If you were at the masterclass, you know that we spend 2 hours learning from the most well paid freelance consultant. Robert is also a great champion and ambassador for freelancers worldwise.
In August, Robert presented selected game-changing moments from his 25-year freelance career in an online pro-bono masterclass for over 100 freelancers, organized by the
Freelance Business Community and
The Indie List of Ireland.
Robert was kind to send us his summary below. You may enjoy the read.
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Hello reader, here are my main game changing moments:
1998 — I'm twenty and independent. I hitch-hike across Europe to Spain, hoping to find some seasonal work. Instead, I end up working freelance for a client as a web developer. Do I speak any Spanish? None at all. But I know something better: Coding. The World Wide Web is booming (before the bubble bursts in 2001) and the client, recognizing my potential for cheap high-value work, hires me on the spot. I work in Costa Dorada and then in Barcelona, falling madly in love with both Spanish culture and freelance work.
2000 — I toil on the project for two years, doing almost nothing else. I complete it, but also burn out completely. I decide to quit IT for a year, clearing my head with 5am-to-3pm manual labour at a winery near Vienna. I read tons of books, ride the countryside on a motorbike and hang out with friends, but it still takes me a full nine months to recover my drive and energy. I realize I must change one thing to avoid losing it again: Go fully freelance and work for multiple clients.
2004 — I keep on striving as a freelance web developer, but I am already drawn to business consulting and supporting freelancers. It starts in the early 2000s with building small websites for them and mentoring beginners. A few years later, I land my first big consulting client. An established software company hires me for complex business analysis, but the work environment turns out to be toxic. Instead of firing the client, I make a decision that transforms my consulting business from there on:
Upselling the Client — I assess everything I know about the client and their business, and estimate how valuable my contribution is. I realize that if I double, or even triple my rate, they can still capitalize on my work with a huge margin. This gives me the confidence to submit a proposal to renegotiate both the terms and the price of my work. I don't win the deal, but we part amicably. However, in my heart of hearts, I know it is a close miss, and I immediately recognize the importance of upselling and dynamic pricing. Over the next two decades, I raise my base rate more than 20-fold (that's not a typo) while also improving my upsell success rate.
2005 — After 6 months of development, I start the Czech freelance community
Navolnenoze.cz, building on an idea that struck me a year earlier during a long journey in Mexico. Over the following years, it goes from a one-man-show with a bunch of freelance friends to one of the largest national freelance communities in Europe, currently supporting over 250,000 freelancers in their business. I find this work immensely fulfilling and rewarding. We do lots of things, including founding the first European think-tank for freelancers. Thanks to meeting thousands upon thousands of freelancers, I realize how vast and diverse the freelance economy really is, encompassing hundreds of industries and thousands of professions.
2011 — I stumble upon a little-known book that is a game changer for me as a knowledge worker.
Spark by John Ratey argues that cognition and brain performance can be hugely improved by physical exercise. The book steers me (a then 33-year-old) towards a much healthier lifestyle. My other game-changing books in this genre are
Genius Foods by Max Lugavere,
Lifespan by David Sinclair,
Outlive by Peter Attia,
This Book Could Save Your Life by Graham Lawton, and a couple of others on sleep, circadian rhythms, etc.
2013 — After reading some classic books on the topic, I decide to start investing my ever-growing financial reserve in stocks. Later, I also make a small fortune on crypto, but picking up individual value stocks feels much closer to home. The core of my consulting work lies in evaluating businesses and their management, so why not do this with publicly traded companies? I learn fast, but also realize how time-consuming stock picking is. Years later, I calculate that investing the same amount of time in my business or selling it to clients is far more profitable, making for my gradual transition to index-fund investing. Book recommendation:
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John C. Bogle.
2014 — My wife Lenka and I both fall in love with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, an ocean-side metropolis with Las Canteras, the most city beach we've ever seen in Europe, and pleasantly warm weather all year long. From then on, we spend every single winter there, eventually with our little kids as well. Over the years, the place becomes our second home and a hotspot for remote workers from all over Europe. I even write a book there.
2017 — The
Czech edition of The Freelance Way has a whopping 760 pages, but I have the best publisher I could dream of. Against all odds, the book becomes a national bestseller, selling over 20,000 copies in a small country of only 10 million. Sounds like a dream come true, right? Not really. Previously, I fail twice writing it, and only finding the best partner in
Jan Melvil Publishing and reading Steven Pressfield's
War of Art saves my ass. Writing evidence-based non-fiction is hard, as I learn the hard way.
2020 — While working on the English edition of The Freelance Way, I realize the uneven development of freelancing across Europe. In some
countries, the freelance economy is well developed, underdeveloped in others. I notice that public discourse is dominated more by freelance platforms than by individual independent professionals. Precisely for these freelancers, we launch
Freelancing.eu. Soon, we cooperate with other like-minded individuals and projects. I realize how underserved and disconnected the pan-European freelance economy still is, especially in comparison to the US.
2022 — HarperCollins publishes
The Freelance Way in English as an international bestseller under the HarperBusiness and HarperAudio imprints. After two depressing covid years and dealing with countless literary agents around the world, my book is suddenly accessible to freelancers worldwide. Many of them reach out to me with touching personal stories and insights. I give talks and interviews to far more diverse audiences than ever before.
The 2023 Challenge — What are the present game changers for me as a freelancer? I am concerned about the fate of Ukraine, and if we handle AI in the long term. Current LLMs are generally helpful and harmless, but can we eventually contain superhuman AI? I'm looking for good answers, and meeting smart people seems to be what works for me. To this end, we're launching two new initiatives:
Freelancers On the Road event series across Europe, and in-person podcast interviews with European freelancers. So here's my challenge: If you are an established full-time freelancer based in Europe, speak English well enough, have an interesting personal story to tell, and you are willing to travel abroad to Ostrava (Czechia), I am open to recording an interview with you! Just
email me with details about your work.
Happy freelancing and many game-changing moments to you all!
Robert Vlach
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Katya Balakina was kind to share this cool infographics above with us afterwards.
