Building a Freelance Job Platform with Guest Lesley Pyle-EP104

04/13/20 • 22 min

In this episode, I talk with someone who founded a job board. We often interact with job boards when we’re applying to different gigs, but have you ever thought about what goes into setting up a freelance job board?

Today’s episode guest is Lesley Pyle of Hire My Mom. Moms wanting to work from home and get more flexibility and Lesley was way ahead of the curve on recognizing the need to promote hiring mothers and parents.

Not everyone’s path to becoming a freelancer looks the same, but many people are rethinking how and where they work. Starting a freelance side hustle is a great opportunity to explore new passions and decide what’s really best for you.

People who want to work from home have a hard time getting started if they don’t have a pipeline for finding clients. In fact, it’s one of the most common hurdles people experience if they don’t have a solid marketing plan.

If you’re a new mom or have children already, Hire My Mom might be the perfect site for you to learn about new opportunities!

In this episode, we discussed:

Why becoming a mother let Lesley think more about how her work style was going to change, even when her new feelings were totally unexpected.
Why getting started with freelancing often means thinking small and staying in a day job and how you should think about that in your own home.
How Lesley went from being one of the early pioneers working from home to starting her own website to help other people get their own freelance careers started.
How Hire My Mom started and what it’s grown into today
What to do if you don’t have the experience to get started as a freelancer working from home?
Do you really need to have a resume or cover letter when you’re looking at job boards? How can you be best prepared to join a site like Hire My Mom?
Why you should expect to pay something reasonable for a legitimate freelance job board site.

Bio:

Lesley Pyle is the founder of HireMyMom.com, a boutique service connecting Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses with top-notch Virtual Professionals across the country founded in 2007. She began her work-at-home career in 1996 with the launch of her first website: Home-Based Working Moms. She has a Master's degree in Public Relations from the University of Stirling, Scotland while on a full academic scholarship and as an Ambassador of Goodwill for Rotary International. She also has a BA in Journalism / Public Relations from Texas State University. Pyle has been featured in numerous publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In her spare time, she loves traveling, decorating, football and spending time with family and friends. She and her husband live in Texas and have four children ages 12-24.

Connect with Lesley:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HireMyMom

Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiremymom-com/

LinkedIn: https://www.pinterest.com/hiremymomcom/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiremymom

If you’re a new mom or have children already, Hire My Mom might be the perfect site for you to learn about new opportunities!

In this episode, we discussed:

Why becoming a mother let Lesley think more about how her work style was going to change, even when her new feelings were totally unexpected.
Why getting started with freelancing often means thinking small and staying in a day job and how you should think about that in your own home.
How Lesley went from being one of the early pioneers working from home to starting her own website to help other people get their own freelance careers started.
How Hire My Mom started and what it’s grown into today
What to do if you don’t have the experience to get started as a freelancer working from home?
Do you really need to have a resume or cover letter when you’re looking at job boards? How can you be best prepared to join a site like Hire My Mom?
Why you should expect to pay something reasonable for a legitimate freelance job board site.

Bio:

Connect with Lesley:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HireMyMom

Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiremymom-com/

LinkedIn: https://www.pinterest.com/hiremymomcom/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hiremymom

Previous Episode

Freelance Partnerships and Running an Agency with Jason Martin and Patrick Falvey-EP103

In this episode, you’ll hear from two expert web developers and agency owners Jason Martin and Patrick Falvey. You’ll learn about how they made the decision to partner up and why a partnership and agency is the right choice for you so you can decide if this is the right fit for you.

You’ll hear advice on how they knew it was going to be a fit because they had worked together and how that helped them decide that being partners set them both up for success in running a freelance agency.

Running an agency is very different from working as a solopreneur, but you definitely have the opportunity to benefit from the “two heads are better than one” mentality. How do you choose a partner? How do you set things up from the beginning? How do you know what personality traits you should look for when you want to team up?

In this episode, we discussed:

Knowing complementary skills and how teaming up as freelancers can make things work
The power of setting vision individually and with your partner
How do you find a freelance business partner if you don’t want to just work alone?
Why you should have experience working together before deciding on a business partnership and why it’s like a marriage
Why enterprise clients can be the right fit and why Jason and Patrick made that choice and why you should ensure that you consider maintenance contracts.
Why you need to set big goals and how manifestation works in a freelance business or freelance agency.
How Jason & Patrick initially scaled the wrong way and what they learned from that experience.
Whether you should decide on having in-house talent versus leveraging freelancers or fully remote teams.

About Jason + Patrick:

Jason Martin is a Managing Partner of DjangoForce, a customer software development agency that helps businesses increase efficiency through the use of modern technology. After spending two decades working in marketing and UI design with multimillion dollar brands and start-ups, Jason knows what truly drives conversions and business efficiency. Jason's business accomplishments have landed coverage in Forbes, Tim Ferriss, and GeekWire. In addition to running a software development company, Jason is a travel and Jiu Jitsu enthusiast who lives in Boise, ID with his wife and 3 daughters.

Patrick Falvey is a Managing Partner of DjangoForce, a custom software development agency that helps businesses increase efficiency through the use of modern technology. In his spare time he loves to learn about anything technical, like updating his knowledge of new development frameworks, executive education through MIT, or even building an 8-bit CPU from scratch. Patrick lives full time in Boise, ID with his wife, Vina and enjoys mountain biking and skiing when he's not behind a screen.

Connect with Jason and Patrick:

Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondfmartin/

Patrick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmichaelfalvey/

Next Episode

Pricing & Positioning with Confidence as a Freelancer-EP105

Do you know some of the things that are holding you back from getting great results? Are you nervous about claiming the right pricing? Too many freelancers who are new to working for themselves automatically downgrade what they want to charge because they think they don’t have enough freelance experience.

Meet Kelly Cochran, who launched her own work-from-home business after being in the corporate world.

In our discussion, we talk about knowing that you’re not the right fit for a corporate or other traditional environment and how to use the experience and strengths you have in a freelance or entrepreneurship capacity.

Here are some of the things we discussed in this episode:

The mindset and practice pieces you need to do when you leave a corporate job and are now working for yourself.
Why you can’t afford not to think of yourself as a CEO
Pricing options and what works best when you’re moving from being in a traditional job situation making an hourly rate vs. doing project-based pricing instead.
What goes into deciding on a flat rate for charging your freelance client a project based rate.
How to include the right factors into your pricing when you’re just getting started so you make sure you don’t undercharge and end up with a ton of work instead.
When does hourly pricing actually make sense? How should you handle that situation with the client?
Why you still need to ask questions when you’re just getting started on a project so that you still come across as an expert but get the information you need to begin your own freelance work.
Why overthinking pricing is such an issue and why it’s actually costing you opportunities.
Don’t automatically discount your work because you’re leading with price and puts you in a weaker position.
How to get the client to give you some clues about what their freelance budget is
How to do the right thing with packages
Why Kelly decided to write a book

Bio:

Affectionately known as “Loud Blonde” by friends and fans, KELLY COCHRAN is an unapologetic writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who passionately encourages women to listen to their instincts and speak their truth at the highest volume.

Honing her skills as an SEO expert, brand strategist, and project manager, Kelly spent 15 years in corporate America. Tired of hitting her head on the glass ceiling, she ditched the cubicle for good in 2017. She is a freelance marketer and high-performance coach who empowers her clients to build profitable, passion-centric businesses and break the chains of the 9-to-5.

Kelly’s debut book, LOUD: Silence Your Critics & Turn Up the Volume on Your Life, launched as an Amazon #1 Best Seller in September 2019. Kelly is also the recent recipient of the "Top 20 On the Rise" Award for Marketing, sponsored by Honeybook and the Rising Tide Society.

Kelly currently resides in San Diego, California. Follow her adventures on Instagram @LoudBlonde, or visit LoudBlonde.com for more information.