The Very First Step To Your Own Freedom Business: Live From Thailand Freedom Trip One

How are you?

Big content-rich post for you this week that will have you living the freedom dream in no time!

The above video I shot whilst in Thailand on the Secret Society Mastermind freedom trip which I just got back from (see the end of the video for a little teaser on the upcoming movie from the trip).

It also includes a great interview with SSM member Pieter on how he is progressing from his day job of doom (DJD) to full time freedom business.

I get asked all the time: “Tim, if there is ONE thing I can do to get rolling on this freedom business thing – what is it?”

I decided to answer this question as it relates to not only the beginners in Freedom Business but also veterans who want to take their freedom career to the next level.

This is if you are itching to dive in and take control of your life situation right now.

Make sure you watch the above video before reading on.

In the video I discuss a few things…

1. You must become an authority

This is A LOT easier to do than you may think. In a lot of cases all it needs is a simple website with “Hey, I can do this” on it.

The area ideally is something that you can solve a common problem in. If you can help ONE person in an area of your specialty then chances are you can find a lot of companies or people needing that same problem solved.

One of my freedom businesses centred around video for websites as I saw that most websites didn’t have (and still don’t) a cool intro/sales video to rev up their site.

As you can see in Pieter’s case in the video, he has a specialised skillet built up working day-job-of-doom style but has yet to step out as an authority in his own right.

A simple website with a nice profile picture, bio and some sales copy around his problem solving ability would be enough to separate him from 99% of the people in his industry.

This will allow him to consult private clients through Skype from anywhere in the world, at a time and a price that suits him. That’s true Freedom Business style.

SSM Members Living The Freedom Dream

Becoming an authority means you can step out into the world and say “Hey, my name is Barry and I can help you with x-problem. I’ve helped these people too. So if you would like my product which solves that or need me to consult for you, fill out this contact form or call me here”.

Your personal brand is also something you can use as a placeholder for all the projects that you work on.

So for example if Pieter decides to do 2 different businesses in totally different markets, he can showcase both of them under his name www.pieterdeluxe.com (note that his name isn’t Pieter Deluxe, you would put your full name).

The beauty of this is if you start NOW, in five years time your personal brand site will be showcasing all sorts of amazing projects and businesses that you have been involved in, making you even MORE of an authority and trustworthy to people looking to buy your products or have you consult in the future.

A fantastic book on this is Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss. Even if you don’t see yourself as a consultant, you may just see how you DO have some highly desirable knowledge and skills that could be built into a freedom business by reading this book.

So what are the steps?

Firstly a massive warning: You will feel a LOT of resistance to putting your photo and a bio on a website.

Thoughts like “I’m not good enough”. “I’m not an authority in anything”. “People will laugh at me”. “Who would want to buy what I have to offer – there is much cooler, talented, amazing, good looking people out there than little old me”.

BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT.

Just like Pieter, you probably have NO IDEA how good you actually are!

(Here’s Pieter leaving one of our SSM party nights with two hot Swedish girls… Goes to show if you don’t put yourself out there you never know what might happen!)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marianne Williamson

So… here are the actual steps:

1. Get a domain name.

I use NAMECHEAP because they are cheap and also they don’t try and upsell you the world like some other providers (*cough* godaddy).

2. Put a simple, cool website on that domain

This is tricky if you haven’t done it before but I recommend starting out with a basic WORDPRESS theme and having an experienced coder from freelancer modify/build it for you.

Let me explain a bit…

WordPress is fast becoming the standard Content Management System (CMS) for all websites. It’s free and allows you to update your content on your site simply and easily with a back end login.

Sitting on top of WordPress you will need a THEME.

The theme is what you see. The buttons, navigation, colours, fonts and all the other cool stuff.

I use THEMEFOREST to get wordpress themes for as little as $30.

Then if you are technical minded or don’t mind learning, you can have a go at installing WordPress and the theme yourself OR if you are like me and like to outsource your work (recommended), head over to http://www.freelancer.com or http://www.elance.com and post a project for someone to install and modify these things for you.

You will need to provide them with photos and content you want on your site and a detailed brief on where you want things… then sit back and wait for them to build it for you!

So domain name $10
Theme $30
Experienced Coder ~$100

TOTAL COST FOR WEBSITE: $140

Excuses? None.

(My Freedom Office: Thailand)

3. Get business cards

There are cheap card printing services online that design and print a simple business card for you.

A business card showcasing your personal brand domain will give you more confidence in “this is REAL” when you see it actually physically printed on a card.

Plus when you are at parties or events you can pass it to everyone you talk to. Including girls you want to date.

Awesome.

Who else is doing this well?

In the video I mentioned Chase Jarvis who started out as a photographer but built his personal brand up to be followed by thousands all over the world.

Check his site out here. Some great marketing interviews and tips too.

Just remember all those super successful people started in the exact same spot you are starting from: NOTHING. They had to fight off the internal resistance and put themselves out there just like you are going to.

After all, your freedom, fun and adventure lifestyle is waiting…

So get to it!

We are about to hit a crazy period in Freedom Business land as we unlock the doors and prepare to take on new people into the Secret Society Mastermind program in March.

The stuff in this blog post is a very small piece that we walk you through step by step through video training and also live coaching calls – not to mention the awesome community of people who are already smashing it to help you as well.

In the upcoming SSM course, i’ll walk through my own personal building of my authority site www.timothymarc.com as it happens so you can build yours right alongside me.

Make sure you have put your email address into the right hand side so you can stay updated on the next intake of SSM members. I wouldn’t want you to miss out!

Much love.

T

P.S. Comments, questions? Make sure you put them below so I can answer…

How Kable Made A $17,000.00 Sale And Quit His Day Job Of Doom For Freedom, Fun And Adventure

Kable talking Freedom Business on SSM Freedom Trip Thailand 2013

Tim’s Note: This is a post from Secret Society Mastermind Member, Kable, who went through our last program. Since then he quit his day job of doom and been absolutely smashing his freedom business, notably landing a $17,000.00 sale just before he took off to Thailand for our first Freedom Trip.

Kable and I sat down at a cafe yesterday (as people in suits and hurried faces quickly ate their lunch and went back to work) and he started recounting that sitting in Thailand, on the beach as the sun was setting with his laptop, that he could clearly see how he could run his entire business from anywhere in the world.

This is a very different life from a few months ago.

Kable is also highly active in our SSM community, posting videos, trainings and insights for our members and will be doing some videos for you in our upcoming SSM program which opens in March.

Plus, he has a majestic beard.

In this post Kable talks about one of the aspects to freedom business: finding the right people to buy your stuff. When we talk of clients in SSM, we talk of people who you ACTUALLY ENJOY helping and doing stuff for. Your One Key Fan.

Take it away Kabes!

I’m writing this from a flight to back home to Melbourne, Australia, after an LIFE CHANGING trip to Thailand with a bunch of the awesome Secret Society Mastermind guys.

A week of partying, working and adventuring in a tropical paradise with a bunch of rad dudes from across the world was really like LIVING THE DREAM – something I didn’t really believe was possible for myself before I began my freedom business journey about 9 months ago.

One of the things that allowed me to go on this amazing trip was the fact that I made one pretty big sale in the weeks leading up to Thailand… worth $17k!

In this post, I’m gonna talk about a few different points that were important in getting that sale.  This isn’t a comprehensive “how to get the sale” (we go over that in detail in the upcoming SSM3 Program), this is more of a exploration of a few important factors that made this particular sale happen.

1. Find out your client’s problems, and then handle them.

This is key.  When I had an in person meeting with the potential client, I asked them “so what’s your biggest frustration with your old website?”

For this particular client, the big frustration with their old website is that it was unreliable in sending information from the site contact form to the relevant staff member.

The client told me that another website company (who was also vying for this job) had said “well that’s not our problem”…  WRONG ANSWER!  If you want to land big (or smaller jobs), you need to find out what your client’s big frustration is, then HANDLE IT FOR THEM.

2. Have great previous work to show clients

When a client sees all the other great work that you’ve done for other clients, it does a few things….

-It proves that you are capable of producing great work

-It helps the client visualise what their new website / app / video will look like

-It shows your client how good their competitors’ websites look.  This will get your client thinking “I don’t wanna get left behind, I need this cool product…”  This is especially effective if all your other clients are in the same industry.

Tim’s Note: If you don’t have previous work yet as you are just starting out, you can do some free or discounted work FIRST – This gives you the confidence that you can actually deliver a great product (because it’s a free job you can make some mistakes) and then you can add that to your portfolio and use to beef up your price for future clients.

This is the actual beach I was working from every evening in Thailand… Crazy!

3. Stack the value

Give the client everything they need – even if they don’t realize they need it.  The $17k client originally wanted a website.  But I knew that their online presence would be much more powerful if they also had live action videos, effective social media pages, fantastic photos, and great copywriting.  After I explained that to them, they could see that I was thinking about how to HELP THEIR BUSINESS, not just sell them my product. And that I was the right guy to help them.

4. Make your proposal visually interesting

After I meet with the client, I wrote out the proposal, detailing exactly what I was going to provide for them.  Before I sent it to the client, I emailed it Tim, asked him for his thoughts… His feedback was “well, it has all the right info in there, it hits all the right points, but it just looks like BIG BORING SLABS OF TEXT”.

He was right – the proposal just looked boring, drab, and just… vanilla.

It was not the kinda thing that was going to BLOW THE CLIENT AWAY.

The answer?  I got an outsourcer to quickly mock up a simple homepage for the client, then edited that homepage so it had ipad and ipod frames.  I inserted the images in the proposal, and DONE!  The proposal was much more interesting, engaging and ATTENTION GRABBING for the client.

So, there you go!  Of course, there are heaps of other things that you need to do to land clients, including

-building a great relationships

-finding out how much they are willing to spend early in the sales process

-becoming an authority in your One Key Fans (1KF’s) area.

I’ll be writing more about this stuff in the near future, and I’ll be helping Tim cover all these topics in the SSM3 course.

To summarise, back in SSM2 Tim mentioned that we need to LOVE THE SHIT out of our clients to produce great products, big smiles, and rad results for them. Well, in order to land these big clients, I would say that you need to start loving the shit out of them WELL BEFORE even before they sign on the dotted line and officially become your client.

So if you have any questions about this big sale, about SSM3 (so excited for this), or anything else related to Freedom Business, just drop a note in the comments section and I’ll get back to you.

Otherwise, GO GET OUT THERE, GO GET WHAT YOU WANT!

Kable

Quitting The Day Job Of Doom For Freedom With Kable (Plus Freedom Business Blueprint Announced!)

In the video above I invited Secret Society Mastermind member Kable over to talk about how he managed to go from his DJD (day job of doom) in the health care industry, to building a little freedom business and then quitting his job to go full time freedom.

Kable gives his top 3 tips to starting your own freedom lifestyle and eventually quitting that day job of doom to chase some adventure and connect with like-minded people all around the world.

Now I got a little side tracked in the video when talking about who this stuff is for, so let me clarify:

This whole freedom business stuff is for people who either…

A) Have a day job of doom (DJD) that they feel is sucking the soul out of them slowly whilst craving to get out there and travel/seek adventure

B) Have read all the business books out there but still can’t seem to TAKE ACTION or find a solid business idea that has the ability to support a freedom lifestyle

C) Have a business of their own, but what to make it a whole lot better, generate more sales, clients and automate it so it’s not running your whole life but frees your time to go do fun stuff

This is NOT for people who want to be a Doctor, a Lawyer or any number of jobs that require specialist training i.e college. I think it’s great for people who want to do these things and love it (for example my accountant Paul absolutely loves accounting) but if you love university or your job this is not for you.

This is NOT for people who are struggling financially. My advice if you are really struggling to make money is to pour your energy into getting a job to support yourself whilst you cross over to freedom business (like Kable). Freedom business isn’t going anywhere, you can always come back to it later on.

So as you can see in the video, Kable now gets to choose the time to wake up, the time to be productive throughout the day and now the time to finish work completely (I personally like to get started early and finish at 2pm to enjoy some sunshine each day).

Here is Kable’s words (reposted from our private forum) when he finally made his first big sale (in the thousands of dollars) and quit his job:

I’m starting to feel some kind of click, like the “FB first sale click”… I think, when I get the money transferred to my bank, that will be really fucking crazy for my mind… I can just that that will be big for me.

I was at a party tonight with some of my really good friends, telling them that I’ve started a business and quit my job (some of them didn’t know)… Now I’m doing it, and have a paying customer – so strange.

I feel like a very different person that I was 8 months ago – and plenty of weird life growth over the past 3 months with SSM totally.

Announcing The Freedom Business Blueprint Program

COMING NOVEMBER 2012

In November, i’ll be launching the official Freedom Business Blueprint program, which is the entry level program for you to get started in building your own little freedom business that funds a life of freedom, fun and adventure.

The program will cover EXACTLY how to pinpoint your first freedom business idea, build it from scratch and go all the way to the first sale and beyond.

Right now i’m crafting the program to be the very best it can be but would love to hear what YOU would like to specifically learn in it.

Click here to go have your say on what’s included in the program.

Hope you got a kickstart into your freedom journey from todays post.

Stay free

T

PS. Don’t forget to post any questions you have for Kable in the comments section below!

From Adversity To Freedom: Building A Business On The Road With Dave [VIDEO]

For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy.                 – Bill O’ Reilly

Want to learn how to build a freedom business whilst travelling on the road?

Well I couldn’t wait to introduce you to my friend Dave today who is doing exactly that.

We caught up with him for a video whilst he travels the world building and running his freedom business… I thought this was a perfect opportunity to sit down and chat to him about life, freedom business and how to do it all.

This Dave is one persistent dude.

For a start, he was born without the part of his brain that controls the whole right side of his body.

He was relentlessly picked on at school and had no respect from those around him.

“Basically I had no choice but to look up at the bright side, because it’s not going to get any worse”

… Dave told me in the interview below.

I got a taste of Dave’s persistence over email.

He’d signed up for my daily email and then kept replying and offering his services to me for free and I agreed – our relationship went from there and he ended up all the way from Bulgaria to Melbourne to film this video.

Quick tip: If you’re wanting to build a relationship to make a sale or just to connect with someone influential – think “what can I offer this person that is of real value to them and their business?”…  Chances are a free coffee is NOT that valuable.

If you’re personally in a situation that you don’t like right now – maybe it’s a job that’s numbing you or maybe you’ve been hitting your head up against a brick wall trying to get your freedom business off the ground, then this video will give you some great tips and insights from a dude who has probably started off in a much more disadvantaged place than you.

In the video above we talk about 3 really important things:

1. The Low Cost Freedom Business

A good low cost freedom business is a digital services agency, offering anything from mobile applications to website redesigns to social media strategies.

These types of businesses can be set up with very low capital and all you need is to get your first sale to know your business will be profitable.

It’s a good idea to get familiar with just ONE of these areas and find a good outsource provider (http://www.elance.com – http://www.freelancer.com) to guide you through their services.

You need a strong brand, a website and some tenacity to go sign on your first client.

Fun Experiment: Could you set this up and get your first client in 2 weeks?

2. No Matter What Business You’re In, Relationships Are EVERYTHING

Dave starts off every conversation with “Do you have a website?”…

This has led to sales, free office space and all sorts of great partnerships and friends.

It’s a brilliant conversation starter that is focused around your potential client and NOT YOU. This is very important because if you start talking to someone about how cool you are, they will likely tune out and not care.

On the other hand if you start the conversation focused around them, their needs and their frustrations then you can start to mentally build a solution  for them right their on the spot, offer some suggestions and sometimes even get a new client right on the spot.

Remember: Keep the conversation focused on THEM (and how you can help) not on YOU and how amazing you are (nobody cares).

3. No Room For Negativity

This is Dave’s personal life philosophy. Right now he misses his girlfriend back
home, but is making the most of the situation by enjoying his travels and connecting with new people.

“Instead of seeing the problem, like missing my girlfriend, I turn it into an opportunity – like setting a goal to sign on a new client so I can fly her out here to have fun with me”

Connecting your personal life goals with your freedom business is THE way to get motivated to build your freedom business and sign on some new clients.

Dave has kindly offered to answer your questions in the comment section below…

Fire away quick before he’s out on his latest adventure!

T

PS. Dave’s new business he built on the road can be seen at:
http://www.fusion-360.co.uk/

What’s YOUR Biggest Challenge Right Now? (The Official Daily Email)

If you’re goal driven like me you should be able to answer that question pretty quickly!

Perhaps you want to find a new relationship or even do some travelling or get in better shape… or perhaps launch a freedom business so you can do all of those things with less stress and more time.

After a short hiatus from the daily email (and a lot of where the hell are you Tim? messages) we are off and running again with THE OFFICIAL DAILY EMAIL.

3 Simple Reasons To Join The Daily Email Love

1. You’ll get a quick shot of motivation each day

When striving for any goal, it can feel a little bit unreal.
You can start second guessing yourself with ridiculous statements like
“Can I really achieve this? or is it all in my head?”

The daily email should be a quick alignment to your goals from someone else who is
chasing (and ticked off some) of their personal goals on the quest for freedom, fun
and of course adventure.

2. You’ll get free access to tips and resources to build your own freedom business

Little hints, cool books to read and all the latest freedom business tools.

3. It’s naturally nastiness free!

Meaning no hardcore sales pitches, affiliate links or any other stuff other than pure
value straight from the land of freedom business.

What the hell has Tim been up to?

Couple of things i’ve been focused on right now:

I’ve been HIGHLY focused on the ultra cool crew we have over at the “Secret Society Mastermind” (SSM) course, launched earlier this year.
Secret Society Membership Medallion

The members are doing EXCEPTIONALLY well, with most of them proud owners of their very own freedom business that they built from scratch with the use of outsourcers.

Here’s a shot of one member (who’s identity can’t be revealed for ultra secret reasons of course – hehe) in our forum who just pulled in a rather large sale from just one client using the freedom business content from SSM.

Click For Large Version

Another highlight was going to visit one of my virtual assistants, Jennifer in Boracay Phillipines (i’ll post a video of this soon!).

ANYWAY back to you…

It’s exciting times and i’m super pumped to be personally connecting with you over the daily email.

A question I had to ask in the above video was:

What’s YOUR biggest challenge right now?

AND

How can I help you? (what would you like to see in the Daily Email?)

Let me know in the comments section below RIGHT NOW…

Let’s go!

T