The Multi 6-Figure Freelancer Playbook Series | Part 1

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, episode 356

Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place. So this podcast is called 6 Figure Creative, and throughout the last 355 episodes before this, we talked about earning 6 figures as a freelancer. All the things we've brought in to this episode, all the outside influences, all the guests we've talked about, even all the way back to when we used to be called the 6 Figure Home Studio, we just talked about earning 6 figures. So you could say that this podcast is a playbook to earn 6 figures. It's a whole advice buffet. There's tons of stuff more than you can ever consume. There's a few of you who've been around a long time and you've been through every episode. Shout out to you people. But what about the playbook to go from 6 figures to multiple 6 figures? What about going from 200,000 to 500,000? These are the things that get more and more difficult for freelancers because the average freelancer has no experience making that sort of epic growth in their income. I'm actually doing an entire series on this where we're going to break down the playbook to multiple 6 figures as a freelancer. And this is the first episode in that series. Now, if you're the average freelancer, you probably earn around 50K. I think we'll talk about the numbers later in this episode. But the average freelancer, you're stuck in the freelance mindset. You are a button to seat. You're trading dollars for hours or hours for dollars. You're working for clients. Emphasis on for. You're working for clients. You're trying to juggle everything yourself while hoping to get paid. Again, emphasis on hoping to get paid. You're waiting around for the next client, and you're stuck in this constant feature payment life cycle. That is the typical freelancer. As long as you're doing those things, as long as that's how you operate your business, and that's how you think it should be operating as a freelancer, you're going to continue to earn the same as an average freelancer, which I looked this up, it's around 50 to 55,000 a year. I think that's honestly being generous if we're looking at averages. I think that number is inflated because the data that most of the internet has is based on data that's available. I think most freelancers are not full-time, therefore, those incomes are much, much lower. So I think 55 is generous, but 55k is the average, according to the internet and the sources I could find. It's like 35, 45 bucks an hour max. However, the average business revenue is $804,000 a year. Obviously, when you look at average business, that's everything from like the solo business owner, including freelancers, technically, all the way up to like multi-billion dollar, trillion dollar businesses. So obviously, that number is going to be skewed by the larger businesses. However, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is it's painfully obvious that real businesses and business owners operate differently than freelancers. And I've seen freelancers able to break 6 Figures basically by accident. They're just really good at a skill. They're in high demand because they're one of the top 1% or better of that skill set. And so people find them, they get enough referrals, and they're able to break 6 Figures that way. And by and large, they're not really operating like an entrepreneur or a business owner. They're just operating like a freelancer. It just happens to work out. So you can kind of accident your way into the 6 Figure. Very, very, very few freelancers stumble their way into multiple 6 Figures. Much more difficult. So we need to dig in to what those differences are so that you can spot in yourself, what are you doing wrong right now? If you're stuck at 50, 60, 75,000 a year, you're stuck at 100,000 a year, you've plateaued, you're trying to break multiple 6 Figures and you can't, what are those differences? So this episode, I'm going to break down 7 key mindset differences between the average freelancer and an actual business owner mindset. And as personally someone who's gone through that transition, I started off as a solo freelancer in 2009, starting a recording studio in my parents' basement with those white checkerboard, black and white checkerboard tiles and wood panel walls from like the 80s and 90s and slowly made that change up until now, you know, it's 2025 now. How many years is that? 15, 16 years. And this year we're on track to be a multimillion dollar business. And that's just 6 Figure Creative, not including other business ventures that I have. So I have lots of thoughts, lots of opinions on this, because again, I have made that entire journey myself. So if you can make these changes to your mindset first and then from your mindset to your business, this is what allows you to build a reliable, stable, sustainable business that is able to break that 6 Figure and Multi-6-Figure plateau and eventually sustain that. And if you want, start to grow that into million, multimillion, decamillion business if you want. And most importantly, do it without breaking yourself first, because that's a whole other can of worms whenever you start operating like a business owner. You get way too carried away with that and then you're not breaking your family up. Divorce, all these things that can come with the entrepreneur side, the dark side of being a business owner that we also don't want either. So it's about balance. So if this is your first time here, hello, I'm Brian Hood. This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast. This is a podcast where I bring influences from what I'm doing and all my businesses, what I've done in my past, what I'm bringing in guests from other industries, outside input and ideas from other industries, and create a nice little mouthing pot, stir it around, serve you a cup of something that's going to actually help your business grow. If that sounds at all interesting to you, you're in the right spot. So let's get into the episode. We're going to talk about seven mindset shifts that need to happen if you want to break 6 figures, multiple 6 figures. The first one is from butt in seat to trusted advisor. Freelancers, they essentially just operate as a butt in a seat, or any butt's as good as another butt. As long as you're the butt in the seat, I'm getting paid. However, the business owner, especially the multi-6-figure freelancer, operates as more of a trusted advisor. So while freelancers get paid to sit at their desk, business owners get paid for their expertise or their outcomes that they provide. I think one thing that freelancers fail to think about is that clients tend to pay more for strategy than just execution. And some of our highest paid clients that we work with, because we have over 220, 225, 230 clients at this point right now, that we work with, helping on the client acquisition side, our best performing clients are people who, they're not a button to seat, they're not just executing on something, just doing a thing that the client wants. They're helping shape a big picture idea or strategy and then helping them execute it. So instead of being the worker, they're being the guide and they're leading them through a process that they've created to reach the outcome that the client wants. So instead of asking the client what they want and then just giving it to them, they lead them again through an entire process that helps them understand what does the client actually need and then say, okay, this is what you need. Here's how to get there. Do you see the difference in that? Whereas the freelancer says, what do you want, Mr. Business Owner, Mrs. Client? I'll do whatever you need. What do you need me to do? I'll be the button to seat. Whereas the trusted advisor says, what outcome do you want? Okay, I know how to get you there. Here's what you need to do. Here's how it works. Here's what's going to happen. One leads, one follows. And if you want to be a button seat freelancer for the rest of your life and always follow what the client asks you to do, that's a place you can be. That's the fiver way if that's the way you want to do it. Or if you want to be a trusted advisor, who is the person who's running the show and you say, if you want the outcome that I provide, here's how you get there, Mr. or Mrs. Client, that pays significantly more. So when you charge for thinking, not just doing, you can charge significantly more. So when you're doing any sort of advisory work with a client before you get started with the project, any sort of strategic work, any sort of consulting that you do, before you really start getting into the project, that pays more. The fees are higher. An easy example of this is the web designer who just takes orders, the client says, I want a website. Here's what we want. Will you build it? And web designer says, yes, I will build it. Here you go. Do you like it? Yes or no? That's how a lot of web designers operate, honestly. The other type of web designer says, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Client, what do you want? We want a website. Cool. They're going to ask bigger and better questions. What do you want the website to do? How do you want it to make people feel? What sort of messaging needs to be on the site? What's the outcome of the people you want to be on the site? Oh, you want to do this. You want to get your e-commerce store. You want to get increased conversions. You're a SaaS company. You want more free trials to sign up. You're a coach or consulting company. You want more book calls, whatever the outcome is that the client wants. Now, me, the specialist in that field, knows how to shape the project to help the client get what they want. So by taking a consultative approach to the project, we're trying to truly discover not what the client wants, but what the client truly needs. And you are shaping the project to give them the end result that they really want. You are the expert in that, not them. You are the one who's created a bunch of websites. You know exactly what works and what doesn't. You're the one who has put a lot of effort and time and energy into learning conversion rate optimization, understanding the messaging of the demographic of the needs that you serve. That's what I'm talking about here. And there's examples in every perceivable niche out there when it comes to the services you're offering, how you approach the services. But bottom line, are you a button to seat or are you a trusted advisor? That's the mindset shift that has to occur, first in your head and then in how you operate. Number two is making that mindset shift from I'm selling my time to I'm selling the value of what I provide. And this again, I've talked about this in the podcast a million times, but freelancers charge hours for dollars while business owners charge for the outcome, the value they provide, results, in other words. And it's easy to say this out loud, oh yeah, I'll charge for the value, I'll do value-based pricing, but very few freelancers actually do it because they don't actually understand what brings value. Go back to the first mindset shift that I just talked about, where you were just a button to seat taking orders. You're not a trusted advisor leading the show because you don't have the confidence to lead the show because you don't actually know how to get the outcome that the client wants. And if you don't know how to get the outcome that the client wants, your services are worth less. They're not worthless, but they are worth a lot less. And that's because bottom line, another little mindset shift, time does not matter, impact does. So does the service that you provide or the service you provide to your clients actually bring a bigger impact than the other alternatives that are out there? Or are you just like every other button seat freelancer around you who does a similar outcome, similar style website with the same exact styles of fonts because that's what the client wants? The best clients, the ones everyone really wants, those best of the best clients who pay the most, they care about outcomes. They don't care about how long it takes. They don't care how many hours you work on it. They don't care about a lot of things that most freelancers think you care about. What they care about is the thing I'm provided, going to give the impact and the outcome that I want as a business owner. And if you're not in the B2B space, it still applies. We had Annamay Tonkin on the show where she's working in family photography. There's no ROI on that, but still the outcome is the goal. The outcome is, how am I going to capture all these memories as the child grows up? And so nobody, we don't miss out on any big moments where there's big gaps in our photo sets. So we missed three big crucial years in our child's development, and we always look back and regret not having these photos. Well, she put together an entire offer that led them through getting the outcome that they wanted, which is memories captured. She put everyone on an autopilot membership, essentially, where they come in twice a year to get photos taken. And she has automatic customers. She's selling value, not time. And she has a very profitable, great business from that. I've even seen this in the studio world, the recording studio world. A lot of clients, they're in the world of just, again, selling time, selling studio time. And they realize in some niches, this isn't every niche, but in some niches, clients come because they really want a really cool experience. This is more when you're working with more amateur style people, not necessarily professional, bigger artists, which again, is a whole other thing we could talk about. But in the more amateur side, they might come in once a year, once every three years into the studio, and they want a really cool experience, something to share on social media, something they can brag about with their friends, something that feels the nostalgia they may have had when they were younger. These are older professionals. And so the result or the impact or the outcome you're providing those people isn't an ROI. It isn't the best sounding record on earth, although obviously quality matters, but it is a truly remarkable, memorable experience. And so we have some clients who are working with clients on providing an incredible experience, and that's the entire focus is how can we make this experience even better? It's the experience focus. Again, every business is different, every niche is different, but there's always the same core principle on the bottom of this that you have to shift your mindset to. It's not just selling time, it is selling value. The reason I talk about businesses is because it's really easy to understand value. Value is a clear ROI. If you're helping your client make 50,000 bucks or an extra 100,000 bucks in a year or an extra million in a year, why should you charge for hours that you spend on the project? Why would you do that? Makes no sense. Third mindset shift, shifting from I work for clients, shifting that to clients work with me. This is a mindset shift I've seen many, many freelancers make, and when they finally make this shift, it is freeing. You are not an employee for your client. Your client is not your boss. Also, your client does not work for you. Obviously, they're paying you. However, they work together. You work with each other. However, freelancers don't make this shift, so freelancers are taking orders while business owners are running the show. This goes back to my first point where you're the trusted advisor. If you're the trusted advisor, you are the one operating the entire process. You are the master of your domain. Let's say you're a solo freelancer, earn a $200K a year. You're working with a solo business owner, with a small team, and they're doing $5, $10 million a year. While that business is bigger, and obviously, they're making more money than you, doesn't mean that they're the expert in your world. You're a small bubble that you've created. You're the expert. You run the show. You create the processes, and you set the rules. Remember, you're creating processes that create outcomes, and the clients are what follows those processes. And if you don't have processes and things that you run your clients through again and again to get predictable outcomes that the clients want, you don't have a great business. You have a very sketchy, unreliable business. But the best freelancers are the ones who understand the outcome they're giving their clients. They create a predictable, repeatable process they put their clients through, and they say, this is how we do things, Mr. Client or Mrs. Client. Not, what do you want? Let me shape everything that I'm doing around exactly what you want. Because again, the client doesn't always know what they need, and you should be the expert with the thing that you're providing, the outcome that you're providing. And also along with this mindset shift is you're not an employee. So if you get a client that's not a good fit, you can and should fire them. You'll make more money throughout your career if you work with people who respect your time, respect your skills, respect your boundaries, respect your processes, follow your processes, don't push back. At this point, I have fired a few clients though. And at this point, we currently have over 200 clients. A small percentage of those are just gonna be bad clients, no matter what we can do to try to filter those out of the front, some bad clients will get through. And when those people rear their heads up, and they try to pull us away from the process that we know is proven to work, and they try to do something way out of the ordinary, or they want to be treated as a special snowflake, we can't operate our business that way. Again, we are the experts in our domain. You're the expert in yours. So when you come into our world, you follow our processes. You follow how we do things, because we have a thing set and created to create repeatable, predictable results, just like you should with your clients. And when that person bucks back and doesn't respect you, your process, the value you provide, the time you put into things, they don't respect your boundaries or any of those things, fire them. And it is very difficult to do when you feel like you work for the client, because in that dynamic, now you're trying to do whatever you can to please that client so they don't fire you. And while obviously we want happy clients, we want clients to be ecstatic with us, that is much easier to do if we're just getting them great results. Whereas if you're just trying to keep a client happy, people please them and not really focus on results, and you're letting them run the show and mess up all your processes and pull you away from things and take longer, it's going to drag projects out. It's going to make things more difficult for the clients, it's going to make things more difficult for you. You're going to hate your life. It's going to show through the client. Your client's going to feel how much you dislike them. It's not going to work out. So make that shift again number three, from I work for clients to I work with clients. That's what businesses do. Businesses work with clients. It is a partnership of sorts. So mindset shift number four is freelancers think I can do it all while business owners think who or what can help me. It's no surprise that freelancers basically try to do everything themselves because freelancers generally are cheap because they don't have a lot of resources. They don't know how to delegate or automate or systemize things. That's literally what a business is built off of. If businesses didn't have people, systems, automations, processes, if they didn't have these things, they're just going to implode. The structure is what creates the business. So as a freelancer, focusing on outsourcing low value tasks so that you're not doing them. We've talked about this before on past episodes. That way your time is spent on high impact stuff that's actually creating value for your clients, not low value stuff that is just admin work that anybody with a pulse could do. You can focus on using automations and tools and all the wonderful things that are out there that even if they charge a few bucks a month, who cares? It saves you so much time, effort, and energy. If you never have to send an invoice again, you never have to send a reminder again to get paid. How much is that worth to you when you're not the bill collector anymore? You're not there debt collecting from clients. And if you do want to hire a team, my suggestion to you is hire before you're maxed out. If you're trying to get like a virtual assistant or somebody to help them with admin work, they can make your efficiency skyrocket. Like seriously, one assistant can make you like two, three, four, five times more efficient on the rest of your business. However, hiring and training and delegating all those things and getting them off your plate onto an assistant's plate takes time. It takes energy. And you're bad at hiring right now. You don't even know where to hire, how to hire, right? So you may mess up. You might have to do it two or three times before you find the right person. So if you wait until you are fully booked up and you are barely scraping by, you have no time left in order to start delegating things and getting them off your plate, it's too late. Because you now don't have time to get your time back. Do you see the dilemma there? So before you're maxed out on work, start thinking through, how can I hire someone to take on some admin work off my plate? And if you are maxed out, you're gonna have to take a pay cut. You were better off long term if you just say no to some projects on the short term, so you can get someone on your team to help take on some admin work. And then as you get time back, start taking on that work again. But the mistake I see and why so many people can get to 6 Figure and then get stalled out there is because they've maxed themselves out. And so they hit this wall, you can hit this wall earlier too, so you can be 50, 60, 70,000 a year. Usually around 100, 120,000 a year, you hit this upper limit, this wall, and you're stuck in this point because you cannot get your time back because you can't invest any time to get it back. Getting your time back takes investment. It takes money, sure. It also takes time. And when you have no time left, you're in a really bad spot. If you have no time and no money, horrible place to be, likely horrible pricing issues. And maybe that gets us into number five here of our fifth mindset shift to make, and that is shifting from where the freelancer is, I hope I get paid, shifting to the actual business owner of I control my cash flow. Businesses control cash flow. If you've ever worked for a big business and you've sent them an invoice, they usually have some sort of like net 60, net 90 day pay terms. They set the terms. And so you send an invoice off and they say, all right, Mr. Business, or Mr. Little Freelancer, hey, little freelancer guy, hey, little freelancer girl, we'll pay you in like three months. Hope you like that. Hope that's okay. And you say, cool, I hope I get paid. And I've heard horror stories of 60, 90, 120 days. Six months later, no pay yet.