Ross Simmonds is a digital marketing strategist, fellow Canadian, and he has a great story. Ross left his 9-5 job to go out on his own, and by year two was earning $270K in revenue ($200K in profit).

In this episode Ross shares exactly how he accomplished this, in tremendous detail. You will notice that there are no "weird tricks", just very solid execution combined with very solid hustle.

Listen now:

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You will learn:

• How Ross built relationships and developed content for the types of clients that he wants to acquire, and how this lead to people wanting to hire him before he even left his full-time job.

• How to go from blogging to clients: why distribution is king, not content, why you don't need a large audience (just the right one), and why it's often better to have one-on-one interactions than to try to create a viral post.

• How to get amazing and relevant referrals from your clients.

• How to get speaking gigs and how to turn them into clients and referrals, why the best ROI comes from conferences and events outside of your own industry, and why it can be surprisingly easy to become a speaker on your topic (love this).

• The criteria that Ross uses to identify the types of clients that he wants to work with, and why he looks for clients he can become a partner to and not just a vendor.

• The tools that Ross uses to manage his client relationships and projects.

Recommended Tools:

• Eventbrite: find conferences and events.
• Lanyrd: another amazing resource for discovering conferences.
• Freshbooks: very effective tool for invoices geared towards freelancers.
• Slack: tool for communicating with your team.
• Skype: the ultra popular voice chat and instant messaging tool.
• Boomerang for Gmail: schedule when your emails actually get sent out.
• Canned Responses in Gmail: learn how to setup canned response functionality in Gmail.

Book Recommendations:

• E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others: Really great book on leading a truly great company.
• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead: Sheryl Sandberg shares so many insights to apply to your career and personal life. Opens your eyes on how you interact with women or minorities in the workforce.

Find Ross Online:

• Website: RossSimmonds.com
• Twitter: @TheCoolestCool
• Clarity.fm: Ross Simmonds