one or two blog posts a month that are longer, that are more comprehensive around a specific topic, than posting 70 times a month that are really short and quick and fast.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah, me both.
Chris Pearson: Yeah. News and media sites do that, but they also have a ton of traffic already because of their brand. But if you’re working with smaller companies or even medium to large companies, those in depth topics, if you know the target audience, they’re going to be more engaged with that. They’re going to spend more time on the page. They’re going to share it, they’re going to do more things with it and those user metrics for like Google and Yahoo and stuff, they’re going to send those blog posts up the page, or they’re going to at least create a better foundation to raise the entire site, ranking wise, and engagement wise with the audience.
Delicia Ivins: Those are excellent. And definitely. To clarify too, I just want to clarify two points, because we mentioned two other programs. There’s the No Pants Project, and then we also mentioned Mike’s Fast Client Getting Workshop, and now the Happy Writer. Mike has, the guy just creates a billion products because he’s super smart and he does that stuff. But to clarify, the Fast Client Getting Workshop is an add-on. You can actually, it comes with, packaged as a bonus with the No Pants Project, and what it teaches you to do is if you’re just getting started freelancing or you need to get clients fast, it’s a cold outreach method that helps you to lock in those clients quickly. That’s included as a package bonus with the No Pants Project.
Now, Happy Writer is a separate course that you can purchase, it’s separate from the No Pants Project. The emphasis with that one is on creating quality content and blogs and content direction, so if you don’t know your superpower, but you really like writing, it’s definitely something that you can check out that will give you some ideas on how to write quality blog posts and how to create really good offers and things like that, too. Hopefully I covered that well.
Chris Pearson: No, that sounds about right.
Chris’ Corner
Delicia Ivins: So, Chris, this is your corner. What awesome, awesome fun things would you like to tell everybody who’s watching this before we close out this awesome interview?
Chris Pearson: Take the leap. Because I stood on the edge for years, trying out other programs and things like that, but take the leap, do it. If it’s No Pants Project or Happy Writer, or even the Fast Client Getting Workshop if that’s separate somewhere, do it, because if you have that goal in mind of, “I want the freedom to work on projects that I want to work on, write things I want to write, help clients, help other people,” have a bigger reason why you’re doing the work as opposed to just a paycheck, do it.
Because I mean, here in two weeks, I’ll be on 90 days and it has been nothing but a struggle, and a lot of fear, and a lot of emotion, and a lot of doubting myself. But the community in No Pants Project is wonderful and they’ve reassured me so many times, and they celebrated the victories that I’ve had. It is a wonderful group and a wonderful program and it’s a great foundation to get going.
Delicia Ivins: And you did it. And you’re still doing it. You’re totally on your way, man. I’m super excited for you.
Chris Pearson: Thank you, yeah. I’m excited, too. I’m rolling out a bunch of Facebook ads right now because I want to get the inbound stuff going. Because outgoing cold email is just wearing on me. I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got some money now, I’m going to run some ads.”
Delicia Ivins: Well you know, you can also outsource that, too. There’s a whole module on how to outsource that.
Chris Pearson: I’ve been looking into that, too. The thing that I’m coming across with that is which industry am I going to outsource? Or by industry outsource it, so the process of like mental health professionals, it’s really easy. Just go to Psychology Today in a certain city, and everything’s there. Whereas construction, people in construction very rarely respond to emails. Send even more to try and get, I don’t know. That’s what I want to test first. But yeah, that’s where it’s at.
Delicia Ivins: This is very fun, man. You’re learning your market right now. You’re doing the kind of market research right now that is going to pay dividends next quarter and second quarter, because you’re going to be able to dial it in, and to know, “Oh, this group responds to emails. This one doesn’t. This one responds to ads, but they only respond to ads with this kind of copy and this image.” You’re going to become the master of that market, and then when somebody’s like, “I need ads for this niche” or, “I need copy for this niche” or, “I need content for this niche,” you’ll be like, “This guy, right here.”
Chris Pearson: No, and that’s something else I think people, maybe this is something we can add on, but the discovery calls give you more than potential to earn a client. They give you pain points, they give you questions to answer before the call. They give you the basis for content, and how to run ads, and [inaudible 00:35:56] address that in the ad, and test that, and see if it works. Instead of just throwing ads up into the dark and saying, “Oh, I’m testing and seeing what works,” now you have a basis.
Some of the responses I got from the cold email, they’re not clients. But they’re just like, “Holy cow, this is super personal. I don’t like dealing with marketing people but because of the way you did this, I’m going to refer people to you if they ask.” They literally just open up and listen things of like, “This is what sucks and you totally nailed it, and I wish I could afford you.”
Delicia Ivins: Yay.
Chris Pearson: You’re always getting data. You’re always getting feedback. Feedback loops are huge.
Delicia Ivins: That’s awesome. Yeah, you’re even like, you’re nailing it on the pain point, so then it’s just targeting or tweaking the audience a little bit, tying it to the people who can afford you a little bit more, but you’ve already nailed down that pain point.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, for sure.
Delicia Ivins: Yeah. You’re rocking it. You’re awesome.
Chris Pearson: Thanks.
Delicia Ivins: Thank you for joining us all the way from chilly Colorado. I’m going to assume you have like three pairs on long johns under that flannel, because it’s cold out there.
Chris Pearson: I do. It is pretty cold.
Delicia Ivins: Well, let me know the next time you happen to find yourself in the Southeast, and I’m going to be watching you in the Facebook group, because you’re making huge strides and like you posting your struggles and your wins, and how you’re pulling all the pieces together has been such an encouragement to myself and to many other freelancers out there, and that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to interview you today because it’s just super fun to see people who instantly get it and it’s even almost a little more fun to see people who just keep trying, the strivers, and who start to get it.
Then you’re like, “Oh man, you’ve got a little bit of it. You’re just an inch away from getting the rest of it” so that’s been awesome. So please keep doing that and encouraging all of us with your awesome attitude and your optimism and your just go-getter self.
Chris Pearson: Yeah, thanks. I’m enjoying it.
Delicia Ivins: I hope so. All right, well see you there, and thanks again.
Chris Pearson: Yep, thank you.
