Communicating Expectations Well: John Doherty of Credo

You know, life is too short to work with jerks. So, you know, I think that’s really important. And yeah, sussing out those communication skills is really, really important.

Today on the show, we have the CEO and Founder of Credo, John Doherty. Credo is a platform where you can hire reliable, vetted marketing professionals. This week’s episode is less about remote work itself, but more about managing and communicating expectations — whether you’re a leader of a company, a client, or a freelance consultant.

We also talk about managing communities associated with a marketplace-style business, and John’s thoughts on building a bootstrapped, profitable company outside of Silicon Valley.

John is also one Codementor’s (an Arc product) happy users, and it really was a pleasure to have him on the podcast. Enjoy the episode!

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Topics also covered on the podcast episode:

• 4:30 — How John keeps in touch with the Credo community.
• 7:00 — Has John’s mindset about remote work changed over the years?
• 11:05 — The difference between managing a client vs managing a product.
• 14:30 — How a leader can be better at writing expectations, especially in a remote organization.
• 20:00 — What soft skills John looks for when hiring a remote contractor.
• 28:32 — How remote freelancers can “sell” themselves better.
• 32:28 — John’s thoughts on building a profitable business outside of Silicon Valley.
• 35:06 — Can you build connections remotely?

Mentioned resources:

• Credo
• Codementor
• Credo team page
• Don’t Hire Remote Workers by John Doherty
• Claire Lew – Building Social Trust in Remote Teams
• John Mueller
• Matt Cutts
• Million Dollar Consulting
• Indie Hackers
• Basecamp
• Zillow
• Union Square Ventures
• Fred Wilson
• Pieter Levels
• Nomad List
• Brennan Dunn
• Double Your Freelancing
• Indie Hackers’ interview with John Doherty
• Jason Calacanis
• John Doherty’s interview on This Week In Startups
• John Doherty’s Twitter
• John Doherty’s Instagram

Full transcript:

Jovian: Hello, world. Welcome to another episode of “Outside The Valley,” the podcast where we interview remote startup leaders, remote workers, remote work advocates, and companies who thrive outside of Silicon Valley. This is the show where remote companies share what works and what doesn’t so you can do it right. “Outside the Valley” is brought to you by Arc, the remote hiring platform that helps you hire remote software engineer and teams easily. I’m your host for today, Jovian Gautama.

Today on the show, we have John Doherty, the CEO and founder of Credo, a platform where you can hire reliable, vetted marketing professionals. This week’s episode is a bit special. It’s less about remote work itself, but more about managing and communicating expectations, whether if you are a leader of a company, a client hiring freelance consultants, or if you are a freelance consultant yourself. We also talk about managing communities affiliated with a marketplace style business and John’s thoughts on building a bootstrap, profitable company outside of Silicon Valley. I really enjoyed the episode. John is a fantastic guy, and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too. Here we go.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show. Today I’m sitting with John Doherty, the founder and CEO of Credo. Hey, John, how is it going?

John: Good, Jovian. How are you doing today?

Jovian: Great. It’s awesome. Yeah, let’s just kick this off then. Just to start, can you tell me more about yourself and your company, Credo?

John: Absolutely. So my name is John and I live in Denver, Colorado. And so I’ve been in the digital marketing industry for about a decade now. And I’ve worked agency-side, in house, and then also for the last four years running my own company. Been through a lot, seen a lot, worked with a lot of really awesome companies helping them drive organic growth. And what I’ve been doing for the last four years is basically helping companies find and hire the right digital marketing firm for their needs.

So at Credo, basically what we do, basically, what Codementor or CodementorX, is now Arc, does for helping companies find developers, a high touch, white glove approach to helping them find, hire, and pay developers. That’s what Credo does for the digital marketing industry. Yeah, so over the last four years, we’ve helped a few thousand businesses get connected up with great digital marketing firms. I’ve seen over $70 million dollars in digital marketing projects come through, you know, come across our plates. Obviously, not all data has closed but, you know, we’ve worked with everyone from, you know, small mom and pop shops, all the way up to some of the biggest companies in the world helping them find the right digital marketing talent.

Jovian: Yeah, that’s awesome. Can you share a bit more about how did you create Credo on the first place, like the history of it?

John: Yeah, for sure. So, like most products, it came out of meeting my own need. So I was working for an agency in 2012, 2013. And I got to the end of 2012 and had gotten a promotion and was pretty tired. And I was doing some side consulting as well. I was like, “I’m gonna stop consulting.” I was 28, single, living in Brooklyn, New York. And so I stopped taking on consulting clients.

People were like, “Well, who should we work with?” And I told my current clients, I was like, “I’m stopping at the end of the month.” And they’re like, “Well, who should we work with?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” And so I literally built out a Google Sheet of people that I knew that they could work and started referring clients to them. And then I was like, “Wait, lead generation is a big business.”

And so I e-mailed… I got another client that was perfect for a buddy of mine. I e-mailed him. I’m like, “Hey, man, would you be willing to…here’s the lead. Would you be willing to pay 50 bucks for the intro?” He’s like, “Yeah, absolutely. What’s your PayPal?” And so 50 or 3 minutes later, l had 50 bucks in my PayPal account, sent him the lead. He closed it into a couple thousand dollar… You know, he made thousands of dollars from this lead. And I went and bought a domain name.

So I started working. So that was February, March 2013. I started working on it full-time September 2015 when I got laid off from my last job. And so we rebranded and then we’ve been through a bunch of different business models, but now… And I did that when I was living in San Francisco, but so Credo is all bootstrapped. I now have a small team and we’re based in Denver, Colorado.

Jovian: Great, and how many marketing providers are there now on your platform?

John: Somewhere around a hundred is about what we have right now. So we don’t focus on freelancers. We focus on marketing firms, marketing agencies, and senior marketing consultants.

Jovian: And an interesting thing about building a marketplace startup, it’s similar to Codementor, similar to Arc and also Credo, right? When it grows bigger, seems like it’s easy to lose touch with the so-said community, right? In Codementor, we have thousands of mentors in Arc, also hundreds and thousands of developers either freelance or full-timers. And sometimes actually, it’s not easy to update them and keep close because in a way, they are our customers, right?

John: Yeah.

Jovian: What do you do for a sale? How do you keep the relationships between you and these agencies?

John: Yeah, that’s a good question. The answer is that it’s really hard. And once you hit a certain scale, it’s not possible to do like it was when you had, you know, 20. So historically, we’ve had a set of agencies that we had called our preferred agencies. Our bank would basically hang on for a month to get leads, and then paying us commission on work that they closed. So those are really like our best customers. And then we basically had our directory. That’s actually changing.

So we’re kind of in that transition phase right now. And so basically, we’re gonna be building out kind of account management layers. So, you know, agencies that are closing more work, basically, we’re gonna give them, you know, more support, Agencies that need more support with multiple seats and that sort of stuff we’re gonna give them more support. And, you know, and others that are maybe just like billing a project a year, two projects a year, they don’t need that high touch right?

Jovian: Right.

John: We can have like, a light touch and just, you know, occasional e-mails and that sort of thing. So it really comes down to like the 80, 20 of it, right? Like at Codementor keeping in touch with the best ones that are working with the biggest clients to make sure that they’re happy, make sure that the clients are happy, that’s gonna do way more than getting in touch with someone that might do one project a year.

Jovian: Right. And how many core team members do you have in Credo right now, including your dog, of course?

John: Including my dog, there’s four. Not including my dog, there’s three.

Jovian: That’s pretty lean.

John: Yeah, we’re super lean. Myself, a business development guy, and then my developer, you know, kind of lead technical person and he’s like 60%, 70%, but I really think of him as a partner in the business. And then we have some other like contractors. I have a finance contractor and a link building contractor and a business coach and, you know, that sort of stuff as well. So but really, like, core team is three plus my dog, which is four.

Jovian: Got it. That’s awesome. So in terms of team management, so, back down in 2011, you wrote an article, it’s so-called “Don’t hire remote workers.”

John: Yeah.

Jovian: But for our listeners, I’ll add this on the show. And you can find the articles there. And it’s very old in internet years. It’s like centuries old.

John: Very old.

Jovian: And how do I know this is old? You mentioned about using Skype, GChat and Google Plus. You can be catching them.

John: Do I still mention Google Plus? Oh, no.

Jovian: Yeah, you mentioned… Two of them are dead.

John: Yeah.

Jovian: So it’s been a while now. So do you still have the same mindset as you did back in 2011 when it comes to hiring?

John: Definitely not. Yeah, it’s funny kind of looking back because I haven’t looked at this in a really long time. And it’s funny because, at the time, I was working for an agency that was spread across three different offices in Seattle, New York, and London. And basically, I wrote this because it’s really challenging to have… And I have to say further down that I don’t think that always hiring remote workers is always a bad idea. I think the company has to be set up for that.

So my wife, for example, works for Trello. And they’re 70%, 75% remote, but they have things built into their culture that everyone feels like they’re remote, basically, and then remote workers don’t feel like second-class citizens. You know, I have…my core team is all here in Denver. I just happened to find the right people here. I worked with some, you know, part-time people that were remote, and it just didn’t work out for me, honestly.

Like, I know how to manage. I don’t know how to onboard and train and then manage effectively, get them to, you know, be bought into the mission, vision, and values of the company. I don’t know how to do that effectively.

I can do it in person, for sure. But then, you know, I also have actually a freelance developer who’s based in Ohio, right, who did a bunch of work for me back in the day and now he’s back doing work for us. But, you know, my technical lead is managing him. So, you know, I’m not completely against it. I’ve seen it work really well. I’ve also seen it work badly, you know, and honestly, for me at this point like I’m based in Denver. I love Denver. I love the mindset of people here in Denver. And I like building my company in Denver.

Jovian: Got it. Yeah, I think it’s a good lesson for startup founders out there. You got to have your culture and team set up so these talents are facilitated to perform at their best level.

John: Yeah, and it’s, you know, and it’s really hard, I’ve found… You may have a different perspective on this, I’m sure. But I’ve found that it’s hard to work with remote people when you don’t quite have what they’re working on to find. We don’t have the roles to find the specific tasks and that sort of thing. So if you’re trying to work with them to like, you know, solve problems and work out new things, then that’s gonna be really hard to do, especially if they’re not full-time.

But, you know, if they are, then it would probably be a lot easier, but if they’re not, then you know, they’re basically like a contractor and you’re asking them to, you know, lead this part of your company. It’s just the incentives are misaligned there. And that’s definitely a mistake, you know, that I made versus just like, “We’re building out this thing and we need these specific things done, right? We’re gonna loop you into our JIRA. We’re gonna get you working on those things.” You know, in that case, it can work very well.

So it’s just really like, what’s the role that you’re hiring for? And does that need to be in person or can that be remote if you find the right person?

Jovian: Right, I think this is a good segue to the next part, which I wanna talk about communication skills as a remote leader. I mean, John, I know that your core team members are basically in…are co-located. But I guess since you have also experience with, you know, more freelancers, and, of course, working with remote clients, like those clients are not people that you sit down in a meeting room with.

John: Right.

Jovian: So I wanna talk about this skill, how to sharpen this skill, especially when you were a consultant before. So I felt like just like startups, solo consulting is one of the gateways to build remote company, right?

John: Right.

Jovian: So you used to work in an office, and then you moved out and started solo consulting. You started finding clients yourself remotely on the internet, and then you subcontract some work. And then boom before you know it, you have a somewhat like, hybrid company or remote company.

John: Right.

Jovian: My question would be now, it’s you are kind of like managing a product now, right?

John: Mm-hmm.

Jovian: So did the mindset of working with clients help when it comes to managing your own product or what’s the biggest difference?

John: Oh, man, I mean, the difference between consulting and managing a product is like, it’s vast. It’s so, I mean, I did learn a lot of… You know, I’ve learned a lot of skills over the years. You know, I’ve rarely had clients in the city where I live. I’ve never had a consulting client in Denver, when I was living in New York, mostly right out around the country, and I had some overseas. I had some like in the UK and things like that.

When I was consulting, you know, in San Francisco, and then even here in Denver, you know, my clients are basically in New York and San Francisco because, you know, I’ve lived in those places. I have contacts in those places, that sort of thing, and, you know, these are very large, very well known, like, worldwide brands that I personally, you know, worked with. And so really, when it’s remote, what I’ve found in consulting is that, I mean, really, it comes down to a lot… And I tell our agencies and consultants this all the time. It really comes down to that communication, right?

Jovian: Right.

John: So the other thing, you know, is basically being very clear in the contract, in the proposal, like what it is you’re gonna be working on, you know, and then especially when it’s like…because I charge a lot of money for my own consulting when I do it. I haven’t done any consulting since April. Like I’m full-on product CEO at this point.

But, you know, when I’ve been doing my own consulting it’s been very specific about, “These are the things that I do,” and then basically helping them build out the structure. We’re doing weekly video calls. I’m telling them, you know, basic deliverable dates. Like, when am I gonna have these audits to you? How am I gonna work with your team, that sort of thing? And then for me, also, like, I mean, you know, I’ve had companies pay me five figures a month to consult with them, right? So like, at that range, I do, go visit them, right? I’d go visit them every couple months in New York or San Francisco. And I definitely found that that helped, you know, a lot.

But I wasn’t just like, you know, a “SEO services provider.” I was basically acting as like their director of SEO or director SEO, right, and then helping them hire teams that’s basically my model. So it was a little bit different model than like, a freelancer. Like, I’ve never called myself a freelancer.

Jovian: Got it.

John: But when it comes to managing a product, man, oh, my gosh, it’s completely different. I mean, because you have like multiple teams, and yeah, communication and all that and working across teams because even when you’re just doing like, you know, if you’re just consulting on or you’re just doing development, right, if you’re operating… If you’re just like writing code, right, the same as just like, if you’re just like writing content for someone as a marketer, that’s a very different thing than like kind of the level that I operate on, which is like working with their teams, and really helping them unblock themselves for growth, helping them get things done because I’ve grown…I’ve managed SEO teams. I’ve managed growth teams. I’ve managed growth engineers. I’ve done all of that, right?

So I can see across the teams and really like get people on the same side and get them talking together and speaking the same language to actually unlock that growth. And that’s really what I do now, right? I work like sales and tech, and then I’m kind of heading up like product vision and marketing and all of that. I can kind of see the bigger picture and help different people communicate, you know, together. So that’s just like, internally is how I do it. And then with a product, I mean, we’re basically selling, you know, specific like plans, right?

Jovian: Right.

John: Because we basically have like, membership plans. And that is, I mean, I’ve basically taken… I mean, you have to distill it down into a package, right? This isn’t custom stuff. I’ve done custom stuff before. That’s fine for getting it off the ground, right, and really learning what people need but eventually, you basically have to productize it as a product company.

Jovian: I think it’s interesting that I think as a consultant and as a CEO of a product, you basically… It all comes to one thing. This is cliche. You got to repeat it again, over again, but that’s the most important, which is communications, right?

John: Yeah.

Jovian: So last time I talked to Claire Lou from Know Your Team, and she was talking about how in remote companies or when you’re working with someone remotely, one of the most influential weapon that you can do or that you can have is have good writing skills or be a good writer.

John: Yeah.

Jovian: And I know that you are one of the most prolific writers out there. You just keep at things like constantly and you understand that this is something that you’re good at.

John: Yeah.

Jovian: Yeah, so I guess when you’re working with clients or remote team writing is very important. So my question will be currently, in this current situation, how does your writing skills come to play when it comes to communicating your vision, your project, or directions, etc, especially when you’re working with freelance contractors? And how can a founder or someone be better at writing and communicating this stuff like project specs, directions or advice to clients?

John: Yep, totally, I think it’s a great question. So kind of how we do it here at Credo is, for every major feature, we basically build out a feature document. And I actually have one pulled up because I was just working on one for a feature that we have coming up.

And so basically, what we do here is, so I let my technical partner, Ali, he is basically the one that figures out what’s the best way to build this and the best way to implement this, right? I basically look at it as the, I mean, basically as a PM and I say, like, “What are the core problems that we’re solving here?” And then on our marketplaces, is what’s the problem we’re solving for the client with this feature? What’s the problem we’re solving for the pro, right?”

So, you know, your case is freelance developers. For us, it’s marketing ease. And then what’s the Credo problem that we’re solving, right? So not all of them are having a problem solved. But ideally, as you’re building a marketplace, you have to solve, you know. And the future you’re building it’s like your solving problems on both sides.

So we do basically what’s the core problem? What are the proposed solutions? So like, how do we solve that problem? And then we basically go on and we research. Like, what are the different ways that we could do it?

So we’re built all on WordPress. So what are the WordPress plugins that we could use, what are our membership plugins that we could use, or do we build it out? And then, also like, what are other tools that we could white-label, we could integrate JavaScript libraries, what have you or do we just need to build it custom, right?

And so we’re all just making that trade-off, right, with our limited time, limited resources, money, development, time, people, that kind of stuff? You know, is it worth our time? A typical product problem.

Is it a typical server problem? Is it worth our time to build it ourselves? Should we build it ourselves or is there something that we can basically like, buy to get us up to speed much quicker?

And then if we decide to build custom, I let Ali take care of basically: how do we get it done. And then we work together on prioritization and scoping and that sort of stuff. So honestly, like writing is a superpower for an entrepreneur, for a marketer, for an entrepreneur, you know, for someone like operating on the internet, you know.

And so for us, like when we’re working with, you know, freelance developers, you know, that sort of stuff, I’m very specific and like, this is basically what we need to accomplish, right? These are the problems that we’re looking to solve. And then I basically want you to think about how do we best solve this, right? I’m not gonna tell you like, “Build it in Rails and use this thing and just, like, get it done,” right? No one wants to be doing that. I don’t wanna work with people that just wanna be that way.

I want people that are thinking about it and they’re like, “Actually, we could do it, you know, this way. But I don’t think that’s the best way. I think we should do it this way because of X, Y, and Z.” And I’m like, “Great, you go do that.” You know, I’m all about empowering people and not, like, putting people into a box and telling them. “You have to work within this.”

Obviously, like, we’re on WordPress, and if someone’s like, “Well, we should build this in Rails, but that means you’re gonna have to redo the whole thing in Rails,” I’m like, “Out of the question. How do we this within the tech stack that we have?” Same with like, you know, selling a project, right? So with, like with freelancers, you know, figuring out how to sell the project, there’s an infinite number of things that you can do, right?

And maybe a client comes to you and they’re like, “We need… You know, we’re trying to solve this problem.” And you could go and pitch them on a, you know, $100K project to completely redo their website, and redo their app, and rebuild it in the latest and greatest technology and all that sort of thing, right? And they come back and they’re like, “I just needed to build in multiple users to my app, right? And I’m not on Rails. I’m on WordPress,” right?

So, like, you way over-pitch them and they’re never gonna sign off on that, right? So you basically need to determine like what is the thing that they’re looking to solve and what’s the thing they’re actually gonna sign off on that also gets them to the goals that they’re trying to accomplish?

And that’s the work that you pitch and so you make it very clear that like, you know, “If I could have any unlimited budget, I would do this. But since we don’t and because you’re not going to be redoing the app and all that stuff, here’s how we do it. Here’s how I recommend that we do it, you know, within WordPress and here’s basically what it’s going to cost.”

Jovian: Got it. So based on your experience when you are hiring contractors, other than, of course, when you hire a contractor, you prefer to find those who somewhat already vetted, already tested out there. Someone with a great resume or a great experience already have, like, way public profile like in Codementor or in Arc, but other than that, if you go deeper, what are the soft skill traits that you’re looking when you’re hiring these contractors? Let’s say this person right here, I know that he or she got the experience, got the skill sets and what else? What soft skill are you looking for?

John: Yeah, it’s a good question. So really, I’m looking for communication.

Jovian: Right.

John: I’m looking for…so when I’m looking to hire someone, right, I’m not just looking for, like, a developer, right? If I’m looking to hire someone to help us out on Credo, I’m looking for someone that has experience working with WordPress, right, and custom WordPress apps because that’s what we have. So I’m looking for basically the people that are experts in that.

So basically, what I tell agencies and what I tell freelancers, right, when people are like, “Well, how do I, like, message myself? And how do I market myself?” I’m like, “Bare-bones minimum on your site, on your profiles, that sort of stuff.

You need to show your face. You need to show who you are as a person.

You need to say, ‘This is the kind of work that I do. And these are the kinds of companies that I do it for.'” So those right clients can be like, “Boom, that’s me. I’m contacting you,” right?

Jovian: Ah, I see, yeah.

John: But if they’re like… You know, if you work on WordPress sites, right, custom WordPress apps exclusively, someone that has a full Rails app that they’re not moving off of Rails anytime soon, they’re not gonna contact you and that’s fine. They’re not qualified for you anyways. You don’t even work on Rails apps. So you don’t even need them contacting you, right?

Jovian: Right.

John: So it’s like you focus on this stuff that you do, you know, the people that you do the best work for. And then, you know, for me, it’s basically like, you know, I hop on video calls with them and basically it’s like, “Can I communicate with them? Can we work through problems together?”

You know, I have actually worked with some people through Codementor. And I was trying to solve problems, and I was writing all the code on Credo. You know, I had worked with people and I was like, “Can I communicate with this person? Can we work through problems together?” And that’s just super valuable for me.

I don’t want somebody that’s just like, “Here’s a brief. Go build it. And don’t talk to me again until it’s built,” right? I want them to come back. I want them to be asking questions, as I actually like to talk with them through the problem and see how they think about solving that problem. I care way more… Obviously, I care about can they actually solve it technically or like in marketing can they actually, like, do the marketing work? Can they build the links? Can they create the content? Can they do the technical SEO? That stuff matters, absolutely.

But for me beyond that, once that stuff… That’s bare-bones.

Once that stuff is taken care of, then it’s how do they think through problems and do they actually solve these problems? And can we collaborate and solve them together? That’s what’s more important to me. So do they have good communication skills, right? Do they respond to e-mails basically, right? Like, if I send them an e-mail, and they don’t respond for three days, that’s a problem.

You know, especially like asking them a question, you know, if they don’t wanna be involved in, like, you know, conversations about stuff, that’s a problem for me. So, you know, that’s really what I look for, and those are the kinds of soft skills that they need. And you need to really…

Like, what I would say is, if you’re trying to get clients as a freelancer, you need to be very clear on, you know, who you are, and basically, like, how you work, who you do the best work for, and what that work is that you do for them and, you know, state it as cleanly as that. And that will help you qualify people in and out real quick.

Jovian: Yeah, I totally resonate with that. So and a small anecdote from myself is on the early days of CodementorX, which is now Arc, so I was one of the first non-technical team members of CodementorX. I’m basically like, almost like employee number one for CodementorX? So, I was there talking to, “vetting” these developers through a introductory call first. And, of course, after I match them with our clients, and in the introductory call, this is where we kind of evaluate how it feels to communicate with this person.

So the rule of thumb is, “Can I see this person working with my clients?” And this is very qualitative, but it’s actually your gut feeling is actually right. Like, “Man, I don’t think I can really work with this guy.” I mean, he or she might be a really great developers on paper. But sometimes when you talk to them, it’s not necessarily clicking, you know.

John: Right.

Jovian: So yeah, I totally can resonate with it. So that’s why I think for us on our platform… This will sound kind of salesy. So, but on our part, we actually care a lot about, “Do I see this person working with our clients out there?” I’m not necessarily talking about the big brands, but also like the early-stage startup founders with this ideas and the budget to work with us. Can this people direct the client, so to speak? So yeah, that’s one of the top requirements for us actually.

John: And we do the same thing at Credo. We have a three-step vetting process for the people within our network. And that the first one is culture.

So we do a culture call with them. And basically within that call, I’m sussing out, “Do I like this person?”

I’m still the one doing the calls, right, on this side. I’m sussing out like, “Do I like this person?” You know, do I trust them to basically like, be good to the people that we refer to them?”

Then also on the client side when clients are coming in looking to hire, if someone seems like they’re gonna be a total pain or they’re like, you know, they’re not really bought in, they’re skeptical, like, you know, that sort of thing or they just wanna like put a little bit of budget into it, they don’t actually wanna invest in it, or they’re just a jerk, we won’t match them up. We’ll be like, “Sorry, we can’t help you out,” right?

You know, life is too short to work with jerks. So, you know, I think that’s really important. And yeah, sussing out those communication skills is really, really important.

Jovian: What are the most revealing questions? What are the top questions that you ask to assess if this agency is a great culture fit for your clients or not when you’re vetting them?

John: Yeah, so and, obviously, you know, every client is different. And so, you know, we have people with various personalities and all that kind of working [inaudible 00:25:42], right? And so we’ll have, you know, someone come in. They were like, “You know what? This person, this agency, like, does phenomenal work in this space, but, like, the founder that’s doing sales and the client just wouldn’t get along. Like they’re just never gonna work together so we won’t even introduce them.”

So the things that I really look for is when I’m interviewing, you know, a firm or a consultant looking to get into the Credo network, I’m really trying to figure out, you know, basically like, what does their company look like? So how do they manage clients not just through like the sales process? Like, do they have an established sales process?

And then I ask them, it’s just an open-ended question,

“What happens after you sell the client? Who’s talking to them? How is the handoff, right? How are you delivering work? How are you communicating?” All those sorts of things to really understand do they have a built-in process for this and have they really thought about it? You know, like there are multiple ways that you can structure it, you know, and none is better than another. I just care that they’ve really thought through it and they actually have an established process.

That’s really, really important to me and also asking them, you know, upfront like when a new, you know, client comes in, when a new prospect comes in… I call them prospects instead of leads. When a new prospect comes in, who’s talking with them, right, and what does your process look like for them?

Jovian: Yeah, that makes sense.

John: So those are the sorts of things that I really look for. And then there’s a little bit of vetting in there as well, especially with SEO because there’s white hat SEO, there’s black hat SEO. And there’s all the shades within there and really trying to figure out, like, are they doing stuff that’s above the board that, like, they’d be proud to show?

You know, John Mueller, you know, Gary or any of those guys that… You know, in the past, it was Matt Cutts, who was head of Google’s webspam, right? The question is like if Matt Cutts was standing behind you, would you show him this proudly, right, and not get in trouble for it when he goes back to the office? I’m basically trying to suss that sort of stuff out as well.

Jovian: Yeah. On your question about how do you handle this con after you’ve got the deal, it’s kind of similar with what we do in Arc. The question for the contractors or the freelance developers here is that, so let’s say something happens that you actually need some more time from the client or a feature is delayed because of some things and how to communicate that with the client.

So we kind of wanna know how to communicate this issue because as you know about software development, it’s never as it is in paper. There’s some delay, some trade-offs to be made, and so on. So yeah, I think it’s kind of similar in the vein that how do these people in your case, the agencies, or in our case, the developers, give the clients the best experience on that. So I wanna flip it to the developers or contractors side themselves, right?

John: Yeah.

Jovian: Bearing developers or people who are “jerks,” that is not the people you want to work with. There are also like probably some newbie contractors and or newbie freelancers out there that they are a very nice guy, hard-working, and they have the skill set, but they’re using this early stage that they don’t really know how to sell themselves on an interview. Since you are one of those target markets, so to speak, you are one of the clients. Any advice that you will give to them in order for them to sell themselves better?

John: Yeah. Absolutely, and this is something that we thought about a lot. And actually, with this like basically new system, we’ve kind of rebuilt Credo from the ground up. We’re actually implementing kind of a coaching offering as well to help people sell better work.

Jovian: Interesting.

John: Because we’ve basically built into our platform the sales process that we know closes work. So basically, the way we see it is it’s a four to five-step process. It’s kind of depending on the size of the project. So first of all, it’s figuring out why are they coming to you, right? Ask them what problem they’re solving, and why did they contact you instead of contacting somebody else. And then getting them on a phone call and basically talking through that, discovering, you know, the problem they’re looking to solve. Why do they have that problem? How do they think they’re gonna solve it? What team do they have in place? All of those sorts of things.

And then from there, you can either send them basically a proposed scope of work, right, by e-mail to get them to agree to that. And then you send them a proposal, if it’s a bigger project, get them on a longer strategy call and take a couple of days to research it, go deeper, and come back with some ideas around how you solve it, how you work. It’s really important to get clear on, you know, “This is who I am, this is the kind of work that I do, and this is who I do it for.” So then, you know, you…

Basically, when a lead has contacted you yes, they’re interviewing you about you working for them but you should also be interviewing them about you doing work for them.

Jovian: Right, yeah.

John: Which I think is really important and a lot of freelancers miss, right? So if you can get down to that niche of like, “This is the kind of technology I work on or these are the marketing channels that I do. And this is how I operate within that, right, services versus consulting,” you kind of have to figure all that out.

Then it makes it very easy to say like, “You know what? Like you definitely have a problem here, but like I’m not the person to help you solve it. Let me [inaudible 00:30:36] or let me send you to Arc to do it,” or within marketing, it’s like, “Let me send you Credo to see if they can find you the right people.” So I think that’s really important. Two books that I’ve been recommending people a lot. One is called “Million Dollar Consulting,” by Alan Weiss. The other one is called “Million Dollar Coach,” by Taki Moore. And they both have awesome sales strategies around, you know, basically selling yourself well.

Jovian: Yeah, I got it. I think just like the newbie sales problem, sometimes when you’re new to it, you just basically you wanna sell it yourself. But actually the key is listening to what the clients want in the early beginning. Like, take as much information as possible, and then try to formulate things about it. And I totally agree about that one, that you mentioned that you be honest when you’re not the right person to do this.

I’ve definitely had some cases in the past, where, you know, we usually recommend two or three developers for our clients, right? And there are some cases when the first interview the developer just said that, “Oh, I’m probably not the right person.” For example, apparently, after the interview, they did not realize that this needs more [inaudible 00:31:34] skills than he or she has. And then oh, a problem and then I’ll pass because they don’t want to give subpar work. Right.

John: Yep.

Jovian: Yeah. So moving to the next conversation, which is like a bigger topic in itself, basically about startups being Outside the Silicon Valley.

John: Yeah.

Jovian: So, you’ve been to Silicon Valley before. Now, you create your own startup in Denver.

John: Yep.

Jovian: And I’ve seen that on the startup scene. Like, from my observation, there is this trend of, “Oh, I want to be a profitable startup.” This is like the, you know the Indie Hackers path, the base camp path, right? Do you see this as… Is it trending again now?

John: To be profitable?

Jovian: Yeah [inaudible 00:32:31].

John: Yeah, I don’t think it was ever not trendy. I think they’re… I mean, it’s definitely like, you know, the sexy so and so raised like tens of millions of dollars, you know, that kind of thing. But I think actually, as you get into it, you realize that that actually comes with a lot of liabilities. And so, you know, there’s a ton of other like stress and all that that goes into it.

You know, really what we’re talking about is creating viable businesses, right, startups, like [inaudible 00:33:00] in the valley, those, and I know I might get flamed for this. But, you know, I’ve made it clear that like, you know,

I think most businesses should not take venture funding. And I actually think that most startups should not be in the Valley, right?

The Valley is great for, you know, [inaudible 00:33:19]. That’s where Google and Facebook…that’s where stuff came from. Microsoft was born up in Seattle, so was Zillow, right?

Jovian: Right.

John: You know, there have been a lot of companies that have been… Even in New York like I always say like, San Francisco is very, like technology and kind of futuristic focused and that sort of stuff. And I lived there for three years. So I know the city and I know the scene.

I also lived in New York for two and a half. And they’re more focused on like, you know, that yeah, there are a lot of… You know, there’s Silicon Alley is what they call it, like Flat Iron district. But, you know, there’s a lot of startups there that have taken funding, but they’re focused on like… You know, they’re taking on funding, but they actually have like a solid business in mind and in the works, and so they’re actually building a real business there.

You know, so like Union Square Ventures does a lot of work there. I respect the heck out of Fred Wilson, the Union Square Ventures crowd, but, you know, I think there are a lot of people that have been focused on building profitable businesses, right, couple-person businesses, the Indie Hackers the, you know, Peter Levels from Nomad List, like all these people, you know, Brendan Dunn of Double Your Freelancing, like all these sorts of things. There’s a lot of people out there doing this sort of stuff.

And I think the Internet has just quite simply brought… It’s become a bit more en vogue, maybe but because of the rise of platforms, like Indie Hackers, right? You know, I love the guys over at Indie Hackers. They’re really good dudes, you know.

And I think it’s cool that people are seeing now that like, it is possible to build, you know, a profitable, viable internet-based technology business without having to go for broke and go for massive scale and hire a ton of people. And also, technology has gotten to the point where you can do that, right?

You can tie together a bunch of plugins and that sort of stuff. You don’t have to go and spend 50K to build a custom app, you know, in order to do something, right? You can bring in membership plugins and that sort of stuff and launch a membership site on WordPress in under a day. Like, that’s pretty incredible.

Jovian: Yeah, totally. I think one of the arguments that people say when they said, “Oh, if you wanna build startup you have to move to San Francisco,” is the connections that you can create, especially when you’re in the so-called tech hub. How do you see this? Like is it possible to build meaningful connections in the context of, you know, startups and technical when you’re not living in a tech hub like SF? If it’s possible, do you have any advice on how to do that because you’ve been in both worlds before?

John: Yeah, totally. So San Francisco, New York, etc., definitely have their pluses. You know, I was able to meet some incredible people when I lived in those places, right? Like I got onto Jason Calacanis’ “This Week in Startups” because I was there in San Francisco.

Jovian: Oh, interesting.

John: And this was years ago but, you know, made connections with his best friend, Brian. Brian and I met up for like, for lunch, or coffee, or something like that. We met up for drinks, actually, in my own neighborhood in San Francisco and then he’s the one that got me onto “This Week in Startups,” right?

So like, that would not have been possible if I was not in San Francisco. It is harder to do that sort of stuff if you’re not somewhere else. It is very possible to be building those relationships via the internet, right, via Twitter, that sort of thing. Eventually, taking those conversations to direct message, to e-mail, you know, that sort of stuff.

I also tell people and I try to do this as well is you also need to be in person around people also. So, like, I live in Denver. It is a two and a half hour flight to San Francisco. It is a three and a half hour flight to New York, right? There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be in each of those cities, you know, every like three to six months, something like that.

So yeah, I think that’s also something to remember is that, you know, you can build these relationships, you can have conversations, you can e-mail, like that sort of stuff, but there really is no substitute for the in-person time. So go into conferences. You know, go into whatever it is, you know, where the people are that you wanna connect with.

So for me, it’s, you know, I go to some, like, mastermind stuff. I go to a small conference in Cabo every year, you know, and then I go to New York and I co-work with people. And I set up meetings with people that I know in New York City. You know, I’m like, “Hey, I’m gonna be in New York for four days.” And I just slam those days full of meetings and coffees and all that stuff. When I’m in San Francisco, I’m running around the city. I’m meeting with people. So really taking advantage of those times.

I mean, I’ll be honest, it is harder to build those relationships, not in New York, San Francisco, London, etc. But it is possible to build a bit of those relationships, to build it online, you know, in platforms like Indie Hackers, etc., have, you know, now facilitate that a lot better. But also like, don’t count out the in-person stuff. It’s still really important.

Jovian: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think a lot of people saying that when you are a remote startup founder and you kind of ignore this huge advantage of having been able to sit with your clients on the same room even from time to time, and for like once or twice a year, especially when you are on a stage or if your product is really sales heavy and the price sales and whatnot, I think people just, “Oh, remote, I work remote. I should not meet with people again forever and ever.” So I don’t think that’s a great attitude to have. John, I…

John: And it’s not reality honestly.

Jovian: Honestly, yeah.

John: You know, you can go to Bali or wherever, you know, for a while and, you know, work from the beach. Like I’ve worked from, I think it’s 12 different countries in the last four years, you know, and then yeah, you know, travel a bit. You know, I’ll work from different states where I am, you know, where I am with my wife and whatever. But, you know, you do still need that in-person time and it’s not, you know, the bill of goods at these different sites and, you know, Instagram tries to sell you just like working on your laptop on the beach. Like, that’s not really reality, right?

Jovian: [inaudible 00:38:46] for a week.

John: Right, exactly I mean, you know, it might be for a week. I’ve worked from the beach in Mexico, right? Like that’s, yeah, totally. I’ve done that.

But also like, it’s not fun to be sitting by the pool looking at the ocean and on your laptop. Like that sucks. Like do your work and then go out by the pool, right?

Like…

Jovian: Yeah, exactly.

John: …come on. It’s not healthy to have your laptop by the pool. That’s ridiculous. I’ve done it but, like, it’s not fun.

Jovian: Yeah, awesome. John, I really wanted to continue talking to you but I know that your time is running out. So, it’s been a fantastic chat. Thank you for your time.

John: For sure. Thank you for having me on, man.

Jovian: Right. Awesome. So, John, how can listeners find you online?

John: Yeah, so two places to find me online. Well, I’m @dohertyjf everywhere. D-O-H-E-R-T-Y J-F. So Twitter and Instagram are the best two kind of social-wise and then my company is Credo. It’s getcredo.com.

Jovian: Awesome. So, yeah, for everyone out there, don’t forget to check out John, his writings and, of course, if you need some marketing help, check out Credo at getcredo.com. Again, John, thanks a lot for your time.

John: My pleasure.

Jovian: Awesome.

Jovian: And that’s it for another episode of “Outside The Valley” brought to you by Arc. We created this podcast with the hope that in each episode, you can learn something new from other remote startup people. So if you have any feedback or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at Jovian@arc.dev. Or you can find us on Twitter @arcdotdev. See you next week with another episode of “Outside the Valley” and ciao.

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