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As a freelancer and service provider, you'll likely offer value during your sales and onboarding process.  But when should you stop?  When should you charge for things to show your clients that your work is valuable? View this podcast as a video on YouTube . Picks: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Careflow published a piece...

This one hits close to home for me.  A reader/viewer wondered if helping companies make strategic decisions about codebases is a good niche, and I can answer this because it was once kind of my niche.    View this podcast as a video on YouTube . Picks: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unusual VC shared advice on how do you work w...

If you have a single big client, engaging your services for an unspecified amount of time, it can be easy to fall into an employee-employer style relationship. How can you avoid that? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link Picks: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CSuite Content published a guide to brand strategy consulting firms and how to choose th...

For a while, I was getting a lot of questions about whether something would be a good niche for indies. In this video, I answer the question of whether improving code performance is a good niche. Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content published an introduction to personal PR and managing your personal brand . Enov8 has a new guide to GCP d...

You may hear the terms "niche" and "positioning" tossed around a lot, often interchangeably. What do these really mean, and what's the difference? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content just shared a guide to enterprise reputation management . Enov8 has a new checklist for DLP . InfluxData recently updated a node r...

Maybe you're currently employed or between jobs. But it occurs to you that you want to go off on your own and start consulting (as opposed to freelancing with labor services). How do you do that? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content has a practical guide to executive bios for business leaders. Enov8 shared a clear explainer on Oracl...

Plenty of employees entertain the idea of going freelance. But one of the biggest barriers to entry is the perceived risk of doing so. Is there a way to jump to freelancing with minimal risk? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content published a practical guide to Gen-Z slang for business leaders . Enov8 shared a clear explainer on SAP data m...

In this installment, a question submitter wonders whether it would be better to earn promotions into leadership before leaving the salaried world, or whether to leave as an individual contributor. Which is the right path? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: CSuite Content published a practical guide on how often executives should post on social media...

Occasionally, you might find yourself with a whale client, or at least a profitable one, that treats you poorly and shows no trust in you. How should you handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 published a helpful guide to data masking tools (and they also define data masking , if you're interested). Our friends over at CSuite Cont...

Occasionally, you might find yourself with a whale client, or at least a profitable one, that treats you poorly and shows no trust in you. How should you handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 has a helpful guide to test data management . The DataOpsZone community site has a handy explainer about the concept of referential integrity ....

Sometimes a client is looking for labor, and expect you to bundle in the strategic piece. For instance, they expect architecture to come along with a software development project. How to handle this? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8 recently published a take on application portfolio management best practices , for you enterprise fans. Spin ha...

Depending on fate to bring you business can lead to gaps between projects. How do you setup some kind of sales funnel and get leads into it to avoid these gaps? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8's guide to data masking .  This comparison of Logstash and Fluentd from Sawmills. Tricentis's (Testim's) AI-powered Salesforce Testing...

You're collaborating with your client on a time-sensitive deadline and you get sick.  How should you handle that?  Whose problem is it, ultimately? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Enov8's list of enterprise architecture tools to be aware of in 2025.  This introduction to the subject of log parsing from Sawmills. Tricentis's legacy t...

You've got a full-time job but want to go indie, and you line up your first contract. How do you think about how much runway you need to create between current savings and that first contract, for when it expires? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: A post from Sawmills, which introduces log parsing , explains its importance for transforming unst...

If you've built an audience on a platform other than your own website, how do you go about turning that following into a marketing funnel for something you're offering? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: This post from BlinkOps explains Identity and Access Management (IAM) automation . A Testim blog post that provides an overview of six Jav...

It will sometimes come up that a prospect or client asks you to implement something that's either too vague to work or a flat-out bad idea. What should you do in this situation? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: This round-up of application portfolio management tools from our friends at Enov8. Regression testing for Workday , from our friends a...

If you're a programmer (or, generally, a labor-based freelancer), is it a good idea to sell strategic advice as a kind of "up-sell" to your normal offering? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management A beginner's guide to volume testing

I do a lot of theory in this series, but here's something practical. How would I recommend someone price an hour-long training session to teach social media tactics to a salesforce? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Sprint Scheduling: A Guide to Your Agile Calendar Not only do our friends at Tricentis offer Tosca, a powerful end-to-end testing...

Sometimes, a client may ask you to sign a non-compete agreement as a prerequisite for engaging with them. Should you do it? How should you handle this situation in general? Join us to learn more. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: How regression testing is performed An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management What is Security Automation? Benefits, Types &...

The default with freelancing is to charge by the hour and do generalist work. You might have, however, heard of value pricing and heard the idea that you should establish a niche. How should you go about doing that? View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: Test Suites and Their Test Cases: The Hierarchy Explained Challenges in mobile testing and how to solve them What is A/B Dep...

As you grow your business successfully, you'll have more demand for your work and, thus, more leads. Does that naturally mean you can raise your rates? The answer is more complex than you might think. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Links of the week: UI test automation: What it is and how to get started Testim, a fast and flexible authoring of AI-powered end-to-end tests—built for s...

If you're thinking of hanging out your shingle or have just done so, you might wonder whether to use bookkeeping software and, if so, what to use. I have a surprisingly specific and opinionated answer for this one. View this podcast as a video on YouTube. Link of the month: TEM Metrics - Test Environment Management (DOT) Com

If you go into business for yourself, what should you call yourself? Freelancer? Self-employed? Something else?   View this podcast as a video on YouTube.   Link of the week: Enov8: The IT & Test Environments Management Company

I resisted talking about ChatGPT as long as humanly possible, but I did wind up getting a question in the backlog about it. So, will ChatGPT replace freelance programming?   View this podcast as a video on YouTube.   Links of the week: How to Do Test Data Management in Agile: 8 Best Practices Android testing: An easy introduction with examples

When you go off on your own, at least in the US, you might be in for a rude tax awakening. In this video, I talk about what self-employment tax is, and what you can do about it.   View this podcast as a video on YouTube .   Links of the Month: An in-depth look at spike testing with examples Follow our podcast at Iheart! Automate web and mobile testing with AI Metrics vs. Logs: When to Use Each in...