Alex Fasulo On Being An Influencer, How To Build A Freelance Business And Life Lessons
The Importance Of Owning Your Life
Alex shares how she was always a bit of a troublemaker. She was never rude, or ignorant, but found herself pushing back against authority in day to day life. Whether it was toward a teacher as a child, or a boss, she always wanted to do things her own way.
For this reason she didn’t really excel in school, or as an employee.
But for all of the challenges she faced in the institution of school, or work, she always remained a life long learner and has a ton of great skills that serve her well as an entrepreneur.
Something that stood out from our conversation was how Alex made peace with the fact that she would make a low to mid level income as a writer, but that would be great because she liked to write.
This shows the importance of choosing careers we love. And it also shows that if you do good work, with a bit of luck and persistence, the money will follow.
From $0 to Half A Million As A Freelancer
Alex is a big believer in owning your time and energy. She tried a whole bunch of different freelance ideas when she first decided that becoming a business owner was her path.
Since then she has learned to write effectively, teach, build engaged social media communities and create effective money making, freelance companies.
MSNBC featured her in an article titled “This 28-year-old earns $378,000 a year on Fiverr—and just bought a car for $50,000 in cash”.
She has scaled her business life to millions of dollars by learning to hire people, develop a CEO mindset, and create multiple revenue streams instead of exchanging time for money.
We talked about a few of the strengths Alex has as a business leader, like scaling her team and onboarding people she can trust. We also learned of the struggles she has with staying focused and why surrounding herself with the right people helps to overcome the things she feels are areas of growth.
Becoming A Full-Time Entrepreneur As A Writer
We got to hear all about her love for writing. How that love became the side hustle and future business that made the most sense.
But, also how that love made it quite simple to create her first book.
Alex has a book agent and Wiley is her current publisher. She talks about what it was like writing her first one and how many ideas she has for the next twenty!
Alex shares all about the current state of Freelancing. She explains how simple and basic it was when she started, compared to today as the industry continues to expand.
Finally, she was kind enough to share a few steps from her book that explain how anyone can get started in the world of freelance.
14 Tips For Being A Successful Freelancer
- Start journaling ideas as it relates to problems you see in the world and skills that you have that can solve those problems. Think about interests, strengths and dreams you have that you might be able to connect to a freelancing service.
- Remember that freelancing is by no means saturated. There will always be opportunities for good people who do efficient and effective work.
- Create a mind-map, or brainstorm on a paper your strengths, interests and skills that you are better than other people at, or things that you would like to learn, that if you were to get good at them you could use them to bring value to other people, or businesses.
- Know the values and personal goals that you have for your freelancing journey. They can evolve over time, but knowing what you stand for is important when making decisions about what jobs to take, how to price, and how much, or how little to scale.
- Once you have a few possible ideas do some initial research on the existing freelance marketplaces for all of the job postings that exist. Write down two, or three top categories that you think you might like to work in and then take a deeper dive.
- Don’t pick a skill for the sole fact that you will make money. There are enough skills to choose from that you can choose something that will make money, but is also something that you enjoy getting out of bed to do. This way you will be able to work through any plateaus and roadblocks.
- Once you have it narrowed down to a couple of ideas, for example coding and blog writing, spend time looking at the current postings and niches. Examine the top freelancers, their prices, copywriting and profiles.
- Create your own professional profile and start by posting one or two jobs in the marketplace.
- At first it’s all about getting experience. Book your first few jobs, impress the clients by over delivering and start getting some great reviews.
- Continue to learn what you like and don’t like about the chose category and either tweak, pivot, or keep going.
- Once you feel a bit established in a category learn to grow your audience and improve your marketing, advertising and sales as you become a more and more established business owner.
- Build a trustworthy brand. Treat your profile as, or more important than a resume. And be professional, deliver things on time according to the specifications promised.
- Remember that it's fun to start, but there will likely be moments you want to give up. That is where so many people drop off, but if it’s important to you, keep going, keep learning, make adjustments and ask for help.
- If all else fails, or you really want to have all of your bases covered, check out Alex’s book and Free Facebook Group where you can learn all about becoming a great freelancer yourself.
Memorable Quotes
“I am really passionate about wanting people to know they have options in life.”
“I’m a big fan of wanting to control how I spend my own time.”
“Start posting. What’s meant for you won’t find you if you’re just in the shadows all the time.”
“There isn’t one right way to do this. They can all work, but that’s why it’s so important to have a valuable why and know your personal reasons for building business.”
“I see A.I. automating so much of our work that we can get up to 75% of our time back and it’s amazing to think what we could do with that time.”
“Freelancing is simple. It’s not easy, you’ll have to put in the work, but it is simple and well worth it.”
Guest Bio
Alex quit her corporate job at 22 in 2015. She had no plan, money, or idea what she was going to do. She had been selling $5 editing services on Fiverr at the time for side cash. This led to a breakthrough when she started to wonder if that very site could support her full-time?
Fast-forward three-months and Alex was making enough as a freelance writer on Fiverr to afford her bills in Brooklyn, New York.
Obsessed with the potential of not having to go back into an office and work for a boss, Alex doubled down on the marketplace and three-years-later, was featured for the first time on CNBC Make It as a ‘25-year-old who made $150,000 in 6-months.’
She released her first ebook ‘How I Made 6 Figures in 6 Months on Fiverr’ later that year, going onto shift her social media profiles to a freelancer-focus.
Her social media accounts and personal brand grew quickly. She has a million followers across her profiles and an incredibly engaged group of Facebook. Alex is a full-time freelance content creator and educator who is passionate about showing every single person they deserve to live a life free from woes about work.
Having achieved financial freedom in her 20s, Alex is on a mission to show everyone that the most valuable thing a person can do today is own their income streams.
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