How I made my first $100k without working at a company

4 things I've learned about money so far...

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It’s Taboo

It’s taboo to talk about money, but I’m going to do it anyway. I wish that money was talked about more transparently because it is one of the only things that will affect every single person on this planet and yet we leave it up to the individual to figure it out on their own. Rumor has it that the public high schools were between teaching us how to identify an isosceles triangle or teaching us personal finance and team triangle won. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the ability to identify an isosceles triangle has been wildly useful in my adult life.

With that being said, I’d like to chat about 4 important things I’ve learned about money while earning my first $100k. Just to clarify, this isn’t all in one year (I wish), but rather over the course of running my freelance business.

Disclaimer: I’m not a master at earning money (not yet, at least). I’m sharing this in hopes that it could help a reader shift their mindset on money and potentially inspire somebody to start their own business.

Getting Started

When I first started my freelance business I didn’t realize that I was going into business, I was just trying to make money doing something I liked so that I didn’t have to get a boring summer internship. That was 3 years ago and since then I’ve learned a lot about the mechanics of money and how they are used to run a freelance business.

1. Money is just an exchange of value

People & businesses exchange money for things (products / services / experiences) they find valuable. This was the first important realization I had. It may seem like common sense but it took a while for me to internalize this lesson and apply it to my freelance business. After learning this, I started framing my offers in terms of how it would benefit the companies I was approaching rather than just talking about how good at making videos I am, which, I can assure you, they did not care about.

This applies to business owners but also to employees. If you are an employee and want to get paid more, it can be helpful to think through this lens. How can you provide more value to your company? This tweet highlights this concept well:

Codie Sanchez 💥@Codie_Sanchez

There's no such thing as being "underpaid." The money you make = value you deliver + how replaceable you are + negotiation ability. If you're not satisfied, it's on you to change those three things.

8:31 PM · Jul 24, 2022

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263 Reposts · 1.7K Likes

2. Selling to broke people & companies is hard

Companies with limited budgets have to be very picky with how they spend their money. Here is a personal example. Early on in my freelance videography career, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to sell to coffee shops. I figured coffee shops are all about curating a trendy, cozy vibe and they would definitely want some great visual content to market their space. The only problem was that I failed to account for the fact that local mom & pop coffee shops don’t have thousands of dollars lying around to pay me what I thought I was worth for that content.

So no matter how well I sold myself or my services, there was no way they were going to pay my full rates. After realizing this, I moved on to companies where my services aligned closer to the needs of the industry. I found success with e-commerce companies and live events.

3. Money making is a skill that can be learned

Some people definitely have a knack for making money, but if you are not one of those people, there is still hope. Making money boils down to understanding value creation & sales, which are both things that can be practiced & learned. Knowing this gave me hope to keep going with my freelance business, knowing that my skillset and understanding would get better over time.

4. Value ≠ Time

For a while, I thought that the money I could charge was equal to the number of hours I would put into a project. But then I had a couple of big opportunities come through that paid well but didn’t require a lot of hours. Those gigs helped me realize that time spent on a project wasn’t the only indicator of the value created.

Value takes many shapes and forms. Some companies value speediness and would gladly pay 2x your rate if you can get the job done in 2 days versus waiting 2 weeks. Some companies value reliability. They would much rather pay your higher rates if they know they can count on you, than pay somebody with lower rates who may not be as reliable. And all companies value business results. If you can create results in a fraction of the time that somebody else can create the same results, you can charge the same amount, even though it took you less time. This frame of thinking helped me realize that my time was not the only valuable part of my service offering.

Wrap Up

And that’s all I’ve got for you today! This post was a little more businessy, as you could tell. I want to start expanding my blog into all sorts of different areas. Business / entrepreneurship, life lessons I’ve learned, travel, relationships, etc. I’ve got no idea where this blog will go, but it’s nice to have a place to store my thoughts. One day, I’ll likely look back and think about how young and naive I was when writing this, but that’s okay!

Per usual, if you’ve made it this far I’ve got questions for you:

1. How often do you talk about money with your friends / family? Would you like it to me more / less frequent or stay the same?

2. Where did you learn personal finance?

3. Do you know what an isosceles triangle is? If yes, prove it.

Thank you to all who read this blog! More to come.

Until next time,

Flickman

P.S. If you are interested in becoming a business owner or have thought about working for yourself, I would highly recommend a service-based, freelance business. This type of business is a great place to start because you don’t carry a lot of overhead with you and they allow you to learn some business basics.