How to work for (and trust) yourself with Nick Lafferty

Mikey: [00:00:00] This is Mikey Badusky, founder of Ghost Ranch Communications, a presentation design nerdery, and I'm joined by my co host, your favorite, Mike. Mollie Gagan straight out of Inglewood, Colorado. What's going on?

Molly: Hello, Presentation Thinking. Good to be back. Mikey, we always have some special people we're talking to, and this is an incredibly unique person that we have today.

Who are we talking to?

Mikey: Founder of Early Exit Club, newsletter, That you need to subscribe to growth marketing consultant for tech companies. Mr. Nick Lafferty. How are you, man?

Nick: Hello. I'm doing wonderful. Thank you all so much for having me.

Molly: Nick. Welcome aboard. I'm [00:01:00] so excited to actually do podcasting with you after meeting you at a conference in Austin earlier this year.

And I feel like it kind of just goes to show how successful that conference was for connections because there was several people that I was like, oh my God, I can't wait to talk to you more on presentation. Thank him. You've done your own podcast in the past. That was, yeah, it's fun to actually make your connection.

Nick: It was, it was great to that. We, we sat next to each other and then that, that conversation turned into, into this and maybe some other things too. It's, it's the beauty of those kinds of events.

Molly: Yes, exactly. Jessica from our small group has been on the cast as well. So cool. So we just made it full circle, you know, enough about our meet cute.

Please tell us a little bit about who you are and why on earth, you know, you might find yourself interested in presentation. Thank you.

Nick: Yeah, I'm very happy to. And so, yes, I'm, I'm Nick. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. I help software companies from like seed to series [00:02:00] C ish with growth marketing, usually like paid ads, Google ads, LinkedIn ads.

I've been a solo marketing consultant for the last year and a half. Prior to that, I had a regular W2 job for the last 10 years doing some form of growth marketing for software companies. Most recently Loom, before they were fortunately acquired by Atlassian for like just shy of a billion dollars. Very interested in storytelling and communication.

Actually, I learned a lot about this when I was working at Loom and from some of the Loom leadership team that I've drawn a lot of that stuff from and tried to apply it to my, my consulting business too.

Molly: Amazing. Yeah, so when we were talking and I heard all of your experience both like leading up to Early Exit Club and then of course with your clients with Early Exit Club and like now following you on LinkedIn, I was really excited to talk about storytelling, personal positioning, and you know, how people how you help people do that.

So Can you talk to us a little bit about [00:03:00] how you came up with, or you know, came into Early Exit Club?

Nick: Yeah, I knew I was going to quit my job, but that was kind of a fraught one year process of like, should I, could I, is my wife okay with this, do I have enough money in the bank, like all of these things.

And then I knew I wanted to talk about it because even though I do an optimized Google ads for a living, I actually find it quite boring to talk about that in public. I was like, Oh, what bid strategy do you use? Or how do you do keyword research? Like, it's just not energizing to me when I spend my entire day doing that.

Oh, what are you talking about? It's great, right? And so, but what did, what does bring me energy is like helping other people talking about my story. Okay. And so I knew I wanted to launch a newsletter and initially the newsletter was kind of like me doing a monthly update to my board of directors of like, how is my company doing?

Like how much money did I make in the very beginning? I was talking about my expenses and like what the expense side of working for yourself was like very early on projects in my working on where are [00:04:00] my goals and kind of like truly a board updates, but to the general public, anyone who wanted to follow along for what it's like to.

Quit your job, very stable job during lots of tech uncertainty in, in the market and start working for yourself. And so that was the impetus of the newsletter. And then it just kind of took off from there. I'm like just shy of 2000 subscribers right now, which is amazing. And I help other freelancers, either current or aspiring freelancers.

Most of them are marketers, some of them, but not all of them are. I helped them be better freelancers by talking about my story and my experience and interviewing other people, other agency owners and stuff, things like, how do you find clients? How do you post on LinkedIn? How do you set your rates? Why retainer pricing is the best thing ever for consultants and hourly pricing is terrible.

How to position yourself, how to storytell all of these things are like very interesting to me. So it's about every other week now and give updates on that stuff.

Molly: It's so good. [00:05:00] I love your writing style. And I think newsletters are such a unique medium now where people can truly like buy in to follow along on your journey.

And then you're offering all these free resources along the way. And I think there's something, we've tried to do this with presentation thinking as well, Mikey, where we're kind of like, we have this many subscribers on Spotify and like, you know, from day one. Like starting at zero blank slate. It's cool to like peel back the curtain and learn from people instead of just pretending like you've been there the whole time.

Nick: There's something to that. What's fun for me too, is that it doesn't make me any money. I really enjoy that. I enjoy having a thing that's creative and helpful and like not at all a revenue driver of the business. And it helps me have a really authentic sales pitch. It's like, look, I'm not a guru. I don't have a course to sell you.

There's no dollars that really come in unless you want to tip me on some of my wits or something. And that's fun. It helps build authenticity and people really resonate with authenticity as it relates to like storytelling and like talking about yourself or your brand

Mikey: too.

Molly: Definitely. No,

Nick: that makes sense.

Have you

Mikey: seen [00:06:00] an impact on your consulting business? Like, that you can point back to the newsletter growth at this point?

Nick: Yeah, what's interesting is that, Yes, I have. It's a lot of it's indirect too, but what's helpful about the newsletter and posting on LinkedIn consistently is that it keeps me top of mind.

And so when people are looking for someone like me, like I'm in their inbox every other week, I'm on LinkedIn a couple times a week, and that me consistently showing up means that I'm always in the back of people's minds to where when Something comes up, which happens frequently. They'll just reply to my newsletter or send me a note.

I'm fortunate enough that I am like beyond fully booked from now until like forever. And so I'm just referring all of these, all the inbound interests I get out to friends, connections, people I've, I've talked with in the past. Um, and that's been really fun too.

Molly: I know we fast forwarded at early exit club, but I'm curious, like everyone in the marketing world that we talked to product marketers, growth marketers, You didn't grow up being like, I can't wait to be a growth marketer [00:07:00] when I grow up.

I need to write stuff on LinkedIn. What is a little bit about your background and how you kind of stumbled into this, this space? I know you have a cool journey.

Nick: When I was in high school, I forget if we talked about this earlier, when I was in high school, I started a internet radio station. This was like 2004.

So like before Spotify, I was just a kid in my parents house downloading songs illegally off of like Kazaa and LimeWire and like other services like that. I would play music for people on the internet. And I eventually like, I built this kind of non profit company where I had like 20 DJs across the world who would like donate their time to play for free.

It was a 501c3 charity, all that stuff. So that got me really interested in like the business side of things. And then I went to school for economics because I was kind of a lost kid at that part of my life. Didn't really know what I wanted to do. Failed calculus three times, was a terrible student. And then I got a job at a radio station, a local radio station in Dallas, and I was on their marketing team.

And so I would go [00:08:00] to events and promote the radio station. Uh, I've dressed up as Batman. I've dressed up as Santa Claus in July because Christmas in July is a thing and it's the devil. It's terrible. Like there are poor people like me. You've had to dress up in Santa suits in July in Texas, wearing ice packs strapped to your body to keep you cool.

It's horrendous. And so I've had, I've dabbled in marketing. A little bit, and then got lucky with a job after grad school doing affiliate marketing for like a home services company and just kind of went from there and, you know, selectively grew my career where I was really interested in and as a kid, I was always really into software.

I was in the Gmail beta because I was a nerdy kid who just spent a lot of time on the internet talking to strangers. And so like that. I kind of followed my interest and also where people would, would pay me money and stumbled into Google ads kind of haphazardly too. And then I've been doing some form of that for like the last eight years.

Gotcha.

Molly: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Do you have always [00:09:00] had like an internet side hustle going on?

Nick: Yeah, so I was one of those kids who was like, yeah, making websites as a kid, like my first website was just a bunch of like Dragon Ball Z GIFs from, you know, like a lot of those like hyper pixelated stuff, just like, it was just that, like all the way down, like scrolling marquees, all the like really old, like GeoCity

Molly: a loop and stuff.

Yes. Exactly. So great.

Mikey: It does seem like the marketers, Molly, like dabble, dabble, dabble, follow their curiosities online. Online. And then. Like you said, Nick, like start to curate maybe and say no to certain things, say yes to things that you're actually interested in. And pretty cool that that led you to, to Loom.

Like I've been a user of that for a while. I'm sure a lot of people listening have too. How did that door open up?

Nick: You know, working at Loom was a dream job in a lot of ways. And I got that job because. The company I was working out before I was running growth marketing there. And most of my experience was on like the B2C side running ads, but not doing like [00:10:00] broader demand generation.

And I knew I needed to hire a demand generation person to manage a lot of our campaigns and strategy and stuff. And so I didn't know what to look for, like how to hire a good person. So I combed through my, at the time, like very limited LinkedIn connection. Like my, I had like a thousand followers, like a thousand connections, like maybe at the time and just stumbled upon someone who at the time was working at InVision.

I sent out a bunch of DMs to people of like, Hey, this is about trying to hire a demand generation person. Can I buy you a coffee and like pick your brain for 30 minutes? This was like, 2018, 2019, like somewhere in there. And one of the people said, yes, we had a lovely conversation. A few months later, she quit and joined loom.

And then a few months after that, she posted the job I ended up getting hired for. And the second she made that post, I slid right back into her DMs. And I was like, Hey, this is literally the perfect job for me. Here's why. And so having that like [00:11:00] introduction that was outside of, you know, Any like job kind of transaction was really helpful in getting my foot in the door.

And then I spent entirely too long on the case study that they sent me because I really, really, really wanted that job. Very fortunately got it and was there for about two years.

Molly: Yeah, so cool. Yeah. And for those, I want to talk more about some Loom tips and tricks later. But for those that don't know, Loom is a video sharing platform, right?

Nick: Yeah, Loom is a asynchronous video communication platform. It's funny, it's been a long time since I've had to like elevator pitch. Yeah, it's like giving me the time when you leave. Well, but yeah, async video communication. Okay, got it. Yeah, I love it.

Molly: So in your day to day, Nick, like we know, yeah, you've got the paid growth stuff going, but what is it like helping people, you know, especially if it's going to be their first time going from like, Being a marketer at like a pretty big company and they're thinking about stepping out and going on their own as a freelancer.

What is that, Ike, like the GTM as a freelancer, like how does [00:12:00] that, do you find yourself in kind of a coaching position sometimes as well?

Nick: Kind of, yeah, like the, the first couple of weeks, like when you're starting out are always terrifying. You're always like, what am I doing? Like, I remember exactly when I quit my job with my, my last manager, I had a one on one, I told her two weeks were submitted.

And. I hang up the phone call and I'm like, what did I just do? Like, what is this? Like, I just quit this job, this nice salary, all this stuff. And so the early stages is, is kind of hard. But what I've started coaching people at, it's all like very informal. Like I just kind of donate my time to other people because I've been the recipient of other people donating their time.

Like how I got into Loom, that like, that person was very generous in doing that. And I try and, Reciprocate. And it's, and so there's a few things I coach people on. It's one is how do you tell your story? How do you position yourself in the market? And I know how to do this because a very smart PMN leader named Tamara, who y'all have had on, on the show before taught me, we did a little podcast where I recorded her kind of like walking [00:13:00] me through her personal positioning framework and how to apply it to my business.

And now that's like the gold star. I tell everyone to go look at and go follow of how do you talk about yourself? What companies do you serve? What type of work do you do? All of that is, is really important because when I started out, the storytelling I would do is like, look, I do growth marketing. I can do SEO.

I can do paid ads. I can do affiliate. Like I took everything I did in my career. And offered that as a service to companies and it's like the number one way to fail and burn out is a freelancer because you're offering Way too many things like The advice when you're full time is to be like a T shaped marketer of like, you know, Okay, a lot of things very good at like maybe one or two things and it's terrible advice for a freelancer You end up spreading yourself too thin the context switching between me doing like SEO keyword research and then going and optimizing Bids or doing some LinkedIn ads was really rough on me in the beginning.

So I coach folks to like that Pick a very narrow lane, [00:14:00] niche down, which can be controversial advice too, some people have success doing it other ways, but do that and like how you tell your story is so important because then everything comes out of that, like you finding good clients. comes out of telling your story well, then paying you a above market rate comes from, you know, positioning yourself and having a good story.

Because if you're the best at this thing, and that's the story you're telling to the market, then you can command those higher rates, which means you get better clients, which means they stick around, which means you can build case studies and they'll refer you to their friends. Like it just, everything compounds from like, how you go to market as a freelancer.

And it's one of those things I'm like, we're the obsessive about because it's been so key. To how, uh, successful I've been.

Molly: I relate to that in my years of freelancing. Definitely. Like, it was like, I do a little bit of everything and it was actually Mikey shout out to, it really helped me niche down to newsletters.

You remember that Mikey? Yeah. Like talking about just the newsletter service. This is pre Ghost Ranch days, but, and shout out to Tamara Grominski on [00:15:00] episode of one 14 of presentation thinking, where we also talk about personal positioning. And I know you've shared like a lot of your. Learning on personal positioning is built from her framework.

Will you share a little bit about, yeah, how you go about like the tactical like method of doing that with someone?

Nick: Yeah. And so I, I tell everyone to read that newsletter first, which we can maybe link in the, in the show notes. It's like my, my newsletter of like how to define your positioning as a freelancer and like everyone who has gone through it has said it's, it's super helpful.

And then I've talked to other freelancers who haven't positioned and like gone through an exercise and. They all end up doing it eventually or like finding a full time job instead. So it's like, it's either you do it or you just kind of like get out of the space a little bit. But for me, it's really about figuring out what parts of your career give you energy and are really exciting for you to do.

And then what parts don't. Kind of like a fuelers, drainers exercise. If y'all have ever gone through something like that. Cool. I've never heard those words. It's like the stuff that either gives you [00:16:00] energy or like drains energy from you is really helpful with like, how do you calibrate, like what direction it's like a compass kind of like where you go in your freelancing journey.

And because you're going to be doing this all the time, like my, my day to day is like I optimize ads and I sit in meetings and I try and sit at as few meetings as possible, but like I'm doing the thing that I really, really like. Almost exclusively every working hour of every day like I don't do performance reviews.

I don't do any of the stuff That doesn't give me energy. I don't manage people. I don't have a team and so like that calibration early on is very helpful So you can build sustainable business in terms of what gives you energy? Like, how fun do you find all of this stuff? Because if you're freelancing business, is it fun?

If you're not enjoying the work you're doing, then it's not, you're not going to have a good time.

Molly: Yeah. Oh, for sure. You and Mikey, how do you relate to that in growing Ghostrash? You know? A hundred

Mikey: percent. Yeah. Like, yeah. When I would sell a new, like a web design project, I [00:17:00] would, I would Immediately get a pit in my stomach because I was like, oh, now like in over my head.

I know I'm going to have to like, they're gonna ask me for some coding stuff that I can't do. And you know, I like hack it on the fly. But as soon as I found a love for presentations decided like, okay, this might be a thing. I wasn't sure, but I felt like, you know, this one client needs, it's surely other people do planted the flag and started saying no and sending those website projects elsewhere.

Felt so good. And the work picked up. Was much easier to develop word of mouth because people associated, Oh, Mikey, like does PowerPoint or whatever. There's so much better for the, that just like the referral engine. And again, like Molly, when we were talking with your career, I had to just think like, how do people talk about you and that association, because when I talk to people and Nick, I'm sure you're the same way.

It's like someone, I want to go into marketing, you know, it's like, Oh man, like, good luck. It's so broad and you, you [00:18:00] will like eventually break through, but I like your, the T shape concept, but like, like try to pick something that you could really own within that space and tell people that that's where my passion is maybe.

And yeah, I'm all about that, that niching down too.

Molly: So is it like kind of like an upside down T, Nick? Cause if the, if the average marketer at a company with a team has like. He's kind of good at a lot of things and then eventually we'll get really good at one thing or one or two things. It's kind of the reverse

Nick: of that, right?

It is. That's actually a genius way to describe it because, like, the reverse to your freelancing is, like, how do you do billing? How do you do, like, all the stuff at the bottom is, like, billing and contracts and Yeah, that'll come. Do you join a Slack channel? All the, like, tactical stuff that is, like, not as important is, like, picking the main things you do and you help people.

So, yeah, that's, it's perfect.

Molly: Pick the lane. Cool. Yeah. And what do you think the role, like, talk about like setting up the story for kicking off this business and like freelance life for people, but what's the role of story in how [00:19:00] freelancers present their work to like clients and set expectations? I know you've said attributed a lot of your strategy there to your success.

Nick: Yeah. And so a lot of these people hire me to be the expert. And so you have to put your expert hat on and tell them what to do and kind of have opinions on the right and the wrong way to do this. And I'm very fortunate that my first job, when I started doing Google ads, actually, I had to present to the CEO of this, like, 100 person company every two weeks, the performance of my Google ads.

The CEO was one of those guys who never took notes and just could remember everything. Like he had this like crazy memory. So he would just sit there and I just go through my presentation

Music: for

Nick: every other week for like three years. And that really helped hone my presentation skills. I had a good manager that would schedule our one on ones immediately after I gave those presentations.

And we'd hop into the one on one and he'd be like, Alright, this was great, this you should work on next time. Like, very tactical, presentation based feedback. And [00:20:00] it's so helpful because part of being successful at anything is half of it is like, are you good at doing your job? And the other half is do other people think you're good at your job?

Like that perception is strangely important to our weird human brains. And so when you're working with a client and presenting your work, you know, kind of like this, the frameworks, like bottom line upfront is, is always really helpful when you're going over performance, but like spending time to really figure out how do you structure.

Whatever call you're going to be on or whatever form or presentation you're doing, be it a slack message, an email, a loom, a zoom call with someone, like putting the time into structure and layout the narrative and the story you want to tell is really important at loom. My manager was like consistently the most prepared person in every meeting.

Because she would go in and write out her talking points ahead of every single meeting and she would just come off Super [00:21:00] polished and just very like on top of everything because she would just write everything down like nothing was a surprise Nothing was off the cup. It wasn't like fully scripted, but she had her like bullet points out And like, I learned so much from that of like how you present yourself.

It's all those little things and preparing. And so I do all of that now, like ahead of meetings or presentations or QBRs or any of any of that stuff, like putting the time in to map out your talk track and kind of work through it, uh, is really helpful in how your clients perceive you. And if they think you're doing a good job, then they retained you for longer.

And you have a longer, like, you know, ACV with them is a, is a client. And, uh, everyone is better off. I

Molly: love that.

Mikey: Nick, I think we're all so busy, a lot of people might say like, I don't have time to prepare for this, this meeting. I have to wing it. Like, how do you tactically, like, structure your day? Is like, do you actually block some time to, like, up ahead of calls and stuff like that?

Nick: Yeah. Like I, I try really hard never to have back to back calls.

Mikey: Okay.

Nick: I [00:22:00] want, I want a gap and ideally I want some like 30 minutes or an hour of gap, like some of that is break decompression time. Yeah. Some of that is like, I need to prep and some of the prep I do ahead of time of like, Oh, like. Every week I have, you know, various like reporting updates I give to my clients.

And so some of those, I just have like templates of like, here's like, here's the biggest update. Here's like a list of all the changes I've kind of made, all those things. But yeah, like finding the time there is actually quite important because if you have a rough You know, reporting called one of your clients or your boss or something, which like I have been there and it can, it colors the whole relationship in a way and can kind of sour and things that I find is not productive.

And so I find it helpful to like spend the time and put the effort in. I just like bake that into the time commitment for whatever client I have.

Molly: And I love that, like, even if an ad isn't doing well, I love the idea of, it's truly the perception and a lot of the way you present the work, because even if something's not maybe on paper going up [00:23:00] or looking successful, it's like your analytics, your observations around it, and then the way you are able to talk about it is everything.

Like, it's not necessarily just about like the numbers.

Nick: Yeah. And if stuff isn't good, the stuff that's not going well is often the most interesting stuff for me to talk about. Like when numbers are up. I'm kind of bored. I'm like, oh, this is great, like we're hitting goals, like stuff is going up. But like, I want to try things.

The performance marketing lane is very like iterative and experimentation based. And so I want to fail because failing is, is learning. And like, that is what's really interesting about that kind of work for me. Cool. That's awesome.

Mikey: I've heard that framework that what, so what now, what kind of where, where like the numbers are just the, what, but it is sort of the consultant to deliver those insights and recommendations from there.

So I think that's probably what separates the mundane and the, the drone like day to day from like the stuff that excites Nick and the people probably that you coach. Yeah, for sure.

Molly: What's your typical, do you have a typical client Nick? Just out of curiosity.

Nick: It's, it's almost [00:24:00] always a software company.

Usually if they're running paid ads, it's like series a series B like around that funding or like revenue stage, like 10 to a hundred million in revenue is like kind of the sweet spot there. It's often the VP or head of marketing that brings me in, but then they're not often the person I talk with. It's usually some more like.

Individual contributor level marketer who has more time in their schedule to kind of like facilitate with me.

Music: Cool.

Nick: But like, I have a client in the like AI search space. I have a client in like the Dropbox digital asset management, like cloud storage kind of space. I have a Canadian fintech company. I have a Slack alternative for like governments.

And so it's like, it's kind of like all over the board. And that's what's fun is like, I get this like broad perspective. And it's funny this week over the past seven days, I've had the same conversation with all of my clients. August has been terrible for everyone. Like leads [00:25:00] are down, conversion rates are down.

People aren't responding to leads. Like the whole funnel is just like messed up right now. And so it's like, it's funny to like pattern match across multiple companies and like talk my clients off a cliff. I'm like, look, every single one of you is having a problem and either I'm the common denominator, which is like, who knows, maybe, or,

Molly: or there's like something else going on, which is totally, it's, yeah, each can inform the other with.

But it's different

Nick: parts of the work, you know, it's cool. Yeah. And that's, there's value in that. Like my clients ask me all the time, like, what are your other clients doing? Like, how are they going? And like the storytelling aspect of like, let me walk you through what I'm seeing is a valuable part of a consultant's job too.

Molly: Yeah. Landscape story and stuff. And speaking of storytelling, I know you're, yeah, you're a great writer and you put out, as you said, a lot of like free resources on LinkedIn must, must follow, we'll link you in the show notes. What's your take on, like, LinkedIn messaging? Everyone's starting to try it. I've, well, has been trying it out for a while now.

And, like, do you have a strategy with what works [00:26:00] and what doesn't on LinkedIn? If anyone is wanting to start posting more thought leadership content on LinkedIn, what's your take?

Nick: Yeah, I've, I've waffled on LinkedIn strategy quite a bit over the last year. The best thing I did was post about quitting my job on LinkedIn.

Everyone loves a good, I just quit my job to go solo or whatever post. Like it's, it's, it's the easiest, like next thing to start talking about. And like, I've had content roadmaps that I followed, I've hired a LinkedIn writing coach to help edit my posts and to help write posts for me and like build out a schedule.

I've hired a VA to let comb through LinkedIn and help me build my audience. I've experimented a lot with like LinkedIn is a channel. I think when it comes to writing and I don't have a set strategy right now. Like I post one to two times a week right now. I used to be a like four, four to five. I'm like, I just don't have time or interest to do it, which is kind of funny when you think about what I said about finding time to prepare for meetings, which I [00:27:00] felt like, what do you, what do you, what do you like prioritize in your life or your business right now?

But, uh, I post about what I think is interesting and I post about the most recent newsletter that I write and usually something about that. I get a lot of inspiration for what to post when I talk with other people. Like when I quit my job, I had a ton of networking calls. I scheduled, like I would take a networking call with pretty much any other marketer, any person who was like vaguely interested in me or what I do.

Uh, and I would get a lot of inspiration from those like one on one conversations that then fueled the early parts of my newsletter, the early LinkedIn strategy I was kind of running. So it was like a solopreneurs version of like customer interviews or customer feedback. And I would use that to talk about insights and my perspective on those things.

Mikey: Nick, I was curious, you know, we talked about Tamara Grominski. I ran into her, seen her up on big stages. Is that something in your, in your future? Have you done much presenting? And is that something you're looking to, to grow into?

Nick: I've done a bit of presenting. [00:28:00] Yeah. And I would love to, anyone who wants to fly me out to a marketing conference and have me talk about growth marketing or consulting or being your own boss or any of these things, like happy to do that.

Loom kind of farmed me out to a few conferences to go speak work. They sponsored the event. And you know, like the request came from like CEO. He said, no VPs. They said, no directors. They said, no, like it waterfalled down to me as the lowly growth marketing person who was like, hell yeah, fly me to New York for a couple of days so I can go present at this conference.

Uh, so I haven't done much, but would very happily do it now that I'm based in, in New York city too. Yeah, that's right. I

Molly: was

Nick: thinking about, yeah.

Molly: And I know you've said you you've loved writing in the past and you've put yourself to work with it and just with that practice, what would you say to someone?

It's that soft skill that I think a lot of people tend to avoid. It's like, Oh, I'm not a writer on the other side. Like I'm not a designer, but like, how had that soft skill played into helping your work?

Nick: Yeah, I think it's been everything. The Joe [00:29:00] Thomas, the CEO of Loom, like he has this saying that communication is the mother of, of all skills.

Like everything comes from being a good communicator, like be there, like written or verbally. And I think especially now where so many of us are remote, we communicate. Over Slack, being able to write out your thoughts in a way that is like clear, concise, well formatted, easy to understand is really a huge advantage and I've always liked writing because it gives me time to process my thoughts and organize them in a way like I'm often not a great off the cuff person.

Thanks. Like my, my wife and my best friends joke that I have like one or two good jokes a year, like one or two really, really good ones. It's just like a valley after that. They've

Molly: been simmering. They've had,

Nick: yeah, they marinate for a bit. Then, like, I think writing gives me the chance in the outlet to like express myself in a way in a format that I'm kind of comfortable with.

And everything is writing [00:30:00] and LinkedIn, like everything is practicing writing to like writing on LinkedIn and slacks and emails. All that stuff is super helpful. Um, I've read a bunch of books of like how to improve your writing and all of that stuff. I think that's also really valuable. Even if your career is it in writing, if you're not a copywriter or a newsletter writer or whatever.

It's still like by far one of the most skills you can like actively focus on and improve.

Molly: Yeah, I know. Yeah. Well, I would could definitely see you. I mean, at the conference we met at, I was thinking we've, we've played it on the cast multiple times, spring by winter, uh, Leha. And, um, I totally, that was a, they talked so much about LinkedIn messaging, writing and storytelling in that way.

And I could totally see you fitting in perfectly there. So. I'll be, I'll be excited to attend again and see you there.

Nick: I'll probably be there. That was the best conference I've ever, I've ever been to, so yeah, come on, pick. It was great,

Molly: I know. I came back singing its praises to Mikey, yeah, for sure. Yeah,

Mikey: I'm gonna go.

All right, I want to hear about the loom, the insider loom [00:31:00] action, like, how do you actually Give us

Molly: the hacks.

Mikey: What makes a good one? Like a good, asynchronous Yeah, hello via a video.

Nick: Yeah, there's a few things. The key is to start out with some kind of wave or Motion on the camera because when you paste a loom somewhere it has this preview gif of the first few seconds It'll like animate a little bit and like that is is eye catching So I wave the beginning of every single one of my looms.

It's like a subconscious thing I could I have my camera on too Not every person records a loom with their camera on. There's a lot of stuff that goes into looking at your appearance and Seeing and hearing yourself on camera is a lot of like uncanny valley for people And I've just had that beaten out of me by working at loom and recording hundreds of looms over my career there So wave have your camera on people relate to you more.

They want to see you as a person Don't record like 50 takes try and try and one shot your loom [00:32:00] leave in the weird thing you touch your face You do whatever like leave in the bloopers because it makes you human if you rerecord 500 times you strip out all the fun stuff about you and it becomes more Robotic and like not as interesting to watch Keep it short one or two minutes like real real tight real short If it's longer than that You need to like condense and like find a way to make it work because no one wants to watch a like 10 Or 15 minutes.

And so, yeah, those things make a good loom and use them to replace a meeting. If you don't think a meeting needs to happen, which often they don't need to try sending a loom instead. And I try and tell this to my clients too. I send them looms and they only watch half of them. So it's been like really interesting to watch how people receive looms.

Now that I don't work there anymore, because when you're in there and you're building the product, like everyone's trading looms or flying around all day, it's very deeply embedded into everything. And then you step out of the bubble and you're like, Whoa, [00:33:00] like people use this a little differently than we did internally.

Molly: Yeah. I was going to ask replacing a meeting seems like such a good use, but yeah, how for folks that are less familiar, how could it help freelance folks or anyone with their day to day work be more efficient or use a uses like mark V tool as well?

Nick: Yeah, like the, the most common meetings that don't need to happen are update meetings of like, here's the status on this project.

Here's paid marketing performance last week. Those things don't need to be a 30 minute or God forbid a 60 minute meeting on your calendar. They can be a two to three minute loom of like, here is the summary. Here is the overview. If there are questions, let's book a meeting to talk about. A tactical thing that we can do to like solve it like oh traffic is down And so like i'm gonna go meet with molly Tomorrow to go like dive into this one thing, but like a generic update doesn't need to be a meeting.

It is a terrible use of time. I'm very biased in like my thinking here because my brain is kind [00:34:00] of trained a certain way after working at Bloom and like living this lifestyle, but like those things. Don't need to be meetings at all. And you'll be amazed at the time you get back when, when you're not sitting in those often.

Mikey: I love that. It makes sense. Yeah. I've always hated as a freelancer and then agency owner having to, um, send a proposal without any representation, like without a meeting, we always are coached to like, no, you want to like discuss the proposal on a meeting, but sometimes you just can't. And so that's when I found loom to be really helpful.

It was like. It just, there's a little bit of nuance and sometimes a proposal looks like so black and white. Whereas you might be like. Hey, you know, this area, we could come up or down based on whatever you want, blah, blah, blah, but I, I've found it really helpful to at least feel represented when you're sending something as, you know, like loaded emotionally as, as like a proposal.

And so I've, I don't know, I try to steer us toward using it for those kinds of purposes, but yeah.

Nick: Well, it, it ties a piece of your humanity to it too, which is very helpful. Like [00:35:00] you send this document, it's just this like black thing on a screen. That's like devoid of a lot of you as a person. And so when you have a loom, suddenly it's your face and your audio.

And like, you're talking through, it's like, it's a much more kind of like human way of telling a story of like, Hey, here is the proposal, blah, blah, blah. That's like is more relatable to fun fact. I have never live presented any of my proposals. They're all asynchronous. Cool. Yeah. Notion documents with loom overviews, because one, I hate it.

Like I don't want, I hate presenting. And so I don't want to do any of that stuff. Do I just find it's more helpful and it saves me time too.

Music: Yeah.

Molly: Yeah.

Nick: But

Molly: you still get that like context and the, like, from your, you know, human, human communication experience. And Mikey, I, I mean, I think it's been super helpful in moments where I'm helping someone with narrative and stuff, and we have like a new iteration, we've already, like, we're already in the work and it's happening, but we have a new iteration [00:36:00] we just want to talk through, that you wouldn't necessarily be able to communicate through like a Google Slides comment or something, why you chose this or this color, or you're like, ooh, check it out in this thing, so like going through a screen recording, Just a basic thing has been really helpful.

So I could I could absolutely see how loom would just save some time And yeah,

Mikey: explain you're thinking a little bit.

Molly: Yeah, explain your thinking. Molly.

Mikey: Are we about to step into the spice cabinet?

Molly: I think it's time we got

Mikey: Now

Molly: that we're here and I was gonna say first in the spice cabinet just Nick since you're such an evangelist of loom I will I see there's a community forum and like a resource link.

So I'll link the I'll link that on spice cabinet

Nick: Yeah, I I helped build that like little community kind of like forum You Like we used to be called the loom library and they changed it to the loom community, but you scroll through and like my picture, I got looms in there. So, okay. Perfect. Yeah. Go, go find my looms in the library.

Mikey: All right. For those not. Watching as I am, but listening, Nick is wearing an [00:37:00] incredible hat and I want to know where I can get one of those hats or like, if I can't, where did you get the hat? It's sweet.

Nick: You totally can. I have, I have a link to my, my gumroad store where I will sell you this. It comes in like eight different colorways.

There's pink, there's, which I'm wearing. There's light blue, there's gray, there's green, there's a tan, there's a few bunch of colors. I'll send it to y'all. We'll, we'll drop it below, but yeah, you got to have the merch when you're on, when you're on guests on a lovely podcast.

Molly: Exactly. All right. Yeah. And so we'll link the swag.

And then of course people, where else can people find you?

Nick: Yeah. The best place is, is LinkedIn. Look me up. My name's Nick, Nick Lafferty, subscribe to my newsletter while you're there. Follow me. Send me a message. Better yet. Send me a loom. Very, very few people send me looms, even though I try and receive as many of them as possible, but, uh, yeah,

Molly: I love it.

And I know you just heard you say, I know you're not a fan of live presenting, but you're an incredible storyteller and an incredible communicator. Curious to know, [00:38:00] what, who are some of your, like, you have a favorite speaker or presenter or TED talk you've seen?

Nick: I do. My favorite, like, presenter slash, like, author right now, his name is Arthur C.

Brooks. He's a Harvard professor on the science of happiness. And I find this really, really interesting of, like, what goes into being happy, studying, like, cohorts of happy people. He wrote a book with Oprah. Last year or something, which is kind of wild. And he writes a column at the Atlantic and has a podcast about the science of happiness.

He's very, very interesting. I've kind of learned a lot. Used to be like a professional, like cello player or trumpet player, some kind of like instrument that he was a professional at. And then he has like had this wildest career pivot into Harvard and teaching and happiness and all of that stuff. And so he's cool.

Uh, he has a good podcast with Ryan Holiday that's on YouTube. Cool. That's really good too.

Mikey: Check that out. Okay. Awesome. Nick, what's, I know you're passionate [00:39:00] about what you do for work, what makes you happy outside of work or like any places you. You go to like, refill your bucket and find inspiration.

Nick: It's almost always like some kind of one on one or like one on two connections. I thrive in like groups in a maximum of like three to four people is my preferred group size for online. Any kind of in person event. I said earlier that a lot of my newsletters and LinkedIn posts were kind of inspired and drawn from conversations I had with people.

And so I thrive in those things. When I have time, I enjoy. Playing video games too. I'm going to admit something wildly embarrassing because this is a safe space. That's what the Spice Cabin is for. Earlier this year I got really into the video game World of Warcraft, which is an online MMO. World building.

It's it's yes, very world building. It's like 20 years old or longer. I was gonna say that. And I got really into it. I would stay up late. I made [00:40:00] friends online. And in all these games, you can join like guilds or like communities of people. And I joined a guild and like worked my way up to guild master. So I was like running this whole guild and like organizing everything.

And then I moved and I kind of like shut everything down. But it was like a solid like six months of me having like probably the best internet gaming experience I've had since I was a kid. That's awesome. Incredibly fun.

Molly: Yeah. So, yeah, it takes you back to the LimeWire days, hosting your online radio show.

Nick: Chasing that nostalgia.

Molly: I'm going to add Guildmaster to your intro, for sure. I should

Nick: put that on my LinkedIn profile. Yeah, endorse

Molly: the Guildmaster, yeah. Do you have any, like, I know you have produced your own podcast, but you're not currently doing that, right? Correct. But we'll link it anyway. All But do you have any favorite like resources, like whether it's podcasts or another newsletter you follow for anyone that is thinking about freelancing or is a [00:41:00] freelancer, growth marketer that could be useful to them?

Nick: Yeah, I really enjoy Elena Verna's newsletter. I forget what it's called. She's now like VP of growth at Dropbox. She's had like a very wildly successful and impressive career. She was a solopreneur freelancer for a long time and wrote about in her newsletter, her kind of transition from full time marketer to being like, kind of a terrible manager who would do everything herself.

To then becoming a solopreneur and figuring out what gives her joy and like, what does she want to work on versus what doesn't. So I've like framed a lot of my learnings and understandings from her newsletter, Elena's Growth Scoop. Oh yeah. There. Love

Molly: that. Elena's Growth Scoop. Better than goop. Okay. I mean, yeah.

Inspiration from World of Warcraft. Very cool. I know you just moved to New York and you mentioned it earlier. What are you most looking forward to about New York City [00:42:00] life?

Nick: Yeah, walking everywhere and taking public transport. Like we sold our cars. I lived in suburban Texas my whole life. And part of the draw of moving here was being able to walk everywhere.

So like on Monday, 4 p. m. I logged out of all my work, shut my laptop down, walked to the gym, which was about 10 minutes away. After the gym, I walked like around the corner to the grocery store, got some vegetables, some stuff for dinner. Later in the week, I walked two more minutes to a Chinese takeout place to get dinner.

And then I walked five more minutes home. It was like, it was everything I want in like a perfect little, like 10 minute walking radius. And so that is what I'm most looking forward to is just more of that. Love it. Walkable

Molly: neighborhoods. Life changing. Love

Nick: that.

Mikey: Love it. Speaking of walking. All right, Nick.

Let's say we do coerce you into saying yes to something like a TEDx. Yes. You're hitting the stage. What's gonna be your walkout song?

Nick: Yep. [00:43:00] My walkout song is Spin by Taking Back Sunday. 100

percent dates me to like when I was In high school and the kind of like music I was, I was into, but there are like parts of that song that I have already imagined myself walking out on the stage at like that kind of stuff. You're just like daydreaming and think about, or maybe I'm just the only person who does this.

Like I had that one ready to go, like you asked me that question in the notes and I was like, I instantly know the answer to this question.

Molly: There's, I love, I want to know the psychology between like people that know immediately and then the people like me that are paralyzed with like 12 options immediately, you know, that's awesome.

I love, I love a confident answer there. Take, did you ever see them live taking back Sunday?

Nick: I did. They opened for Coheed and Cambria. A couple of years ago, and my one regret is I wanted to buy this T-shirt and I didn't buy, it's like a green taking back Sunday T-shirt. I didn't buy it [00:44:00] and I really wish I did.

So I wish I could go back in time and force myself to buy that $40 T-shirt would've wor like a hundred times. Yeah.

Molly: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Don't if you're, if you're on the fence about merch by it, you'll regret it. Yeah. Pink,

Mikey: just do it. It might have changed the course of history though, so you're in a good space now.

You're walking all over New York and you're a guild master, so Yeah. Nick Lafferty, do you have any, any parting shots for any listeners, uh, before we let you go?

Nick: Yeah, I mean, I think people really underestimate what they're capable of. Like, when I started this journey, my confidence was kind of at an all time low.

Like, I was coming out of not great, Career stuff happening at the companies I used, I used to work at and like not really figuring out what I wanted to do next and starting this business and consulting has really boosted my confidence, but also taught me that I'm capable of so much more than what I'm thinking of.

And so I'm very glad that I took that scary leap into. solopreneurship a little bit. And I think we're all a [00:45:00] lot more capable than we give ourselves credit for.

Molly: Wow. Beautiful. That's the pull quote right there. Well, on that note, Mikey, we don't need to say much more. Besides go find Nick Lafferty, get inspired community for aspiring solopreneurs and early exit club.

And, uh, Nick, thank you so much for joining.

Nick: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

Molly: This is so much fun.

Mikey: Until next time, keep on pitching.