Kevin C. Whelan

Marketing Strategy Advisor and Mentor

Don’t ignore your dreams

Here’s an article I found published by Paul Graham in 2012.

It’s short, but sweet. I particularly like the “Don’t ignore your dreams” part.

Quote:

A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. Her list seems plausible. I could see myself — can see myself — making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes.

If you had to compress them into a single piece of advice, it might be: don’t be a cog. The 5 regrets paint a portrait of post-industrial man, who shrinks himself into a shape that fits his circumstances, then turns dutifully till he stops.

The alarming thing is, the mistakes that produce these regrets are all errors of omission. You forget your dreams, ignore your family, suppress your feelings, neglect your friends, and forget to be happy. Errors of omission are a particularly dangerous type of mistake, because you make them by default.

I would like to avoid making these mistakes. But how do you avoid mistakes you make by default? Ideally you transform your life so it has other defaults. But it may not be possible to do that completely. As long as these mistakes happen by default, you probably have to be reminded not to make them. So I inverted the 5 regrets, yielding a list of 5 commands

Don’t ignore your dreams; don’t work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.

which I then put at the top of the file I use as a todo list.

— Read on www.paulgraham.com/todo.html

The Success Path of the Independent Professional—from Employee to Equity

As an independent professional, you want to make a great income, control your schedule, enjoy the work you do, and eventually, free yourself from trading time for money.

In other words, you want to be truly independent.

For many, this seems like a far-off dream that is more fantasy than reality. But in reality, it’s just a series of steps you can climb.

Yes, it will take time. No, you can’t skip to the end without putting in the work. But you can build a roadmap and you can work the process until you get there.

So, without further ado, here is the path of the Independent Professional, as I see it and have experienced.

​​My hope is that it inspires you to find the path that’s right for you.

1. Employee

When you first start your career, chances are you still have a job. Maybe it’s not anything to do with your core skill.

It’s just something to pay the bills while you figure out what skills you have that are even marketable.

For many years, I thought my skills as a web developer weren’t really super valuable. I started building static HTML websites in about 2001. I started treating it like a “business” in about 2006. Every job I worked in, I ended up designing a brochure or building a website for them.

But it wasn’t until much later did I realize it was an actual marketable skill. My career was largely in the hospitality industry after university until I suddenly found myself in a corporate job as a web administrator.

Then it clicked—not only did I have extremely valuable skills, but I could also sell them to people and make even more money than my corporate job.

Enter, freelancing.

2. Freelancer

I started taking my freelance web design skills seriously when I got my corporate job in marketing. I had just finished a post-grad certificate program in Entrepreneurship and I knew I wanted to be doing something of my own, but I wasn’t able to support myself with it full time yet.

So, I did what I advise most people to do: freelance on the side.

I probably broke a few rules by not disclosing the fact that I had a side hustle, but the way I saw it, it was after hours, on my own time, and I was sharpening my skills which I immediately used to improve my work.

I wasn’t competing with the firm I worked for (different industries) and frankly what I did on my own time for my own personal contacts was up to me.

Anyway, the side gig eventually started paying what my corporate gig was paying, but I was getting exhausted doing both.

I worked… a LOT.

So, I saved all my money from freelancing, had a few clients and some momentum behind me, and eventually went out on my own.

I charged by the hour ($50, then $75, then $100+). Way better than my corporate job, right?

Well, I eventually ran out of time in the day, and frankly, my skills were being pushed to their limits. So, I hired a sub-contractor. A web developer in the Philippines, with whom I still work today.

And so, life as a “contractor” began.

3. Contractor

Sure, I was always a contractor in the eyes of the client. A freelancer and a contractor are interchangeable terms. But now I had a sub-contractor working beneath me.

This was my first taste of leverage.

I would find the clients, scope the work, get an agreement, then hand off the instructions to my developer who would work opposite hours from me at ~$15/hour.

He was—and still is—amazing at his work. This helped enormously.

Now, I would hand off the work, it would be done by the next day without my involvement, I’d pay him a fraction of my hourly rate, and suddenly it felt like I had a business!

I was “making money while I slept”! Or, at least kinda.

My margins would get eroded over time if I did a lot of fixed-work projects and under-scoped.

Eventually, I was doing a range of digital marketing work and had an entire remote team of sub-contractors working for me.

Money was a bit better, but boy did I have to do a LOT of work. I was making about 30% “profit” at the end of the day (aka income).

I wasn’t confident enough to raise my rates (another issue entirely), which meant I needed to do a fair amount of volume to make a good living.

But revenue was recurring, so I had a relatively stable base amount of income to work from each month, which helped.

I managed to end my first year with a similar income to my corporate salary (~$60k), and it went up from there.

4. Consultant

For me, a consultant works on projects, produces deliverables, and generally implements complex solutions with a combination of their hands and their strategic expertise.

It’s like a freelancer mixed with an advisor. A higher level engagement than a typical freelancer but still using “hands” and not just the “head”.

In about 2017, I was doing ~$250/year in revenue but working way too hard for the money I made at the end of the day.

I read a book called Profit First by Mike Michalowicz and it changed everything.

Actually, the book itself didn’t have much of the info that changed my perspective. But the idea of building guaranteed profit into your business from day one was what changed things for me.

I had a wave of inspiration based on two factors:

  1. I only wanted to do what I was best at—which I felt would lead me to success.
  2. I wanted to build my profit into every engagement UPFRONT instead of hoping it shakes out in the end.

I knew what I did best (and love doing) is matching business goals with marketing strategies. I’m a natural strategist. Some people love to code, I love to solve business problems with marketing.

So, I started selling just that. I sold a “fractional CMO” service to my first client in 2016 or 2017 and that began a path away from “implementation” to “advisory/oversight/management”.

The clients would pay me a fixed fee, I would basically bring in and manage the other suppliers, and they would charge the client directly for their work without my markup.

I’d win because I built a sizeable margin into the engagement for me ($4k/month with no sub-contractors).

The client would win because a) they didn’t need to hire a marketing manager yet and b) they could benefit from direct supplier pricing (like my web developer who was under $20/hour).

I ended up taking on a second client like this and suddenly it became too much. I realized that “managing” the implementation was not scalable.

Managing the marketing of two big clients was like having two jobs. I had no more room to do work for others.

Which brings me to the next part…

5. Advisor

Advisory is where I live and spend most of my time today.

I basically removed the “managed” part from my scope of work, putting the task on the client to push projects forward and handle the back-and-forth (which is hard but low-value work).

They still got my advice and oversight. I still made intro’s to freelancers and specialist consultants to implement the work we did (avoiding the need to get stuck on “who’s going to actually implement this?”).

I became a trusted advisor. Neutral about who we chose to work with or how we got the results. Similar to a fiduciary financial advisor, for a fixed fee I would help the client get results and was not incentivized to “do the work” for more money.

It’s a bit like comparing a butcher to a nutritionist. If I ask a butcher what to eat, they will say meat. If I ask a nutritionist (who doesn’t sell the food and therefore has no financial interest in the answer) they will suggest a wide range of options to keep me healthy.

Or, like when you go to a car mechanic and they tell you you need a new “Johnson Rod” (Seinfeld reference).

You have no idea whether you can trust them or not. They’re financially incentivized to “do more stuff”. It doesn’t make them unethical, it just puts the responsibility to make a good decision back on you, the buyer, who is not an expert at cars.

It works the same in marketing.

And this has worked quite well for me. Pre-pandemic I was able to generate about CAD$30k/month (USD$~20k) consistently in pure advisory retainers.

Ongoing, month over month revenue. Stable and consistent.

I was (and still am) able to work on client work mostly after 12pm and be done by 5pm each day, even with up to 10 clients.

I work on my business in the morning and with clients in the afternoon. It just works.

I’ll get into this more in future articles, but a big help in achieving this success was having a two-pronged strategy: specializing in an industry while maintaining a more general position here on this (separate) website.

Specializing allowed me to guest on podcasts, speak at conferences, build a niche audience on my email list, sell workshops, coaching, membership program, you name it.

Specializing is a life hack.

But having a general site (this one) to bring people to at the same time helped me buy the time needed to build up my specialization and client base in the process.

I didn’t market it, but I did have a place to point people to who came from word of mouth/referrals and were not in the coworking industry (my specialization).

I was still specialized “horizontally” as a marketing strategy advisor but also vertically by industry. It worked well for me, even if it’s against conventional logic to have two positions in the market. I still do this.

Onto the next phase.

6. Educator (leveraged info products, paid subscriptions, memberships, workshops, and group coaching models)

Specializing helped me become a known industry expert where very few exist.

As a result, it helped me begin to sell info products and membership subscriptions. This is an area I’m still learning, but it’s the most exciting to me so far.

Having a membership (with about 30 members) forces me to create webinars and a “system” I can produce once and leverage many times. It’s scalable.

It allows me to take some of that content and package it up into smaller chunks, such as a mini-course on web design for coworking spaces. More leverage and scale.

I’m now in the process of creating additional small products to see if that sells better than my membership program. My hope is that bite-sized products are more convenient for people to buy than bigger products, so that’s my plan. We’ll soon see!

I also had some success running a group coaching cohort of five coworking spaces, which is where my focus has been since the pandemic. It’s a lower-cost option for clients and I can design a curriculum that is easy to repeat next time. It also sold right away, which is a good sign.

I’ve also started to sell workshops to groups of coworking spaces, which has been another interesting way to use the content I’ve produced before. I can sell it in 4 one-hour segments, and create a high return on my time.

My goal is to eventually live off information products and membership subscriptions so that my time is highly removed from my income. At this stage, so far it’s mostly been about removing mental blocks around what is possible and getting out of my own way.

7. Advisor Equity

This step is what I imagine will come at some point in the future, especially if I continue specializing in the coworking industry.

The idea that your skills are rare and strong enough to get paid in advisor equity shares is something that is totally realistic, but I have not yet tried to do it.

This would allow me to remain at the advisor level—to be a trusted and valuable guide—but without being in the trenches every day dealing with the minutia of marketing (which is something that drains me).

The strategy piece is what I am good at and gives me energy. That’s all I want to do.

True wealth comes from equity, so I imagine this level being fun and challenging when the opportunity eventually arises.

If you figure this out, let me know!

In closing

There are many steps and nuances to this that I did not cover. Things like selling mostly recurring revenue engagements (which was important for me), productizing your services, and various other details along the way that helped in this process.

I’ll cover that another time.

In the meantime, I’d like to know what stage of the journey you’re at.

Leave a reply and/or tell me what you are up to on Twitter.

The four ingredients of an indepedent platform

Platforms come and go. Algorithms control what we consume. The rules are always changing. We need to “pay to play”.

Does this sound familiar?

The Internet was founded on a belief in an open exchange of information.

And in many ways, that’s exactly what it is.

But as tech matures, big players have amassed major audiences on the back of your content. Companies like Google, Facebook, Medium, Shopify, and more.

Now, they throttle attention, decide what people see, and/or constantly change the rules without notice.

If you rely too much on any of these platforms for your business, you’re putting yourself at some degree of risk.

Some examples:

Copyblogger popularized a term for this called digital sharecropping (originally coined by Nicolas Carr). It stems from the feudalistic farming days when people would grow crops on land owned by the landlord—becoming subject to their rules.

There are endless examples of companies changing the rules and putting businesses in jeopardy.

As an independent professional, you need to decide what you’re going to “own” and what you’re going to “borrow”.

My advice is to own your core platform and not build it on borrowed land.

The four ingredients of an independent platform

There are at least four things you can “own” as part of your marketing stack/platform.

  1. A domain such as yourname.com. This is the foundation for everything.
  2. A self-hosted, open-source website with your domain pointed to it.
  3. An email newsletter and mailing list.
  4. A podcast/blog RSS feed.

Building your business with these four ingredients will make your business less vulnerable to disruption.

Why? Because they are mostly open. As long as the internet exists, they are free to use with limited disruption.

Much like a ham radio, they’re in the hands of independent people.

But aren’t you still beholden to third parties?

Yes, it’s possible for your domain registrar to shut down (pick a good one). But I’ve never heard of that happening and there would be upstream ways to reclaim your domain if it did.

Yes, it’s possible for your website host to shut down your site. But you can always move it, or at worst, host it from your own computer.

Yes, it’s possible for companies like Gmail to mark your domain as spam across their platform. But if you own your list, you can always switch sending addresses.

Yes, it’s possible for Apple to hide your podcast from their app. But anyone with your self-hosted RSS feed can add it manually.

As much as a person can have a truly independent platform, this is what it looks like.

Closing thoughts

There’s something romantic about an independent platform. Your voice, your message, your rules.

And while that idea might seem idealistic, it’s closer to the truth than not (assuming you’re not doing illegal things).

As an independent professional with a voice, I plan to be around a long, long time. Platforms will come and go. Social media sites will die off and change.

But your domain, website, email address, mailing list, and podcast feed are all yours to keep. You can transport them anywhere you want.

So, those are where I will invest most of my time, resources, and content.

From there, I’ll supplement my presence with social media, advertising, and other things that rely on third-parties. They’re still valuable.

But I’ll never build my house in those places. I’ll never rely on a single platform for anything.

My house is an open-source, self-hosted website built on a domain I own, with an email list I own, and perhaps a podcast coming in the future.

Got something to add? Leave a comment below!

Why personal blogs ≠ branded websites

When I started freelancing in the early 2000s, I used a brand name instead of my own.

I created the brand so I could finally charge friends and family for the web design and graphic work I was doing for free because I was a “real” business.

Over a fifteen-plus-year period, I’ve gone through several naming iterations. When things got stale, or when I had new ideas, I rebranded as something new.

When I started KVNW in 2015, I wanted a company name I could put my entire self into. One identity to rule them all.

I believed having a brand name lent more credibility. I wasn’t a freelancer with a remote team of sub-contractors, I was an agency.

So, I named KVNW using the letters of my name—”Kevin W.”—minus the vowels. As close to a personal brand as you can get without being under my own name.

And yet, it was still outside of me. Not my name, nor my real initials.

It was something else. Something safe.

The difference between personal and founder-centric brand websites

This topic came in response to someone on Twitter saying that a founder-centric website using a brand name vs. a personal name is an “arbitrary” distinction.

And I disagree. So let’s get into it.

For one, personal blogs/websites are inherently tied to a person’s identity. You have a personal tone, view, and perspective in every post and page. You sign each post with your name. Every pixel belongs to you. Signed by you, good or bad. We’re following a person, not a brand.

There’s a sense of permanence in a personal website. You only have one name. You can’t just create a new name for yourself and start a new one. Unless, of course, you take up a moniker like Bono or Bob Dylan, or actually change your name entirely. But that’s not practical for most people. This is your one, given name.

There’s a certain skin in the game with a personal blog. You can’t distance yourself from what you put out. It’s you, your thoughts, your views. It’s one thing for people to criticize a brand. It’s another to criticize a person. It feels more personal. More of your reputation is on the line, even if it only feels that way.

The best personal blogs are multi-faceted. You’re a real person. You aren’t simply the work you do or the industry you belong to. The best personal blogs let you be… personal. You can talk about your life, your family, your outside interests. You can be “you”. And I like that.

Having a separate brand identity feels “safer” to the founder. A brand name looks more “official”. You can pretend you’re a whole team with lots of money and infrastructure. But we all know (or quickly learn) when it’s just a single person behind a brand name. This is a great place to start, though, if you’re not super confident yet (or many other reasons).

A website under your own name puts your reputation on the line. And your reputation is all you have in business. It’s scary to do that. But it also shows commitment. More skin in the game.

It requires (and demonstrates) confidence. You are signing your name to every piece of work or content you put out. That takes guts. And to some degree, a belief in what you’re doing. I respect that. Artists sign their work. Personal websites feel like art in this way.

You can’t sell a personal website. Or at least, it’s really hard to do. To sell a personal website, you would have to translate it into an eponymous brand name or rebrand it entirely so that it is no longer revolving around the person behind it. You’d need to distance the founder from the content. And then, of course, it’s no longer a personal website. It’s different.

The only way to rebrand a personal site is to evolve. Since you can’t sell or rebrand your personal website without extraordinary effort, your only choice is to evolve your voice on your blog/website. And that’s interesting to me. It’s human.

For example, I’ve watched Paul Jarvis over the years go from web designer, to author, to online educator, to maker, across various niches. Evolution.

It might make you look “smaller”, but if that’s who you are, why hide it? I’m a big believer in using your small size to your advantage. I figured out what I do best (marketing strategy) and cut out the sub-contractors and never looked back. I now stand on my own personal reputation. I deliver my own services.

Closing thoughts

The one permanent thing you have is your name.

For that reason, I applaud, commend, and enjoy reading and subscribing to people’s personal blogs/websites. The skin-in-the-game factor mixed with a personal touch creates an experience that brands can’t replicate.

Similar to watching a tight-rope walker cross a chasm without a net or support, the higher table stakes make the experience more engaging.

Yes, there are a lot of great websites out there with identities that are highly synonymous with their founder. Sites like Wait But Why and The Oatmeal. And I like those, too. There’s nothing wrong with them.

And yes, there’s a time and purpose for brand name websites. It depends on your goals and what you want to say.

But to me, there’s a difference. However subtle.

And it’s not arbitrary.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know!

Breaking the bubble

I wrote a tweet the other day asking for people’s favourite personal blogs/websites. People who use theirrealname.com or something similar.

Personal blogs (like this one) are entering a new golden era. They’ve been around forever, but lately I’m seeing them become more prevalent.

And I plan to explore this topic in more detail.

But anyway, in the tweet, I rattled off a list of about 10 individuals who came to mind. I didn’t give it much thought.

However, my quick tweet had a distinct oversight: it lacked diversity.

In particular, it lacked women. But it also lacked other forms of diversity.

And someone pointed that out. Rightfully so.

So, while this was just a quick tweet, it reminded me that I need to think more about the bubbles of influence I live in.

It’s easy to become blind to our bubbles. It’s easy to fall into echo chambers of people who look and talk like us.

But a range of influence is always better than homogeny.

And while I consider myself a progressive and inclusive person, it just goes to show: we can never be too aware of our own biases, bubbles, or privileges.

Even though I follow many of the recommended women in the tweet thread, my subconscious choice to select only men in my original tweet might be an indication that I need to assess my influences.

Diversity of influence makes us better marketers and humans.

What’s not to love about that?

Here’s the tweet for reference:

How to start building a community around your newsletter

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Update: I’ve added Commento to this blog. Give it a spin at the bottom of this post! —k

One of the few email newsletters I look for in my inbox is Dense Discovery by Kai Brach. If you’re in tech or design, you need to be subscribed.

In his latest issue, Kai added comments to the bottom of his archived issue on the website.

Now, I realize this is much like adding a comment section to a blog. But it feels different.

For one, his emails are a fairly typical example of a “curated” newsletter. It’s not a typical blog post. So it’s not something I’d expect to see.

I also like that he uses Commento.io, a privacy-focused commenting alternative to Disqus. It was outrageously quick and easy to leave a comment.

The comment box looks inviting and simple, unlike Disqus, which looks and feels heavy and is fraught with friction, or WordPress’ native commenting tool, which is a bit of a nightmare to manage.

I could leave a comment anonymously or set up an account with Twitter, Google, GitHub, or email within one or two clicks.

Here’s a screenshot of how it looks:

The user experience with Commento is great, the friction to leave a comment is minimal, it has a focus on privacy, no ads, pay-what-you-want pricing, and only 11kb of JS and CSS… so, it’s fast.

The Observation: The difference between audience and community is multi-way interaction between author, audience member, and one other. Adding a comment section to a newsletter is a nice little way to start building community.

This example is a great first step towards building community around your newsletter. You can build on small steps like this.

Community is Audience 2.0.

A look at Basecamp’s Before & After page

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If you want to pick up a marketing idea or two, look at what Basecamp does.

In particular, check out their Before and After page. On it, you’ll see dozens of testimonials.

But not just any testimonials. They focus on one thing: the transformation.

The transformation from life as it was before using Basecamp to life after switching to Basecamp.

And that’s where the magic happens.

Smart marketers know that the gold lies within the moment a prospect goes from consideration to purchase.

Sure, lots will happen before and after a purchase decision. But that “zero to one” moment matters a lot.

Basecamp’s Before and After page contains all the hallmark features of good testimonials, including:

  • Actual customers’ natural language, like “Basecamp really helps us organize our unorganized employees”
  • Jargon-free language customers actually use, like “…everyone is moving in the same direction”
  • Emotionally charged words to evoke a feeling, like “Stressful, impossible, difficult, overwhelming” and “it felt like sitting in a wind tunnel”
  • Unexpected benefits, like “It makes people feel like they are being heard”
  • A range of customer demographics, including industry, gender, and company size

But the thing worth highlighting is the transformation.

The Observation: People don’t buy products and services. They buy outcomes. But in order to get there, a transformation needs to happen. Great testimonials don’t simply highlight the pain, problem, or expected result. They focus on the transformation that happens along the way.

Basecamp knows this and literally built a page that articulates this transformation.

They show people that not only is a transformation to better reality possible, but it’s also possible for people just like them.

When you’re selling something, focus on the transformation. It works the same way with testimonials.

Don’t focus on just the current problem. Or just the end result.

Highlight the transformation. The “zero to one” transition.

That’s where the juice is.

Parting quote:

The real question you need to ask is, “how do you want your customers to change?”—Seth Godin, Creative Mornings Talk

Negative reviews and positive word of mouth

I recently purchased an Anker product on Amazon and it came with a small, two-sided card.

On one side, it asked if I’m happy with the purchase. When I open it from that side, it suggests ways for me to tell people. I may not have thought of leaving a review or telling people about it on social media, so the suggestion triggered a thought about doing that. It costs nothing to ask and is pure upside.

On the other side of the card, it asks me if I’m not happy with the purchase. When I open it from that side, it tells me where I can get my situation resolved quickly (airing my grievances, as I say in the video below). It’s always better to get critical feedback and resolve customer complaints directly. A few bad reviews can make a massive difference to your reputation (and product sales).

When people don’t have an outlet or means of rectifying inevitable issues, they leave negative reviews and announce their dissatisfaction anywhere they can. If this card helps to avoid even one negative review or solve a poor customer experience, it will pay for itself infinitely.

Include this card (or one like it) with every product you ship your customers.

Watch the video below for the full story.

The power of a memorable name

I saw this truck in my neighbourhood and it was enough to make me double-take and snap this photo.

The only thing is, I forgot what they were called immediately after I saw the truck. It was clever but it didn’t stick.

And then a few weeks later I saw it again. While the phone number and website URL are attention-grabbing, the hook breaks down with the name of the company.

Unlike companies like 1 800 GOT JUNK, where their name, telephone number, and website URL are all in sync, these guys have a long, unremarkable business name. And the phone number/URL on their own weren’t enough to make me remember it the first time.

If these guys were called “Stinky and Sons” or “The Stinky Plumbers” (both not great names but hear me out), then it would tie well into their phone number and website, and I might actually have remembered their name the first time I saw the truck.

Running a campaign like this gets people to notice. But if they don’t remember what you’re called, it’s unlikely they will be able to recall or find you when they need you.

I call this a close but no cigar marketing effort. If they went all in on the stinky branding, I think it would have stuck with me the first time and worked better.

Still, kudos for the guts to try this.

The tale of two realtors

Before I moved, there were two real estate agents in my neighborhood.

The first realtor dropped a business card in my mailbox at least once a quarter. No note. No flyer. No knock on my door. No “market report”. Just a business card.

And I’ll admit, it became a bit of an annoyance. It felt like spam.

I even noticed members of the community Facebook group mentioning him several times in similar frustration. Apparently, I’m not the only one who felt slightly bothered by it.

As for the second realtor; he stopped by one day, introduced himself, and left a magnet business card with me to remember our conversation. To this day, I keep that magnet on my fridge and actively use it. I imagine it will live there for some time.

Now, I may never hire either realtor, but if I were going to, I’d pick the one who made a connection and dropped off value.

Marketing is not about getting exposure to your message. It’s about creating a connection and leading with value.

Value sustains a business, spam doesn’t.