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We have Tom Hirst on the show today.
And today is gonna be all about freelancing.
If you’re a freelancer yourself or any sort of service-based business really, this episode is for you.
It is jam packed with info.
Shownotes:
Tom's Twitter & Website
https://twitter.com/tom_hirst
https://www.tomhirst.com/about/
Pricing Freelance Projects (the book he's just written we're referencing):
https://gumroad.com/l/pcUlz
Transcript
Welcome to the addicted to learning podcast. My name is Gabriel Horvat, and each week I get to bring you inspiring stories, lessons learned and insights from people and forge their own paths in life. Appreciate you guys spending time with me today. Let's get right to it. Hello. Hello. Beautiful people.
Hope you all are doing fantastic on this beautiful September day. We have Tom Hirst on the show today and today's going to be all about freelancing. So if you're not into that, feel free to skip, but if you're a freelancer yourself or really any sort of service-based business, This episode is for you. It is jam packed with info about Tom.
Tom is a freelance senior software developer. With over 10 years of experience, he's worked with many well-known brands, such as Facebook and BMW among others. Tom is also a web development consultant, as well as a mentor to freelancers around the world. And he's doing all of that from his home office and a small British town called Wakefield.
Anyway, without further ado, here's my conversation with Tom. Great. We have Tom Hirst on the show today, Tom, how are you? So you have to be here. Yeah, I'm good, man. How are you doing Gabriel? Great, thanks. Um, you're in the UK, your first, uh, British guests on the podcast, so exciting.
And you are somewhat of a, um, yeah, freelancers, freelancer. Um, You know, you know, an awful lot about freelancing, how to position yourself as a freelancer, how to not get ripped off by, by clients, how to, um, price yourself. Well, and, um, Yeah, basically, I'm a freelancer myself, uh, sort of just starting out and there's just this vastness of, of everything as a freelancer, like so many things it's overwhelming.
You have to do the actual work. You have to organize yourself, you have to sell yourself, you have to market yourself and it's a lot. Yeah. And, um, Yeah. How do we even set? How about let's talk maybe about your, your routine and your week. How do you, how you organize yourself? Cool. Yeah. So I mean the key to freelancing for me and when I really start to make it tick is when I started taking efficiency seriously.
So in the younger days, you know, I'd be playing world of Warcraft till 4:00 AM getting up at 10, you know, doing a little bit of work, playing a few more video games, going back to work. And yeah, I could make a living. I could survive, but it was never enough to, you know, Get me to that next level, essentially.
So once I started taking efficiency seriously, you know, through routine and through structure. That that's when you know, things really started to tick. So the routine for me at the minute is that my alarm will go off at half five. So I'll get up a half, five, and I'm doing home workouts at the minute, because obviously we can't go to the gyms with a current scenario, which is a bit of a killer, but you know, I'm doing my best with limited equipment.
Um, so yeah, I just do a quick half an hour workout. And then, you know, take the dog on a, on an hour long walk, usually just to clear the head, get a bit of thinking time, you know, when it's just me and him headphones in sometimes with a podcast perhaps, and then get home, have a shower. And then the work day starts.
And then that's me pretty rigidly then until about five. And then, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll cook the tea for the family dinner for the family, and we'll have some time, you know, with my daughter and my wife. And then try and get in bed at like nine, read the book, watch TV asleep for 10, and then open again at half five.
And then, yeah, the weekends then after that, I'm pretty much free because I'm pretty efficient, you know, Monday to Friday, then I, I got a lot of free time to find that balance and that is just so key. I can't stress that enough having, having that downtime. Not scheduled per se. Cause you've got to embrace flexibility having working efficiently during your work time.
So you can enjoy the downtime better. That's that's roughly how my mindset is on routine. Yeah. Do you, do you allow yourself to, um, Take longer breaks or are you sort of like everything scheduled out? There's my five minute coffee break, um, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, I, I call my routine a flexible routine because what I have is I have that baseline structure, but then I, you know, life doesn't work like that life doesn't always run to plan.
And especially when, you know, you've got a dog and a, you're a young kid and other family and other people that rely on it. You've got to have, I call them fail safes. So. Something that I like to do is if I do client work Monday to Thursday, keep Friday free either for my own business or maybe for things that come up in the family or something like that.
So it's, I think it's good to have that underlying level of structure, but also have the flexibility to, you know, do a bed jiggery. Pokery wait when you have to, you know, as, and when it's needed. Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of is a beautiful transition. So. As a freelancer, then you should never really book more than four days a week of actual client work.
I don't think so. No, because it's, it's stifling to that flexibility and you lose that level of autonomy, which is really what you're going to freelance in far. So, if you are, if you are selling like five days a week to clients, number one, how are you going to grow your own business? Because you've got no time or energy left.
And number two, you're just losing that, you know, that, that level of flexibility, that's just such an important part of being a freelancer is part of the perks.
Yeah, it is. And it's a holiday, you know, being able to, to work wherever you want and structure your date, um, the way you, you know, w work best. Um, so then, okay, so that extra day you use for marketing yourself for, um, you know, attracting new opportunities, um, maybe learning some new tech, um, yeah. How do I, let's kind of like backtrack a little.
So, um, so I have a friend, um, you know, asking for a friend. Um,
um, no, actually it's my girlfriend developer herself. Um, Oh, nice. Um, And, uh, so she's a developer as well. Uh, but she's a working in nine to five. Um, but she would like to, you know, at least get some freelance work on the side and then maybe perhaps if she likes it, you know, transition into more of a full-time.
Um, freelancers lifestyle. So she's a mid-level developer, I'd say like maybe, you know, you know, it's a shitty, you know, indicator of, you know, but let's say like around two years, two and a half years of experience or something. And, um, so she thinks that it's still crazy. She's being paid to code and it is, it is crazy.
Right. Um, and she's definitely feeling this kind of like imposter syndrome. Am I good enough? Um, She's mostly doing front end. Um, uh, she would like to start freelancing and she would like to get paid first world money, please. So, uh, no competing with, um, you know, $5 an hour people on the interwebs. How does she start?
What's the first step. Well, this, this is a massive question, but I'll try and break it down into a, some actionable points. Really. Um, the first thing for me is that freelancers should always look to build their own audience because when you're competing in a massive pool of Fiverr and Upwork, it's just the rest of the bottom.
And there will always be someone cheaper than you. So what you've got to do is build your own audience and then appeal to people. On an individual basis. So think about, she should think about like, why would someone want to hire me in particular rather than, you know, am I the cheapest that gets them from a to B it's about getting people from a, to B in the way that only you can deliver it.
So when you make your own audience, you can, you can come under premium. Okay. So, um, I'm going to grill you a little on this, so go for it. So practical steps. Okay. Um, yeah, so. What's the first step, get on Twitter, start tweeting about it. It depends exactly what you're your audiences. So it depends exactly what you're going for.
But as a developer, that's exactly what I do. I mean, there's, some people have grown Twitter accounts so quick at the minute. It seems like that is the platform where everyone's eyes are in tech right now. Um, you know, there's, there's the, the hundred days of code hashtag that people are using to track their own progress as they learn.
But then there's people who, uh, further into that development careers that are, you know, offering advice and mentorship and just being, um, motivational, I guess. And that is, you know, a large part of audience building. If you're all giving value in some way to other people, you will get eyes on attention and that's how social media works.
So, yeah, for sure. Start, start Twitter account, start tweeting and do it consistently and regularly and yeah. Offer value. And, um, so speaking of value, do you. As a freelancer, should you specialize a niche down from the get-go or can you be a little bit more of a generalist? I mean, nation worked for me really well because my, when I started, I was heavily into WordPress and I still am now, but obviously when you've been in, in such a narrow, well, it's not a narrow niche now because WordPress has just grown exponentially.
So there's niches within the word patient niche now. Um, but yeah, I mean to get back to the points. I mean, what was the question again?
I'm just, my mind is like this way. And then the question is this way. So basically, can you be a generalist as a freelancer? You have to niche down. That's the one, I mean, look, there's a lot of people that generalize and they do really well. Like you'll learn, you know, your marketing, your web development side, a bit of design, and you can go in one path on that way.
You know, you couldn't be the solo prenuer kind of thing. But if you want to sell clients services, That I would need that's that's my opinion because it worked for me. So going down that WordPress route, avoiding this tangent again, but going down the WordPress route for me was what really helped me to become known for being good at that certain thing.
If you can get what I'm trying to say. So people think I want a custom WordPress website. Who is that guy? What's his name again? Oh yeah. It's Tom. And then they would come to me and then the word of mouth fall kicks in and the SEO kind of stuff works and social media, and that's just how it all works. So, yeah, I mean, Nisha and for me in the service industry is a good way forward.
Yeah. So basically, cause you were saying SEO, so basically obviously you started blogging as well. Uh, content marketing, I take it. And that way you got known as kind of like the WordPress guy. Yeah. I mean, I didn't really do much of that because at the time that wasn't really the go-to strategy. Like 11 years ago, when I started, it was more about specializing in one.
Uh, platform doing a really, really good job at that. And then word of mouth traction was what really got me to where I was. But obviously the market's changed now and content that each niche is more saturated now than what it was. So obviously WordPress is 11 years older than what it was back when I started.
So kind of like what I touched on the fall, there is niches within niches now. So, you know, you've got, you could build a business within pressed, by specializing in customization of one plugin because the audience just for that plugin is huge. Hmm. So yeah, the, the content marketing thing, isn't really what I did originally.
It was more of doing a good job and face to face how I came across as a freelancer, um, getting recommendations, being in a smaller pool of people who did custom WordPress stuff. So yeah, I mean, the. The marketing strategy now is a bit different to what it was. And, but yeah, content marketing now is super important and that's how I'm building, you know, the freelancer mentorship side of my, uh, the stuff that I'm doing now is through content.
Yeah, which is fantastic by the way, everybody should check that out. Um, and we'll link it below as well. Um, nice. So, uh, so basically she, um, do, uh, she actively reach out to prospective clients or should she keep the, you know, the, the, the online marketing, the social media, the content marketing, whatever, until people come to her, even if that maybe takes a while.
Yeah. I mean that, that strategy will take awhile. And I don't think there's anything I'm not completely against doing cold outreach, but obviously the best type of leads are those that come to you. So you know, all the inbound stuff. So she builds this reputation in the background and just get, you can do marketing and get people to come to you without it really being obvious that you're selling anything.
And that's the best type of lead that you can attract. So if you are, if you are doing all this nice content and it's like, Oh, she has skills in this area, it's really clear. This content is talking to me, I'm going to make contact, or at least you've registered that interest in their mind so that they'll make contact in the future.
So yeah, cold outreach can work, but have something to show for it before you do that. If you just start saying, Oh, I really want to work with these people. Hey, have you got any work for me? But you've got no. Credibility or anything, you know, like a back catalog of, you know, results or case studies or even articles or anything that can prove that you can do well, what you're saying you do well, then, you know, you're going to fall on deaf ears.
If you just start spamming people with, uh, LinkedIn messages. Yeah, of course. So basically shit, you have a. Um, you know, a portfolio of like, I don't know, maybe, maybe have two apps on the app store that you've made or something. And then you go like, you know, how do you, how do you go about this? Shoot, you have multiple apps in your portfolio as a developer before doing, uh, active outreach.
Yeah, I think, I think you don't necessarily have to have had like a client app or website or whatever that she's working on. I think if you've got these self-initiated projects, like open source plays a big part in the developer world. So if you've got a, an open source profile on Gates hub that shows that y'all contributing to, you know, other people's projects or writing your own.
You know, that can have just as much value, if not more in some people's eyes than, you know, client projects. So there are, there is credibility that you can build yourself. And that's why a lot of freelances fail to see sometimes to think, how can I get more clients improve myself if I've never had a client where you can do that by doing self-initiated things like side projects and stuff like that.
So always have something to show, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a client app or website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And on that topic, because it's a hotly debate at one as well. Shoot, you ever do work for free. Well, I always come from the standpoint that you shouldn't, but obviously there are two types of working for free.
So, you know, number one is when you're looking to build enough Goodwill with someone to, you know, get paid work in the future. And for me, that's, that's the one that I would not do. And then there's the other one is, you know, you want to do something nice for someone or a charitable cause, which might offer you a level of.
Fulfillment that's greater than any financial rewards. So that's fine. You know, if that's what you want to do, do do that. But for me, working for free in a professional instance is just going to lower your value because if you, if you portray that y'all times with nothing, then how can it ever be worth more in the eyes of that point?
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's how I feel. Yeah, no, totally, totally. And, um, Let's see all so many questions. Um,
so, um, what about if people say, well, you know, you don't have a lot of experience. Okay. Maybe you have like, like a little portfolio, some, you know, source work. Okay. But, you know, can you actually deliver, um, how about, you know, you do the project and we'll pay you 100% upon completion. Do you ever accept such a deal?
No, because no one is a hundred percent committed to a digital project, unless, you know, they've got some skin in the game unless they've put some money down, you know, it's just not, it's not a, it's not a proper project. It's not even gaining your real experience because that's not how real life projects work.
The people, people, you know, you've got to get some money up from, to show that commitment from the client and it shows commitment from yourself to complete as well. So I mean, the way that I do things is I, I will never work without a deposit. And if someone's not happy to do that, they don't trust me enough, then that's fine.
It's not a good fit. So always take a deposit. Yeah, 100%. Yes. Always take a deposit, a significant deposit, right? 50%, something like that. Yeah. I mean, this is, I mean, some people say take a hundred percent up front and that's a really good, that's a really good negotiation strategy actually. So say if you go into a negotiation and say, look, I want everything up front and they go, well, we don't do that.
But then you negotiate down, you negotiate down to terms that you probably would have expected anyway, so you go 50 50 and they seem like they feel like they've got something out of the negotiation and you've, you've got terms that you would have been happy with. Anyway, so yeah, I mean 50%, I mean, 33% F it's a really big project, but then get milestones in place for the, you know, the lots of payments.
So say like 33% up front. The 3% in two weeks, the 3% in another four weeks, don't try not to tie it to be non-completion if possible, because that's kind of out of your control. So let's say if you know, y'all hanging on for their client to review your work, why should that stop? You get impaired, you know, so it's better to, to have.
Payment schedules in place beforehand, rather than saying, Oh, just, just pay me the last 50% on completion because that's completely out of your control really? Because she relying on that collaboration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent. And, um, how do you ha let's talk about pricing. Um, I know this is a big one.
Um, and we were kind of talking about it already. Um, but so hourly billing, right? That's the most way of working in, certainly for developers in the, in the tech industry, uh, freelance developers, contractors, et cetera. Um, It's obviously not ideal because, um, interests aren't aligned because the longer it takes you to complete something, the more money you make as a, as a, as a developer.
Um, so it's, it's not ideal, but then again, it is incredibly difficult to gauge scope correctly. Um, so, um, And then there's just things like, um, I don't know, thinking about stuff, analyzing where it's just really difficult to get project-based pricing. I have this friend who's a machine, uh, engineer and he gets, gets literally paid to think about, well, is it viable to use machine learning and this scenario kind of, um, yeah, but, um, Basically for, certainly for, for front-end development, which is what I mostly do.
Um, it is possible to do, um, uh, weekly, daily and, um, um, project-based pricing. Um, I personally haven't done it yet, but I'm, you know, I really want to transition into more of like a value based pricing strategy. Um, what's the best strategy to get into that. I mean for me, pricing is probably the hardest part of being a freelancer, knowing what to price and knowing what your worth is.
And because it's such a complex topic, I think people avoid looking into it deeply. And that's what I think you need as a freelancer, too, to look into pricing as a skill in its own. Right. Rather than just something that you do. You know, something that you actually focused on and think I'm going to dedicate time to learn in about pricing so that I can price my work model effectively and get paid what I'm worth.
So. To answer the question about getting into value based pricing. I think that no matter what methodology that you use, you should always think about your value and what value you provide to the project in question. So like a lot of people will say, Oh, you know, I've already dealt with a billion. And, and I agree with that completely.
Like it's not the best way for especially software projects to be, to be built in my opinion, because, you know, as you said, you know, the interests are not aligned whatsoever between the client and the freelancer. So.
To, to, you know, to the work. Cause I mean, if you want to, if you, if you need the work, then you've got to take whatever is put in front of you really? That's my opinion. Like people that people can say to you, a don't don't hourly bill ever, but that's just not realistic. You know, you, you need to also know that.
Getting your foot through the door could be a gateway to using these more preferential ways of pricing, like fixed based pricing, value based pricing, retainers based on value and things like that. So to transition away from that might take you having to take some of the in. Well, then use that with value in mind.
So say you think, look, w what's the average price for a developer hourly. It might be, I don't know, $50 an hour, whatever, but if you think that you can provide more value than someone else to this specific client on this specific project, then use that, use that value and think, you know what my hourly rate should be more than that.
So then increase your rate in line with the value that you provide. Yeah. Um, so that is, that is, that is where there's transition and the crossover kind of starts, you know, you can use value as a metric in your pricing equation, even if you're using value. Um, hourly pricing is a methodology. You can still think about value when you give you a price and then work towards using, you know, maybe fixed price value based pricing and retainers as you, as you progress in your career progresses.
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Another question I have is, um, even with reputable, uh, recruiters and, uh, bigger agencies that are sort of well-known. Um, do I still take a deposit? Yeah, I mean, I would, if it was the first time that you were working with them, so if you, if y'all knew, you know, if y'all y'all new to them, then definitely take, uh, a deposit.
But if it's someone that you've worked with, you know, a number of times in the past, then you can give them a bit more grace. So let's say if it's someone that, you know, will pay the bill, then you know, maybe, maybe offer a little bit of leeway, but if you can definitely get a deposit. Sure. And do you always do like a, you know, give him like 30 days to pay or how do you go about that?
Is that flexible as well? No. I mean, I, I know I'm gonna put you on receipt because then it just, it takes away that kind of, Oh, is it 30 days? 60 days, 90 days, you know, if you just say, look, this is due on receipt, then they didn't come back and say, Oh, we don't normally do things like that. But at least if you stay at, in, in the first instance, why would you not.
Ask for the, you know, the preferential terms that you want. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Um, so how do you, um, so as far as hourly billing value based pricing, basically, if you, um, if you convey your value correctly, And they still, uh, don't want to give you the money. Say, say, say they want to low ball. You, you know, 50 an hour.
And you're saying, no, it's a, you know, I know, you know, I can make you the app. It's a, it's a, it's a 10 K project I can make. You have the app all in, you know, um, and you know, for yourself because of certain reasons that's, that's better. And, you know, you conveyed the value. And if they still won't accept that, that means, um, either they don't trust you enough or you haven't really brought across your, you know, the extra value can add, right.
Exactly. Yeah. The perceived value of your services is off. You know, your, your position is off as well. You know, if they can't understand why your project will cost more than someone else who can do the same thing, they don't understand the extra bits that you can bring the extra value that you can bring to the table, then your positioning's off.
And, uh, what about more traditional, um, countries as well as more companies, um, where they say, um, So I'm, I'm, uh, I'm in Germany. Germany is a certainly additional country where they just say, no, we don't do value based pricing. We always do hourly period. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, you don't, obviously when you're doing the value based price, you probably wouldn't tell the client that you're working with, that you do in a value based price.
But if you want to work project by project or, you know, with fixed prices, Then you can just say, look, well, this is how I work. So if it's, if it's it all rolls back to it, how much you need the work. If you need the work, you don't have much leeway to negotiate terms. But if you do, when you have other people waiting to book your availability, then you can just impulse on your say, look, I went project by project.
If we can't do this, then it's not a good fit. Yeah. Yeah. But then again, you have to be willing to walk away. Exactly. And that's where the power comes. That's the freelancing power player. When you're willing to walk away from a negotiation, you know, you, you hold the cards basically. Yeah. And I guess one important way to do that is to always have like, you know, six to 12 months cash in the bank to be like, you know, not stressed out about money.
Yeah, definitely. You know, having, having runway in the bank just makes everything a lot less stressful and it makes negotiation a lot easier because if you know that you've got, you've got that runway, then you can walk away from any negotiation. I did. I did a tweet recently actually that said, um, something like that's where you find, you know, true freedom when you can walk into a negotiation and be completely impartial to winning the work or not.
And, and that that's not, for me, it's like something that switched them out. I'm like, Oh, you know, this, this looks like a good fit project, but if I get it, I don't, that's fine because I've got something else I can work on. And that's where you find that true freelancing freedom. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, how do you, so me personally, I've been doing a lot of stuff with, uh, recruiters and obviously the next step is to go direct, um, And, um, you know, I'm not at a point yet where I have a lot of people, uh, come to me cold via, you know, via that the internet.
So it's more like referrals and people that know me, uh, word of mouth. Um, what's kind of like the next step to, um, go essentially. I only want to ideally work direct. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to, you want to ditch the recruit basically and get your own clients and manage everything yourself. Yeah. I mean, firstly, that's going to come with more work, so be prepared for that.
But then, you know, secondly, it goes back to what we were talking about before. It's the audience building, essentially, you know, you, you want to build a pool of leads that are willing to hire you through, through showing your credibility and expertise. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of the, you know, it's going to come with a lot of work or a lot more work.
Um, do you ever, or would you suggest, would you suggest, um, outsourcing, would you, would you suggest ever outsourcing the actual dev work and focusing basically on client communication and project management? Yeah. And I mean, I do do that sometimes, you know, if I've got leads that I can't handle, but I still want to help, you know, the client then I'll outsource and just oversee the project under my general guidance, you know?
So yeah, that, that's not a problem. And I think that's, that's one of the ways that freelancers can grow and also decouple their own time, you know, from how much they end as well. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really good. Okay. And, um, what else was I gonna ask? Oh, so I just made a mistake on the phone the other day.
Um, so it was on the phone with a recruiter. Um, and we're talking about a gig in, in August and late August and sort of like a two, three week long project. And he was like, basically, do you have any other, um, projects up in the air that could potentially, um, You know, basically is your, is there other, you know, is there a competition for your time in August basically, right.
Um, or am I the only one to potentially book you in late August? And I instantly, you know, I was like, no, no, it's just, you like, it's, you know, it's fine. And the second I said it, I was like, ah, damn. Yeah. Said that. Um, so I lost all leverage basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, um, it's just one of those things, you know, you're naturally having the conversation and you, you try and you don't want to be disingenuous either.
So if that is the truth, then it kind of slips out. So you've got that cross between being personable and being completely honest at what you, you know, maintaining that business library. So I can completely understand why, why you did that. But yeah, my, my answer straight away. It's that question would've been, yeah, I'm just waiting to see how a couple of things pan out.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And, um, uh, so. I guess just to, to, to summarize a big thing is to not have a pressure to, to be paying the bills because then the income from a position of strength, and then you can just walk away, then you can just say, okay, I'll just gonna, I'm going to take a couple months to, you know, build up my, you know, online reputation.
My, you know, my built like an audience. Built built up, like maybe a couple of nice get hub profiles, do some, uh, you know, open source work, that sort of stuff, right? Yeah, for sure. You'd want to be. And another good thing as well is thinking about maybe multiple revenue streams, not just from clients, but from other other areas, you know, like info products and stuff like that.
If you've the mall that you've got coming in, the more power you have in any negotiation. So when you S when you're not worrying about how you're going to pay the bills, it leads to higher, higher value projects, really landing at your feet. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, last quick question. Um, how do I, um, I know, you know, picking a niche is definitely best as far as, um, making money as a freelancer.
Um, but then again, you know, most people, they become freelancers because they're after that freedom and, um, you know, techies like to learn, you know, new technology get into new, you know, programming and programming languages and stuff. And, um, How do you transition say you're like the, you know, you're like the mobile app person and then you want to get more into more into back end.
Right. Um, how do you, how do you do, like, um, how do you make that transition or is it kind of like you're, you know, once a mobile app person, always a mobile app person and that's your label. Yeah, I think you can transition, but it's tough if you've been so involved in one niche for a long period of time.
That's kind of the whole point of nation, because the longer that you stick to it, the more reputable reputation that you will build. Sorry. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think if you can transition, um, but it will take work alongside, you've got to, you've got to finalize. Do you want to, do you want to completely abundant your original niche?
I can go to a new one or do you want to kind of like do a 50 50 split, you know, so you might start here and then, you know, stop 10%, 9% and then bring it to 50%, 50% and then completely transitioned to a hundred percent to the new technology. So, yeah, I mean, it's doable, but it will be tough. Yeah. And, uh, speaking of, I actually got one last question,
I just say, um, do you have any, uh, tips or tricks, uh, sorta, maybe also software you use? Oh, uh, maybe just your thoughts on like minimizing admin work. Minimize the admin work. Yeah. I mean, I've always used this tool called free agent to manage all my invoice in and taxes and stuff like that. It's kind of like a bookkeeping tool and essentially it feeds in all my, uh, you know, bank data.
And then I just explain, you know, what each expenses and things like that. And then that goes off to my accountant and then I'll just get started. Follow me. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's the main one that saves me. A lot of admin does invoice into. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Yeah, I I'll, uh, I'll I'll check it out.
Uh, definitely check it out. Get cool. Um, yeah. So before we, uh, before we wrap off, um, any final thoughts, anything you want to plug? Um, Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, um, I've been, I'm writing a book right now, actually, and I'm about a week away from finishing it and launching it and the book's called pricing freelancing projects and it, but it's basically derived from in fact, no, it's.
It was spurred from the viral tweet that I wrote about a month ago, they've got lights. I think he's had 3 million, 3 million impressions and 37 likes, 11 K retweets. And I just thought, you know, obviously people find value in this, uh, this pricing information that I've got. So I've got it. I've got to expand on it.
I've got to write a book, answer the questions that are coming in and things like that. So yeah, buy the book it's available at pre-order price right now. And the price will go up when it's launched on the 30th of July. Excellent. Excellent. And I have bought it. It's excellent. I nice, highly recommended.
And um, yeah, Tom Harris, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a blast. I've really enjoyed it. Yeah. You have a productive day and I'll catch you later. You too. Thank you. Ma'am cheers. Bye. Okay. This was my conversation with Tom. Hope you took something from it. Hope it was helpful. It certainly was to me and ya'll please subscribe, rate and review the podcast.
It will really help a lot. And I do read every review. Also shameless plug. If you need a freelance front-end developer react, react, native, that sort of stuff. Hit me up. gabriel@gabrielhorvat.com. It's all in the show notes as well. And yeah, you guys stay strong and healthy during these very uncertain times and I'll catch you next week.