How to Market Yourself Online as a Niche Freelancer with Kyle Prinsloo (S6E8)

Updated on | Sign up for learn to code tips


When Kyle Prinsloo started freelancing, he was just looking for some side cash. He didn’t know it would turn into a full-time income.

Disclosure: I’m a proud affiliate for some of the resources mentioned in this article. If you buy a product through my links on this page, I may get a small commission for referring you. Thanks!

Kyle PrinslooKyle, who’s from South Africa and lives there with his wife, dropped out of high school in favor of self-studying. He worked various different jobs in digital marketing, but continued to study web development and started freelancing on the side. After two years, his freelancing income was matching his full-time salary, so he took the plunge to work for himself full-time and invest more into his website and courses at Study Web Development.

man working at office desk 2

One thing that makes Kyle stand out is that he considers himself a niche freelancer rather than a generalist—meaning he focuses on developing for companies within a specific niche.

In this episode, he shares detailed advice on why he recommends this method, how to start choosing a niche, and how to market yourself online so that you can find the best clients within your niche.

This episode was transcribed with the help of an AI transcription tool. Please forgive any typos.

Laurence Bradford 0:09
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Learn to Code With Me podcast. I'm your host Laurence Bradford and today's episode is all about finding clients as a freelancer. But first a quick word about this episodes wonderful sponsors.

Laurence Bradford 0:28
Do you want to automate your workflow to save hours of manual data entry? Mailparser takes email data and uses parsing filters to help you understand your customers. Get a free trial and 30% off your first year over at mailparser.io/learntocodewithme.

Laurence Bradford 0:50
Product Design is a lucrative and in demand skill with online programs flexible classes and one on one mentoring. Thinkful's product design program can help you land a job as a product designer. To find out more and to get $500 off, go to learntocodewith.me/thinkful.

Laurence Bradford 1:12
Hey, listeners. In today's episode I talk with Kyle Prinsloo. Kyle helps web developers and designers earn a side or full time income through freelancing. I've know Kyle for a while now, and he recently worked with us on our ultimate tech rear toolbox bundle. He's also written a couple of guest posts on the learn to code with me blog all about how to start a career as a freelancer. Today we'll be talking about how you can find your own freelance niche, how to take the leap and start freelancing full time and how to find the best clients for you by marketing yourself online. If you're interested in freelancing, and in particular how to market and position yourself as an expert, this is definitely an episode for you. Enjoy.

Laurence Bradford 2:08
Hey, Kyle, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Kyle Prinsloo 2:11
Hey, Laurence, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Laurence Bradford 2:13
Yes, I'm so glad to finally have you on the podcast because we've worked together in various ways in the past. I believe you've written a guest blog post for the Learn to close me blog before and you've Of course, also been part of our ultimate tech career toolbox bundle. But this is the first time ganging up on you on the show. So really exciting. And thanks again for coming on.

Kyle Prinsloo 2:35
Oh, no, thank you for having me. And obviously, I'm very much aware of you, your podcasts and your blog. And it's something I'm very much following on. I mean, I really want to congratulate you. I mean, it's really inspiring. So yeah, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Laurence Bradford 2:49
Of course. Thank you so much. And to start things off, I'd love if you could just tell the listeners a bit about yourself and what you do.

Kyle Prinsloo 2:56
Cool. So I think it's it's pretty obvious my accent isn't an American accent. So I'm from South Africa. And I actually live in South Africa with my wife, and beniamino born and bred here. And my background is in various different jobs, anti accounting, various different things, marketing, eventually led to start freelancing to earn a side income. And that led me to share what I know in my blog study web development COMM And now we're just working on very exciting things. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much the short of my post and what I'm doing now.

Laurence Bradford 3:38
Yeah, that's awesome. And from looking, you know, researching your background online, we found that you don't have any formal education and it looks like you dropped out of high school and you're entirely self taught. So what like key tell us a bit about that, and any advice you could share for others who are in a similar situation,

Kyle Prinsloo 3:57
True issue. So some better to that is that back then I was about, I think it was about 17 or 18 at the time, and I was in my final year of high school. And so how it works here in South Africa is a bit different to the US. The final year of high school you finish when you about 18 or so, just some background to that. And I mean, during that time, my parents were getting like a divorce. So, so things were very, I would say difficult, you know, mentally, emotionally, and definitely financially. So I thought halfway through the year that I went to, you know, and sort of alleviate the financial pressures on my mom at the time. And I thought, okay, now I want to try some business things just try to earn like a sardine can and at the time, and just took like odd jobs, you know, like, I mean, eventually to being in jewelry, and I'm not a good salesperson, but, but there's actually the job. That took just to like, you know, how clients sell jewelry and everything. So so there's a little bit of a background to that, that I'm very much an advocate for self learning self, you know, teaching yourself it's a through online courses or through reading very much an advocate for that.

Kyle Prinsloo 5:21
And I don't, I don't know, sort of put a bad connotation on, you know, studying getting a degree. And that because obviously, it works for different people. But for me, I'm very much and, you know, prefer the self studying route. When it comes to like giving advice to people, you know, who are in a similar position. It's actually a bit of a difficult one to be honest with you because obviously, everyone's situation is different. I mean, I mean, obviously depends on your support structures, your financial your time, if you have children, how old you are and all of that, so I do think it must be generally approached on a case by case basis.

Laurence Bradford 6:02
Yeah, cuz I guess at the time, I think of myself when I first started learning to code, and I was I got a side job really fast, but at the time, I think I was 23. So I was, you know, young, I didn't have a lot of responsibilities, I, you know, had a lot of free time. So it's really easy for me just to dive in and like, learn these skills and go apply them somewhere. But I know as you were just saying, It's can be really different for everyone and everyone's situation, and you know, where they are in life can really vary the approach they take, but back to your story. So you were 18 years old, and you had a bunch of these odd jobs. You did jewelry sales, when did you start learning how to build websites?

Kyle Prinsloo 6:45
Okay, so, um, so my original background, my experience is actually in digital marketing, internet marketing. So I was with a large company for about three and a half years and halfway through that program, The age of when I was about 20. I got married to my wife. And she, she's actually Indian. She comes from India. And when she came to stay here, we had a lot of issues with a visa, so she couldn't legally work. So that created a bit of a sort of an issue financially because I mean, from an individual salary I was earning or odd. But when you have to basically provide for two people, and it got a bit, you know, tough financially. So then halfway through about a year and a half. in that company, I thought, Well, okay, I need to, you know, look at an additional income stream. And it's quite funny.

Kyle Prinsloo 7:39
My wife was also trying a few things, you know, trying to sell some jewelry. I mean, we try a lot of things and she came across udemy.com I'm sure your listeners are familiar with with that on on coding platform and learning platform actually. And she actually recommended to me, she said, Why don't you actually learn web design, web development. And I thought, like, wow, actually, that's not a bad idea. Because when it comes to helping a business, get more clients or boost sales, I mean, you genuinely need just two things. You just need a very good website and you need a very good marketing strategy. So my marketing knowledge was pretty good. But I didn't have the website knowledge. I thought it was at some, some foreign language in and working with developers and everything. And so eventually started learning online and on Udemy. I think I started with with Rob personnels course. And he's, he's really an excellent teacher. And since then, it's just been combining the two offering that as a service to clients. And I mean, it's really been beneficial since then.

Laurence Bradford 8:45
Okay, you have so much good things you shared there. So you started learning as a side income stream because you were working full time at a digital marketing company. When did you end up leaving that digital marketing company or maybe you moved around That and doing the freelance web development web design marketing full time.

Kyle Prinsloo 9:05
Yeah, sure. So I've actually got very good news. I was looking at my calendar, and I'm just realizing like, Wow, I've actually been full time freelance for two years now. So, so I was like, awesome. But before then I was actually so for about from the year and a half to the three, three and a half years that I was at that company. After about six months of learning and applying it, I actually started generating quite a bit of income on the side. And a year later, I was actually earning, I was matching my full time salary. And then another year after that, I was actually doubling it on the side. So I was doing quite well on the freelancing side. But I really enjoyed my job. So I didn't want to leave. So eventually, I took the plunge and when was it 20 was it? Well, two years ago 20 2017 in May, I took the plunge to work myself full time and I've been full time ever since.

Laurence Bradford 10:01
So I'm sort of like obsessed with asking people the dates and timelines because I know so many listeners when they're first starting out, they're like, wait, but how much time? Did it take you to do that? You know, so how long were you freelancing on the side and working full time like simultaneously?

Kyle Prinsloo 10:17
Mm hmm. I mean, good question again. And that was probably about a year and a half to two years. And, look, I mean, I could have left earlier, let's say, maybe, maybe nine months, after sort of freelancing on the side full time. But again, I mean, I don't want the listeners to get like the wrong impression. Yeah, you know, because obviously, it works for different people and different time some people take it's a, you know, two months or months or some people take two years. So and just for me, I really enjoyed learning at the company.

Kyle Prinsloo 10:54
I'm very good friends with the business owners and I didn't really want to leave And also on top of that, actually did have my my wife to help me in a lot of tasks. Eventually, she actually also learned with design. So while I was at work, maybe my lunch break, we would chat to like, figure out what we can do like what's happening with this project. And we would just keep in touch then in at night, I would literally work. And I mean, very, very late, like, it was really a stressful time. I mean, even sometimes on Fridays, when I got home from work, I actually didn't even sleep. So so there was a lot of sacrifice made on a lot of weekends and sacrificing a lot of things. But yeah, I mean, that was definitely worthwhile during that whole time.

Laurence Bradford 11:42
Yeah, no, thank you for being so honest. And like upfront about that, I think, you know, I think there's so many people, this is how I was when I first started learning to code. I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna like learn that year. And then I'm going to get a job as a full time web developer and then I'm going to be more making six figures and that like this like really like kind of like tunnel vision of how everything was going to look and it didn't end up becoming it things, of course changed. But I really like they talked about that because it shows, you know, like how much time some of these things do take and it's it's really not that much time. Like maybe when you're first starting out two years sounds like a lot. And I know you mentioned you really liked your job you could have left sooner, but I think it's just part of that journey and that story. And I can totally relate when you talk about working really night, working really late at night making a lot of sacrifices. Because there's a lot of listeners No, I you know, also actually for two years, which I think I was actually told before, I'm kind of veering off here, sorry, but my accountant told me that a lot of people who are in a situation where they're doing a side business and working full time, he said that he noticed a lot we'll end up having to kind of pick one extra two years because that seems to be the threshold of how long people can make those kinds. Have sacrifices for without a clear and HDInsight.

Kyle Prinsloo 13:03
Wow.

Laurence Bradford 13:04
Yeah, so because I remember personally after like a year and a half, and then I ended up, you know, taking a good amount of time to plan my leaves, or you know, at leaving the full time job. I was just so burned out. It was just like, at first it was fun and exciting. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I cannot go on like this.

Kyle Prinsloo 13:25
Yeah.

Laurence Bradford 13:26
I don't know, was that something that impacted your decision, like to leave your full time job as well. So you could like just do one thing and have a better work life balance?

Kyle Prinsloo 13:35
I mean, exactly. I mean, I mean, you, I mean, you literally just touched on it perfectly. So I mean, from my side, and I was eventually marketing manager. So I was like, in charge of a department there. And and the company was growing quite quickly. I mean, when I started I think it had about 70 to 80 people. And when I lifted head about almost angle within a period of three, three odd years, so I think a lot of time when times when the structure of a company grows, sometimes they have to become, I wouldn't say they have to, but in this case, the the company became a bit more strict, you know, like monitoring certain things, and I didn't like that, especially seeing as I was, I mean, I mean, if we look at the facts, I was basically earning double income was on the side, we would work less hours, obviously, it was a, you know, it was a hectic juggle and everything, but eventually at some point you I mean, you have to make the decision mark.

Kyle Prinsloo 14:34
Okay, when you asked to work overtime, is it worth you know, the extra hours or can you you know, I mean, work on your side business and maximize that side? And then again, I mean, you have to think long term 510 years. I mean, hopefully like with children and family and back, sitting down traveling, whatever I mean, I mean, juggling laugh, you know, I mean, you want to Certain freedoms. And most of the time in most companies, they don't have. I mean, let's just call it like the Google benefits, you know, like, like, Google has a lot of benefits. But I mean, if we look at most companies, they don't really offer those types of mass freedom and, and all these perks to it. So I do think that's, I mean, ultimately, one of the biggest benefits if you can get freelancing right, and be successful at it, then obviously, then you can, you know, reap the rewards. And I definitely think it's something to consider for everyone.

Laurence Bradford 15:33
Awesome. Well, switching gears a little bit. I'd love to talk about your website study web development comm and how you started that when you did and why?

Kyle Prinsloo 15:44
Cool. So So how I started it was 2015 in the December actually launched study development and the whole aim or let me first say this, I was actually looking at some pictures and the other day of some of the designs overlap. what it was and what it looks now. And while I must say I'm quite, I'm quite embarrassed and quite ashamed, of, of like, how it started and everything, but I'm glad I actually did start and so So anyway, I started with the whole mindset of literally just trying to be an advocate to explain to people that just by having web development knowledge and combining it with some internet marketing knowledge, I mean, it can open up so many doors for you, and let's say for freelancing or for any of your own product ideas, so it was just literally almost like a sort of a blog documenting some of my journeys or some tips that that I had in articles. I have changed quite a bit of it not to focus very much on freelancing and branding and, and those types of things.

Kyle Prinsloo 16:50
But before it was very heavily focused on courses to start out, and then like the next step could be a free year. A book that I created just to help put everything in perspective of like next steps and next goals to take. And then obviously the next step was my freelancing bundle actually, which is just a bit more focused on Mac, indepth freelancing. So now, moving forward, we we actually have got a partner in the business now a good friend of mine, and he joined in January. And he's just a part of study development. We're doing a lot of other things as well. But we'll be talking with the women's How are we doing actually also doing a podcast? And I must say that, that you've actually been a very good inspiration for that. And I remember, you wrote an article for for me on My blog recently, I think the 29th of April, and you mentioned something in the relating to podcasts, and you just literally pretty much said, just do it, you know, and I was just chatting to him and I'm like, No, I mean, let's just do it. So So anyway, we I mean, that's what we work.

Kyle Prinsloo 17:59
You're now going to work on adding some more YouTube videos, adding some more blogs, just just essentially adding more value, you know, to ultimately try and help more people. And if I can say quickly on rambling on a bit here, but just to add, I mean, I'm incredibly grateful at the feedback that I received from from a lot of people on like, how, I mean, literally how the labs have changed, with web development with freelancing and so on. And I remember telling my wife at the beginning, I said, you know, what, like, there's so many ways to make an income. And I think a lot of people's, let's say, a sort of meaning behind it, or the why behind it is, I mean, I mean, let's just say selfish, you know, I mean, they just want to, you know, do while themselves and so on, but, but I really said to my wife, I mean, what can we What can I do? What can we do that will sort of add value to people And in turn, you know, be rewarding at the same time. And I must say I'm very grateful for how everything has evolved over these past, you know, two, two and a half years with steady development.

Laurence Bradford 19:15
Sit tight podcast listeners, we're taking a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors.

Laurence Bradford 19:20
Small businesses spent a lot of time managing logistics and trying to understand their customers. Mailparser is a leading email processing tool that makes these things a lot simpler. First, you'll forward emails to Mailparser manually or with custom email filters. Then Mailparser uses custom parsing rules to automatically extract the important information you need from the email, body or attachments. You can view the extracted data on your Mailparser dashboard or use web hooks can automatically send the data to your other business applications. Mailparser offers a suite of parsing filters that are highly flexible, and that can render custom output from almost all structured data. Whether you are capturing leads, analyzing order information, or figuring out what new features your customers want, you can do it efficiently with Mailparser, get a free 14 day trial to see if you like it. Then 30% off the first year of service at mailparser.io/learntocodewithme.

Laurence Bradford 20:34
Thinkful is a coding program that's designed to get you your dream job and tech, with online programs, flexible classes and six months of support from a career coach. It's the perfect place to start your new career. In 2019, LinkedIn named product design one of the most promising jobs in the United States with a median base salary of just over $121,000 This is a lucrative and in demand career. Thinkful's product design program is built to get you a job as a product designer or your tuition back. With one on one mentorship and support team behind you, you'll work on impressive projects to build your portfolio and prove your design abilities to future employers. What's more, this course fits around your schedule, so you can get ready for your new job without having to quit your current one. 90% of course graduates are hired as full time designers, but thanks to Thinkful's tuition reimbursement guarantee, if you don't get a job within six months of graduating, you'll get your money back. To find out more and get $500 off go to learntocodewith.me/thinkful.

Laurence Bradford 21:52
That's amazing. And I loved what you said there at the end. I have a lot of little quotes or mantras or whatever you want to call it. That I will read through the tape to just help me like mentally like productivity but one of the things that I'm hope I'm going to say it right is when you when you focus on this is kind of dramatic, but I think it gets the point across. It's when you focus on healing other people's pain, that's where you find your passion or something about that. It's basically about when you try to help other people, that's where you can get your most like fulfillment from so I yeah, yeah, so that's, I mean, same same as you like I'm constantly thinking about how can I be generous and serve others and impact wives whether that's a lot of lives like through a podcast show that is out reaching lots of people or just a one off email to someone you know, someone who writes to me or something. So yeah, I love that and about freelancing. So obviously freelancing has really shaped your own life and your own career. so far. There's so many questions I could ask I think about freelancing and experience with it. But I would love just to know right now, are you still freelancing? Like, are you still building websites for clients and whatnot?

Kyle Prinsloo 23:12
Yes, so, so just to be, like transparent here, my partner, I mean, we work on web agencies. And so what that means is, we essentially focus on a niche or niche in America. But we focus on a niche and we just like trying to service clients within that niche by offering web design and marketing services. So a bit of background on that it's me as my partner and as my wife that I mean, basically full time and doing client work working on stable development and other income streams. And then we obviously have some contractors to outsource certain tasks to, but I do think it's important that That I mean that I am involved in freelancing, working with clients and trying to grow.

Kyle Prinsloo 24:06
Because essentially, I'm basically talking about it, you know, so so I find it a bit disingenuous, making certain suggestions, if I myself and, you know, not trying to apply it. I think there's a lot of people in, you know, certain spaces, particularly internet marketing, it's a little bit different publishers focus on there to basically make money online by teaching other people how to make money online, but they themselves haven't done it. Which I find like, I mean, it really grounds me. And so, so yes, to answer it on very much involved in freelancing, we actually got quite a few clients and we, I mean, I have taken a little bit of time off last year to really try and focus on steady with development to try and cut out a lot of client work here and there. But now we're very much trying to actually scale Get up and we're working on like a very big, you know, plan and breaking that up into very actionable steps.

Laurence Bradford 25:06
Awesome. You mentioned like, I don't know a little bit ago about the niche services. Can you talk about what you mean when you say that?

Kyle Prinsloo 25:14
Sure. So I think Okay, first of all, I'm going to explain when it's relating to freelancing. So I think I think there's two types of people in my world. So you get what's called a generalist. And what a generalist may be is someone who is a freelancer, who offices, let's just say web design services or internet marketing services, or both, or whatever it is, but whatever service it is, you pretty much take on any client at any time, just to literally get, you know, get by man to fill up your calendar. So that's number one. Number two, we're talking about the niche. So what it is, is you're focused on providing services to a particular client within a specified niche, so let's use an example. And I like actually with reference three examples here. So paper street.com, they specialize in helping law firms. And again, I'm talking about focusing on websites and internet marketing, then you get small marketing and they focus on dentists. Then you get Kira matrix, which focuses on chiropractors. Then you can also get restaurant engine they focus on restaurants.

Kyle Prinsloo 26:32
One similarity between the two because you might be asking, okay, cool, but you know, what's the benefits and pros and cons behind the two? And look from my side, let me just say that I prefer the niche angle that you obviously do get a lot of good, successful generalists. So I'm not saying it doesn't work. I just prefer the way the lack a niche aspect of it because I do believe it sets you apart from from, you know, branding yourself being considered an authority in the perception and positioning, I mean, it ultimately affects your pricing and what you can offer and so if I can just quickly wrap up on that on the niche that the difference between those websites and the average generalist is the Nisha, they've got so many clients coming to them, they've literally got a waiting list. And in some of these cases, some of them have an employee list of like, over 100 people. So I mean, the company is doing incredibly well. And I mean, that's something I'm an advocate on Holly Holly advocate, I mean, are recommended to everyone. And something I myself too. I mean, we involved in two niches. One of them is actually in in the medical nation. One of them is in therapy niche, but it's super focused, super focused, and niche so definitely highly recommend.

Laurence Bradford 27:54
Awesome and that makes a lot of sense. It makes sense because you would just understand that industry so much more and like what The important things are on the website and then from a marketing perspective, like, what has worked with other clients in the past in a similar space and and all that. So I'm curious, like, how do you become that expert, you know, for the medical and the therapy, websites for companies? And how are you getting these clients? Like how are they finding out about you?

Kyle Prinsloo 28:23
Cool. So I think if we have to break it up into number one is like, how do you become an expert in that niche? And the very simple answer is, you literally have to learn. So I mean, I mean, let's just say for example, I wanted to focus on a bit an area niche, select the people who do vits businesses, you know, so So let's say I want to do that. I actually don't know anything about it, to be honest. I would literally just research it. I will research like the language they used to they call their clients, clients customers. Do they call them patients? They call them something else, and then use that language and to like, obviously, in the marketing side of things, but they but the but the story is like To sum it up on that side, I mean, it's literally just just learning everything you can about what they do about you. Or let me say this, if you focusing on a florist, or nutritionist, they will be very different in let's say, a lawyer in how you communicate with him, which therefore means everything from your website, and your marketing channels need to be aligned to speak their language, and they goals and desires for their business, or they practice or whatever. So I hope that answers that said, moving on to like, how do you or what was the second part of it like, how do you grow it? How do you like how do you get started?

Laurence Bradford 29:50
Yeah, right, and how do you get new clients and all that?

Unknown Speaker 29:54
Cool? So so I think obviously, you need to identify this skill set that you currently have. So let's say you and obviously also your what you enjoy, ultimately. But I'm going to mainly focus on web design. And I'm going to focus on internet marketing. So focus on what you can offer. Now, obviously, you want to improve it, but we'll get to that at a later stage. I mean, I mean, that's just something you need to do on the side, if you want to improve your web design knowledge, if you want to improve certain marketing channels and so on, then what you need to do is people think, awesome, I've got the knowledge. Now I need clients. But I actually don't like that way of thinking because you actually don't want a client, you actually want the right client. And I know that sounds cheesy and everything, but it's but it's true. I mean, you want to work with the clients that ultimately you enjoy working with, and that you can create add value to. So I mean, you have to figure out how to your niche and we can perhaps discuss that as well if you want to, but let's say you've decided Add it on your niche, let's say let's say dentists for example. I mean, I brought that up earlier.

Kyle Prinsloo 31:07
So So listen, the dangerous what you need to do is break it up in stages, you need a very effective website. And the headline can be something simple maybe something like grow your dentistry practice and literally everything will be focused on that you know speaking the dentists language lack the you need more patients to your practice, things like that. So you're not on saying clients or customers. And you need to actually step out of your comfort zone because what do you want them to do? You want them to schedule a free consultation with you by the phone by by phone or via Skype, where you can literally do an analysis on a website and on the online marketing and prisons and you can give suggestions, therefore that adds value to what you can do and they see the value and will want to take the next step of you know, essentially Working with you, you can provide them with the proposal template, and hopefully they sign on. But now, just to an ongoing on and on, yes. But for marketing channel for dentists, the question then is okay, you've got two goals in mind you put your website, you've got your goal in mind for them to schedule a free consultation or get a free quote or contact you for more information, whatever it is, there has to be some desired call or action that you would like him to take.

Kyle Prinsloo 32:28
That's the website. Now we move on to how do you reach out to dentists? So it might be I mean, first of all, you have to literally try everything. So it could be LinkedIn ads, it could be Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Twitter ads, could be ad words it could be trying to reach out in in conventions or conference centers advertising day, in magazines, like literally like publications that are distributed about amongst dentists themselves, or it could also be, like direct mail. That can also work or I mean, you get email outreach. So there's so many different ways of like, growing and trying to reach out to clients. But if I can just wrap it up and quickly say, obviously, the ideal situation is if they come to you, because then you are in a very, very good negotiation space. And most of the time that they actually don't say no, because they already know they want to work with you, because they can see Wow, this person specializes in what we need help with. I don't care how much they charge. I mean, you're we're gonna see do the numbers and whatever, but I really want to work with this person.

Laurence Bradford 33:45
Yeah, awesome. That makes a ton of sense. And thank you for that, like detailed example. So I feel like some folks listening if they're just starting out, like whoa, well, that's great, but like, you know, I'm just getting started. How do I even know What industry or what area I should niche down in? What sauce do you have on like picking one.

Kyle Prinsloo 34:07
True so so I do think if I had to split this into like, just as a general getting started very basic beginners sort of guideline, I would say I mean first of all, just check in with your with your family, just let him know that you that you are at least a good design and you want to do the website just sort of get a general feel for your experience on building a website automatically. Tell your friends, maybe you could perhaps go to business meal local business meetups in your area, because ultimately I mean they are going to hire you not like developer meetups or anything like that and build from there. So I do think that's one very neglected Avenue. But if we move on, I mean that's obviously a very, very basic me moving on to the niche side. So when it comes to choosing a niche, I think a lot of people focus So much time on trying to decide on a niche that they actually don't get started. And ultimately, I mean, I do think you just literally need to get started.

Kyle Prinsloo 35:09
But I do want I mean, there are some ways where I can give some advice. So number one is something that you're passionate about. I mean, I mean, let's say for example, you you're interested in health. I mean, my wife is crazy about health actually. But I mean, something that will really interest her is, is nutritionists creating websites for nutritionists. So that so that's number one. Number two, it could be maybe something where you see an opportunity so let's say for example, you I mean, you go for the largest clauses or you meet you know, someone at a coffee shop and you just hear the struggles that in whatever industry that in and you think wow, okay, if this person struggling surely there are many others around the world. They are struggling. So this from an opportunity, opportunistic side of things, then you get another one, which is, like out of pure, pure potential, you know, income potential. So, I mean, it could even be linked to like, to greed in an extent, but let's just call it that way you might think, okay, if I have to work with, let's say, a florist, or some small little coffee shop or something, obviously, they would have a very small marketing budget.

Kyle Prinsloo 36:29
But what happens if I had actually had to work with neurosurgeons or like cardiologists or like, a, like, lawyers or something like that? I mean, they've got a way bigger marketing budget, because they earn more. So then. So I know. It's a lot of things to take in, but it's some of them could actually be a combination of all three. But then I think a very important one to think about is your your tongue. The feasibility from a financial perspective. So how do you actually work out? You know how how sort of lucrative and niche is. And generally speaking, a business should spend roughly 10% of the annual turnover on marketing. So what you can do is, you can look@payscale.com would they literally have almost every single job title you can think of, like cardiologists, dentist, nutritionists, florists, whatever. And you can see how much they salary is across the board on an average basis per annum. And then you literally take that even though it's not a full example of the annual turnover for the business specifically, but a good one is to work on their salary.

Kyle Prinsloo 37:45
You take the annual salary, let's say it's $100,000, and you divide it by 10. So that's roughly $10,000 in a year on what they can or should be spending on marketing. So then therefore, you can just testified and think, Okay, wow, if I had to create a very good website for them to get more clients more patients for, let's say, $5,000, would they be happy to spend, let's say, roughly $500 a month for a marketing retainer. And that would at least justify your time to see. Okay, this is a good news, is it worth my time I enjoy it. I can add value, and just sort of looking at everything in context. So I know, sort of babbled on there. But I hope I hope it answers it in detail.

Laurence Bradford 38:32
No, that was so informative. And I really liked the last bit of advice. I've never heard that suggestion before with the salary looking at the salaries, but it makes so much sense. Unfortunately, though, we're like, almost out of time. I feel like I have so many other questions. I didn't get to ask you, unfortunately. But I guess that gives people a good reason to go to your website and learn more about you. I just want to ask though, one last question. I'm just do you have any final words of wisdom for listener for listeners who are hoping to break into freelancing?

Kyle Prinsloo 39:00
I mean, yes, I do. I find I find this actually quite quite a simple mental barrier, like a mental block that people have. And it's very often they make excuses. You know, I don't have time is a very big one, maybe they have kids, maybe they, you know, work is just too demanding. Or maybe they just don't have the discipline or maybe they don't have the finances, whatever it is. And to that, I will say, I mean, I mean, look, if we're talking like truthful year, whatever your financial situation is, they'll always be someone who's worse off than new, who is making a success. There will always be someone who doesn't have as much time as you even though you don't think you have a lot of time, but who will make the effort who will literally sleep less or wake up earlier and make certain sacrifices and they would learn?

Kyle Prinsloo 39:55
So it's almost like asking like, what, what's it what makes a difference between You know, a successful person or successful athlete and a non success with it. And it's one of those things where I think it's very much character driven, you know, I mean, obviously, we all know, luck. You know, the general things like I mean, don't be selfish. Don't be rude Don't be, you know, don't be weird, basically, I mean, just be just like help others just just have discipline, just have the ability to want to learn, just like putting the time and the effort to set a schedule is to set a schedule, have a goal in mind and work towards it, have an accountability partner. And ultimately, I mean, just sort of summarizing it, literally just get started, and then work on adapting and improving along the way. Don't delay, don't sort of make excuses your butt your butt. Literally just do it and then try and improve and adapt.

Laurence Bradford 40:52
And what a great way to end the show. Thank you so much, Kyle, again for coming on. Where can people find you online?

Kyle Prinsloo 40:58
Well, thank you. I mean, nothing very much appreciated. Thanks again Laurence and they can literally just go to my website, studywebdevelopment.com. I mean, you know this a lot of different links say they want to read the blog or anything else. Yeah. So thank you.

Laurence Bradford 41:18
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kyle. If you missed any of that, or would like a recap, the Show Notes for this episode can be found over at the Learn to Code With Me website. Just go to learntocodewith.me/podcast. And if you're listening to this episode in the future, you can just click the Search icon in the upper navigation of the website and type in Kyle's name. All of the links in the resources that we mentioned in this interview are going to be on the show notes page. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.

Key takeaways

  • When it comes to freelancing, getting more clients will boost your sales. To achieve this, you generally just need to focus on two things: a very good website, and a very good marketing strategy. To be successful, it’s important that you know how to market yourself online.
  • If you’re considering working for yourself full-time, really consider whether you should leave your job right away. Are you still enjoying it/learning from it? If so, you might want to wait a little bit.
  • Be realistic—everyone’s situation is different, but it’s likely you won’t be making six figures within a year after you start working for yourself. It takes time and patience, and you might have to make a lot of sacrifices.
  • The best fulfilment is from helping others heal their pain points, so that’s a good place to start if you’re considering freelancing. What can you do to help others? What problems need to be solved?
  • Being a niche developer is great because it allows you to focus on a specific set of skills and master them, meaning you can find the best clients for you.
  • Usually, the thing that stops people from freelancing, especially full-time, is the mental barrier. Transitioning gradually can help with this. Have a goal in mind and work towards it, have an accountability partner, and then work on adapting and improving along the way.
freelance developer

 

Links and mentions from the episode:

Where to listen to the podcast

You can listen to the Learn to Code With Me podcast on the following platforms:

  1. iTunes
  2. Overcast
  3. Stitcher
  4. Spotify

If you have a few extra minutes, please rate and review the show in iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show. I would really, really appreciate it!

Special thanks to this episode’s sponsors

Mailparser: Mailparser takes email data and uses parsing filters to help you understand your customers. Get a free 14-day trial and 30% off the first year at mailparser.io/learntocodewithme.

Thinkful: With online programs, flexible classes, and one-on-one mentoring, Thinkful’s Product Design program can help you land a job as a product designer. To get $500 off, go to learntocodewith.me/thinkful.