JehnGlynn https://blog.jehnglynn.com | Jehn Glynn :: Visual Designer, Dreamer + Doer Wed, 27 Jan 2016 05:11:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.32 Lonely Freelancers Club: Eye-Opening & Valuable https://blog.jehnglynn.com/lonely-freelancers-club-eye-opening-valuable/ Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:56:21 +0000 http://www.jehnglynn.com/?p=706

Dave & I have recently connected and I admire his approach to business and life in general – so I asked if he would like to do an LFC. I was excited to hear he was game! Enjoy!

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What is your name?
“Disruptive Dave” Marcello

What do you for a living?
Inject creative kick-assery into small business marketing

How do you know each other?

JG: Interesting enough… from the Internet! I posted my first LFC post on Medium, Dave read it, felt re-inspired by the idea of connecting freelancers & the self-employed with each other as he had shelved a similar idea a while back and we decided to have a Skype chat about LFC as a whole and his original idea and just bouncing ideas off one another. I noticed we kept talking about other aspects of our careers which is what LFC is all about, so I asked him to be part of a future post, he said yes & here he are today!

DM: I read a post of hers on medium about The LFC and immediately sent her an email, wanting to get to know her (since we obviously share some similar thoughts).

What has inspired you lately?

DM: A friend who left her established corporate job to chase her dream of starting her own design agency. Also, A former client turned business partner who pushes me closer to execution when it feels safe to live in idea mode.

One word to describe how you feel about this project:

DM: Opportunistic

What did you eat for breakfast today?

JG: Black Coffee – I don’t normally skip breakfast, but today I did
DM: My Usual – Oatmeal With Cinnamon And Honey, With A Vanilla Protein Shake

What did you two talk about today in the LFC meeting?
JG: We talked heavily on pricing, which is interesting because that is what my last LFC was mainly about. Pricing is such an interesting and ongoing topic. I would love to see how every one lays out their pricing in a completely honest way. I should probably do that myself… oh, that might be scary.

We talked a lot about how important it is to price yourself at what you are worth. Meaning, if you price yourself at what you should be pricing yourself at & a client thinks it is too high, it is important to stick to what you are worth instead of completely low-balling your price. This is because, if you price yourself too low, it de-values the community as a whole and that client will always expect to get that service at a lower price than what is appropriate. (I am now stepping off my soapbox). We also touched base on freelancer sites that are out there, (guru, freelancers). Do you guys use any of those? I have looked into them but have not signed up, but am possibly thinking about it.

DM: A potential joint venture together that I am very stoked about. The need For freelancers and the self employed to connect with each other more often and in more meaningful ways. Getting Paid! How cute our dogs are. Portland as a startup community. A really cool flowery-feel-good idea Jehn Is working on.

Did you learn anything?
JG: I learned the real value of connecting with other freelancers. I learned various things from Dave today,  – a stranger that I connected with over the internet – and that is a beautiful thing. To me, that is what LFC is all about!

DM: Absolutely. I’m not the only one experiencing typical freelancer challenges. Other people yearn for connections the way I do. Importantly, opportunities are all around us; You just have to get outside your comfort zone a little to find them.

One word to describe today’s meeting:
JG: Eye-Opening

DM: Valuable.

Any additional comments?
JG: I am really happy that Dave & I connected, I am looking forward to chatting with him again.

DM: With each passing day, I’m learning more and more that unexpected greatness happens to those who love and appreciate the grind.

Connect with Dave:
Website: Disruptive Dave
Blog: My Disruption
Twitter: @DisruptiveDave

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Lonely Freelancers Club: Collaborative & Introspective https://blog.jehnglynn.com/lonely-freelancers-club-collaborative-introspective/ Wed, 11 Sep 2013 18:51:00 +0000 http://www.jehnglynn.com/?p=700

Andrew & I had another lovely LFC!
Not sure what LFC is or want to learn more about Andrew? Read this!

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We enjoy making silly faces & screen-shooting them

What did you eat for breakfast:
JG: Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk with a Banana, some Frosted Mini Wheats + Plain Cheerios all mixed together for one delicious bowl of cereal! & black coffee.

AK: 2 cups of coffee and a dark chocolate, nuts and sea salt Kind bar. Additionally I may have consumed some stray RiceWorks Sweet Chili chips.

What did you two talk about today in the LFC meeting?
JG: We started off the meeting by going over some recent projects (Web Design UI/UX) we are both working on & we gave feedback to each other on them. Andrew’s client is having him build his site using Photoshop, Illustrator &  WIX. I think the last time I remember being aware of WIX it was entirely a flash based website building platform. It was nice to see that they have upgraded to all HTML5. I did not play around with the interface, so I am unsure about the ease of use – but the project Andrew was working on looked good. If you are interested in checking it out – he recommends it.

I have been designing my project using Illustrator, Photoshop + Fireworks. To show it to my client and to Andrew I uploaded .png files to the prototyping & collaborating tool inVision App. This is my first time using InVision and so far I like it. You get a unique URL to your project to share with whomever & you can easily click through the project like a regular site & make comments where they see fit. I am about to send the project off to my developer and am really stoked to see the final project. The site is a redesign of a site I helped design about 6-7 years ago? Eshk! It was cool talking to Andrew about it, because he remembers when I first helped design it. I am planning on doing an entire blog post all about the entire process, so stay tuned!

We also talked a lot about pricing – Him & I seem to touch on that subject quite often. How do you know how much to charge? How do you know when to charge? I have a method I use… but I am sure it could be improved. I would love to create some sort of worksheet that my freelancer friends (and you guys too, if you wanted) could fill out about their pricing – we compare notes – have an open conversation & see what each of us could learn and improve on. Money is a very touchy, sensitive topic that isn’t discussed openly enough. Let’s change that….

AK: We reviewed some works in progress between the two of us and provided feedback for each other. It was fun to reference a project that I remember Jehn starting years ago and is now in redesign mode – that moment as a designer looking back at work you did back when you still drank 40’s and shopped exclusively at Ikea and wondering what in the hell you were thinking. It brings up the question of whether we are always improving as designers or are our tastes simply changing? I feel like it is a little bit of both, although I would like to think that I am exclusively growing my skill set to become the most bad ass graphic designer of all time.

Did you learn anything:
JG: I learned the value of showing my entire project to someone else. Which I generally do, but normally just parts of it. I had been designing this site from the UX to now the UI for many many hours and have been staring at it for so long, some details had been over-looked. I made some changes & while I was showing my client the site later that day, I was grateful to Andrew for giving me great feedback.

AK: I always learn something when I am taking the time to take a mental exit from my “working mind”. I think that it is a lesson in an of itself – sometimes you just need to chill out and let your brain coast and things become more clear.

One word to describe today’s meeting:
JG: Collaborative

AK: Introspective

Any additional comments:
JG: Freelancing = Hustling.

AK: How in the hell do designers decide what they charge and when? Why is it all over the place and so different from person to person???

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Not sure what LFC is or want to learn more about Andrew? Read this!

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Self-Publishing Hangout Takeaways + Links https://blog.jehnglynn.com/self-publishing-hangout-takeaways-links/ https://blog.jehnglynn.com/self-publishing-hangout-takeaways-links/#comments Tue, 27 Aug 2013 04:41:15 +0000 http://www.jehnglynn.com/?p=569

Tonight I had the pleasure of listening & joining in on the conversation of the accomplished designers, podcasters, bloggers & e-bookers;  Sacha Greif, Nathan Barry, Paul Jarvis + Justin Jackson during their the Self-Publishing Hangout. Being a freelance designer myself, the entire experience was inspiring, motivating and insanely informative – I felt very lucky being in that room.  See the full event details here: Self-Publishing Hangout.

The hangout in a nutshell was the four guys chatting about their self-publishing experiences via video while us chat-roomers followed along, had our own discussions and interacted with the guys as well – they were great about answering our questions! They even answered one of mine & I won a t-shirt from Gumroad! Thank you!!

I listened, took notes and was a “sponge” during the hangout & below are a couple of my key takeaways:

  • Drink wine or mimosas to get over writers block.
  • If you want to write a book or even want to start blogging more, be aware of what people are asking of you – people are looking at you as an expert.
  • If you are hired for a job, you are enough of an expert. If you are getting paid for it, other people will pay to learn it.
  • Start writing & use that to get better at writing.
  • Write to a specific person to get over writers block.
  • Set deadlines.
  • Build an e-mail list.

Watch the entire hangout here: Self-Publishing Hangout

While taking notes, I made a list of the numerous companies, people, books, etc. that I wanted to look further into/make note of & I figured I should share them with you! (I know I missed some, please feel free to add them in the comments if you were there as well and I will update my list).

Sacha Greif’s Book
Step by Step UI Design

Nathan Barry’s Books
Authority
Designing Web Applications
The App Design Book

Paul Jarvis’ Books
Be Awesome at Online Business
Eat Awesome

Justin Jackson’s Podcast:
Product People: A podcast focused on great products and the people who make them

Writing/Designing Platforms
Scrivener
Draft
iBooks
iA writer
InDesign
iBook Author
iBook Author Templates
Pages

E-mail Marketing
Launch Effect App
ConvertKit
Campaign Monitor
MailChimp
Customer.io

People
Amy Hoy
Thomas Fuchs
Michael Hartl
Alexandra Franzen

Selling Sites
Gumroad
Mighty Deals
Dealato

Books/Posts Mentioned
Double your freelancing rate in 14 days
Retinafy.me
Sacha’s post that was mentioned: Lessons Learned from an eBook launch
Justin’s site that went viral: This is a webpage
Getting Real by 37 Signals
Rails Tutorial

Additional
Kickstarter
Commit App
Bacon Biz
Dribble

Various links from chat-room
Perfectwoodgrain.com
blog.asmartbear.com
www.slimbooks.com
www.chinease-ebook.com

I hope this list was helpful to you!

It was truly inspiring listening to these guys talk so humbly and openly about their experiences around self-publishing, both positive & negative. One thing they all touched on multiple times is that they write about what they do…what they love to do. It has inspired me to keep going in the direction of doing what I love.

Thanks again guys, you rock!

Muchlove,

J

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