STEP ONE
The Well-Fed Freelancer LIVE,
in-person Boot Camp
With
WHEN
11th & 12th June 2022
0900 - 1700
WHERE
London, Stansted
Location on purchase
WHY
Keep reading...
Registration closes in...
You missed out!
From: The Cave of The Evil Bald Genius,
If you’re a freelancer, coach, consultant, or service provider of any description and you’re sick and tired of prospects and clients leading you on, fobbing you off, giving you the runaround, and ultimately ghosting you after you’ve put in time and effort to secure the work (sometimes even after you’ve done the work and it’s time for them to pay you)...
… then your day is about to get a lot better.
Why?
Because stopping ALL of this dead in its tracks is dead simple.
All it takes is a different way of thinking about and looking at your business and how you run it.
And if you join me for The Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp I’ll share with you everything you need to know to create an end-to-end process to attract the best clients and sell to them at premium fees, and all without resistance, anxiety, or having you resort to begging and discounts to secure the work.
Better still: underpinning my Well-Fed Freelancer system is my Client Acquisition Framework 2.0 (CAF2.0) and the Stoic Leadership and Attitude Model (SLAM), the tried, battle-tested, and proven frameworks to take your business to an entirely new level of success, accomplishment, and satisfaction.
And frankly, it could not have come at a better time.
Why the urgency?
Simple.
The freelance market is set to grow exponentially over the next few years.
This is thanks, in part, to the knock-on effects of COVID and the dawning realisation working from home is a real possibility for most people.
It was obvious to me this was going to happen the moment the Internet properly took off a couple of decades ago.
I knew it was but a matter of time.
It's extraordinary when I think about it, but even in my adult lifetime — less than 40 years — we've gone from "a job for life" being A Thing to virtually anyone being able to set up their own business in their bedroom and within minutes be serving clients on the other side of the world.
And the choices available to us are staggering. Most of what you can do for a living these days didn't even exist when I was pushed out into the world in early 1965.
It seems the idea of "going to work" in the sense of most of society having a "job" where you have to leave the house to be in a given place for a set amount of time each day has been a blip in human history dating back some 260 years to the start of the Industrial Revolution (a long time for us as humans, but a mere eyeblink in the history of the species).
What a time to be alive.
I say it again...
What a time to be alive!
But therein also lies a problem.
Because despite the ease with which they can set up their businesses, most freelancers have no fucking idea how to run that business.
And when they do look for advice, where do they go?
They ask their fellow freelancers for it.
The problem with this is if you ask someone how to solve a problem they are still struggling with you won’t get any other answer than how to live with it.
For example... if you have cataracts as I did, you don’t get new lenses surgically implanted into your eyes by talking to other cataract sufferers.
If you do that, all you’ll get is advice on how to live with deteriorating eyesight.
If you want a cure, a solution then you talk to a specialist.
So it’s madness to ask freelancers who are complaining about, say, being ghosted or ripped off by clients not paying invoices how to avoid being ghosted or ripped off by clients not operating their invoices.
Because if they had a solution…
… they’d have solved it by now.
But they don’t and they haven’t.
So they struggle.
They all struggle.
And this is where I come in…
Who am I and why should you listen to me?
I’m Jon McCulloch, a.k.a. The Evil Bald Genius and my job, my chosen profession as a freelancer myself, is to show freelancers like you how to run your businesses better.
See, the biggest problems for most are with attracting decent clients, selling at high-enough fees to make it all worthwhile, and then making it all happen reliably and predictably.
And I’ve been there. I’ve earned my stripes as the underpaid, overworked, underpriced, and sometimes shat-upon freelancer who did business the way I did because that’s how everyone said it “should” be done.
Look... I used to have a crap business.
It's true.
I did the usual stuff — “networking”, being "nice" to everyone, buying into the idea of "the customer is always right", and being very understanding about price buyers doing the dutiful thing and cutting my prices to the bone, like the idiot I most surely was.
I remember all too well one client, long since consigned to the cesspit he deserves, who'd email me for prices and then invariably end with the words, "your best price please".
Oh man, the shame... because I always used to buckle and cut my prices, hoping to get the work.
Jesus... work I hated for a client I despised. Sitting up until the early hours desperate to please this bloke.
And back then I was a single dad with three small kids, so I often wouldn't start work until eight in the evening, and by the time I got to bed, I'd have maybe three or four hours until it was time to get up and start the whole sad, sorry cycle again.
Fuck.
My.
Life.
What kind of message was I giving myself and everyone else then?
But… it was all my own fault: because I allowed him to treat me that way.
Make note of that word: allowed. We'll be coming back to it.
The fact is... competing on price leads to a slow, painful death for a business.
In a price war, everyone cuts prices and the distribution of sales across the niche evens out and goes back to what it was before you had the brainfart to cut prices… except, you're all now just as hard only for less money.
More: not only does it mean you’re working much harder than you need to for far less money than you could make, but it also means you’ll attract the worst possible customers and clients and often you'll be lucky if you get paid anything at all.
Trust me, I know. I still have the mental scars (see above).
In my experience, “price buyers” are the quickest to complain and the slowest to pay.
What’s more, they have precious little respect and absolutely no loyalty — because the moment they perceive your products and services can be replaced by someone or something cheaper, they’re gone.
Don't judge them. That's what price buyers do. They can't help it. It's how they are.
You won't ever change them, and you'll go nuts if you try.
But you can (and should) choose not to deal with them.
See, if you position yourself at the bottom-end — or just drift there because you don’t position yourself as high-end — you will have to deal with those vile bottom-end clients, too. The low-class pond life who’ll try every trick in the book to wriggle out of paying you a decent rate (or at all, for anything, ever).
The ones who think they can do your job better than you (particularly rife in the copywriting industry because everyone learns to write at school so everyone’s a fucking expert).
The ones who think they can call you at all hours to put out a fire they started (and continue to piss petrol on with their carping, moaning, and meddling).
The ones who keep adding more and more to a proposal and negotiating harder and harder for a discount.
You know the kind of scrote clients I mean, right?
They’re never happy, and when it comes time to pay?
They suddenly become unresponsive and don't return emails or phone calls.
It's a shit way to run a business and will cause you untold misery.
Unless you’re very, very lucky you’ll have experienced at least one client like this before now, so you know what it feels like.
It sucks your motivation and enthusiasm, saps your energy, and you come to hate the business you’re building.
That’s no way to live.
And you don't have to live that way, either.
You’ll see why in a moment. So stay with me.
I was fortunate enough to get wise to the mess the industry was in early on, probably in my second or third year, maybe 18 years or so ago, and I made it my business quickly to drag myself out of the swamp.
Until I did get wise to it all, it didn’t occur to me at the time the reason the way everyone did things the way they did them was that was the way they’d been told they were done.
This attitude is endemic.
I recently had someone block me on LinkedIn and then criticise me behind my back saying in effect, “Everyone else here agrees with me so The EBG must be wrong”.
The conversation was about the “going rate” for a 1500-word blog post, and because “everyone else” said £300 or thereabouts was about right, that figure was…
… the right one.
You see the problem here, right?
Anyway... where was I?
Oh yeah...
So I started seeking and paying for the best advice I could get from people who knew what they were talking about.
And it wasn’t cheap.
In fact, it was so not-cheap I loaded up my credit cards massively, a stupid strategy which just happened to work out for me — it’s definitely and absolutely not one I’d recommend to anyone, ever. I paid them off almost overnight when things took off, but that was my good fortune. It could have gone horribly wrong.
Whatever... over the years I've paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to be taught and mentored by the best travelling across the Pond to the US on several occasions (no small thing for this autistic old fart, I can tell you) and generally immersing myself in studying best-practices for freelancers who want to run proper businesses rather than have what amount to nothing more than draining and unprofitable hobbies.
Look...
… the freelance market is tough enough to test anyone's mettle, a fact evidenced by the amount of pissing and moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth I see about it in the soggy-biscuit circle-jerks of misery and despair on Social Media.
Oh, how much easier it is to take out your frustrations on someone else than face the truth about your current circumstances.
Guess what?
It's set to get a lot worse.
Because competition is increasing and more and more freelancers are joining the fray.
This will inevitably exert downward pressure on prices as newbies come into the market at ball-crushingly low rates.
Supply and demand, you know?
And unless you have a way to differentiate yourself from them so price becomes irrelevant you'll have no choice but to lower your own prices to match.
This is happening already.
And that's why I’m inviting you to join me live for The Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp.
You’ll get the best of what I’ve learned in the last two decades for a fraction of what I invested in time, energy, and money to learn it myself.
It's not complex or complicated and you don't need innate talent, the brain the size of a planet, or any special abilities to do it.
Moreover, because I've done it from the ground up, I know the dead ends, pitfalls, mantraps and blind alleys to avoid.
I’ve made all the mistakes already…
… so you don’t have to.
Let me be blunt:
- Everything I will share with you at The Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp works.
- Everything I will share with you at The Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp is a learnable skill.
- As with all learnable skills, if you practice them, you will get better at them.
- Some people have more natural aptitude than others for the skills I teach, and some people naturally get better results than others of equivalent or even superior skill because of social, cultural, economic, and personal factors and variables we can’t foresee or control. But all other things being equal, the more you practice, the better you’ll get and the better results you’ll enjoy.
- The only way these skills won’t work for you is if you don’t get good at them.
- The only reason you won’t get good at them is if you don’t start out bad at them and steadily improve through practice in the real world, using them with real prospects and clients.
- If you avoid practising these skills in the real world because you don’t want to get it wrong and are afraid of appearing foolish and more worried about what others think about you instead of your own success, then you will never improve, and your life and business will stay the same as they are now.
So, you have a choice: follow the majority and get "majority results"; or show courage, confidence, and self-integrity and do things differently.
If you’re the kind of person who won’t do the fucking work when you get back to your desk after the Boot Camp, save your time and money and stay away.
But if you’re not and you’re willing to tread on toes, ruffle feathers, rock a few boats, and unashamedly slaughter some sacred cows, then you’re the kind of individual I want joining me.
At The Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp you will discover
- How to attract only the BEST prospects and clients to your business.
- How to avoid wasting time with no-hopers, also-rans, and non-starters.
- How to get paid on time, every time.
- A better way to use Social media than "giving value" or seeking "engagement"
- How to charge 6x to 10x what you're charging now without blinking (or price resistance from your prospects and clients)
- How to face and deal more effectively with adversity (a MUST as competition for those precious freelance gigs become more intense).
- Why you should NEVER, EVER be submitting proposals.
- Why higher fees are better for your clients.
- The 3 vital traits of leadership.
- The deadly danger "banana skin statements" and hot to avoid them.
- A simple 9-step plan to maintain your equanimity under ANY condition.
- The Magic Message and how it will change your life and business dramatically for the better overnight (fewer than 100 words and you always get the right answer).
- How to immunise yourself against the B.S. prospects try and guilt you into.
- Why others opinions of you are only as important as you decide to let them be.
- How to get paid from day one.
- How to decide the fee for those tricky-to-price projects (and at multiple of your current rates). I'll teach you this in under 12 minutes, and I guarantee it's worth the entire fee for the whole day all by itself.
- The THREE (literally) life-changing things I get new clients to do the moment I start working with them.
- Why your prices are irrelevant.
- How to promote and sell yourself without fear, guilt, anxiety, or resistance.
- The ONE skill the EBG learned 35 years ago and changed his life forever.
- Why asking your fellow freelancers for advice is one of the worst things you can ever do.
- The Three Essential Questions you must get a "yes to from prospects and existing clients alike - NO EXCEPTIONS.
- How to get the right answer from a prospect who's vanished off the radar... every single time (this cannot fail).
- And much, much more...
OK, EBG... how much?
WFF LIVE EVENT
£600
You missed out!
The fact is this Boot Camp is better than free because you’ll make far, far more from what I share with you than you’ll pay me to teach it to you.
Yeah, I get it.
Big promise, EBG. You’ve probably heard that once before.
It’s still a risk to your pocket, right?
Right.
So your attendance at the Boot Camp is entirely without risk because of...
My personal unconditional, cast-iron, and no-wiggle-room DOUBLE your money-back guarantee...
If by lunchtime on the first day you believe for any reason or no reason at all what I’m sharing with you at the Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp is NOT worth at least a hundred times what you’ve paid to be there with us…
… just let me know and I’ll ensure you get a full and courteous refund of DOUBLE your attendance fee.
Can’t say fairer than that, can I?
“No EBG, you can’t” is the only sane answer to that question.
So... what are you waiting for?
You missed out!
One final thought if you were hesitating...
If you’re happy with the way your business is now, then do nothing, because there’s nothing you want or need to change.
But if you’ve experienced the frustration and misery of being treated like a doormat by prospects who are big on promises but painfully low on commitment and follow-through, then if you’re being honest with yourself you have to admit…
… something isn’t working.
If you change nothing in your business, then nothing will change.
And make no mistake… it’s YOUR business and only YOU can change it.
The good news is…
... if you will change, then everything will change for you.
Ultimately it comes down to choices, actions, and consequences
If you choose not to change how you run your business and deal with prospects and clients the consequences are inevitable and unavoidable.
You will keep getting led on.
You will keep talking to prospects and working for free, lured on by big but empty promises.
You will keep getting ghosted after putting in detailed proposals you’ve poured your heart and soul into.
And you will keep working for free and having your invoices ignored.
But if you choose differently and put what I can teach at the Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp to work in your business then NONE of that can happen to you.
Ever.
You will be paid higher fees and work with better clients.
You will never work for free again.
You will never get ghosted after putting in proposals (or at any other time after going out of your way to be helpful).
You will never be ripped off with unpaid invoices.
It’s ALL your choice.
And you’re free to make any choice you like.
But you’re not free to avoid the consequences of your choices.
So choose wisely.
You missed out!
P.S. I know asking you to turn up to a live event is a big ask. COVID hasn’t been kind to many and the fear, uncertainty, and doubt are only getting worse even though restrictions have been lifted pretty much in their entirety.
But remember… we get to make these choices: do we hide in the shadows and wait for the storm to pass and make the best of what’s left in the aftermath or do we stride out and take it on face to face?
There’s no doubt the current climate heralds a massive shift towards freelancing in the next two to three years.
This offers a fabulous opportunity… but will also mean disaster for anyone not able to compete in a more competitive field on anything but price.
It’s worth thinking forward to when this is all over and the dust settles and you look back and tell yourself as well as those who support and depend on you what kind of man or woman you are.
And remember… you cannot possibly lose because of…
My personal unconditional, cast-iron, and no-wiggle-room DOUBLE your money-back guarantee...
If by lunchtime on the first day you believe for any reason or no reason at all what I’m sharing with you at the Well-Fed Freelancer Boot Camp is NOT worth at least a hundred times what you’ve paid to be there with us…
… just let me know and I’ll ensure you get a full and courteous refund of DOUBLE your attendance fee.
Can’t say fairer than that, can I?
“No EBG, you can’t” is the only sane answer to that question.
So... what are you waiting for?
You missed out!