The Fabulous Learning Nerds

Scott (00:01.182)
Hey everybody, welcome to another outstanding episode of Your Fabulous Learning Nerds. I'm Scott Chu, your host, and with me, the man. He's large and he's charged. Dan Coonrod's in the house.

Daniel (00:28.687)
Scott! What's up Scott, how you doing?

Scott (00:31.182)
Excellent. Excellent. How are you, my friend?

Daniel (00:32.64)
Excellent, excellent.

Fair to Midland.

Scott (00:42.558)
So in my morning time, I was thinking about Fair to Midland. And I was thinking that we need to do a Fair to Midland episode. I'm soup to nuts. Like, we have to explain exactly what it means and just really kind of dive deep, do a deep dive into being Fair to Midland. What do you think?

Daniel (00:42.895)
You

Daniel (01:01.103)
I mean, I don't know how long of an episode it would be, but I mean, I'm down for it. Oh my goodness. I don't know if I could talk. I don't know if I could talk that long about being fair to Midland.

Scott (01:04.463)
I think it could last two to three hours, to be honest with you. I think that there's a lot of nuances. I am confident that you could talk for that length because you're a learning nerd. And by definition, we like to talk.

Daniel (01:16.623)
It's

I'm a talker. It's true. It's true.

Scott (01:22.94)
Yeah, I had a conversation, a mentoring conversation with a colleague of mine who's a trainer and she was like, I couldn't stop talking. And I'm like, you're a trainer. That's the hardest thing that we do. To stop talking. It's one of the most important things we do, but it's also one of the hardest things that we do is to just kind of stop talking and let other people come into what we're doing. Cause I love to talk.

Daniel (01:39.321)
Ha!

Daniel (01:49.849)
yeah, no, I mean, we have a podcast. So, I mean, I certainly hope that we'd like to talk. It'd be weird otherwise. It'd be very quiet.

Scott (01:55.698)
wouldn't it be super weird? I wonder if anybody would listen to that. Would you listen to podcasts where no one talked? Is that even a podcast? I don't know. I don't know. I know someone that would know though. Zeta.

Daniel (02:03.647)
think that's just called static.

Who's that?

Scott (02:18.61)
Zeta! How are you doing my friend?

Zeta (02:19.749)
Hello, Scott. I'm doing pretty good. Been a long week.

Looking forward to Friday.

Scott (02:27.32)
Awesome. yeah for sure Friday Friday is a good day fry yay. That's what I like to call it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's cool So a podcast without any talking is it a podcast? What is it?

Zeta (02:33.105)
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Zeta (02:39.747)
No.

silence.

Scott (02:44.656)
Is it even worth anybody's time? Can you sell it on the open market? mean, today we could probably sell just about anything on the open market, but...

Zeta (02:52.017)
was thinking, yeah, like you could probably sell anything, but you would have to like market it right, like meditation.

Scott (02:58.056)
Right.

Daniel (02:58.226)
Scott (03:00.796)
would be awesome. You've been working on some groovy stuff. Do want to catch us up real quick on the groovy stuff you're working on?

Zeta (03:06.769)
A little bit, yeah. I've been working on a new website for the Learning Nerds. We're gonna have a little bit more bandwidth on the site, other than just having our affiliates and having just the episode link. We're gonna have a little bit more, maybe some articles, maybe some more in depth about the friends that we have. Just some stuff to look forward to.

Daniel (03:28.376)
Ooh!

Scott (03:29.742)
All right, that sounds awesome. Can't wait to see that. That'd be great. I know it's tough because you get a bunch of other stuff you're working on instead of enhanced what we're offering people on the website is really great. So we appreciate you. And I know that our audience appreciates you as well. Speaking of appreciating folks, we got two guests for the price of one. Normally you just have one, but today we have two awesome and amazing guests that I'm super excited to learn all about. And we're going to do so in a little segment that we call

Zeta (03:40.057)
Yeah.

Andrea Dottling Dias (03:55.47)
Thank you.

Scott (03:59.442)
What's your deal?

Scott (04:06.718)
All right, tonight we've got Andrea and Parker. What's your deal, my friends?

Andrea Dottling Dias (04:14.277)
We have so many deals. There's so many deals to discuss. I can discuss my individual deal and then Parker, then maybe you can discuss your individual deal and then we can discuss our joint deal. Does that sound good, Parker?

Parker Grant (04:28.086)
yeah, what kind of deal are we talking about here?

Andrea Dottling Dias (04:31.662)
Yeah, yeah, there's so many possibilities. Well, okay, so yeah, I'm Andrea Dottling, co-founder of ID Lands with Parker. Been working in learning things kind of my entire career unofficially, as we all probably have done. I did not know that learning and development and instructional design was like its own thing until embarrassingly late, meaning like...

a few years into my career, I kind of was just like, the experts are the people who train people, right? They do all of that. And then I was like, yeah, no, why then why am I always the one making the training? And then I realized, I'm the act. is it the accidental idea of all that? But quick rundown of stuff I get, I started off in like college admissions, which was crazy. And I ended up teaching everybody, training everybody how to use social media and admissions way back when.

Daniel (05:09.881)
Haha.

Andrea Dottling Dias (05:25.23)
So that was kind of like the first official thing. I worked at NBC Universal for a while and talent acquisition, which at NBC people were like, ooh, talent. And I'm like, yeah, HR for HR is what I did. Every so often I'd sub for the CNBC recruiting people for like the production side, but mostly I did HR recruiting and I was training people there using these creepy telepresence rooms where like it would be the mirror room in LA and they would all be look like you're sitting at the same table with like

Daniel (05:35.875)
Ha ha ha!

Andrea Dottling Dias (05:54.934)
a wall screen. It was wild. And then I worked at my grad school, the new school in like operations things and what else? Sorry, my walking desk treadmill just went on and so on and I was almost about to start walking. That actually just happened. I didn't even know it was on. Okay. And

Eventually, I graduated grad school, came to Florida, worked at the Orange County Library System as an instructional technology specialist after like, I would say six months of self teaching ID stuff. And I'm glad that I did that because they gave me a test and they made me fill out like a case study by hand of like the Addy model and what I would do. They made me build something in Captivate during my interview and I had never touched the program before and that I was sweating, but then I got that job, but then worked in.

I didn't want to like go to an office anymore. So I worked at Western Governors University in instructional technology and ID stuff. And then while I was working there, actually started freelancing in corporate. And that's where Parker comes in because he gave me my first freelance corporate instructional design job.

Parker Grant (07:01.486)
Best decision I ever made.

Scott (07:01.744)
Wow. Wow.

Andrea Dottling Dias (07:03.694)
Aww, so nice. And Parker, I won't toot my own horn, but can you tell them what happened when I wrote courses for you? I'm starting to walk now because it turned on. So let me turn this off. my god.

Parker Grant (07:13.409)
yeah.

Daniel (07:13.907)
no!

Parker Grant (07:18.458)
Well, you when I brought in Andrea on a contract several years ago, I think it back in 2019, it was for a micro learning company. And I had five writers on the team and she was one of the five writers. And then after I discovered how she wrote the course versus the other four writers, she was in a different universe. It was just amazing. So actually after to rewrite the other writers courses.

Andrea Dottling Dias (07:40.629)
do go on.

Parker Grant (07:46.638)
Just to get them all about the same quality. Anyway, that's how we met.

Andrea Dottling Dias (07:49.484)
And I had never done it ever. Like I had never done anything like that ever before. just like knew I could, I like to write, but yeah.

Parker Grant (07:53.208)
Yeah, you know, is an input. Writing is a skill that IDs need to have. mean, when it comes to content, you really need to understand how to write for the audience. Sometimes you need to have some humor, you need to have some empathy, sometimes just tactical in nature. So there's a lot of variety. But anyway, that's how Andrea and I met. And that was the segue to

Andrea Dottling Dias (08:02.355)
yeah.

Parker Grant (08:21.966)
the birth of our business, IDLASP. So we actually started unofficially in the fall of 2019. And then we officially formed our entity in, actually it was five years ago this month. So we're celebrating five years. So yeah.

Daniel (08:38.417)
Andrea Dottling Dias (08:38.956)
Yep. It's our birthday. Thank you.

Scott (08:39.774)
I

Zeta (08:41.637)
Yeah, happy birthday.

Daniel (08:42.392)
You

Parker Grant (08:43.096)
Yay, we did it. Nickel.

Andrea Dottling Dias (08:46.166)
I didn't see a cake in the mail, but I'll expect one now, so thank you.

Daniel (08:49.465)
That's fair.

Parker Grant (08:49.65)
Yeah. And you know, I've been in the business for, well, for learning development, I've been in, say, 33 years this year. And prior to that, I was, believe it or not, a mechanical engineer for five years at an aerospace company here in Connecticut. And so when I was an engineer, I joke around sometimes, I say, hey, I'm a recovered engineer. You know, that was quite a...

Daniel (09:16.239)
Ha

Parker Grant (09:17.836)
interesting time period, but I learned a lot about problem solving and, you know, technical side of things, understanding how the business operates. But then after a period of time, I switched over to training because I was doing some volunteer work to help high school students in the local area get ready for college. And they were interested in physics and math and engineering. So I were teaching them after work in the facility that I worked in.

The buses would pick up the kids in the local area, bring them to the facility, and I would bring them into our conference room. And every week we met and we went over some engineering concepts. So it helped them to understand whether they were ready for that kind of degree, know, especially engineering. And when I did that, that's when I fell in love with training. And that was my pivotal move into the L &D career back in 1992.

Andrea Dottling Dias (10:05.481)
Yes.

Parker Grant (10:14.426)
Um, so that was, uh, how I got into it. And then I rose to the ranks and became a training manager over the next decade. And I had a staff of about 25, 30 people and we were creating, um, jet engine training, uh, for both commercial and military applications and over 500 airline customers around the world. Did a lot of world traveling. That was awesome. It was amazing. And, uh, so after, uh, I think it was about 2008.

went on my own, had my own independent business. It was just one of those things where, you know, when you have had enough with corporate BS, it's okay. There's no more of this. I don't need it. And having the freedom to work remotely, being able to work with many different clients is just amazing. So having that 21 years of

Scott (10:54.738)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (10:56.278)
I do!

Andrea Dottling Dias (10:57.733)
What's this?

Zeta (10:59.31)
Amen.

Parker Grant (11:12.826)
of corporate experience really helped me a lot, you know, to be independent. Anyway, fast forward to today, you know, Andrea and I have been working the last five years helping people lead from wherever they're coming from, higher ed or K-12 or corporate to become a freelance independent business owner. And it's been a joy for us to help them do that. We're changing lives basically. And it's all around.

Andrea Dottling Dias (11:40.918)
No big deal. No big deal. Well, and it's too, the whole point too is like some of the people like they want to start side digging or slowly starting to go freelance or they want to go.

Parker Grant (11:42.201)
Better learning.

Daniel (11:44.109)
No video.

Andrea Dottling Dias (11:51.97)
totally freelance because they have to because they've been laid off or something or they're inexperienced, they're doing great at their job, but they want something more. mean, I'm part of, you know, especially when we launched during the pandemic and everything, people were starting to realize like, hey, working remotely, you know, it's not just for like those random special people anymore. Like we all have to do it. And they're starting to realize like, I might have time to do more with my time now that I'm not commuting and now that I'm not doing all this other stuff.

Or they're like, my gosh, I don't have to go to an office. And they can kind of like objectively think about their office life and be like, I don't think I want to do that anymore. But what's been awesome is like, and our whole purpose for existing, we actually started as like a curriculum that was like a website membership site with us, with a Slack group that was like, here's, you know, instructions and real examples of like how to start your business, where to find clients, what you need in a portfolio and all of that.

And through that, we grew this big, community. And so we started growing that community and everything was fine. It was like a really cheap subscription model because we wanted it to be affordable for people of all different levels, whatever. But actually through doing that and growing a community, we actually had people come to us like companies and nonprofits, whatever saying like, Hey, so you have this community. Are you also doing learning projects? And that's what Parker had been doing. And that's what I've been doing freelancing and also full time and whatnot. And so we were like, well, yeah. And so.

We weren't originally trying to be an agency, but we kind of ended up being an agency, but we call it like an agency plus where not only are we staffing and running projects, like we're overseeing them or we can lend people out, but usually it's managed services. And then while people are working with us and if they're in our community, which is free for them to be in, it's not a cult. There's not, you can get out in any time you want. You can go in any time you want. You don't have to tithe to us or anything.

Daniel (13:42.424)
Ha ha!

Andrea Dottling Dias (13:46.346)
through like while they're working with us in the community, we're like answering questions every day or the communities answering each other's questions of like, hey, what are you doing for taxes? That was a big discussion we actually had today. What are you doing for this filing this BLI thing? How are you finding clients or my gosh, I have this crazy client situation. What would you do? And so we'll respond. Other people respond. We hold community events with people in the industry or just within our own community, working session times and all that. like

We're doing all these great projects for clients because we have this awesome community. Like we can get people within like seconds of like, Hey, we have this new, we have this new project. Like who's a really great at, I don't know, fancy rise development that makes immersive environments. And people will be like, my gosh, me, me. And then because we're kind of getting to know them through those events, it's really easy to match people to projects we want them to work on because we know their personality. We know.

how they are like in their demeanor and their skills because we work on stuff together. So it's really fun. And what's really cool is that there are some people that started our community in the beginning who were totally full time corporate people or they were transitioning teachers or they have been laid off. And now they have like their own fancy instructional design businesses where they're like, we've seen them grow from the beginning. gave some of these people, we gave them their first gigs because all it takes is like,

that one person to give you a chance. Like, you know you can do it, but once you get that one gig, you can say, hey, I've done this. And then it's easier to get other ones. So, yeah.

Scott (15:13.808)
Yep. Yep.

Parker Grant (15:15.002)
Yeah, we found many diamonds in the rough. Basically, you know, people that have had hidden talent that just blossomed. that's the best thing about it. It's probably no different than, I don't know if any of you have, or have been a teacher in the classroom or have family members who've been K-12 teachers. But think of it like a teacher being able to see their students every year you have a new class. But over time you get to know them and you can kind of see their development and growth.

And that's kind of what we're seeing in our community. We have, think, right now, excuse me, over 1,300 members in our freelance pool. And so when we have a project that comes up, depending on the nature of the project, we can get the right talent just by putting a post in our Slack community. Say, hey, does anybody here work in higher ed before who knows Canvas or who has written curriculum or?

who has developed assessments for higher ed, we don't know. I mean, we just put it out there and then immediately we have multiple people apply. It's that amazing. I mean, this is so different than going to post something on indeed.com class or whatever. mean, this community is really, we feel like we have goldmine of talent readily available and we can get a dozen people.

Andrea Dottling Dias (16:29.75)
Yeah, we're like LinkedIn.

Parker Grant (16:42.522)
for load project in minutes.

Andrea Dottling Dias (16:44.991)
Yeah, and it's really motivating to keep finding clients because we want these people to keep getting work and we want to keep finding new clients. And what's been really fun is, I don't know if you guys have been on our website, but usually people, both freelancers and clients, will resonate with our brand. if you read it and then you've talked to us, you'll be like, that's exactly how you guys talk in real life. There's no fit, there's no extra...

corporatiness or fluff. That's what we are. And what's been amazing is that the clients that we have that we're working with with the freelancers, they love that we're also helping people at the same time versus just set it and forget it. Who cares? Just go do the project and bring the money in. It sounds corny, but that would be boring for me. The whole point is working with people, helping and all that.

Scott (17:40.562)
Great stuff, love what you guys are doing. I think it's super awesome. Let's go ahead and dive into some meat and potatoes and give our audience some tips and tricks to start thinking about maybe how they might wanna view their contributions and ID with our little topic of the week.

Parker Grant (18:01.764)
do start here? The contribution is an ID.

Scott (18:06.033)
Sorry.

Scott (18:11.358)
Yes. All right. So hey, today we're going to be talking about freelancing in instructional design. And where I would love to start with, because I'm sure that the audience members that are listening, all the great stuff, all the cool stuff about your community, they may be thinking to themselves, yeah, this sounds like super cool. Where do I start? Right? Like, where do I start? And I love that, Andrew, you brought up some of us just

get kicked out of the back of the truck and so then we're kind of forced to start. But if I'm at that stage in my career where I'm really thinking about where I want to go next, like how can I take those necessary and what are the necessary steps to start to build your own business and really do some more of what you love and less of what you don't love?

Andrea Dottling Dias (19:00.54)
Yeah, that's a really great question. And just to give some sort of personal skin in the game of why I even started freelancing myself, which I think can kind of help answer this question, is I was the only earner in my house, even though was married.

I'm not married. Then I became a single mom, which I'll tell you what happened there. But I needed to have more than my full-time job to make life work. That's why I was so dead set on getting a remote full-time job and then how do I start freelancing and all of that. The whole way this all started too and how people can get started is like...

I just got curious and just started asking people, like, how did you do it? How did you do it? And I felt like there was a lot of butt kissing that had to happen to get any information and like, you want to talk to this industry expert? Well, you got to make sure you're approaching in the right way and like, but then there's all these blogs to sort through and who do you trust and all that. So like, I would always talk to Parker about that. And then he came up with this idea of like, let's streamline it, cut out the bullshit and everything and just go for it. So my first answer to that is just

Daniel (19:49.079)
Ha ha ha ha!

Andrea Dottling Dias (20:11.148)
go for it and start saying you're going to do it and talking to people about it. But also, if you do still have a job, if you see gigs posted, just put yourself in for them. Don't second guess. If you see something and you think that you could do it, but you don't necessarily have the same industry experience in terms of, I don't know, the nitty gritty of a gig that I feel like people just get turned off.

Like don't let that stop you. Let them be the, let the people that you are applying to or that you're trying to work with be the ones to say no. And also don't let scheduling commitments either in a gig or like whatever make you be the one to say no. Cause you never know what the details are going to be when you actually start talking to people, when you learn the details of the project and whatnot. And the sweet spot that Parker and I always talk about is like, you don't want to have just like

one thing happening at any given time when you're freelancing, like it's good to have multiple things. You might have one big thing, a couple of small things, a few small things. Like don't say no unless you have to because the option always is you can always subcontract out extra work. And I know that's like a whole other level, but like I think people talk themselves out of stuff so much that they just never start because they're worried about being like.

They're worried about all these things about it not working out when really there's so much that has to happen before they even say yes to you that why should you say yes in the beginning? Yeah, that too. Yep. Totally.

Zeta (21:33.987)
or imposter syndrome, which is self-defeatist too, yeah.

Daniel (21:41.101)
love that. I love that because for so long, you can not say that, think probably for like four, maybe five years, I kept telling myself, I think next year I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna step out on my own. Like I really was worn down with like the corporate rat race. I was just like, man, like every day is drudgery and just, and, but I kept saying like, next year. I think, I think next year, I think next year. And then finally like, you know, I got laid off and it was like,

I don't want to be glib, but it was like the best thing that happened because then I went from, you know, maybe next year I'm going to start and do my own thing to, okay, well, I either have to go get a job right now or this is it. This is the time to like go off and go do my own thing. I love that. want to I want to ask in your guys' opinions, like what are what do you guys think are like?

the most essential skills that a freelancer needs besides like instructional design, learning development skills in today's market.

Parker Grant (22:43.064)
Yeah, well, writing is definitely high up on the list. Being able to take information that the client shares and being able to synthesize it and repurpose that into something that is digestible for clients. So writing, there is definitely a level of skill. And if writing isn't a skill that you have, you can always consider being a partner with somebody that is really good at writing. so don't ever think that you have to do this alone.

because often cases some of these projects may require more than just yourself. So especially if you want to get the higher paid kind of project. And so that's high on the list. And the other thing is when it comes to learning principles, it's very helpful to be able to talk shop. And especially if you have clients who really understand adult learning and how that works, it's nice to have that in your back pocket, just be able to.

share with them some ideas on how you can repurpose the information they have or their existing training that they have into something that is better for learning. know, for instance, you know, one of the things that I love about learning is figuring out how to create analogies. Analogies is taking something that you already know, linking it to something new and being able to link that when you're trying to teach new concepts or something difficult.

Andrea Dottling Dias (23:55.726)
you

Parker Grant (24:11.226)
Content mapping is another, you know, guess activity that is helpful when you try to map things together and drawing visual maps. Teachers use it, they call it graphic organizers. In the training world, we can call it, you know, process maps. Whatever you may have is a visual hierarchy of information and concept. So that's another adult learning trick that you can help, you know, share with the client.

Because that way, when you're not only able to do the writing and the design, but you're able to connect with them in terms of how do we make this better learning? And there's more to it than just doing e-learning and instructor-led stuff, but there's also how do you develop experiences that will enhance the learning process? And I know, remember back in my day in the airline industry, one of the things that we tried to do with our team of instructors,

is to give them rich experiences third shift at an airport in the maintenance station. So if they're going to teach people airline mechanics how to maintain jet engine, well, we need to get them into some rich experiences. And third shift is where everything happened. It's not first and second shift. Third shift, you take them to the airport. They work all night between 11 at night till seven in the morning. And they're really doing a lot of stuff because that's when the plane they're in. The engines need to be inspected.

Andrea Dottling Dias (25:17.822)
.

Parker Grant (25:38.19)
Some components need to be removed. So these kinds of things, when you're looking to work with clients, there's just so much more than just curriculum. It's all about figuring out the experiences that tie in with that.

Andrea Dottling Dias (25:54.432)
Yeah, and I would say also like one of the things that gets overlooked a lot is client relations skills, right? People just kind of think I'm an expert. I'm gonna be great at this. Like I'm an expert at making learning stuff. This is gonna be great. And then they get in there and they just, they,

Scott (26:01.96)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea Dottling Dias (26:10.818)
talk to a client and they give off that expert-y thing where like, so that's what you're doing with your training? that's interesting. And like, it's so easy to turn off. You never know why someone's gonna say no to you. And it's so easy to turn somebody off with like your kind of attitude in some way. And I think that, like not to go back to what I was saying, but like a lot of people have this kind of thing now and this can be controversial. I know it be controversial, but have this thing like.

Scott (26:33.96)
Yeah.

Andrea Dottling Dias (26:36.61)
where like they are proud to say no to a client, like, no, you're wrong or like, no, I can't do that or no, I'm too busy and all that. And like, if you want to run a business, you don't have to have people don't are not going to, you don't need people to walk all over you, but you just need to kind of be a business person and think how first think how can I make this work? Like, I don't know if any of you, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I have done this, have done like improv or something, but the yes first.

yes and thing like the yes first mentality. Like figure out how you can say yes first even if it's with a suggestion of like maybe a different route. But most of I feel like what is really important of like growing your client base and really becoming a trusted person is being easy to work with and being reliable. Right. And then also like no clients knowing that when they come to you you're not going to kind of like

Scott (27:05.168)
Mm-hmm.

Andrea Dottling Dias (27:31.564)
belittle them or be standoffish and be like, well, actually, like this type of document that you want me to create is not how I would do it, blah, blah, blah, which sounds common sense, but it's really not because like it is great to be to feel like you're an expert, but like it can kind of get in the way of those relationships that you're trying to build. Being self-reflective and able to like look down on yourself and be like, how am I communicating with people? What am I like to talk to?

Parker Grant (27:48.115)
Amen. yeah. I mean, in-

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would like to add on to what Andrea said about building that client relationship is really a strategy for a long-term commitment with that partner, with that client rather. lot of, I would say, inexperienced freelancers make the mistake of trying to be the expert and showing them, this is the right way to do things. And

You know, I think I've seen in one of your episodes earlier, you talk about order takers. And so one of the things that we advocate for the people that come to our certification session, yes, it's okay to think of ways to make the product or deliverable better for the client, not necessarily taking the order, but that can be a mistake because you have to remember.

Scott (28:26.193)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel (28:26.831)
Mm-hmm.

Parker Grant (28:51.502)
Clients have a Yeah, a lot of clients are not as knowledgeable as you in terms of learning. So what we have to do is bring them in, work with them, be the order taker for a little while. Do what they ask. It's okay. It's not going to be the end of the world. You get paid. And then when you build that relationship and trust over time, you can easily, you know, work in conversation.

Andrea Dottling Dias (28:51.551)
In the beginning of a relationship, yeah.

Parker Grant (29:20.698)
This happened to me a lot. I worked with a on a technical course, and this person wrote the slides in PowerPoint, and the content was on every slide, had the visuals, and I was the order taker in being able to clean it up a little bit, use the visuals, and made a nice storyline file from it. So he was happy with it. And then I've done maybe probably at least 12, 15 courses so far.

But now, at this point, it's all about me suggesting a rewrite of the original content, the rewrite of the original slide notes. In PowerPoint, have on the bottom of the PowerPoint slide, have speaker notes. With that content in there, if it's not complete or if it doesn't have transition statements that are easy to follow from slide to slide, this is where I can suggest some

Andrea Dottling Dias (30:10.446)
you

Parker Grant (30:18.87)
alterations in the content or maybe change slides around and they're open to it. But in the beginning that wouldn't have worked. So it's okay to be the order taker for a period of time, but then grow with them and change as you as you get to build the trust. That's one of the things that you know if we would advocate for new freelancers is you know just just be the just be the be the happy vendor to do their work for them and then you know adopt your

Andrea Dottling Dias (30:24.66)
Thank you.

Thank you.

Parker Grant (30:47.844)
practices as you move on.

Scott (30:49.502)
Yeah. My experience is that I get excited because I think that all of us that have any experience whatsoever, if you've had some experience, you always see what it could be. Right. So I look at somebody go, Oh my gosh, it could be this. And then I open up my big dumb mouth and then start just saying, Hey, what if we did this or Hey, what if we did that? And I get all excited about it. And I actually had to have a conversation with somebody a couple of weeks ago and I just said, Hey, I kind of owe you an apology. And he's like, Oh,

Andrea Dottling Dias (31:00.234)
So yeah.

Daniel (31:09.351)
Ha.

Scott (31:19.102)
What for? I go, I got wicked excited back there. he's like, you hired me to support you and how you tell a story. And this is where we're at. And I just really want to help you succeed. Sometimes I get a little excited. And he was super cool about that. was like, oh, no, no, it's totally cool that you get excited. we do, we get excited. And there's a lot to get excited about, which is super, super awesome.

For me, one of the questions that I have that I think our audience might have is, okay, so I've got the experience, cool, right? I maybe need to learn to put my ego in check and be humble, cool. But man, there's a lot of blocking and tackling stuff that I maybe have never ever done before. Like, what is this thing called an LLC? And do I really need a portfolio? And how the heck do I build that?

Andrea Dottling Dias (32:18.275)
Yep.

Scott (32:18.28)
Where do I start there? Because again, if you got kicked out of the back of the truck and you got to figure this out, that's a tough place to be. What would you suggest?

Andrea Dottling Dias (32:29.356)
Yeah, no, it is. And I think the portfolio thing is a good place to start. I will be a million percent transparent and say, I've been lucky enough up until maybe the past couple of years where I didn't really, I had like a Google drive link that I had stuff in, but now I've got like an actual portfolio and it could be as simple as a rise course. That is a very simple introduction to you that has links to other things that you've done that.

Daniel (32:50.915)
and

Andrea Dottling Dias (32:55.886)
It's like that has basically it has to be short and sweet and show things that look good that you have made with you know, like like What I do, okay, so here's real here's the real deal, okay, I have a template I have I have a rise template I Have a rise template that I keep all my favorite greatest hits of things that I've made in right per client I actually update that course

Daniel (33:10.007)
Ha ha.

Scott (33:11.134)
Tell us, tell us what you do. Tell us, we wanna know.

Andrea Dottling Dias (33:25.194)
with their logo or like something to make it look like, wow, I put in all this effort to like customize this for you. But it really, I'm just updating a rise template. I remove the samples that aren't relevant to what they're asking me to do. I maybe add more things and I kind of judge it based on what the asks are for this, that particular client. Now people are going to say, but I've been a full time person or I don't have gigs to showcase.

or I have material but my company does not going to let me share that material. It happens all the time. So you still made those things and know how it worked. If you are in a situation where you need a portfolio, you take out all the proprietary information, of the companies branding everything, make it about a different topic. You have chat GPT and AI these days. You can generate some

at least placeholder content to show them, hey, I know how to actually make stuff. And then you have something on there. And now when you meet with them in person, you could be like, hey, here's the real deal of what I did. I had proprietary content. can't tell you about it, but here's my experience, blah, blah, blah. But it gets you in the door of like having something that looks good and that makes sense. And you can still draw on things that you've done before for your portfolio, even if it's like legally not stuff that you can use. And also,

depending on whether you've gotten permit like once you start working with clients you can ask them permission to add things in your portfolio and even If you feel comfortable sometimes I'll save like the really juicy stuff for like a screen share and be like hey I can't send this to you but I can walk you through something that I made and then I can talk to you about it like live in a call and that's kind of some more relationship building and all that kind of stuff too so that's kind of how I would get started with a portfolio if you don't have a

you know, articulate license, can like, you know, I know there's free trials. I know that stinks to have a free trial, but it doesn't have to be overthought. I think I use like a customer service template in Rise that I just edited to be my portfolio. Like I didn't even like, because it's just really the gateway to get in there. I forgot what the other thing you asked was like, what was it? that part, that's Parker's question.

Daniel (35:29.071)
Love that.

Parker Grant (35:34.074)
Oh, yeah. Well, I know you asked about the LLC, Yeah. Yeah. forming an entity, obviously, you can't start out without an LLC. You can just be a sole proprietor here in the United States. And you may have to register your business for your local town, perhaps. But like here in Connecticut, I wanted to do an LLC only because people advocate that you create one to protect your business.

Scott (35:36.957)
Mm-hmm.

Parker Grant (36:03.638)
actually protect your personal belongings. If you own a home, you own cars and you know, it protects your personal assets. Cause if anything ever happened, know, somebody came to, you know, say, Hey, we're going to sue your business. Your personal stuff is protected that way. So LLC is pretty straightforward. A lot of it is just, you know, going online to your secretary of state's site and applying and

It may be a hundred bucks, might be 50 bucks, maybe a couple hundred dollars. It varies from state to state, but it's usually an annual fee that you pay or biannual. And then, you know, once you have that in place, you are a single member LLC. Now, if you want to have other people join your LLC, that's a different thing. You know, you create an operating agreement that would include your other members of the LLC.

But yeah, it's really not as hard as what most people might think. But you don't have to have an LLC. You can. Yeah.

Andrea Dottling Dias (37:10.412)
Yeah, I didn't have one for years. I just was the sole proprietor. got an EIN so that I didn't have to put my social security number on all the stuff. And then just, my name was my sole proprietorship. And then when we started this, now we have an LLC together. And then I'm not giving tax advice, but look into S-corp taxes filing, but I'm not going to give you any details about it, but it save things. I'm not an accountant. I'm like anti numbers, but I do know that sometimes.

Daniel (37:32.91)
Heh heh.

Daniel (37:39.727)
So I've got I've got kind of maybe it's a, I'm gonna say it's a spicy question. It's maybe a hot question. I know folks who are entering into the freelancing space now, just changing job market, changing things. And whenever I talk to them, think one of the very first questions they ask is about money. And so they're like, hey, how do I set my rates? And so you guys are the experts. Like somebody just starting off, how should they set their rates?

Andrea Dottling Dias (38:08.322)
Do you want to take it?

Parker Grant (38:08.506)
Yeah, well, I can take from when I started in 2008, I started out on a lower rate, like 45 an hour, which at that time, I think people were asking for 60, 65 an hour or higher. But I just wanted to get clients. That was my goal, was 45 an hour. And the more work I got, the more that I had in my portfolio. And I just increased my rates over time. And it's typical for when you're working for an agency,

is typical to getting things from, let's say, $50 and up. You know, it could be $50 to $75 an hour if you're working for an agency. Now, the other model would be, of course, fixed rate. If you have been in freelancing for a while and you've got some bigger client, you can go by a fixed rate for the project, which turns out to be usually a higher per hour rate when you do that. And because you build in a little extra in the scope.

So I know Andrea has something to say because she was about to say something about rates. Were you about to say that a minute ago? Oh, OK. All right. OK.

Andrea Dottling Dias (39:15.198)
no, I was saying that's your question. I can, so I'll be really, I'm really like a big fan of no secrets about any of this stuff. So I'll be really honest that when I'm personally doing work, depending on the client and like if I love working with them or whatever, my range, like hourly is anywhere from like 50 to 80. Like it really just depends because also when you're working with agencies, they get different budgets for different clients. So I could be working gigs for the same agency.

one gig I get 55, the next one at 75. And it's just like, hey, they like, don't think, at least in my experience, knocking on wood, like the agencies that I know, they're not trying, they want good talent. Like they're not trying to low ball you. They're like, this is what we can pay you. And here you go. And what I have done too, over time is like, I'll start with like a base range or like when I was first starting working with some of these agencies, I was willing to accept a lower rate, but then because I was new.

freelancing and honestly I personally was new to like corporate freelancing too. I was doing higher ed stuff so but then every year I would be like hey it's been a great year working for you I'm so excited to be like to be like on your roster I love the projects we've done together. I have to increase my rates this year because I've gotten other work come in and I really want to keep working with you so could you match this rate that I'm getting from the another agency because honestly

your priority for me and blah, blah. And like, I usually mean that, like, I'm not lying about that. I've been really lucky to really mean that, but that really is like the real deal of it. I know some people are like, you're going to ruin the rates of everybody by accepting something lower. But like I, in the past couple of years, I've worked with a client that like, if they could pay me more, they would, but I love the mission and it was enough volume of work. And it was for a longer term that like,

Heck yeah. Imagine 40 hours a week, $50 an hour for several months. That kind of beats 10 hours at 75. You got to do that kind of math and think about your schedule and think about, you like doing that work? If it's grunt work for you and you're like, my God, I'm going to hate this, maybe you don't want to take the lower rate or maybe you don't want to work there at all. There's so many factors.

Zeta (41:29.104)
Yeah.

Parker Grant (41:31.77)
Yeah. And another thing is just being able to be adaptable to various rates, because if, say you climbed up to 65, 70, $75 an hour, and that's your expectation, it's okay to go with a $50 an hour gig, because sometimes some of the gigs that you're in now, there might be a budget freeze and they have to discontinue and all of a sudden, okay, that gig is done. But you have this other one that was for a lower rate. You've got income coming in. So this is the whole, this is, this is so different than working.

Zeta (41:31.889)
You gotta.

Parker Grant (42:01.85)
full-time in a 40 hour a week career where you know you get a paycheck every week or every two weeks. It's consistent, right? In the freelancing world, it's like if you have multiple things going on all the time, there is a sense of security. I didn't have that security feeling in the beginning, but over the years, I felt better only because I know that I can get multiple types of gigs at the same time.

And there is a sense of security there. It takes a while to get that feeling. But when you get there, it's like, okay, you one gig goes, well, you still got like three or four other ones going. So it's a big, big difference.

Andrea Dottling Dias (42:42.425)
Yeah. Or even if you're working full time and you're side gigging, like say you get laid off or something, hey, at least there's some relationship that you have going that is like even mentally comforting. Like, hey, I'm making this happen right now with this person while I'm doing this. Like, and that goes for a lot. Like, because it's, it's a weird world right now. So.

Scott (42:42.867)
Yeah.

Scott (43:02.544)
It's an interesting world. I have personally found that if I know I have income coming in, it allows me to make better decisions. You're not making that, my God, I got to pay for the rent or I got to get more dog food for me. Right. So mean, those kinds of things can make it really better. This is great. You guys are amazing. I am so, so glad.

that we've had the opportunity to share together. That being said, we're kind of getting to that point where we're going to need to start winding down. So what I'd love to do is from each one of you, just one, maybe two keys to success that you found personally through freelance that you would love to share with our audience.

Andrea Dottling Dias (43:50.35)
Oh, thanks Parker. Thanks so much for that pressure. I think the first thing is like, when you are freelancing and building relationships, like don't be afraid to be yourself, like as a person, if you have a little quirks or if you got kids or whatever, just be yourself so that when you're getting into this place where maybe you are busy and you have multiple clients, you don't feel like you have to like put on a face every time you're meeting with someone because ultimately when you're a freelancer, you're

Daniel (43:52.803)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Scott (43:54.216)
No pressure.

Andrea Dottling Dias (44:20.182)
you know, your your own business, like you are your own business, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it, you're like, I'm just doing gigs, whatever, like, you don't want to have to like, pretend anything after a while, it gets exhausting. So I'd say that's kind of a fluffy one. But I really do think that if you just lean into who you are, like that's that can make a difference. And then also just don't be afraid to talk to other people about problems that you're having, like

Go to a community, ask. If you are like, my gosh, I am new at this and I'm in over my head either with this client's asking me something or like actual development issues or my God, I got this weird email. Ask other people what they would do or if they've had similar things and like just crowd source information for yourself. And that's kind of like what our community does, but it exists on LinkedIn. It exists everywhere.

You can find a community of people where you feel like you can trust them and feel safe and supported so that whenever something comes up, you actually feel like you can go to somebody else and workshop stuff or at least just commiserate together, which is always fun.

Parker Grant (45:33.208)
Yeah, and for me, I like to put myself in the eyes of the hiring manager from the client side. It's just because it's all about like connecting with them. And if you imagine yourself sitting in the chair of the hiring manager, having to make a decision of who to pick for a contractor or who to pick for an agency, what is the issue that they're trying to solve? So it's like, if you can figure out what it is that you can do to help them solve

the problem or make things easier for them. And then you can have that dialogue and connection. And also don't be afraid to be reaching out to the people every so often. If you don't hear anything from them for a while, just touch base, you know, because sometimes they get busy doing other things and you just need to get on the radar. And sometimes the worst thing you could do is not say anything and just wait for them to call back or reply.

because you want to be there on their radar. So don't be afraid to connect with people because they've got a lot of things going on and you're just out there trying to help them. So the other thing, you know, back to what Andrea said about being yourself. I grew up in Maine, a different environment than here in Connecticut in the Hartford area. I between two big cities, between Boston and New York, and life is a lot different here than in the rural community that I grew up in.

there's a sense of connection you have with people when you get to know them like a friend. So when you meet people, meet potential clients, it's just think of how you would make friends with them. Andrea is awesome with this. I've seen her in action. She can connect with clients. And next thing I know, they're best friends on text. So they're BFFs.

Andrea Dottling Dias (47:29.518)
I may or may not have, and I can't help it because here's the thing, I work from home and I have little kids and I have my husband but he goes to work and I gotta have fine friends somewhere, you know?

Parker Grant (47:33.102)
Yeah.

Daniel (47:44.911)
Ha ha ha!

Parker Grant (47:46.586)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, when you think about the clients, you think of them as your next door neighbor, okay? And you think of building a relationship, get to know them. It's not that like, oh, the client's way up here, and you're this little tiny person. And it's like, you you have to walk down this big hallway to see the Wizard of Oz. It's not that. It's about forming the relationship. Like you're trying to become a friend.

It doesn't always work. You know, you just have to keep working at it. if let's say you get turned down for a gig, right? There is nothing that stops you from reaching out to that same manager four months from now. Just to kind of touch base, say hi, how are things going? You know, sorry we didn't get to work together four months ago, but if anything comes up, I'm here, I'm happy to help. So it's forming that relationship over a period of time.

Daniel (48:49.807)
Love that. Love that.

Andrea Dottling Dias (48:54.434)
Thank you. Thank you.

Scott (48:55.868)
Okay. Well, Parker, Andrea, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you let our audience know how they could get a hold of you?

Parker Grant (49:08.298)
Yes. Well, you can visit our site at www.idlance.com or you can email us at headhonchoes.com. Yes, Andrea and I are known as Head Honchoes. We don't go the corporate CEO, anything like that. We're just co-head honchoes.

Andrea Dottling Dias (49:25.006)
We had to do something corny like call ourselves head honchos. That's head honchos, H-O-N-C-H-O-S at idlance.com. Then just spell out the website. We're ID as in instructional design, Lance as in freelance, so I-D-L-A-N-C-E dot com. You'll see our favorite mascot, Lance a lot on our website if you go there. You will read the website and you will go, yes, this is basically Parker and Andrea talking to me in their own voice.

Scott (49:48.36)
That's awesome.

Andrea Dottling Dias (49:55.149)
It's fun.

Daniel (49:55.695)
You

Scott (49:56.91)
We certainly appreciate it. Certainly appreciate all the advice you gave to everybody listening. And I hope that it pays off. And I'm sure your community is going to grow and add value because that's what you guys do best. Thank you very much. Daniel San.

Andrea Dottling Dias (50:09.333)
Thank you so much.

Daniel (50:11.053)
Yes, Scott.

Scott (50:12.552)
Do me a favor, could you go ahead and let our audience know how they could get a hold of us?

Daniel (50:17.391)
Absolutely. All right, party people. You guys know the drill. Email us at nerds at thelearningnerds.com. Joining in on the conversation, I think this week what we'd love to know is, what are you thinking about freelance? Are you comfortable where you're at or things going good or are you thinking about making a leap or have you already been there for a hot minute? We'd love to know more. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at Learning Nerds, Instagram, Fab Learning Nerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates.

www.thelearningnerds.com Scott, back at you.