Fieldtrip freedom - Brand Consultant Austin L. Church
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About this episode…
Fieldtrip freedom - Brand Consultant and Coach Austin L. Church
Austin wants to be the dad who goes on all the field trips. The dad who’s around so much, the kids get sick of him. He’s been self-employed for 12 years now, from freelance to fledgling agency, and while it’s been a bumpy road, Austin says he’s learned to embrace the mistakes and change the wrong turns into right ones.
From his first client — the agency who’d made him redundant the week prior — to building a full-time team and learning the art of delegation, Austin shares his biggest lessons and discoveries so far, including this: don’t be the guy answering emails on your honeymoon.
Read highlights from the episode in the next tab.
Learning to lead with confidence
For Austin, who says he’s obsessed with self-improvement, there is a drive to keep getting better in lots of different ways.
“My freelance journey has been a rollercoaster, but not because freelancing has to be a rollercoaster. But because I really needed to develop as a person. A lot of my journey has been about breaking through limiting beliefs. I've really needed to transform my mindset.”
As well as confidence and self-belief, Austin’s worked hard to develop his skills and knowledge to meet client demand.
“It became clear that as young as I was and as inexperienced as I felt, these business owners were still looking to me for guidance and leadership. They wanted someone else to tell them what to do next. So I thought well, let me go figure it out. And I kept on adding to my skillset.”
As Austin developed his skills, his self-confidence grew and so he was able to project more confidence outwards. When we can do that, Austin says, it builds our clients’ confidence in us.
Mastering the art of delegation
From a book by the founder of Patagonia, Austin learned that our ability to grow is tied to our ability to relinquish control.
“I think a lot of freelancers really do care about their clients, really do care about positive outcomes. They care about quality. When they put a project in their portfolios, they want to be like, "Look what I created. How cool is that?" But when they're faced with the prospect of delegating, oh no that's scary. Because what happens if I'm like an A player and now the person I delegate to really just drops the ball?”
Austin has full-time team now and he’s learned to overcome that worry.
“My big breakthrough early 2018 was realising that I did not need to train people. I needed to create training and then give people access to it. And I was finally able to delegate and maintain quality. So I was able to decrease the demands on my personal time and a lot of other opportunities opened up for me.
“I had time to spend on creating a course. I had time to be with my family. I think I finally got off that hamster wheel of productivity. And it was in the most boring and sneaky way possible. I just started writing down processes.”
“Do not internalise your failures.
If you make the wrong choice, that doesn't say something about your identity. It doesn't say something about your potential to succeed long-term.
You learn from it, you move on. And your mistakes can become your best teachers, and your failures can become your best friends.
And eventually, every wrong turn can become a right turn if you just keep going.”
— Austin L. Church
More from Austin L. Church
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Brand Consultant and Coach Austin L. Church
Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Austin L. Church: I started off confused. I got a master's in English literature with a focus in creative writing, thought I was going to do the college English professor thing. Got a job at a marketing agency because that was the job offered to me. Never cared about business. Never wanted to go into business. And started my freelance journey in April, 2009 after I got laid off from that position at a marketing agency. And the last 12 years or so have been big a adventure.
Steve Folland: So when you first went freelance, what would you have called yourself? What were you offering?
Austin L. Church: So I had to look up the word freelance. I did not know it was a thing. And when I say I was a clueless, jobless poet, I mean I did not know anything. But at the agency, I had been responsible for social media strategy, copywriting, little bit of project management and account management, like interfacing with clients. So having no other options on the table really, I kept doing that. Did a lot of copywriting, a lot of web content, ghostwriting for blog posts. So most of my early work focused on writing.
Steve Folland: And where were you getting those clients?
Austin L. Church: So a lot of them just came through personal network. My naivete, and maybe I'd even call it stupidity served me well. Because when you aren't experienced in something, you don't know what doesn't work. So you try everything, and some things end up working that maybe shouldn't have. So I talked to everybody, and was really curious about people's businesses, and went to local startup events. And I did work hard. I think that helped. But I got out into the community a lot and ended up picking up projects that probably didn't deserve just because I was very inquisitive, asking people lots of questions, and following up. I've got a pretty good memory. And I think that served me well. I could go to a party, remember a conversation. And then a couple of days later I'd be like, "I should probably reach out to Elizabeth. Or I should probably ask James if he wants help with that." So personal network, getting out into the community, going to events, and follow up.
Steve Folland: Cool. So a lot of your business then, I mean this was 2009. So locally based to you.
Austin L. Church: Oh, for sure. And a couple other things come to mind. My first client was the agency that had laid me off. They did not have another freelance writer lined up. They did not hire anyone to replace me. So I was very fortunate in that. Got laid off on a Friday. Got a call on Monday. It was my old boss and he said, "Hey, we can't actually finish any of the projects you were working on. What's your freelance rate?" And Steve, I was so sort of proud. I felt like I'd pulled a fast one when I told them my freelance rate was $40 U.S. an hour, because I knew he was billing out my time at $85 an hour. And I thought, "Well, if I come in at only half that, then he has to say yes." And he said yes. And I'm like, "Oh my goodness. I'm now making almost three times as much doing the exact same work." But quickly ran into the problem that if you're billing hourly, then you actually get penalized for your skill, and efficiency, and experience. So that's maybe another conversation. But first big client or at least regular client was the old agency. And then there were a few other friends who were creatives who sent some work my way.
Steve Folland: So that's 11 years ago. So how did it change over time?
Austin L. Church: I would sum this up in something I call the antique shop model. Which is you go into an antique shop here in the United States, maybe the same in the UK. And if you see a quilt, or an old credenza, or some china that you like, chances are that it belongs to somebody else. And if the antique shop sells it, they earn a commission. So I started selling the skillsets of my freelance friends. And I started doing that after I realized a lot of my clients really just wanted someone to handle it. They didn't want to be project managers. They didn't want to have to manage and communicate with the photographer, and the web designer, and the web developer, and the writer. And now that's obviously why some clients go to an agency because the agency offers all of those skillsets packaged up into one point of contact. Well, I started acting like an agency, even though I was just one person.
Austin L. Church: And that's how it evolved over time. Writing led to project management, led to strategy, led to some marketing retainers and SEO. That led to even developing some iOS and Android apps in, I guess the first one came out in 2012. Over time, I realized if I can put together a team, I can hire people, then I can punch above my weight class and say yes to projects that required skill sets that I certainly didn't have.
Steve Folland: That's great. But how did you come to realize that? How did you know that that was what they needed?
Austin L. Church: Partly because they asked. Had several experiences early on that I found disorienting. I would finish up the writing piece. "Hey, here's your web content." And I was mid twenties at the time. And it's not like I went overnight from being a clueless jobless poet to some sort of business phenom. I was still mostly clueless. Right? I'm a fast learner, but you don't know what you don't know. And yet, these well-established business owners would say, "Thanks for the web content. Now, how do we get more traffic to our website?" And they're looking at me and I'm looking over my shoulder. I'm like, "Who are you talking to? I've done my part. Why are you looking at me?"
Austin L. Church: And it became clear that as young as I was and as inexperienced as I felt, these business owners were still looking to me for guidance and leadership. Let's call it what it is. They still wanted someone else to tell them what to do next. Because they've got the web content and maybe they even get it up on the website. But that doesn't mean the website suddenly starts producing leads, they suddenly get all these contact form submissions. They suddenly start to grow their business and hit all the revenue targets. So I thought well, let me go figure it out.
Austin L. Church: So pretty early on, I took a course from a guy. His name was Ed Dale, and he had this SEO course free. It was awesome. Back in the day called Thirty Day Challenge. He's an Australian guy. Really liked him, liked his teaching style. So I kept on adding to my skillsets. And then as my confidence grew and I think I projected more confidence, well the confidence we have in ourselves I think attracts clients' confidence in us. So as my confidence grew, I think I started insinuating myself more, putting myself out there. Asking for more leadership, asking for more work. And selling bigger projects and putting together more ambitious proposals. So eventually, I overcame my insecurity about everything I didn't know and started to focus on what I did know.
Steve Folland: That's great. But as you then go away and figure out who you need and sort of hire a team essentially to help you with the project, how did you go about pricing it and also managing the fact that cashflow wise probably you might be paying people before you were getting paid and so on?
Austin L. Church: I think because I'd come from the agency world, I knew a couple of the different options. So if I went and talked to my friend Katie and said, "Hey, would you design this website for me?" I would ask, "What do you want to make?" She's my friend. I'm not trying to negotiate with her. I'm like, "Hey, if it's a small website, there are going to be five unique page layouts. And then there's going to be the contact page. What do you normally charge?" She would tell me. And then when I turned around and needed to price that for the client, I would either add a little bit of markup on top. 10, 15, 20%. My finder's fee, if you will. I might also add project management. Sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I just passed on my hard cost for web design, the exact amounts dollar wise, pound wise, pass that over to the client. And then the way I made extra money or compensated myself for putting together the team was making project management a separate line item in the proposal.
Austin L. Church: A third way that I've done a few times, not quite as often. I will connect a web designer like Katie directly with the client and say, "Okay, you two can collaborate now." And then Katie would pay me a sales commission. "Hey Austin, thank you so much for doing my sales, and my negotiation, and my lead generation for me. Here's 10% of the project total." So the finder's fee model or markup, whatever you want to call it, charging for project management, or getting a sales commission or referral commission. Those are the three different models I tried over the years. And I've had clients say again and again, "I don't really care how much it costs you as long as the price is right for me and I get the outcome I want." Clients don't care how the sausage is made. They more just want to see their problems go away. And I picked up on that pretty early on. "Hey Austin, we need a website. Can you figure that out?" And who you hire and how much they cost you is not all that important to me.
Austin L. Church: But back to your original question. With each proposal, I would just sort of think about the client's budget, think about the team I wanted to put together, and then try to do right by everyone. Try to treat everyone the way I would want to be treated. Because no client wants to be gouged. So tried to have fair prices across the board.
Steve Folland: So is that now where you're at? Is that where your business went to and where it stayed?
Austin L. Church: Yes and no. I mean, I still do some arbitrage. Meaning I will hire a freelancer for design, or for writing, or for some other skillset or project need. And then I will resell that skillset or that piece of the project at a higher price to the client. But I also have a team now. I have a full-time copywriter and social media manager who is a W-2 employee. And it's great. I really resisted hiring a team for a long time. I did not want the overhead. And to be honest, I was just deeply reluctant to think of myself as leading an agency. I didn't want to start an agency. I really didn't want to have anything to do with agencies. In my mind, they were like the epitome of, "We over-promise and under-deliver. We over-charge for things that clients could get much cheaper and much better from freelancers." I was very pro-freelancer. Right? But I've mellowed out a little bit. I don't take as strong of a stance on that, because I've realized that agencies have their benefits too. There are some really, really good ones out there that are led by amazing people. And agency is just a word that you can make mean whatever you want.
Austin L. Church: And I like my team. I like caring for them. I like creating a livelihood for them, even if it's stressful sometimes. So I still do arbitrage and markups sometimes. But as often as not, just hiring out the services of my internal team. And when I do partner with other people, by other people I mean partner with other specialists, other freelancers, most of the time there's not markup. I'm just passing over the cost of their involvement to the client in a dollar for dollar amount.
Steve Folland: When did you first hire people actually, as in your own employees?
Austin L. Church: My first hire was August 2019.
Steve Folland: I mean, it sounded like you enjoyed that, despite you said it sometimes being stressful. What do you find stressful about it?
Austin L. Church: Well, meeting payroll. I mean, I think that's the biggest ... when you're a freelancer if you have a slower month, you're like, "Well, need to tighten my belt, right? I'll be eating ramen noodles all month." The only person who really suffers is you. And I have a family, I have three young children. So maybe they suffer a little bit with me. But for years, the only person I had to look out for was me and my family by association. Well, when you have full-time team members, they want to see that deposit in their bank accounts each month, like clockwork. And when I'm the one looking at the bank accounts and thinking okay, I need to cover this, need to cover that, there are just more decisions to be made because I'm looking out for other people now.
Austin L. Church: And then the other, it's a challenge and an opportunity. But there's a paradigm shift. I'm not just a freelancer anymore. I lead a team. And they often look to me for decisions. They look to me for inspiration. If I show up and I'm super grumpy, well I infect the rest of the team with my sour attitude. So I've been checked several times. When we do our ... we do it about once a quarter, sometimes twice a quarter. I just check in with them. It's not a performance review per se. It's more just, "What's going well, what's not going well? What are your goals? What do you need from me in order to hit your goals?" And I always ask the question, "How can I as your boss improve?" And sometimes the answers that come back are honest, and sobering, and humbling and like, "Yep. Definitely a flawed individual." But it's a joy too, because adventures are more fun if you share them with people you care about.
Steve Folland: Do you all work, COVID besides, do you all work in the same place or are you remote?
Austin L. Church: We have an office. And thankfully, there are never more than three or four people in the office. Early COVID, I was at home almost 100% and would go into the office only if I was pretty sure I was going to be the only one there. With that said, having three young children and being the sort of person who gets distracted easily, it's been good for me to have another place where I can kind of disappear and get my work done.
Steve Folland: Yeah. How do you find work-life balance? How has that changed, especially now you have three, how old are they?
Austin L. Church: So the oldest is seven. Middle is five years old. And the youngest will be three this month.
Steve Folland: Wow. That's fun. Okay. How do you manage your yeah, balancing work and life?
Austin L. Church: I don't mean to be a contrarian, but I think that work-life balances is an artificial concept. I don't think it exists. And I understand it. What we're talking about is a blend. Not working too much.
Austin L. Church: I handle it in several ways. I think about five buckets where I think what matters to me. And to some degree, what story do I want to be able to tell at the end of my life. And my five buckets are spirituality, creativity, family and relationships, curiosity and learning, and giving back. So each day, I want to deposit time into all five of those buckets.
Austin L. Church: And I would say a large reason that I have chosen to stay a freelancer, and now to run this little fledgling agency, and to stay self-employed for 12 years now, or let's call it fun employed. To stay fun employed for 12 years. My choice to do that has been driven by wanting to be the dad who's around so much that his kids want him to go away.
Austin L. Church: I imagine Salem, she's our daughter, she's the oldest in high school. Talking to her friends and being like, "My dad is just always around. And I really wish he would just go to his office or something."
Austin L. Church: I think about it as field trip freedom. I want to be the dad who goes on all the field trips. So I've structured work in such a way that I can pick up my kids from school most days when they're in school in person. I can take off a whole morning to go on a field trip, be the chaperone on a field trip. So when I think about work-life balance and I think about what it means for both work and life to be healthy, I think about them being deeply integrated, and satisfying, and full of joy, and full of purpose. And I don't think there's any perfect recipe. And I remember being on my honeymoon Steve and answering email. And that is insane. Like dude, stop. It's like there are a couple of times in life where you have the total get out of jail free card when it comes to being unavailable. The births of children, death of a family member, getting married, maybe a handful of others. And I've really chosen poorly at certain times. And I mean, you have enough of those experiences and you look back and you're like, "I blew it." What decision-making matrix led me to the point where I rationalized answering email on my honeymoon? I was immature and insane.
Austin L. Church: So I had those bad experiences and made those poor choices, and then time passed. And I thought the business can wait. The inbox can wait. And if I'm managing my time effectively and prioritizing effectively, and communicating with my clients clearly, consistently, copiously, then I won't run into that problem where they have some meltdown while I'm on vacation, or I'm on a field trip, or I'm otherwise unavailable. Those meltdowns just don't happen if you have fail safes in place.
Austin L. Church: So I know I've kind of been rambling all over the place, but I think that we should swap out the word balance for blend or for integration, and just recognize what we're really after is joy and satisfaction. When we're not working, and when we are. And the fact is if we have a lot of joy and purpose in our work, well shouldn't we want to do more of that? If work is gratifying, of course work more. Why not? If you love your work then and work consumes your life, then you have a really good life. That challenge though is making sure that the one thing you prioritize which is work, doesn't crowd out other things that are equally important. So it's just constant rhythm of reassessing how you're spending your time, how you're making deposits of time, what your priorities are, and whether you have appropriate allocation of time across the four, five, six big priorities in your life. That's how I look at it.
Steve Folland: That's a great answer.
Austin L. Church: I'm glad you think so. I'm not even sure I could say it again.
Steve Folland: I'm intrigued about one of your buckets as you put it though, about curiosity and learning. So if you're making time to top up each bucket each day, how do you make time for curiosity and learning?
Austin L. Church: So I'm obsessed with self-improvement to my own detriment, where I love getting better. So I've had to think well, my curiosity and learning can get away from me. Here's another funny story from early in my relationship with my wife.
Austin L. Church: I remember we were on a date, and this was before we got married. And she asked me about something. And I said, "I don't know." And I looked up the Wikipedia article on that thing. And later on, she tapped me and she was like, "Hey, would you read Wikipedia articles on your own time? Would you be present here with me? Would you be with me right now? I mean, we're on a date. Why are you reading Wikipedia articles in the middle of a date?" And I'm like oh. It's kind of a miracle that she said yes when I proposed. Right?
Austin L. Church: But anyway, 1% better every day. So when I'm reading, and when I'm following my curiosity, and when I'm learning, I try to stay focused on what's an area of my life where I want to improve, and how can I proactively go acquire the just-in-time learning that I need to get better at creating proposals for clients? To get better at recovering after a run. I love to run. Get better at fly fishing, get better at cooking. I love to cook, and I have committed myself to mastering just a handful of dishes and types of food that I really love. So I'm like, "Great. I'm going to follow my learning and figure out how to make really great smoked brisket."
Austin L. Church: So rather than fight that part of myself that is just always eager to learn something new, I just make time for it. And that's podcasts and a whole lot of books. Not a whole lot of television. But for me, the challenge is not trying to kick myself into gear and start learning. It's, "All right. It's time for you to stop. I've got some other priorities today." And, not just being the information sponge, but not having any relevant or exigent need for that information right now. So just-in-time learning has been a better approach for me.
Steve Folland: 1% better everyday.
Austin L. Church: 1%.
Steve Folland: Has being freelance all gone pretty smoothly for you, or has there any been any real sticking points?
Austin L. Church: Oh, heavens no. I don't know if you've ever been in a small single prop airplane where it's just like it can go up and down. I mean, that's my story. There've been some really high highs and really low lows. I was terrible with money, especially early on. And treated my business like a piggy bank that I could rob any time I had some big purchase to make. And that's just a very dumb way to run a business. Because your computer may crash six weeks later, and now you don't have cash on hand because you decided to do a weekend getaway.
Austin L. Church: So freelancing has been really rough for me at times. And I think a lot of the challenge and struggle was self-inflicted because I didn't have a business background. I didn't know about a chart of accounts, and here's how you manage your money. I didn't understand the full ramifications of not making my quarterly estimated tax payments here in the U.S. So a lot of my adult life, I had a lot of anxiety around money. I'm a very sensitive person, and that has often seemed like a liability to me in business. Where it's easy to believe that everybody else is cutthroat, and hard-nosed, and has no problem with self-advocacy and negotiation. And I'm never going to let anybody walk all over me. I have struggled to say no, I've struggled to break up with clients who were a bad fit. I've had a handful of clients who are truly toxic. I think they're bad people. Not just oblivious, but they hurt a lot of people and do not care. And yeah, meanwhile, you're trying to get your bills paid.
Austin L. Church: So a lot of my journey has been about breaking through limiting beliefs. I've really needed to transform my mindset. I have needed to figure out how to manage cash flow so that there's a lot less stress with money. And I think another big thing is learning how to delegate. Our ability to grow is tied to our ability to relinquish control. Something I read in a book called Let My People Go Surfing. And the founder of the brand Patagonia wrote the book. And it's so true. So a lot of my growth in recent years has come from becoming very serious and deliberate about my mindset, and my daily routines, and some keystone habits. And delegating more effectively. And identifying principles, processes, and playbooks that work as long as you stick to them. Like marketing is not complicated at the end of the day, but we turn it into this big, scary fortress that we must lay siege to. Marketing is just starting conversations. And the reason a lot of us don't do well with marketing is a lack of consistency, not a lack of knowledge or a lack of capacity. So yeah, my freelance journey has been a rollercoaster. But not because freelancing has to be a rollercoaster, but because I really needed to develop as a person.
Steve Folland: Wow. Yeah. So much in there, but when you talk about delegating, it was processes that made it easier for delegation did you say?
Austin L. Church: 100% Steve. I love quality. I like to produce excellent work. Even to this day, the craftsmanship, a really well-turned phrase that did not exist before I sat down to create it, there's deep satisfaction in the craftsmanship and in technical mastery for me. Well, can I come to the design and documentation of process with the same level of craftsmanship? And by doing that, I actually can increase capacity because it's not just me doing the work anymore. I can delegate to other people and I can delegate while maintaining the quality of the output.
Austin L. Church: I think a lot of freelancers really do care about their clients, really do care about positive outcomes. They care about quality. When they put a project in their portfolios, they want to be like, "Look what I created. How cool is that?" But when they're faced with the prospect of delegating, oh no that's scary. Because what happens if I'm like an A player and now the person I delegate to really just drops the ball? Sometimes that person lacks the hard skills, that it's the wrong person. But many times, gifted creatives have never actually crystallized the process that they use to design a logo, or to do on-page optimization for a website, or craft copy, or snap photos, or create a film. So they don't have a clearly defined and clearly documented process with checklists, and with templates, and with cheat sheets, and with tutorial videos.
Austin L. Church: My big breakthrough early 2018 was realizing that I did not need to train people. I needed to create training and then give people access to it. And I was finally able to delegate and maintain quality. So I was able to decrease the demands on my personal time. And a lot of other opportunities opened up for me. Then I had time to spend on a course, creating a course. I had time to be with my family. I think I finally got off that hamster wheel of productivity. And it was in the most boring and sneaky way possible. I just started writing down processes.
Steve Folland: When you first started out, all of your work was local, built on relationships that you were making in your community. Is that still the case today?
Austin L. Church: It is now rare when we get a local client. And I'll say it's rarer when we get a local client that checks all of the boxes for us. Now sometimes, we'll still take on projects because they help us meet payroll. I differentiate between payroll and portfolio. Most of the portfolio of projects where we're doing work, we're really proud of, work we want to shout about from the rooftops, it's from all over the world. Still a lot in the U.S., a lot in Canada, handful in the UK. But the vast majority of our clients, the brands we work with are not local.
Steve Folland: And how are those clients then from around the world, finding you?
Austin L. Church: Most of our leads come from content marketing. And as the thought leader, the current thought leader, I should say for Balernum, which is my agency. I teach workshops. I have an email list. I'm adamant about email marketing. In part, because I love writing. But the other side of that is a lot of our business doesn't happen right after I meet somebody. It happens six, 12, 18 months later. There was a client we got this year that he had first reached out to me in 2017. But we didn't end up doing a project together. But I have emailed every week. And something I said triggered him in a good way one day. And he said, "All right, we've got to do something."
Austin L. Church: So we've definitely gotten great projects from new clients. And we've gotten repeat business from past clients because of email marketing. And in terms of, "Okay, well how have we grown that email list?" We give away lead magnets on the website and content upgrades at the end of blog posts. So that's another facet of the content marketing strategy, blogging, sharing what we know, and usually helping people take action with what they've just learned with content upgrades at the end.
Austin L. Church: So let's see. What am I forgetting? I would say asking for introductions, which in my mind is a little bit different than referrals. And when I say asking for introductions, a breakthrough for me was not saying, "Hey, do you know anybody who needs help?" It was really thinking deeply about how people who need help with something that Balernum, my team can help with. How do they describe their own problems? People don't walk around saying, "I need brand consulting. I need brand consulting." you know what I mean? Most of them don't say, "I need web development," or, "Could you give me some hi-res headshots."
Austin L. Church: They instead think about their needs in terms of their frustrations and their pain. So from the brand consulting point of view, it might be like we have a great story and we're just not telling it well. Or our company has grown like crazy over the past several years, but we're seeing high churn. Our SaaS customers aren't sticking with us. Something we're doing isn't resonating.
Austin L. Church: So I just wrote down not only from memory, from conversations with prospects and clients, but even just things I've heard. How do people who need our help describe problems in their own terms? So now when I send that introduction email, I will ask people to read the list of quotes in the email and think, "Has anyone in your life said anything like this recently?" I don't mention brand consulting.
Austin L. Church: So by framing the request for an introduction that way, I've gotten new clients. Because the person who said, "Hey, let me know if there's ever a way I can help you," I will follow up and I'm like, "Thank you so much for your offer. I really appreciate that." Now that we're on the subject, read the rest of this email. Who comes to mind? And sure enough, when people get to the end, they're like, "Oh yeah, so-and-so hates her website, because the website never gets her new business."
Steve Folland: Just very quickly, you mentioned the fact that your agency is called Balernum. When did you start calling yourself that? As in did you start off as Austin L. Church freelancer, and then at some point change? Or did you always start like that?
Austin L. Church: I started using the name Balernum in 2018 with then business partner, Chris. And before that, when I was solo consultant, solo freelancer, I was working under the name Wunderbar. Means wonderful in German. And then before that, I was working under the name, bright B-R-I-G-H-T Newt N-E-W-T.
Steve Folland: I see. So you always have had an alter ego rather than your name, despite your name being excellent. You've always gone with a business name.
Austin L. Church: I have. And there were a number of reasons for that. I have always wanted to write books. So I to some degree preserved my own name, just so it could be my author name. And I also thought well, if I ever create anything under a name and want to sell it, that would be more difficult if everything were under the umbrella of my name. And I actually did end up selling a company, or at least we'll call it a business. A portfolio of assets in 2015. And that's when I had to switch from Bright Newt to Wunderbar because the buyers bought the Bright Newt name as well.
Steve Folland: What was it? Can you say? What were the assets?
Austin L. Church: Sure. So I had at that point developed a portfolio of, it was around 30 iOS and Android apps. And then on top of that, I had written a guide about marketing iOS apps. And I had multiple products that were a combination of a source code for an iOS app, along with a tutorial for using that source code to create and publish a new app of the same type. One of my first big successes outside of freelancing was with an app called Mustache Bash, which-
Steve Folland: This sounds like the Truth and Lie game of the podcast.
Austin L. Church: It does. I've transitioned without your even knowing. Right? But it was a mustache themed photo booth app. And I know it does sound like a lie. It sounds ridiculous now that I think about it. For a follicly challenged guy, a mustache app was just the obvious choice. Right?
Austin L. Church: But anyway, I sold all of those source code products along with the apps themselves and then some other bits and pieces like my email list of app developers. And it was a big win for my family. And it was a boost in confidence for me because I realized that I could create something that had lasting value for other people.
Steve Folland: Now, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Austin L. Church: Do not internalize your failures. I have a really excellent and wise wife who taught me the lesson once that just because something is wrong, doesn't mean you did something wrong. And yet, I have spent a lot of time discouraged and in analysis paralysis. Because I thought, "Man, I can't believe I made that mistake. How did this happen?" And I made my failures about me. And sometimes, that's true. But more often, you just made a mistake. And especially in business, certain opportunities, partnerships, clients, relationships, even certain creative choices you make, it's like flipping a coin. It could go either way. So if you make the wrong choice, that doesn't say something about your identity. It doesn't say something about your potential to succeed long-term. And I just internalize too many of my failures, and sometimes turn those failures into a story, a deterministic story about I'm just never going to blank, or I'll always be blank. And those stories weren't true. And it took me a while to kind of get out of my mental funk and realize yeah, sometimes you make a mistake. You learn from it, you move on. And your mistakes can become your best teachers, and your failures can become your best friends. And eventually, every wrong turn can become a right turn if you keep going.
Steve Folland: Brilliant. Austin, thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Austin L. Church: It was my pleasure Steve. And same to you.
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