A peek behind the curtains of a 20k/month consultancy
How Nick Lafferty finds clients and builds on the side
I’ve often felt that a lot of content is fenced off, and conversations happen behind closed doors.
I’ve wondered what people are going through. I’m always curious about what it takes to manage a particular business day to day. I want to understand the price to pay and whether I want to pay it.
The problem I’ve been facing is that a lot of the content on Twitter, LinkedIn, or even Reddit is often disguised promotion. I’m sometimes guilty of this myself.
But what I’ve been trying with this newsletter is show you a peek behind the curtains for myself and other independents.
Today, I have Nick Lafferty coming on for a few questions. Since he quit his job, he’s been super transparent about the growth of his consultancy. You can read his insightful updates here:
.Let’s get started with the interview!
How to balance client work and building on the side
Kenny Alami: From my experience and observations, client work is the best way to get quick cash flow. I’d recommend people wanting to get out of the 9-5 to follow this path. But the big pitfall is that your whole energy and time can get sucked up with client work. I’ve fallen in this, I know you have, and I’ve seen so many stories of others in the same situation. I’m sure it must be frustrating to focus on client work because it’s a shorter-term strategy and gets you away from building products focused on the longer term.
What do you do to mitigate that and make sure you balance it well? What new strategies did you develop to manage it better since you started?
Nick Lafferty: The amount of client work I have right now is a blessing and a curse. I’m making great money and with a full client roster I can be extremely selective of the type of work I accept and I can continue raising my rates.
But I have very little time to pursue my other ideas that could help me build longer term cash flow. Right now, I’m making small moves that I’m hoping will add up to a better balanced workload:
The mornings are for me. I try not to do heavy client work in the mornings, and instead I spend my time posting on LinkedIn (which I genuinely enjoy) and engaging with other people. Case in point, I’m writing this Monday morning! Even an hour every morning starts to add up before I dig into client work.
Fridays are also for me. The best consultants I know carve out dedicated days to work on their businesses, and Friday is that day for me. Usually it’s Friday morning (there’s a pattern here!), because by Friday afternoon I do not want to be sitting in front of a laptop.
I make time on the weekends. Right now my favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning is to put on the Premier League (and watch my team, Everton, lose or tie for the last 9 weeks in a row), and work on my newsletter. Again, just an hour or two spent on this helps me feel like I’m making real progress towards my goals.
I am definitely not perfect at this, and in a more perfect world, I’d reduce my client workload by 1 and spend that time working on my business instead. But that’s a very hard trade to make, declining income today for the chance to make more income later on. Our brains aren’t wired for that kind of decision, which is why a lot of clients end up in this scenario.
I’m giving myself grace and patience, and I know with time, I’ll figure it out :)
Playing it safe and getting out of your comfort zone
Kenny: You wrote about playing it safe in your newsletter. It’s very interesting how even after quitting my job, I still feel like I’m playing it safe and getting complacent in some areas of my freelancing.
What about you? Are you still feeling you’re playing it safe? If yes, how so?
Nick: I think it’s great to continue asking yourself this question, because, if I may quote a Pink Floyd song.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
I definitely notice myself getting into the same patterns with my client work, and in some areas I think that’s OK. I have a very specific offering and I know it’ll work with the right clients.
But if I continue doing exactly what I’m doing now, I won’t get out of the short-term income loop we talked about in my first question. I’d describe it like climbing a mountain: you climb a bit and reach the highest point you’ve been at so far, then you stop. But if you can figure out how to keep climbing, then you can hit your next plateau, and eventually make it all the way to the top.
It’s important to define where the top is for you. In my line of work, one of the next logical steps is to create a marketing agency, hire some people, and continue taking on more client work. But that’s not what I want.
I try to anchor myself in my Why. Why am I doing this? What do I want out of life?
My very specific answer to that question is that I want to move to Brooklyn so I can live 10 minutes away from my best friend. My wife and I have never lived in a big city and we’re tired of driving everywhere, and we want to experience a different lifestyle. To achieve that I need to make NYC money (rent is so damn high!), so that ambition is what’s driving me right now and keeping me out of the safe zone.
How to build long-term working relationships
Kenny: A couple of years back, you decided to quit video games and kickstart it with a challenge: write every day for 30 days. Somehow, someone picked up one of your articles and posted it on Hacker News. You got massive traffic on your website and a lot of consulting opportunities from this. Although, I’m sure you realized you needed a way to make it sustainable. Coincidentally, one of your superpowers is building 1:1 relationships. Now, we all know that relationships take time to form.
But, if you could deconstruct building friendships and relationships with clients online, what’s the mindset and the strategies that help you do that? What are ways you’ve found that speed up this process?
Nick: Give generously before asking for anything in return. Here are a few examples of what that’s looked like for me.
The Hacker News article. No one asked me to write that post, it came out of my 30 day self-imposed writing challenge. I was super lucky that it got picked up on HackerNews and it got the response it did, but it came from me sharing my ideas and experience in public. That one article turned into $60,000 of consulting work in 2020 (I’d also credit the other 29 articles I wrote that year that no one read, they all lead up to me writing the most successful one).
Meeting strangers on LinkedIn. Posting often on LinkedIn means I swap likes and comments with a lot of people. When I see a post that resonates with me, I’ll drop a comment and let them know. Done enough times and you start to build a tiny friendship with that person. Sometimes they’ll reach out and DM me, other times I’ll DM them and see if they want to hop on a call. It’s a zero-pressure situation where I’m looking to learn from them, and they’re looking to learn from me. The people I talk with are some of my biggest supporters on LinkedIn, which I think is actually really common across all social platforms. People engage with their friends and with other people they’ve met. I’ll reach out to a very small number of people I’ve talked with in the past to ask if I can pick their brains about a specific topic, which is how my newsletters about Negotiating Your Rates and my Masterclass on Personal Positioning both happened.
It boils down to being a genuine and authentic person and having no agenda besides connecting and trying to help someone else out. I’ve found that solopreneurs and consultants are very willing to chat because we don’t have colleagues anymore. My calendar isn’t filled with a bunch of bullshit meetings, so instead, I fill it with networking.
Also, I am terrible at doing this in person. I completely fall apart at conferences, so part of this is a coping mechanism to find an avenue that works for me. As a kid who grew up playing games and talking to strangers on the internet, I’m more at home doing this than at a 500-person conference.
Back to you! What’s one of the things that resonated from Nick’s answers? Let me know in the comments or reply to this email!
3 juicy links of the week
How to Never Pay Full Price Again with Dave Ramsey
I know I don’t ask nearly as much as I should. And I ask a lot. I’ve been stuck in situations where I feel taken advantage of. Feeling happy about the situation is usually on the other side of asking. I’ve learned a lot about asking and I need to practice bigger and bolder ask. I’m practicing enough for smaller asks. For example, whenever a business does something wrong, like changing the delivery date of my groceries, I ask for a voucher. I didn’t ask for a change, why would I need to pay the cost of that. There needs to be retribution. Good businesses know that and would usually give you something. Other times, you’ll have to fight for it!
Tips from a guy who spent 80% of his career building productized services
A simple and high-level breakdown on launching a productized offering. It’s heavily focused on positioning but, if you’re interesting in launching one, you’ll get something out of it. Mainly, to keep things simple and focused at the start!
Your company should be a vehicle for the life you want
A great reflection on growth. Do you need to grow at all cost? When is enough enough? When are you okay taking your time and consolidating your business? Growth comes at a cost and we need to be aware and ready to pay the price.
If you want more, here’s what I got for you
A 1-hour course to help you kickstart your independent life. It’ll show you how to get from 0 to $1000 on Upwork. Upwork is one of the easiest ways to get your first wins and earn your first $1000 online.
I'm liking your writing, and your juicy links section, and I appreciated the introduction to Lafferty.
People should check out your Upwork course too. I appreciated it (and didn't know as much about Upwork as I'd thought).
Enjoyed these questions with Nick! Keep ‘em coming :)