Putting your products on a pedestal?
Why? Everyone and their dog sell services.
There are hundreds of people out there making money with products.
I’ve been romanticizing them. They are living the dream, not spending any time working and making money in their sleep. I read the 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferris or hang around YouTube or read stories on Twitter and X. It sounds like the dream.
A bunch is likely bullshit, but I believe others were able to make it work, to a certain extent.
Client work before products
After talking to dozens of people and reading about a hundred more of those stories, at least 80% of them did some form of client work.
It’s tough to find someone who started from scratch. Most people either:
Have some savings/funding and tried a good dozen times to launch products
Do some client work while launching products
The more I market my automation services, the more I realize it’s one of the best ways to make money while learning business.
Less uncertainty
It’s easier to market services than it is to market products. I’ve tried launching a bunch of products, but usually, it takes a while to get some traction. Sometimes, it doesn’t even get traction. Ultimately, it’s way easier to sell two hours of my time for $100 than convince 10 people to buy my product at $10.
Why is it easier?
It boils down to uncertainty. Most people use whatever skills they develop under the umbrella of a 9-5 to market them to clients.
They’ve done it before, and they know people pay for it.
The only thing they need to figure out is how to find clients, how to market to them, craft an offering, etc.
Compounding power
Those compounds. For example, I’ve often had to rewrite my profiles on freelancing platforms. It helped a lot when I had to write the landing page for my small course (How to get your first gig on Upwork).
Another example, I’ve had to learn SEO to get eyeballs on my gigs on Fiverr. It’s helped me develop a French Hangman site. The users have been growing 20-30% per month without doing much. It’s making trickles. But I’m now applying it to a keyword with bigger traffic, Solitaire. I’ll let you know how that one goes!
Anyway, it makes the jump from a job to products smoother. You have more time to develop business skills to market an offering (your services) before you jump to promoting and developing products.
But…
There are 3 pitfalls of this “client work” strategy as helpful as it is:
Spending a lot of time finding new clients
Focusing only on fulfilling the work once you found clients
Not carving enough time on developing products
I’m the only captain of my boat. No one can tell me where to go or how to navigate. That’s a big problem for me right now.
I’ve postponed the launch of the solitaire game for months now. I’ve missed a bunch of workout sessions. We’ve postponed a bunch of dates with my wife. I don’t like that. It’s not sustainable.
I realized I’m being too reactive to client work and not being intentional about how I spend my time. Even though I’m expecting a kid in a month or so, I’m set on finding a better balance between all those parts of my life in 2024.
If you’ve been doing client work, have you experienced a similar situation? How did you manage it?
3 juicy links of the week
DO NOT BUILD A PRODUCT. Start by offering a service instead.
Paul Xue made 500k per year with his software agency. He’s talked to hundreds of people in the past months. And he concluded that it’s easier to develop the right mindset by selling services before developing the “perfect” product.
The Plain Bagel is a cool YouTube channel. I love their honest look at most financial strategies advertised to people. It’s annoying when people sell quick earnings with minimal effort. It pollutes the knowledge pool and creates delusions, which leads to disappointment. It’s not helping people achieve their goals.
Mentors can only give you confidence. I’ve had many mentors for a few different adventures in my life. Every time, my conclusion is, “I need to go figure it out on my own.” I agree with David Heinemeier Hansson’s conclusion. What you need is the confidence to take the decision and act on it. It is what matters at the end of the day.
Insightful...
Nice one Kenny! And, absolutely, client work can be the critical foundation builder. I've appreciated Dan Koe's straight-shot perspective on this. He's highlighted it in recent issues he's released. Spend a year or two in the services space. Some spend even more.