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This is a show for burnt-out fashion designers (and TDs, PDs, patternmakers and beyond) who want more flexibility while still doing work they love. As a freelance fashion designer, you can build your fashion career on your own terms. Freelancing in fashion is the only way to get freedom in your day (instead of being tied to a desk). Whether you want to earn extra money on the side, fund your fashion brand, or replace your salary, the FDGP podcast will help you get there. Listen in for actionable tips and strategies to kickstart or grow your career as a freelance fashion designer, build your confidence, and create the life you want. Hosted by $100k+ fashion freelancer Sew Heidi, the show features interviews and strategy sessions with successful freelance fashion designers from around the world who've ditched toxic fashion jobs and taken control of their own destinies. This is the only place to get REAL insights from REAL freelancers who have built REAL careers on their own terms. (Formerly the Successful Fashion Freelancer podcast.)
Heidi [00:00:00]:
Kyle Kushner is a coach for freelance creatives, or maybe I should say entrepreneur creatives. Because as you'll hear in this episode, he firmly believes that there is a big mindset shift between considering yourself a freelancer versus an entrepreneur. And Kyle believes that this mindset shift is the difference between the feast and famine freelance cycle and building a successful business working for yourself. We had some very interesting discussions around this topic and much more about getting clients, including his favorite place to find work and his best strategies to snag those clients. If you are serious about your freelancing or entrepreneurial journey, this episode is a must listen. Let's get to it. Let's talk freelancing.
Kyle Kushner [00:00:41]:
Sure.
Heidi [00:00:42]:
I didn't realize you've done it for over 2 decades.
Kyle Kushner [00:00:46]:
21 years. Yeah.
Heidi [00:00:48]:
So where are we? It's 2024. So you started in 03 ish.
Kyle Kushner [00:00:53]:
Yeah. 03. No. I got fired for Christmas 2022.
Heidi [00:00:59]:
K.
Kyle Kushner [00:01:00]:
And then decided that night I was done. I had decided I was done for a long time. I just didn't I didn't know how to make that transition. I was making good money, and I was inundated in this business that was supposed to be, it was supposed to be a venture. I was supposed to be made a partner. It was like a big Okay. Big thing, and, things were getting a little hostile in the environment. And, we were working lots and lots of hours, and it was the holidays, and I didn't wanna work another day like that.
Kyle Kushner [00:01:29]:
We were working, you know, 12, 14 hour days Yeah. Running this business. 6, 7 days a week.
Heidi [00:01:34]:
What was the business?
Kyle Kushner [00:01:35]:
We had a we had a web development company, and at that time what was really popular, because there was no social media, was that a lot of celebrities and different people had their websites, and they would have a VIP entry level page portion of their site. We would build those sites out for celebrities like Jesse James with West Coast Choppers. Like, I did a lot of work with him at that time. He was sort of our big client. And, we had several other photographers, like, back in those days when Max Maxim and all those magazines were still sort of big. And, we had all these sort of glamour photographer guys that had huge bodies of work, and they wanted to have a paid portion of that site. So I would work we would build the websites out, and then we would do all the billing and all that type of transit. That was all very, like, uncharted territory back then.
Heidi [00:02:28]:
Totally.
Kyle Kushner [00:02:29]:
It was like a really big deal. So, the woman I worked with and myself, we were 2 people. And it was a lot of work. It was really stressful. Some of the clients, like, were high you know, big names, and, they were very demanding. And I think it took a toll on her, and she kinda took that toll out on me. And and it just got to be a bad situation. And then a week before Christmas, she kind of just, I said I didn't want to work that day.
Kyle Kushner [00:02:58]:
I was like, I gotta go home. I'm just too tired. I'm too tired. It was a week before Christmas. I was just too tired, and I was just spent, and we had we had been working so much. And, she said I was well, she she sort of
Heidi [00:03:10]:
You can cut
Kyle Kushner [00:03:11]:
I'm putting it I'm putting it nicely. You can cut some shit. Shit, or if you don't get your shit and get the fuck out, I'm gonna it's gonna end up on Ventura Boulevard in 5 minutes.
Heidi [00:03:19]:
Oh, shit. It was like
Kyle Kushner [00:03:21]:
And I said fine.
Heidi [00:03:22]:
Legit, like, done.
Kyle Kushner [00:03:24]:
Oh, yeah. You didn't mess with her. She was a pit bull. I I started working with her because she was like that. You know, she was a very intelligent she knew the whole dotcom era. She had come out of the dotcom bubble, and, like, she knew how to code and build everything. And I was a designer, and she wanted that aspect because she really she knew more code, and she wanted me to be the creative director and design. And so, yeah, we we we were moving up fast, and then that happened.
Kyle Kushner [00:03:51]:
And so I, for about a year before that, was thinking I I wanna get out of this, but it felt like a trap. I couldn't get out. I didn't know what I was gonna do, that I was gonna only work for myself forever. That was it.
Heidi [00:04:02]:
Okay. And that was it. You never went back. You made it happen.
Kyle Kushner [00:04:05]:
Never went back. 1 I got close one time.
Heidi [00:04:08]:
Okay.
Kyle Kushner [00:04:09]:
And that's a whole another story. But, yeah. I never I never went back for so I've been a professional creative for 25 years, and just over 21 of those years as a freelancer.
Heidi [00:04:21]:
Okay. So, how did you get those first few clients in starting in 2023 after your layoff at Christmas?
Kyle Kushner [00:04:32]:
So I, when I came home and I made that decision, and I was I I gotta say I was really burnt out. And I just decided I was gonna go hit the beach and just lay around for a minute. And that lasted a few days before I panicked and said, oh my god. I need to start finding some clients and getting on my butt. And so, instantly started calling. There was no LinkedIn. There was no social media. There was no you just had to call people that you thought might know someone or email.
Kyle Kushner [00:05:07]:
I mean, even e I gotta be honest. Even email seemed kinda new, I think, at the time.
Heidi [00:05:11]:
What it is today. Yeah. Totally.
Kyle Kushner [00:05:13]:
Yeah. It was like, I wasn't versed in emails. I I think I still had like a Yahoo account or something like that. I don't really remember, but I just called everyone I could call, and I knew there were some there were some people that we had talked to in the past that liked me a lot, and unfortunately did not want to work with my partner. And I know, I called them, and they were, like, really happy that I wasn't with
Heidi [00:05:43]:
And you got some work?
Kyle Kushner [00:05:46]:
Yeah. So it took time. I mean, I really hustled hard. I and I got lots of doors shut in my face, I got lots of nose, I got ghosted, all the normal stuff. But the way that I figured things out, which is what I really wanna bring home now to everything I'm doing, what I didn't realize at the time was that I really wasn't freelancing. I was becoming an entrepreneur. And I had a creative background, and I saw the marketplace, and I saw where the demand was, and I started asking how could I insert myself in it. There were people in the dotcom era that were making, you know, 2, $300,000 a month on their websites.
Kyle Kushner [00:06:27]:
And back then there was all this what Google would consider to be really black hat, practices. Back then you could you could embed your keywords into the website and have all these guys. It was all affiliate marketing. Everybody was driving traffic, and you'd give a you'd give a percentage. And so it was a whole era back then of this dotcom thing that was going off. And everyone was making a ton of money, and I wanted to insert myself in that mix. And I had a little bit of clout and credentials, and I built that really really fast, in the first in the 3 years that I was working. And I and I I kept up with some of those people a lot, like I I checked in with them, and I nurtured those relationships, and, a couple of them paid off really really well.
Kyle Kushner [00:07:14]:
And I set up meetings, and I went in there, and I said, what do you need? And they said, well, we need this, we need that. I said, okay. Fine. Let's do it. And I and and distinctly I remember it being, they wanted they wanted behind the scenes footage of them doing their work as a portion of their site, and they needed me to shoot it and edit it. And I didn't know how to do either of those things. But I just learned. You figured it out.
Kyle Kushner [00:07:38]:
I just I just figured it out. Back in those days, it was Final Cut. I didn't know how to edit. I had a friend who was an editor, and he knew Final Cut. And I said, can I come over and see what it looks like? And can you give me a copy of it? And he was like, yeah. Cool. And we did that, and I just I just did it. But here's a funny story about that first client because I was so worried about not getting that guy, and I really wanted to get this guy's business.
Kyle Kushner [00:08:00]:
And I went into the meeting, and I was like, I'm gonna hold firm, and I'm gonna charge x amount for this thing. And then I get in the meeting, I'm so nervous. I'm sitting there with him and his partner, and and I I hear this number come out of my mouth that's like, not even half of what I said I was gonna charge. And Yeah. And I just was like, oh, man. You just did that.
Heidi [00:08:24]:
It's okay. I think we've all done it.
Kyle Kushner [00:08:26]:
We've all done it. Right? I mean, this is my first time out of the like, on my own, you know, trying to get my own business. I had just been fired. I think it was about a month or a few weeks before, and I really was so worried. I wanted to get this work. And, these 2 guys were who were really experienced and a lot older than me, and they were looking at me. And I'm and so they said, sure. That sounds good to us.
Kyle Kushner [00:08:46]:
Sounds good. Right? And the guy looked, yeah. That sounds great. Okay, Kyle. Thanks. And I was like, oh, I got the client. But you kinda have that feeling of like, shit. Like, damn.
Kyle Kushner [00:08:56]:
Like, I
Heidi [00:08:57]:
How much did I leave on the table? They said yes way too easily.
Kyle Kushner [00:09:01]:
Yeah. And then you walk out, and I drove home. And, you know, in LA, you have a lot there's a lot of traffic, so I had a lot of time to think about it. And back then, there I didn't have a cell phone.
Heidi [00:09:10]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:09:11]:
Back then, there's still oh, hey. I love this thing. And then back then, it's like answering machine. You know, I get home, and there's a message from the guy that I just met with. And he said, Kyle, we have a problem. I want you to call me back. And I said, I just, like, just got the dang thing. Like, what do you mean? There's already a problem.
Kyle Kushner [00:09:30]:
I I just saw you, like, 45 minutes ago. Everything was fine. So I call him back, and he says, yeah. He goes, we got a problem with that price. And I said I said, I can't go lower than that. He said, I don't want you to go lower. I wanna pay you twice that amount. No.
Kyle Kushner [00:09:47]:
Yeah. And I said, wait. Why? He said, because I want you to take it seriously, and I want you to do a good job. And you're not gonna do that for that price that you chart that you quoted me at. Wow. Yeah. And that was my first sort of yeah. And that was my first, sort of, like, wow.
Kyle Kushner [00:10:02]:
You know, like, I've I've I've always been worried about putting out value and and putting out something that is quality. And that was the first time I saw someone say that they were willing to pay for that, that that really meant something to them, that they weren't going to lowball what I was doing. They wanted me to he said he said, I want you to I want you to treat it like it's art. I want you to take it serious. I want you to spend time on it. I want it to be good. I want it to be the best it can be, and that's what I wanna pay for. And that was really interesting to me.
Kyle Kushner [00:10:37]:
And I had that client, he was my my my main guy for, like, 8 years.
Heidi [00:10:47]:
Amazing.
Kyle Kushner [00:10:48]:
Yeah. Mhmm. I've I've had a like him.
Heidi [00:10:52]:
What's that?
Kyle Kushner [00:10:53]:
I said I had a few others like him, but he was Yeah. The one that Yeah. He was like, almost like a mentor for many many years.
Heidi [00:11:00]:
Yeah. I've heard a story of that flavor only a handful of times, where a client actually comes back and says, I need I want to pay you more for this. It's too, it's too low. It doesn't happen often. But that's really exciting. What a foundation for your entrepreneurial freelance business. Yeah. I want to talk about, I want to like fast forward a little bit here.
Heidi [00:11:24]:
Cause I, one of the things I really, one of the reasons I really brought you on was, you're a freelance coach. You coach people how to build their freelance businesses. And, we just met hanging out on LinkedIn, which I know we're both really big fans of LinkedIn. And, now that we have all these amazing tools. And so I your backstory is very interesting. And I had no idea the the depth of your freelance business. But talk to me a little bit about I know you have some contrarian views. I I'm using your words.
Heidi [00:12:03]:
That's what you told me. Right. One of them is this whole, like, entrepreneurial versus freelancer mindset. So I'd love to talk about a couple of topics in terms of, like, you know, advice and tips and and strategies for freelancers. But I guess we can start with that one because I know that's something you believe really strongly. And and and I have
Kyle Kushner [00:12:25]:
a lot
Heidi [00:12:25]:
of questions about this, this mindset. So I wanna hear your thoughts on it, and then I'll ask
Kyle Kushner [00:12:32]:
you some questions. Okay. I I I think that for me, I can see the contrast because I know when I started out, I thought I was a, quote unquote, freelancer, and I did do typical freelance work. But really what I was was a business owner, and I was an entrepreneur, because in that sense I was I wasn't looking for gigs. I wasn't looking for work. I was creating work, and I was looking to find the people that needed it, and I was sort of meeting them halfway and creating services that I felt were gonna be in demand, and that they would value, and that they would need. The difference being that later on in my career, 2010, there was a moment in my life where things changed drastically. And I was sort of back where I was when I had first gotten fired back in 2020, 20, sorry, 2002.
Kyle Kushner [00:13:43]:
But at that point, we had had the 08 crash. And people were not in business the way that they were. There wasn't a lot of money out there. And, at that point a lot of my friends had been over 10 years since we had all graduated. Many of them had become creative directors, and even agency owners. And at that point they started calling me and asking me would I come in and help their business. That's when I became a freelancer, I feel. Because they were they were agencies that needed part time work.
Kyle Kushner [00:14:18]:
Sometimes they just needed a day. Sometimes they needed a week. Whatever that was. And they would call, and they would they would email me, and they would and then they would show up. I wasn't out marketing myself. I wasn't providing necessarily a a packaged service like I was years before, where I was doing all the web development, and I was doing all the content development for some of these, these other companies that needed content for their websites. I was just a work for hire. I would get in that day, I didn't even know what I was working on, and they'd say we need this done by this time.
Kyle Kushner [00:14:53]:
You know? And I was just told what to do, and I would do it. Now I was really good at that. Mhmm. I was very good at it. I was really good at executing. And it became really easy because these people would just call me all the time, and I charged a lot of money. And and I I could kind of just work for a week, and then take the next few weeks off. And then work for a few weeks and take the month off, and whatever it was.
Kyle Kushner [00:15:18]:
And then sometimes if I had a website that I was working on, I could be working on the agency stuff while I was having someone work on the website stuff. And things were really really good, but in a way it was kind of the kiss of death. Because I stopped marketing myself because things were going okay. And then in 2016, it sort of dried up. I don't know why. It just did. And they stopped calling, and, things got a little scary, got a little dicey. And I realized I hadn't done any of the things that I had done before, years years before, and I felt sort of I don't know I don't know exact it wasn't so much burnout, it was just kind of like I didn't want to have to go and hustle like that again.
Kyle Kushner [00:16:06]:
And I just got really really lucky that another big agency started calling me again. And, gave me a lot of work, and then a few other ones. And so I was on that train for a while, the freelance sort of referral, sort of just kind of waiting around for people to call me sort of thing. And then when 2020 hit, that was just like, that was the end of it all. Right? I mean, especially being in entertainment. I was in entertainment for 25 years. So when the entertainment industry tanked, and there was no work, and I had a baby on the way, and, you know, a pregnant wife and all that, I freaked out. And I I didn't know what I was gonna do, and the phone was not ringing.
Kyle Kushner [00:16:49]:
It was and nobody was emailing, and I was, like, panicking. Right? And that was when I decided I had to get back into my old ways. And that's also when I decided I I was able to make the distinction that I had this other way of doing things back when I was successful, and that I had gotten lazy and complacent, and I was just letting people come to me. I wasn't out there hustling anymore like I used to. Okay. Yeah. So
Heidi [00:17:19]:
So I guess, if I wanna make sure I understand your I I think it's understanding for you the definition between
Kyle Kushner [00:17:28]:
Right.
Heidi [00:17:28]:
A freelancer versus an entrepreneur. And the freelancer is, like like, you say, kind of that work for hire that can just be, like, socketed in, and they just, like, have some clients come to them maybe naturally through network or through referrals versus the more entrepreneurial direction is going out and getting the work, being very proactive to market yourself on some level to build and strategically manage and maintain those networks and presenting and offering packages of work where you see you could lend value to the business.
Kyle Kushner [00:18:07]:
Yeah. We can dive into that a little bit more. Yes. Yeah. And I'll dive into that a little bit more. It's like a freelancer is getting paid to do a skill. You're getting paid by the hour most of the time to work based on a skill. An entrepreneur offers a solution.
Kyle Kushner [00:18:25]:
An entrepreneur has a has a service. Imagine a business. An entrepreneur is like almost like a brick and mortar business. You can walk into an order, and you have your services and everything there, and it's a business that's running. And the entrepreneur will hire a freelancer to help. The freelancer in my eyes, not that there's anything wrong with being a freelancer, and it works really really well for some people. But I think for the majority of them that are out there, that staying stuck in the freelancer mode is what's gonna inhibit you and keep you from getting business. And then you're able to make that mindset shift into, I'm not looking for other people to, give me an opportunity.
Kyle Kushner [00:19:08]:
I'm going to build my own opportunity. Mhmm. And when you're building your own opportunities, you're looking at the marketplace. You're looking at positioning. You're looking at demand. You're looking at where where can you offer a viable solution for someone that needs this service, and how could you do it in a unique and sort of more robust way than say the other guy. You know, and that's how an entrepreneur thinks. An entrepreneur thinks about building a business, and pricing, and scaling, and sustainability.
Kyle Kushner [00:19:41]:
And I feel like a freelancer is kinda like just hopping from 1 gig to the next. Mhmm. I don't feel that they're really running a business. It's a different type of mindset. And I feel like if more of them would shift into that entrepreneurial mindset, one of the main things that encompasses that is an entrepreneur will see a market and know that it's saturated, and not position themselves there. Because, you know, there's already, you know, 3 guys on the block with the same service. I'm not gonna go set up shop right there, like, that's just not a good place to be. Mhmm.
Kyle Kushner [00:20:23]:
And I I feel like a lot of freelancers are stuck in the traditional mode of working for studios, and agencies, and marketing departments, and where, you know, they're putting out, hey, we need a freelancer for this, or a freelancer for that. Well, that's like a 1000 people are gonna go for that. We see that on LinkedIn all the time. You know, you're just 1 in an ocean of a 1000 other people going for the same spot, and that happens with the 9 to 5 as well. Whereas, if you were thinking more in terms of like looking at the demand, and looking at where we're at, and we're looking at this revolution that we're in called social media, and organic marketing, and you realize that there's a whole plethora of entrepreneurs, and businesses, and solopreneurs, and coaches, and whatever you want to call it. There's a ton of these people that all need creative. And they're willing to pay for it. And they're actually willing to pay you well for it.
Kyle Kushner [00:21:15]:
And the agencies, you're a dime a dozen. Yeah. There's a there's a ton of you. They they know that. They know that if they if you if you if you give them an offer they don't want, if you say I'm this amount or whatever, they got they got 5 people lined up that will do it for less, and work more hours and all that. And that's sort of that whole, that whole place that we're in right now. You know? Yeah. That's making it really difficult for for many many freelancers to to find work.
Kyle Kushner [00:21:47]:
They're all going in the same place. They're all focused on the same stuff. And if you could just step out of that for a moment and look around and say, where could I what could I invent? How could I take my services and create something, a service that that I could charge more for, and I could put it in front of these guys that I know really need it. Mhmm. And and make it somehow special. A lot of ways of making that special is you, because you're selling yourself really at the end of the day. They wanna do business with the person. I didn't get the work that I got because I was so talented.
Kyle Kushner [00:22:19]:
There were a lot of guys that were way more talented than me. I got that work and kept it because I had a relationship with those people. They liked me. I even have stories with guys that, you know, back then when in 08, when all those businesses were crashing, I mean, when a couple of them had to come to me to tell me that they weren't gonna be able to work with me anymore, I mean, a couple of them were in tears. You know? Like, we we had we had a a bond with each other, and I and I feel like, you know, building that that personality skill is so important, building your your creative skills is so important. But on top of it, the one thing that a lot of freelancers miss out on is marketing and sales, and they don't make that a regular part of their routine. I know I didn't, you know, and it wasn't things didn't things didn't work for me when I didn't do that. Things only worked for me when I did do that.
Kyle Kushner [00:23:12]:
When I regularly was getting out there and putting myself out in front of people, and taking the rejection, and getting ghosted, and hearing the no's, and all that kind of stuff. And just kept and I just kept going until I heard a yes. Yeah. And, and I was willing to just pivot and do whatever I needed to do. I wasn't so married to just one thing. I was adaptable.
Heidi [00:23:35]:
Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, a lot of what I teach inside of our core programs is, like, doing the market research, figuring out the service offering that these brands need. It's not like, okay, finding the listings on Upwork and applying or whatever. Right? I mean and, yes, We do have students who actually have utilized Upwork very strategically and done really well. But generally, that's not the approach I teach. I teach approach much more similar to your entrepreneurial mindset, but I've never called it entrepreneurial, or I've never called it, like, building a business. And I think the reason is, and these are some these are some of the questions as soon as you told me this, about your contrarian, angle, the first question that popped into my head, I'm sort of excited to ask you about this, is that I think that a lot of you know, we were talking earlier before the episode officially started about a lot of these people.
Heidi [00:24:32]:
It's it's hard for them to put themselves out there and to, like, you there it requires a lot of tenacity and sometimes a lot of courage. And I think that as soon as you attach the word entrepreneur, that's very intimidating for a lot of people. I've even heard, I mean, I've listened to podcasts. I listen to a lot of business and personal development podcasts and I've listened to some where I've heard them say, like, unless you're running a business that's like over a1000000 or even like 10,000,000, like 7 figures or 8 figures, I guess that would be. That's when you're an entrepreneur. If you're like if it's you and and a couple, you know, contractors or like whatever, like, kind of how my business is, like, you're just you're just self employed. It's like I've even heard these big business gurus, like, say, like, you're not really an entrepreneur until and and I think that even got stuck in my head a little bit of, like, I even where the capacity where my business is, I have trouble calling myself an entrepreneur sometimes.
Kyle Kushner [00:25:37]:
Really?
Heidi [00:25:38]:
Yeah. And so I think that, like, for people who are coming from a traditional 9 to 5, which most of these people, freelancers, entrepreneurs, however you wanna call them, are. It's it's a really big mindset shift to even get a lot of them into the the freelance mindset. Right?
Kyle Kushner [00:25:59]:
Yeah. Then Yeah.
Heidi [00:26:00]:
We're asking them to get into an entrepreneur or a business owner mindset. And that, I think, feels like a big jump for people. And so, my my first thought was, like, oh, people are just gonna get hung up on that word and gets too intimidated, or feel too nervous or something.
Kyle Kushner [00:26:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's where I think that that's, I think it can be really intimidating, but I don't agree with those guys that say that you're, you know, you got to be doing 7 to 8 figures before you're an entrepreneur. I mean, I would you're obviously a successful entrepreneur at that point, but I think it's just like like this, like my father was always an entrepreneur. He never had it. He never he never worked a 9 to 5 job. Right.
Heidi [00:26:51]:
So Okay.
Kyle Kushner [00:26:52]:
And my dad certainly never made 7 or 8 figures. Right? But he just had that entrepreneurial mindset. You know? He got up. He he started his own business. He ran his own business. He didn't work for anyone else. He had that mindset of of he wanted to do his own thing. And I think that whether you wanna call it self employment, or being an entrepreneur, fine.
Kyle Kushner [00:27:14]:
But you just have that mindset of I wanna do my own thing. I wanna have my own thing going. Right? I use entrepreneur because, you know, people sort of know what that term means. Now I'm trying to redefine it a little bit where it's concerning freelancers and creatives. Mhmm. And at the moment, I'm even playing around with sort of the idea of saying, you know, don't be a freelance creative, be a creative solopreneur.
Heidi [00:27:41]:
Interesting.
Kyle Kushner [00:27:43]:
So, like, honestly, it's it's it's like yeah. It's just taking freelancing to, like, one next level, where
Heidi [00:27:50]:
Mhmm.
Kyle Kushner [00:27:51]:
Instead of only waiting for what's already out there, and hoping you're gonna get that work, and and and some of them will certainly. You know, they've built their network, and they get the calls, and I I talk to them all the time, or they're like, hey, Kyle. You know, I've got work coming in all the time. That's great. But, you know, like I said, the the mindset you wanna stay in is that, like, I don't wanna only be limited by that. I wanna see that there's more opportunities, say, in these other areas that most people aren't looking at, and inserting myself into that that mix and developing my own service, my own premium packages. Mhmm. Pricing that is not based on an industry, but based on a demand.
Kyle Kushner [00:28:32]:
And it might be people that I really want to work with, that are different from say working at an agency where, typically for me, like you'd be in a bullpen with a bunch of other designers, and you'd be in this really corporate environment. And there's these other opportunities. I mean, even like I used to say, I say this, like even your local, like, taco stand needs social media. Right? And if you just have the tenacity to go walk up to someone and say, hey, do you guys need, like, content for your social media, like your Instagram account, or, you know, your Facebook, or whatever it is, and just have that the the nerve to say something like that. You do that a couple times. There's a lot of work out there. But see, so many people are focused on, well, what is what is the what is what is the job listing? What's the freelance job listing stuff? And they're not looking at all this stuff. I just look at it like an entrepreneur as someone that just wants to do their own thing, and sort of be innovative.
Kyle Kushner [00:29:27]:
And it's funny, like, to hear it said said as being sort of scary. I guess the scary part is the normal stuff that everyone always talks about. That's, like, the hustle, like, you know, putting yourself in front of people, meeting people, you know, shaking someone's hand and looking them in the eye, and and trying to do business with them, and fitting in. I mean, imagine all the, like, you know, you go on those job interviews, those are those are really, really scary, but so is it when you wanna get that client, you're meeting with them in their office and talking to them. But you gotta be able to get ahead of that. You know? And I think that's Mhmm. That's what's that mindset that it well, there's a limitation there. Right? It's a fear that I don't wanna I don't wanna get out of my comfort zone.
Kyle Kushner [00:30:08]:
That's too scary for me to do something like that. But that's what keeps you stuck and limited. And so, yeah. As a coach, in my in my freelance coaching, I don't I don't typically, you know, frame it as a mindset sort of shift program, but that really is what it's about. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Where I'm teaching them tactics that they need to know to market themselves, and promote themselves, and get in front of people. And but at the same time we're discussing the discomfort levels, and the limiting beliefs.
Kyle Kushner [00:30:46]:
And part of my job as a coach is to get them out of their own way, and and to have them, you know, realize that they're worth more than they think they are inside, out, their worth, everything that they're about. I Yeah. I I help build their confidence. That's probably one of the biggest biggest results of working with me is is building the confidence and getting past those limited beliefs. That's really what it's about.
Heidi [00:31:15]:
Yeah. It really is. And I I mean, linguistics aside, I I talk about this a lot, and I I'm a big believer in that. You can have all the strategy and all the tactics in the world. And if your head is not in the right place, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. So on that note, I would love to hear, I mean, I so I do wanna hear a little bit of tactics because I know you talk a lot about, like, getting yourself out there and being proactive to go out and get the work and find the work and stuff.
Heidi [00:31:48]:
So, like, and I know we're both big fans of LinkedIn. So I'd be very curious to know, like, for people who are listening, who maybe they're in that freelancer cycle and they're like, I wanna break out and I wanna be more proactive to go out and get the work, or maybe they're just getting started. What would you suggest to them to do to start creating that momentum, and that marketing? Like, what does that actually look like?
Kyle Kushner [00:32:18]:
Well, I think number 1, the first thing is that, I would say when I look at LinkedIn, and I see what most creatives are doing on there, they're just not using it properly. They're not using it to they're not maximizing the potential that's out there. I mean, you've got this free landing page, and you know, it's it's essentially an opportunity for you to build your own sort of inbound funnel with that thing, and a lot of people just aren't utilizing it. I mean, from the top down, I mean, just from the banner to your title to your bio to the featured sections that aren't getting used, to not getting the recommended. You've got it all right there. If you just go from top to bottom, you've got every opportunity in the world to get your get whoever you are in front of. There's a 1000000000 people on the platform. There's 220, I think they did it.
Kyle Kushner [00:33:06]:
I think it's 220,000,000 American accounts.
Heidi [00:33:09]:
Oh my.
Kyle Kushner [00:33:10]:
Yeah. So there's a lot of people on here of all walks of life, and I think they did a study where they found that many there's a good percentage of millionaires, there's a great percentage of founders, there's CEOs, there's everyone is at your fingertips on this platform. Mhmm. And it's a and it's a business platform, and we're it's it's okay to sell yourself. And I think that's what people need to get past. It's okay to sell yourself on this platform and use it for that purpose. Now is there an etiquette? Absolutely. Mhmm.
Kyle Kushner [00:33:43]:
There's a big etiquette. You don't just, you know, start asking people for stuff. It's all reciprocity. You wanna you wanna prime your LinkedIn page first of all, so that when people see your see your comment, or see you engage, or see you post, or anything like that, that little title that's next to your name is really important. It needs to speak. It can't just say graphic designer, or fashion designer, or freelance creative. It's gotta be more specific. And I'll tell you a little story.
Kyle Kushner [00:34:12]:
My moment came in 2020 when my coach told me that my profile was not being used properly. I did not wanna be on LinkedIn. He told me I needed to be, and took a look at my profile. He's like, what is this? You know, you have the generic banner, freelance creative, my name. There's nothing nothing being used. I didn't know I didn't even know what he meant by optimize your LinkedIn page. I didn't know what that meant. Now you can take probably 10 or 20 different courses online that'll tell you how to optimize it, and I encourage everyone to do that.
Kyle Kushner [00:34:43]:
But he said, you need to have a more specific title. And at the time, I was, like, trying to work with my web development company. And he's like, okay. Well, what do you use? What's what platform? I said, Squarespace. He said, okay. Say you're say you're, an expert Squarespace web developer. I said, okay. I'll do that.
Kyle Kushner [00:35:04]:
I did it 20 minutes later. Now this is very this I I know this sounds kinda crazy, but 20 minutes later, I landed the biggest one of the biggest clients I've ever had in 25 years. They had a Squarespace website. They had a Squarespace website that they had built. Their IT guy had built it, had put it in his name, and split. And they didn't know I didn't have any access. They didn't know what to do. So she was in a panic.
Kyle Kushner [00:35:26]:
And then, oh my god. I don't even know how she found me. She was net she had some network, but when I did that somehow I I think it got into the feed. I have no idea. She wanna set up a call the next day. I set up the call. I thought it was gonna be, like, an hour of work or something, like, to show them how to get into their website. She goes, no.
Kyle Kushner [00:35:41]:
Can you just build us a new site? And I was, like, yeah. Sure. Okay. And we did that, and then we kept doing that over and over and over again. 4 years later, I'm still building websites for them, and they're one of the greatest clients I've ever had. And I was, like, wow. This this this is powerful. This is really, really powerful.
Kyle Kushner [00:36:01]:
And and to piggyback on that story, one of my clients, recently, she didn't wanna change her title. And she certainly didn't wanna put anything that was, like, expert or authority or anything like that. And I had her say, listen, you know, you you are. You have limited beliefs. Right? She had been in the business 10 years. She knows branding. She's a brilliant creative director. I said, put creative director.
Kyle Kushner [00:36:23]:
Put, you know, have some authority in there, team leader, something like that. 2 days later, a recruiter hit her up for one of the biggest companies in, like, like, very large company. I don't wanna say it is, but Yeah. Quarter $1,000,000 job. Yeah. You know?
Heidi [00:36:39]:
I believe that.
Kyle Kushner [00:36:40]:
Because she changed her title, and that's that's all it was. She didn't end up getting the job, but she went through all the interviews and all that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. But I'm just saying, like, that's the power of utilizing your page properly. Getting that title right. Getting that banner right. Getting that messaging right. Knowing what that means.
Kyle Kushner [00:37:00]:
And posting, and engaging, and commenting, and building your network, and taking the long game. You wanna play the long game. You don't wanna hit people up right away. You wanna you wanna get to know someone. Like, I always say it's not network it's not networking. It's making friends. Right? Mhmm. You wanna just make friends with people.
Kyle Kushner [00:37:17]:
You want yeah.
Heidi [00:37:18]:
They literally say the same thing. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:37:20]:
Yeah. I mean, just make friends. We we talked about, like, the scary words. Like, maybe entrepreneur is scary to some people. Sales is scary. Right? Sure. And I would say, like, you're not selling. You're helping.
Kyle Kushner [00:37:31]:
They have a service that you need. They have something they need, and you could provide it. You could help them.
Heidi [00:37:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. You're
Kyle Kushner [00:37:38]:
not trying to sell them anything that they don't need. You're not trying to sell them anything that they you're you're providing a valuable craft and skill, and hopefully you're taking that into, like, what I like to say a solution, and not selling the skill, but selling the result. Mhmm. It's a valuable thing to this person. This person's trying to get somewhere, and you're a component in helping them to get there. Because they don't know creative, and they don't know the things you do, and they don't know brand strategy, and all those different things. And and you could really help their business, or really help them in ways that you didn't even think about. So
Heidi [00:38:11]:
Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:38:11]:
It's it's that part of that mindset shift that we're talking about is like shifting your vocabulary too, and and and realizing what you're doing. But part of priming LinkedIn is is having the right perspective on it. It's not a place to push sales on people and and be pushy and stuff like that. It's a place for you to be human, to share, to educate, to, build awareness that you exist, and that you have this skill, and that you have this talent, and that you have this ability to help people, and just use it like that. But there's an entire world to it, and I encourage everyone to start getting into that, because there's just so much opportunity on this platform. And that's just the organic side of it. That's where you can get that proof of concept organically, and start building in with clients without having to take out ads and pay for things, and stuff like that. It's a free opportunity for you to promote yourself, and promote your business.
Kyle Kushner [00:39:13]:
And, I just don't see enough creatives really utilizing it properly. And if they did, I think it would really make a big difference.
Heidi [00:39:20]:
Yeah. It's huge. We have a podcast interview with a student of ours who optimized her profile, and she does, like, lace and lingerie design. She actually, like, designs the lace itself. And, like, changed her headline to that, like, super specialized, super niche. And I think, like, 3 days later or within a week, something like 3 brands contacted her. They just found her on LinkedIn. Right.
Heidi [00:39:50]:
We'll I'll share we'll share that in the show notes, because we do have we have a whole interview on that. And I it's really interesting because I, a lot of people I've heard a lot of people say I know you were talking about how all these different people are hanging out on LinkedIn, and and and there are a lot of people hanging out on LinkedIn too. But I've heard the, argument from some people that they're like, well, the brands that I wanna work with are not hanging out on LinkedIn. Well, they might not be hanging out on LinkedIn, but guess what? LinkedIn is where they go when they need to find someone to hire. So there there might not be posting and reading all this stuff, but then when they search and you can come up and I do believe whoever knows what the LinkedIn algorithm, but I do believe the more active and engaged you are, the more likely you're gonna come up. And, obviously, you're with an optimized profile based off of some of the keywords and stuff. And and we don't need to get too into the nuance nitty gritty of, like, optimizing your LinkedIn because, like you said, there's a bunch of courses out there. I personally took Justin Welsh's course when I first got started on LinkedIn, which was a phenomenal course.
Heidi [00:40:51]:
I loved it.
Kyle Kushner [00:40:52]:
Yeah. I got a funny story about that too.
Heidi [00:40:55]:
Yeah. What's that? Or is it
Kyle Kushner [00:40:57]:
too long?
Heidi [00:40:58]:
Or not really?
Kyle Kushner [00:40:58]:
No. No. It's not Well, the funny thing is, so I didn't want to get on so And this is for everyone that's listening too, like, because I feel like a lot of people feel the way that I do. And I certainly run into this with my coaching. And one of the first questions I ask people to qualify them is, are you willing to be on LinkedIn on a regular basis? Because I know I wasn't, and I didn't want to be in social media. And my wife told me for years, when it's 2016 thing happened, and she saw that I was struggling, you gotta get on social media. I didn't know what that meant. I was like, what do you mean? How? Like, what get on it how? And so a couple years later, she was working for a company called PatientPop, and the VP of sales was Justin Welsh.
Kyle Kushner [00:41:43]:
Oh. And he left and he left their company, and he started and that's a whole story, I won't go into all that, but he left their company, started building on LinkedIn, as an experiment for himself. And she goes, you know, you should really look at what Justin's doing. And I was like, no. I don't want to look at that. I don't have any I don't want to be on social media. I don't want to be on LinkedIn. I didn't understand what LinkedIn was.
Kyle Kushner [00:42:06]:
I didn't and I don't know even know if it was the same back then, but he kept telling me, Look at this guy Justin. Look at this guy Justin. Well now I'm kicking myself, because I wish I would have looked at him a lot. That could
Heidi [00:42:16]:
have been the other Justin.
Kyle Kushner [00:42:17]:
The goat. Right? So anyway, yeah. Yeah his courses are great. But, yeah the other thing just to say like, it starts with the optimizing of your of your profile, and what that really means. But then I say I think the next the next natural thing is building your network, and and expanding out. And and the main thing I would say is, I think it's great that you expand out with other creatives, and I think that's important. But what you really wanna do is, again, think like an entrepreneur. And an entrepreneur is gonna say, well, who do I need to reach out to that's gonna be a potential customer? Who's buying what I have? Who needs what I have? Those are the people and if you can niche down, that's great.
Kyle Kushner [00:42:56]:
And I always say this. This is one of my coaches told me. It's like, you don't have to be married to the niche. Just date it. Pick something. Do the research. Make sure it's a place that you're not inventing what they need. They need something, and you're seeing that, and you're going in that direction.
Kyle Kushner [00:43:13]:
Who is the they? What's the what? Position yourself like that. Don't be afraid. And at the same time, with your positioning your LinkedIn, maybe be a little more niche. So when people see it like you're like you said, the the lace designer. Right? You're specialized. Right? That doesn't mean you can't still reach out to all your potential friends at the agencies that get the typical type of freelance work. You can still be reaching out to them and making those those connections, but you really really need to focus on on diversifying yourself so that you're you're going to a market that is really that values that has a high demand for what you do, that's not saturated so much like the agencies and say the animation studios and the gamers studios and all that stuff that a lot of these guys are all fighting to get jobs at. And they could almost those those studios could almost hire everyone for free at this point, because there's so many of them that are all trying to go that way.
Kyle Kushner [00:44:09]:
And I'm not saying give up on your dream if you wanna be a gamer or a game designer. But at the same time, be have that entrepreneurial spirit, and have that business mind spirit that says I need to diversify, and at least have something over here that's supplemental that I'm gonna be able to go after on my own that I control and market. And know how to reach those people, and they're all at your fingertips on LinkedIn. I don't care what anyone says. There's someone okay? There's stories where, yes, there's people that are not accessible on LinkedIn. Those are not the right people. Those aren't the people I'm talking about. Make sure there's someone that's active and accessible.
Kyle Kushner [00:44:44]:
And if it's not them, it's one degree separation. It's someone that knows them. Right? And then get into the etiquette of how do I make friends with these people. Well, it's really simple. Like, for me, I tell all the freelancers, listen. Be a private investigator. Go look at who's winning the awards. Go look at who's doing this.
Kyle Kushner [00:45:01]:
Go look at who's doing that. And then compliment them. Don't ask for anything. Just engage with them and compliment them. That's a really easy thing to do. Everyone loves someone that's gonna compliment their work, or tell them they did a great job, or whatever. Just take the time to do that, you know, 10 times a week. And start playing that long game of getting in with these people, and they say thank you so and so.
Kyle Kushner [00:45:22]:
That's really nice of you to say that. Okay. Great. Well, you know, I then you check back in with them and say, hey, you know, I saw you're doing this thing. I thought you might find this thing helpful. It's all about that reciprocity, and you're building relationships. And now that you've got that thing primed, without you having to say and sell yourself, they're gonna see the profile. It sells itself for you.
Kyle Kushner [00:45:44]:
Mhmm. And you've got everything lined up right there. You don't have to do this hard selling. So that's why it's so important to have your your LinkedIn profile primed and your positioning. Alright? So that when you do, you know, reach out to people, it just it it does the the talk for you. You don't have to come off as sales y, as everyone likes to call it. Right?
Heidi [00:46:03]:
Yeah. It is. It's all about and it's a lot of the same stuff that, I teach and talk about. But it's so much about, like, leading with value and, like, not asking for anything upfront. Right. Value can be, like, hey, congrats on that thing that happened. I saw that. That was super awesome.
Heidi [00:46:22]:
Or it could be, oh, I know Justin Welsh has told this story before too. I think, someone reached out to him in in, LinkedIn DMs and said, hey, I noticed on your sales page, he was like a I think it was a design. You know the story?
Kyle Kushner [00:46:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was like a designer or
Heidi [00:46:40]:
something, and he said, oh, the font color contrast is really hard for people to read Yeah. Or something. And he mocked up how it could be done better, and it turned into, I don't know, a $40,000 sales page design project or something crazy.
Kyle Kushner [00:46:55]:
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised with more than that. Yeah. I mean, that guy got that the whole rebrand of Justin's, Justin rebranded what it was about a year and a half ago or so, a year ago. Oh, I haven't got that long.
Heidi [00:47:06]:
Because I only got on LinkedIn less than a year ago.
Kyle Kushner [00:47:09]:
Well, he did a whole rebrand of his of his, you know, what he was doing in that. Yeah. That guy I believe that guy and his company got the account Yeah. Because Yeah. Of what that guy did. But he he the the difference being is that he personalized the message and he gave value. He he gave away something, that was helpful, and he didn't ask for anything. He just said, hey.
Kyle Kushner [00:47:32]:
I think if you change the button on your CTA here, I think you'd probably get more conversions. And Justin did it.
Heidi [00:47:37]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:47:37]:
And Justin being the guy that he is that loves to watch all that kind of stuff and track everything, he's got everything in place to track it. He could say, oh, when I did that, boom, I started making more sales. This guy's good. You know what I mean? So, yeah, that's that's that's a good story. That's a good one. Yeah. I like that one a lot. And there's tons of those kinds of stories.
Kyle Kushner [00:47:54]:
That's basically what we're all doing here on here. You know, for me, I'm trying to give my value is I'm trying to give advice and, like you said, change that mindset. My posts are my posts are really they're really messages to myself. You know? It's really me kicking my own butt, or me telling myself I need to get up off the floor, or me telling me I gotta stop doing this or start doing that. It's really a message to myself, but in that I wanna make it so that other people can value it. And so when I reach out to creatives, I'm not selling my coaching. I'm just saying, hey, you know what? I'm here to help, you know, give you inspiration, and give you motivation as a creative, and hopefully show you that there's another way that you can freelance. And and if you wanna take that freelancing to the to this other level of of not struggling and not being in feast or famine and thriving, you gotta shift your mindset.
Kyle Kushner [00:48:57]:
And the first shift is don't be afraid of that word entrepreneur. Go go go into that a little bit. What does that mean? What's the difference? What is he talking about? Start asking yourself those questions, and knowing the difference between selling a skill and selling a solution. Very very different. But I remember when I heard those things, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm just I'm just trying to raise awareness, and and that's me bringing the value to them. And I'm not asking for anything. And if you wanna, if you if you look into me, and you go to my profile, and and you say, oh, wow.
Kyle Kushner [00:49:29]:
You know, he he's a coach, and he was a creative for 25 years, and he was a freelancer for 21 years, and, he's got these coaching services. Well, hopefully, yeah, you see that. And, you wanna be a part of that with me, and and and we can talk about it. But first off, that's not I'm not hitting you up for my coaching.
Heidi [00:49:46]:
Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:49:46]:
You know? That's not what I'm doing. I'm bringing value to this community that's on LinkedIn by offering whatever, advice and motivation that I can after, you know, 25 years as a creative. And plus, let's be honest, like, I think a lot of the people that are on there are hurting. We see a lot of layoffs. We see a lot of, creatives that are struggling. And, you know, I wanna help. You know, I wanna be there to help them. And I think that, you know, I I don't wanna help them by trying to sell my my service, my coaching to them first.
Kyle Kushner [00:50:23]:
You know? That's not what it's about. And I think that if most of us have that mindset of help, you're just trying to help. You know? Yeah. Is it there at the end of the day, is it transactional at some point? Sure. But not right off the bat. And if you're taking a transactional standpoint, you're wrong. Like, that's not the way to take it. And there's there's plenty of relationships to be made on here that are so non transactional that'll never be transactional.
Kyle Kushner [00:50:51]:
I've met some of the best people. I've well, I've never even met them in person, but some of my closest friends are the people that I've met on LinkedIn that are just wonderful, great people, and we're all helping each other. I mean, you help me sometimes, I help you sometimes. Like, we you know, like everyone's it's not just about selling and being transactional, and trying to get a job, and all that kind of stuff. There's a lot that's really beautiful that's happening on the platform as well. And this is just one area for creatives and and people that are building their business to be. I just think it's the best. I I, you know, there's if you wanna be on Instagram, or you wanna be on these other things, or you wanna you wanna go old school like I used to, and and just go right up into the business and ask them for their business, or do the cold emails, or
Heidi [00:51:35]:
You can.
Kyle Kushner [00:51:36]:
Make the phone calls. You can do all that stuff. I mean, for me, back in the day, I used to go to all the conventions and the events, and meet people, and hand out business cards, and shake hands, and all that kind of stuff, and set up meetings afterwards. I mean, these are all the things we should be doing. But what's beautiful about this platform is that you can do most of it for free right here.
Heidi [00:51:55]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:51:56]:
You know?
Heidi [00:51:57]:
It is quite powerful. And, I I was very much in the same mindset of you. I was like, I'm I cannot hang out on LinkedIn. I do not wanna hang out on LinkedIn for years. Mhmm. I would poke on there every once in a while, and I was like, And finally, last September, less than a year ago, I was like I actually went to a, I went to a conference for podcast market for podcasting. And I met this guy who had helped a bunch of people market and promote and build out bigger podcast audiences through LinkedIn. I was like, oh, that's interesting.
Heidi [00:52:40]:
And so I wound up hiring him as a coach and I worked with him for, I think it was 2 months. And he got me started in September and I it was not inexpensive. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna I'm taking this. I'm doing it. And I had the same feelings as you. I was like, oh, I wish I did this years ago. Why didn't I? Like, why didn't I? So, you know, I I I agree. It's a tremendously valuable platform, and we have it for free at at our fingertips.
Heidi [00:53:11]:
And there's so many people on there, and there's so many, there's so many ways to make a ton of amazing friends as well as build a really phenomenal business for yourself.
Kyle Kushner [00:53:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've built my business solely on LinkedIn in the past year, and, you know, it's it's it's on its it's well on its way to being a 6 figure business, and growing, and just just on LinkedIn. And, to be clear also, like, I think the the bigger thing too with being a freelancer, shifting from the freelancer to the entrepreneurial mindset, is just the amount of opportunity you have to market yourself. I feel like freelancers, it's it's a little more limiting because you can't really add you can't traditionally advertise. And what I like about putting together a creative solution, it's more like a creative business, you can advertise that business. But I always say the same thing that my coach years ago told me is you don't do that until you've got proof of concept, and you do that organically. You do that for free.
Kyle Kushner [00:54:15]:
We've got everything at our fingertips to do that. So build out that that that proof of concept that you've got something there. And then you as an entrepreneur, now that you have a solution, you're not just selling your hourly skills, you can you can now you can reach the masses. You can get into the the, you know, pay per click advertising and all that kind of stuff. Now that's way down the road, and that's very It's
Heidi [00:54:37]:
very advanced. Don't
Kyle Kushner [00:54:38]:
yeah. Advanced. But I'm just saying that
Heidi [00:54:40]:
I'm doing it in my business right now, and let me tell you it is Yeah. Not for the faint of heart. And I'm working with some
Kyle Kushner [00:54:48]:
serious experts. Yeah. I can't Yeah. Let's be clear. Let's be
Heidi [00:54:51]:
clear. Whole episode. It is That's
Kyle Kushner [00:54:53]:
a whole another thing. I'm just
Heidi [00:54:55]:
AF, you guys. And it is not easy.
Kyle Kushner [00:54:58]:
Yeah. Don't yeah. You do not start there. But what I'm saying is that you have the potential.
Heidi [00:55:04]:
Yeah. True.
Kyle Kushner [00:55:04]:
And you can dream even bigger and bigger. Now most of us aren't typically aren't gonna go that route. But, like, you do have that potential. Once you break out of those limiting beliefs, and you free yourself from just being a typical freelancer to, like, a creative business owner who is building something, and and and when you see that you could go beyond, that's when you're just gonna open up even more creativity, and you're gonna start thinking in ways that you weren't you're not limited to only getting what's out there. You're you're open. The sky's the limit. You know? You could just you could come up with so many different ideas. And when you get past the fear of selling and marketing and promoting yourself, imagine what you could do.
Kyle Kushner [00:55:51]:
Imagine if you didn't have that fear, and you weren't limited by, say, working for an agency that may or may not have work for you, And you're finding a marketplace with millions of people that need your services or your skills, and you're crafting this this sort of unique offer for them that's really valuable. And you've and you've shifted your mindset into being able to sell it, and promote it, and build relationships, and all this kind of stuff. Imagine the potential. I mean, it's just now you're now you really are talking about the ability to be a 7 figure entrepreneur. You know what I mean? Like
Heidi [00:56:26]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:56:27]:
Yeah. But you could have just started out being an illustrator.
Heidi [00:56:30]:
Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:56:31]:
Or a motion graphics designer, or a fashion designer, or or anything. It doesn't it doesn't really matter. It's it's it's when you stop limiting those beliefs in your head, and you don't make those that vocabulary scary. It's not scary. It's just it's I look at it as just more opportunity and ability to, like, maximize your potential. Like, we only get one shot at this whole thing. Wouldn't you love to just maximize the hell out of your life? Like, just as much to live it to the fullest, and not be limited. And most of us, we're like, we're just, we're so close, but if we would just get past those limiting beliefs, you know, or get past some of those scary words.
Kyle Kushner [00:57:14]:
Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi [00:57:17]:
It's true. Our our brains are very powerful.
Kyle Kushner [00:57:21]:
Mhmm. Yeah. Only powerful. Yeah. That's something that that I'm working on now. It is is the power to be able to control your thoughts. You know? How how, you know If you can control your thoughts, if you can stop that voice in your head that just keeps going and going and going, if you can learn to quiet that voice and control your thoughts, and have awareness, then that's when all those breakthroughs start to happen. You know? Because most of us are just caught in that that endless cycle in our head of, no.
Kyle Kushner [00:57:56]:
You can't. I don't know. I can't do that. I'm afraid. Blah blah blah. I don't like that's uncomfortable. We're all seeking comfort too much all the time, and then and then and then stressed out and complaining that we can't get to where we wanna go in life. Well, it starts with getting uncomfortable.
Heidi [00:58:11]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:58:12]:
You gotta get a little you gotta get a little uncomfortable. That's just the way it is.
Heidi [00:58:15]:
That's where you
Kyle Kushner [00:58:16]:
But then you build but then you build the confidence. You start building all that confidence step by step. Right?
Heidi [00:58:22]:
Yeah. I always talk about how confidence is a muscle, and you have to exercise it to get it stronger. And you won't get that until you start getting into those places where you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable, and you're stressing that confidence muscle a little bit. And you're like, okay. I gotta flex it. And then you can slowly start, like, flexing it. It's it's the same with, you know, working out or running or anything. Right? It's a muscle.
Heidi [00:58:45]:
Right. And you can you can let it fatigue. And, then you just have to build it up again. But, it comes with those that small incremental but constant tenacity and and perseverance to keep going.
Kyle Kushner [00:59:02]:
And it's also, I think, people need to realize that it it's it's you don't get ahead when everything's going great. What's the what's the what's the saying, like, was smooth seas never made skilled sailors?
Heidi [00:59:16]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Kushner [00:59:17]:
You know? It's like that whole philosophy. It's like I always say, like and I have to remind myself all the time too. It's like embrace that hard moment, because that's where you're gonna learn the most, and that's where you're gonna push yourself the most. And then you're gonna look back and go, oh, man. I made it through that. And when that next hard moment comes, it's it's it's like, I know how to deal with this. I can deal with this. I can go and each step, you just keep building incrementally, incrementally, incrementally.
Kyle Kushner [00:59:41]:
And, I think, like I said, I think too many of us, myself included, we we get stuck in the wanting to be comfy all the time, and not push ourselves enough. And I don't think you should be always always always pushing yourself to be living in a state of discomfort at all times. But like you said, it's like, knowing those moments arise, back down. Just push through them. You can do it. Like, there's it's it's crazy that all the things that we think that we can't do that, you know, I just have this mentality like, what's the alternative? What happens if you don't do it? I just look at it like this, you don't have a choice. You've got to do it. You have to.
Kyle Kushner [01:00:27]:
You know? You can't suffer worrying about where the next paycheck is gonna come from forever. You got to do something. And if it means you gotta get out of your comfort zone, and you've got to, you know, hustle and you've gotta ask and you've gotta get out there and you've gotta get rejected and ghosted and told no and all that, then do it. Just do it. Just get over it. At some point when you get that yes, you won't care about any of those. You'll go I did it and you'll feel so much better about yourself. You'll feel more confident.
Kyle Kushner [01:00:54]:
And that opens up that potential to maximize your potential. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know track
Heidi [01:01:02]:
all day.
Kyle Kushner [01:01:03]:
We could.
Heidi [01:01:05]:
We are well over time, but it has been lovely chatting with you. I would
Kyle Kushner [01:01:09]:
You too.
Heidi [01:01:10]:
2 things. 1, where could people find you and connect with you online?
Kyle Kushner [01:01:14]:
Well, LinkedIn, obviously. Just Kyle Kushner. LinkedIn, and then Kyle Kushner dot com.
Heidi [01:01:19]:
Okay. Awesome. And then the last question I ask everybody at the end of the interview is, what is one question that people never ask you about being a freelancer that you wish they would? So I know this is the and I usually say a freelancer in fashion, but you're a slightly adjacent guest. So, putting your freelancer or entrepreneurial, maybe it's about being an entrepreneur that you wish they would, putting that hat on.
Kyle Kushner [01:01:43]:
Yeah. What do you
Heidi [01:01:44]:
wish people would ask you more about?
Kyle Kushner [01:01:48]:
I I think yeah. Like, I think that I wish they would ask me more about how how they would, you know, how would they market themselves? How would they in other words, less about creative, and more about the things that really are gonna move your business. Like, how do I push how would you recommend I push past these limiting beliefs, so I can put myself out there, promote myself, market myself? You know, what are the what are the skills that I need beyond my creative skills to make that happen? And I always say, like, it's really simple. Just start with sales and marketing. There's tons and tons and tons and tons of material out there that's Mhmm. Free material, paid material, books, all that kind of stuff. Get your hands on as much of it as possible, and go down that that rabbit hole and learn that stuff. Because your creative skills are wonderful, and they're the base, but it's what you stack on top of those skills that are really gonna make the difference for you, in your career.
Kyle Kushner [01:02:52]:
Yeah. So, you know, ask about that stuff. You know? We're so used to asking about creative stuff, and what what this are you using, or what that are you using, whether it's, you know, you know, the new generative AI or whatever it is. Right? But, like, ask questions that are doing things in business that were creatives, and ask them about what they did to build their business. And I'm sure they're gonna go way beyond, you know, learning the next, you know, AI tool or whatever it is. Like, that's necessary, but Yeah. There's other things that go into it that are really important that creatives need to really focus on.
Heidi [01:03:30]:
Yeah. Great advice. Thank you for that. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Kyle. It's been awesome to chat with you.
Kyle Kushner [01:03:36]:
It was a pleasure. Thank you.