The Freelancers' Show: LIVE Q&A #5 - February 24, 2015

06:09 - Q1: Do you group your products / services into one big site to pool traffic, or do you think its better to build them as their own brands?

• “Online Split Personalities” to Appeal to Specific Groups
• Jonathan’s Starbucks Gift Card Story

17:39 - Q2: As a freelancer, a designer has a portfolio. As a programmer, do you think your blog / user group and conference speaking says enough? Or, do you need to have Open Source to help backup your work? Obviously, it depends if the person hiring knows what GitHub is or not. I'm thinking about screencasts to add more visible portfolio items since it’s not easy to show code by itself. Thoughts? 27:29 - Q3: If you are preparing to go freelance, you're wanting to show you're an expert and build clientele. You have some good long-term customers for the existing business. How do you recommend getting a testimonial from them that you could use while at the current business, and when you go freelancing, without compromising the business relationships? Do you try to steer clear of any links to old work, or just direct them to LinkedIn so that it’s obviously linked to you and avoids complication? 35:20 - Q4: My thought is, if you do blogs, create screencasts, and are active on GitHub, etc., it would put you in the top 10% [of developers] right there though, right? Most developers are “dark matter developers”: you can't see or hear them, but they're still there.

• Reference: Scoff Hanselman: Dark Matter Developers: The Unseen 99%
• “Garbage Disposal Guy” Example from John Sonmez of Simple Programmer

42:53 - Q5: Should you import your old blog posts from old websites to new ones?

• Michael Port’s Website

51:43 - Q6: What about Content Marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) with having so many sparse sites? Versus pooling?

• Find Your Buyer: Is there a conference for it?

59:07 - Referrals

• The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (and Why They Don't) by Sean D'Souza

Picks Pebble Time Kickstarter (Jonathan)
If This Then That (IFTTT) (Jonathan)
Naomi Dunford: On Learning and Keeping Stuff (Eric)
Emails That Win You Clients by Robert Williams (Reuven)
80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More by Perry Marshall (Chuck)
Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America by Glenn Beck (Chuck)