At this time I am excited to introduce you to Karen Mattiazzo – my newest visitor on the Company Escapology podcast. A floor and sample designer based mostly in Manchester. She made the large leap from Brazil to the UK simply earlier than Brexit and she or he’s a freelancer.
Freelancing is without doubt one of the routes many individuals take after they depart a job or a profession. Simply that phrase ‘free’ may inform you why it holds attraction. It implies alternative and management – strolling away with out strings.
Karen has labored as each worker and freelancer through the years in a wide range of design roles earlier than coming to sample and print design. And with these abilities she’s been in a position to create a wide range of income streams by means of freelancing: she gives commissions, she sells merchandise on-line, she sells her time delivering tasks, she licenses her designs and now she is exploring promoting merchandise by means of retail channels.
Is it as a result of she’s a designer that she has all these choices?
Perhaps. However I do not assume so.
She’s undoubtedly extra entrepreneurial than many company individuals, however I consider that is largely a query of mindset. Open to us all.
Karen has a field of skills that she will be able to deploy to ship a variety of issues. She geese and weaves round completely different buyer sorts, altering buyer preferences, new applied sciences, tendencies…to become profitable. And he or she loves it!
I believe it is an interesting mannequin for us – largely non-designers – to discover.
What particular abilities do now we have? What distinctive expertise can we draw on? What do we all know that others do not?
And may we bundle these skills in a means that allows us to create merchandise providers and experiences that different individuals will worth?
Can your abilities and experience be packaged up right into a product, just like the HR Hub that Katie Elliott gives alongside her HR freelancing?
Is your lived expertise one thing you would share to assist others? Like Claire Perry-Louise’s expertise constructing her personal neighborhood, Like Hearted Leaders, that she now shares with others?
Are you aware one thing you would flip right into a ‘find out how to information’ like Kia Cannons did when she offered an book to assist artists promoting on Instagram and made £15,000 in a couple of weeks?
And while I’m removed from making a residing from Company Escapology, take a look at the merchandise from which I’ve been in a position to generate revenue: Ebook, On-line Course, 121 teaching, Group Teaching, Paid Speeches, Paid Workshops…
One thing that simply began out as this weblog!
We will so simply leap to the apparent when eager about what we do subsequent – an analogous job, consulting, teaching…however what merchandise might you create out of your abilities, experiences and data?
It’s why I spend lots of time in my group teaching, Escapology Stay, serving to individuals dig deep to checklist out all of the issues they’ve performed – not only in the near past and never simply in work.
Typically the reply lies in one thing that mixes two or extra completely different capabilities – and collectively that might result in one thing that hits the candy spot of fixing a buyer ache, one thing distinctive to you and one thing that provides you power and pleasure.
See if the following pointers enable you to provide you with your personal product portfolio:
1. Return: What jobs have you ever performed the place individuals needed to fulfill you, hear and study from you. These are sometimes good locations to uncover issues that have been completely apparent for you, however to not others.
2. Watch your velocity: What do you do sooner than most individuals? So quick it seems to be easy. However it’s not. You’ve simply received good at it – and it’s most likely a pure power. How might you assist others go sooner?
3. Repeat your self: what might you do as soon as however promote a number of occasions? Like Karen licensing her materials designs or me promoting my on-line course?
4. DIY or DIFM: How might you set another person up so they might do one thing priceless themselves for a fraction of the worth they pay at the moment? How might you do it for them for a premium?
5. Observe Karen’s recommendation: Analysis the platforms – Fiver, Malt, Upwork, Freelance, Folks Per Hour… See what others are doing to bundle up their expertise into merchandise which might be simpler for individuals to purchase.
In at the moment’s world you possibly can spin up a product in an excellent brief time and check it simply as quickly. And you are able to do all this earlier than you even depart your job or alongside one thing else if you happen to’ve already left.
Give it a whirl. And let me now the way you get on!
I’m so grateful to finish January with three full cohorts for Escapology Stay – what an honour to be trusted by 24 individuals navigating life after company. I believe I’ll have a break now, however message me if you wish to be added to the waitlist. Or I will help 121 – I’ve a few packages to assist maintain prices low.
