Create Income From Home WITHOUT Joining An MLM – 226

Is it possible to be paid MORE than at your current job?

Could you work from home as a freelancer, giving you the freedom, and income, you always wanted?

Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, interviews Lauren Golden – The Free Mama, how you can work as a contractor or freelancer from home, earning the money you want, while working when you want.

Check it out!

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Listen to the podcast here

Create Income From Home WITHOUT Joining An MLM

This show is about you guys. It’s about allowing you to be able to have a life that you love and we can create that freedom and prosperity now, not tomorrow, not someday but right now. The thing I love about this show is that we’re always about how we get you to get out of that rat race, to live a life that’s not the mediocre life and something beyond what you see. Everybody else is living that true life of freedom. Thank you and welcome for being on the show. Thank you for sharing it and being a part of it. You have been awesome.

I love watching seeing more of you follow us so thank you so much. As a quick reminder, check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. Make sure you check out the old blogs I brought years ago that I tend not to write anymore because I love podcasts. There’s always some great additional information on there as well as events and things like that coming up.

In this episode, I’m bringing on a special guest. You already know that when I bring on guests, I don’t bring on posers and people that are a whole fake-it-until-you-make-it type people. I bring on people that create the results in their lives. They do it first and foremost for themselves and then teach others how to do the same.

Lauren Golden is somebody that does that as well. How many of you have wondered how I can be able to create more income? How can I work from home and not necessarily do a network marketing company? I have nothing against them but how can I work from home, do something that allows me to have that time freedom, the freedom to be able to do what I want, when I want it and how I want to do it? That’s the thing that Lauren has been amazing with but what she does is she loves how the mamas free themselves. When I talk about mama, I think of my wife, new money mama. She’s helping mamas free themselves from the 9:00 to 5:00 grind. She wants the Free Mama Movement, which also you can find on Facebook too.

It’s to show working moms that they don’t have to choose between family and financial stability. They can have both. As a result, hundreds of families are happier and more fulfilled. Thanks to Lauren and the online programs that she has. Whether you’re a single mom, a military mom or a mom on a two-parent family who doesn’t want to sacrifice your time with your babies. To provide for them, Lauren wants you to have that too. She leads a huge community of many thousands of women. She’s passionate about helping those other moms start successful businesses and be able to create that life.

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Lauren, welcome to our show.

Chris, thank you so much for the amazing introduction. I’m so excited to be here chatting with you.

Tell us what took you down this path to where you became that freelance type of mom.

I always had that entrepreneurial spirit. I opened my first business when I was eight years old. I illegally sold beer to golfers on the golf course that I grew up on. I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal until my parents found out but by that point, I had raised a couple of hundred dollars in a couple of weeks. My first thing was a raging success. I learned a lot of lessons early on about having to buy your inventory AKA paying back my dad. I opened my first checking account at that time too. I always had the spirit of going out, giving the people what they want and being compensated for it. That resonated with me.

After I graduated from college and got the traditional 9:00 to 5:00, I bounced around through different things. I balance my passion and marketing, which is something I did not study when I was in school. I realized I was not only good at it but I was constantly learning more. I wanted to know more about social media, marketing strategy and all these things. It occurred to me around the time that I had my son, who was my second child, that I could make money doing something very similar to what I was doing my 9:00 to 5:00 doing it for myself. I was always familiar with the concept of freelancing in different jobs that I had. We always had some contract workers that we worked with in my companies.

It wasn’t a concept that was new to me. The fact that I could do it, be successful at it and have it replace my full-time income and benefits was where the leap of faith came in. That entrepreneurial spirit kicked back in like, “I can do this for myself. I don’t have to be behind another company. I don’t have to have a boss. I can take these skills I’ve learned over the years, apply them and help people like the beer on the golf course.” What’s hot? Somebody needs a beer. There are business owners out there who don’t understand marketing or they don’t want to do it for themselves. That’s how I got started. My maternal pole was strong. My desire to stay home started with my kids. It all happened pretty quickly from there.

You have to learn some things in life the hard way. Roll up your sleeves and dive in. Click To Tweet

That’s incredible and a scary thing to do. I’ve had clients that had a great couple of companies who worked for. Very big companies with great benefits up in Seattle. He finally said, “I’m making the leap. I’m going to become an independent contractor and work from home.” He ended up contracting with them. It was scary for him to do because that’s a big leap to make. How are you able to do that?

It’s a terrifying leap. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve always been business savvy. I will say until you do it. You got to learn some stuff in life the hard way. You got to roll up your sleeves and dive in. For me, I’m a planner. I like to play it safe. It is not intuitive for me to be a risk taker, which is a misconception about me and potentially some other entrepreneurs that it’s easy for us. It’s easy for you to take that risk. It was not easy for me. I gave myself a year plan because a year doesn’t sound very scary. It doesn’t sound that far like, “A year from now, I’ll do that” A year feels safe but it also gives you that light at the end of the tunnel like, “I’m making changes.”

That was the space I was living in. I was starting to freelance while I was still at my 9:00 to 5:00. A light switched off there and I made the jump without getting my feet wet and dabbling first. It was a personal thing that happened in my life. My husband and I unexpectedly found out we were pregnant with our third child and then soon after had a miscarriage. It was something unrelated to business.

At that moment, I don’t want to get all spiritual. Whatever you believe in the universe, God, whatever it is, I heard a voice saying, “What’s your plan now? What are you going to do now?” For me, it gave me that hard time in my life some purpose because what I took from it was that leap of faith. I walked in and quit my job one week later after I had my miscarriage. I was all-in on living the life I wanted to live. I was done with the excuses and planning. I was like, “I’m going to start doing it.” It’s probably not the answer you expected but that was how I got started.

I’ve been there. I’ve made those leaps where you feel God says, “Take this direction.” It doesn’t make logical sense. People think you’re crazy but you do it.

I get it. As humans, we crave security. What 9:00 to 5:00 provides for a lot of people is that security. I’m working with so many women and teaching them how to walk in my footsteps and create this business for themselves from home where they can have control over how much money they make. I’m on the other side of it so I’ve done it and had the experience, it’s empowering but I remember those feelings of overwhelm and navigating the unknown. It’s something a conversation I have with a lot of people who are considering making this leap. They say they want all these things. They want to have more control and flexibility.

They want freedom. They don’t want a boss anymore. They want more financial stability but they’re not willing to leap. They’re not willing to sacrifice the cozy, cushy paycheck from the employer. It’s something where you’ve got to get grounded in why you’re doing it. Money is great. I’m a business owner. I am in business to make money, be able to provide for my family and do fun things but there’s got to be more to it. You hear a lot of people talking about their why like, “Why are you doing it?” For me, it was as simple as I wanted to be able to walk my kids to school when they started kindergarten. I didn’t want them to be in childcare every day.

I still utilize childcare. My kids go to preschool but it’s a short program. I get to choose when I have help with my kids, when I focus on my business and when it’s family time. I don’t work on Fridays. It’s a non-negotiable in my life. I’m home with my family on Fridays. All of these decisions are super empowering but you’ve got to be willing to get a lot uncomfortable to get to that point where you have those choices in your life.

What do you feel are the biggest challenges people run into? Is it purely the mindset of being willing to make those changes and commit to them or do you think there’s something more to it than that?

Mindset is one of the most important things in business and life. I don’t think I knew that until this phase of my business. I left my job and was freelancing. I did that very successfully for a few years. That’s when I felt this calling to share it and help other people. People were asking me what I was doing anyway. I’m like, “This can be a win-win.” I’m the kind of person that is always looking for win-win scenarios. I don’t think that for one person to be successful someone else has to be pushed down. We can all rise together. I’m like, “This is a great scene where I’m going to have to work hard to create a program. Once it exists, it exists.”

Getting into the realm of passive income and all of that stuff, I can grow my business that way and also serve more people. I can help more people tap into this thing that I’ve tapped into and do it successfully for themselves. As I have gone through this journey, this evolution of my business of launching the Free Mama Movement, more than ever, I understand the importance of mindset and pushing through fear. Another misconception about entrepreneurs or people who have found success is that they don’t have fear. They’re not afraid of failure or success. They’re not afraid to jump on and do a Facebook Live, start a podcast or whatever it is.

I don’t think that’s true. The difference between the people who become successful, start a podcast, do Facebook Lives and start these movements behind themselves is that they do it anyway. That comes from mindset. I have fear. I get nervous about doing things all the time in my business and my life still. It’s like riding a bike. The more you practice, it’s not necessarily the fear that goes away.

You must be willing to get a bit comfortable to get to the point where you can make your own choices. Click To Tweet

Its lifespan shortens. Instead of it becoming debilitating and you’re not moving forward, it gets honed in and you’re like, “There it is. Let’s call it excitement instead of fear. Let’s get going.” You keep moving and repurpose it differently. Mindset is critical. The other thing that I noticed is business is the greatest personal development course you could ever take. I have true change as a person through the evolution, growth and success frankly of my business because it puts you in these uncomfortable positions. It shows you what you’re made up of.

What would you say the difference between someone who’s doing freelancing compared to someone who’s starting a brand new business?

A lot of the people who come to me are like, “How do I find a job working from home?” I’m like, “I don’t teach you how to find a job working from home. I teach you how to become a business owner.” To me, being a freelancer is you’re offering a service to people. You’re a service-based business owner. You are not an employee who goes on job interviews.

You should be standing firm in what it is you offer, whether you’re a virtual assistant, a graphic designer, an IT specialist or some type of consultant. Essentially, you were working with people on a contract basis to help them with a problem. On the smaller levels, maybe that problem is truly time. I shouldn’t discredit time because that’s my greatest asset. For virtual assistance, a lot of people who come into my world, whether they’re looking to hire a virtual assistant or become a virtual assistant is they don’t know what to charge, what they’re worth and what to offer. Are they good enough?

All of these different things are floating through their head. What I want them to understand is even if the only thing on day one that you are capable of offering is answering someone’s customer service emails. I have that mom going, “Is that enough? Do I have to go off and spend $1 million learning how to be an expert in whatever?” I’m like, “Yes, that’s enough.” That is extremely valuable to an entrepreneur whose time is limited and who cannot manage that. That is something they’re willing to pay for it.

To me, the beauty of freelancing is you have the role of offering a service. You’re in the business of helping people. You offer a service that helps somebody, whether you’re saving them time, helping them with something that maybe they don’t know how to do or something that they don’t want to have to go figure out how to do themselves. You’re better at it. It’s something I love. I know a lot of service-based business owners who don’t refer to themselves as a freelancer and that’s okay too. The term freelancer implies that you’re doing it on your own. That’s cool too. I have a lot of people who will ask me to look at their website and it says, “We do this. We did this.”

I asked them why they chose that pronoun. They said that it makes them look more legitimate as a business. I disagree with that, Chris. I look at that and I’m like, “You should own your expertise. You should own the fact that you are the person who’s going to go in and create a relationship with this business owner and become a valuable team member to them. You’re the one doing the work. You should get the credit for it.” To me, that’s what freelancing is all about.

This is something I’ve said on the show a few times about the mindset around who you are and how you contribute. Even if you have a job, the truth is you are the business of you. You are a business. You might come out with a steady paycheck. You might think you don’t have a business but the truth is you’re hired or fired based on your performance in that “business of you.” Being a freelancer or an entrepreneur, either way, in a sense, you’re still being hired. You still have people you work for. You do it in a very different way with different terms.

Personal branding is something that I teach in my programs. It’s something I talk a lot about in my community online. It is essential regardless of what you are doing. I would even argue it’s essential in how you carry yourself, even if you’re unemployed. If you’re a stay-at-home, the way that you present yourself to other people is essential. I couldn’t agree more with you on that.

The question that everybody has is, “What do I have to offer?” You addressed it like, “You could do something as simple as answering emails.” It could be the job role you’re already doing with the employer working 9:00 to 5:00 in the office but you’re doing it from home. The next thing people are going to ask is, “How do I find the market? How do I find people to hire me? Do I go to corporations, individuals or small business owners? Where do I go?”

There are a lot of opportunities out there, no question about it. This is something that I teach in my program. I have two entire weeks where I talk to my students about how to get clients, where to find clients and the clients that they’re going to want to work with. Some of us are fortunate and hit it out of the park on the first client. Others of us, not so much.

It either takes some time to find the right fit. I do say that I teach freelancing in a, maybe not an unusual way but a specific way. There are resources out there like Google and YouTube. Through Google, you’re going to find in particular matching websites like Upwork, Elancer and all of these things. Those are available to anybody to do market research and get started.

Business is the greatest personal development course you could ever take. It puts you in uncomfortable positions and shows you what you’re made up of. Click To Tweet

They’re not how I teach the moms in my program how to go about freelancing. The reason is especially as a parent, every moment, you’re deciding whether or not your attention is going to your family or income. I value time more than anything. The reason I don’t care for sites is that you are not being compensated for the time you were spending marketing yourself.

Those sites can be very competitive and they drive prices down. They’re also international. You are competing with an international market where you can hire cheap labor overseas. That’s the reality. Those probably wouldn’t be your ideal clients anyway. You don’t want to work with somebody who’s not willing to pay you what you are worth, what your services and help are worth.

I don’t recommend doing that. I recommend good old-fashioned relationships like networking. It can be done online. It is not as complicated as you would think but it is all about your brand. One of the things that I run into a lot with the women that I coach is that they’re starting this freelancing business they’ve figured out or honed in, at least on the services they’d like to offer and then it comes time to find clients. They’re ready to go and they don’t want to tell anybody what they’re doing. They’re afraid. It’s the mindset and fear. If I tell people, it makes it real that I could fail but it also makes it real that I might get a client and I’ve never done this before.

I get it. It’s scary to do things for the first time but I also tell them, “I can teach you a whole lot in twelve weeks.” My program is extremely robust but you’re going to learn more with that 1st client, whether it’s a 1-time project or a 12-month retainer, then I could teach you in 12 weeks because the reality is we all learn best by doing. You can’t watch someone else do something and learn how to do it. You have to dive in at some point.

I prefer approaching freelancing. I’m not a natural risk-taker. I like stability and stability comes from building relationships with people. It comes from becoming an invaluable member of somebody’s virtual team. You can freelance with local businesses as well. My business is 100% online and it is something that I recommend to the people that I work with as well. That’s because of the world we live in. You never know when you’re going to move. My family relocated a few years ago. To say that it was unexpected is an understatement.

We were in our forever home. We lived surrounded by my friends, family and the town I grew up in. We were not going anywhere until we were and we found ourselves thousands of miles away from everything we ever knew, including my entire clientele. I essentially started my business over a few years ago. At that moment, I decided that location freedom was incredibly important to me. It is possible to build an entire virtual freelancing business without meeting anybody in real life.

Technology is our friend. We’re recording this episode using Zoom. That is some software that I use to meet with people and get to know them. It’s a video and you can do video chat. If you are in it for the long haul and don’t want to constantly be spending your valuable time making pitches constantly and marketing yourself, look for those long-term clients whom you can become an asset for. That’s my best advice for freelancing. Look for those relationships. It’s all about relationships.

Here’s a real question I’m sure people are wondering too. Is this legit? Can people make as much, if not more, than what they’re doing working their 9:00 to 5:00? What are some examples that people have done that?

I could rattle off some names for sure. Mia, Jordan and Michelle, this interests you. I encourage you to join our Facebook community. It is a Facebook group. The name of it is the Free Mama Movement. You can search the #FreeMamaWins. I am all about people celebrating the things that they’re good at and their victories. You could say it’s ego or bragging but it’s important that we celebrate the things we’re good at. Women, in particular, have a hard time doing that. We brag in the Free Mama Community. You can go check it out. Everybody is across the board by doing that. Here’s the thing that I want people to know.

The reason that you can make more is you can leverage your time. I also teach people how to work off of a retainer rather than an hourly price. If you have an hourly price, here are your choices. Raise your hourly price, work more hours. That’s how you make more money. Is that a bad thing? No. Are there going to be opportunities that are only hourly-based? Sure.

Not everything is going to be able to convert. Not every client is going to be willing to have a retainer. Here’s the thing with retainers as well. You have to know how to leverage your time. If you’re somebody who slacks off, gets distracted or procrastinates, a retainer is going to end up hurting you because you are probably going to spend more time getting all of your work done than you normally would if you were being compensated for the actual time you were spending on the project. There’s a lot of strategy behind how to be effective with that.

One of the things I want people to know who are maybe still working a full-time job and thinking about starting their business, whether it’s freelancing or something beyond that, is your employer is spending a lot of money on you that you might not even be aware of. They’re paying payroll taxes. It is going to cost them money to replace you when you leave. Something else that I teach moms how to do is turn their current employer into their first high-paying clients. It’s not applicable 100% of the time. I have had moms successfully do that in my program.

We all learn best by doing. You can’t just watch someone else do something and learn how to do it. Click To Tweet

It’s amazing because the negotiation behind that is smooth because they do end up saving money when you do not work for them as a full-time employee. It’s not transferable to everybody. I understand that. For me, it was something that I didn’t. It’s something other people have been able to do as well. As a contractor, you’re able to charge more than, let’s say, you’re on salary at your job. You divide that out and figure out what your hourly rate is. They’re not paying for your benefits anymore.

They’re not paying for your 401(k). On the flip side, these are things that you then have to figure out as a business owner and it is figure out-able so don’t get me wrong there but you’re then able to increase your hourly rate. Businesses are willing to pay that because they don’t have all of those other fees that they assume as an employer. There are some technical components there that when people understand, it starts to make sense of how you can leverage the same work for more money.

I have firsthand experience with this. It was years ago when I was hired by a coaching company to teach people how to trade stocks and options. I was thrilled because I thought it was cool. They’re paying me $20 per session, which was about a 40-minute session. I was like, “This is pretty good. I can make $60 every 2 hours.”

I was doing that. Partway through my training, as I was getting learned the ropes of how the company worked and everything, they switched it on us. They said, “You’re not going to be working out of a cubicle anymore with our phones. We’re going to have you work from home as independent contractors.” They raised my pay from $20 a session to $35 a session, almost double, which I was thinking, “What the heck? You’re paying me more to stay home and call from my cell phone?”

You save tons of costs, not just payroll stuff but the space that people have to use. They freed up more space to get more salespeople and then generate more sales and revenue. It works. That’s a brilliant idea of going to your company as your first client. I love that. We’re going to run out of time here and you’ve got different things you offer. You also have a matchmaking service too, don’t you?

I do. One of the greatest things that makes me different is the services that I offer because I didn’t invent freelancing. I wish but I did not. I teach moms how to do it in a certain way and how to be successful. We’re still managing their family. I’m in an interesting position because I am still freelance. I have clients. I am also on the other side of the table, where I consider myself an entrepreneur. I have hired people from within my program and my former students who work for me. I have four people on my team. I brought another one so I am in this unique position where I straddle both worlds.

I understand what it is like to be the person providing a service to a business owner and what it is like to be a busy entrepreneur who needs help leveraging time and skills and managing all of the things of growing and scaling a business. With that, I also have connections in both spaces. I have a large network of people on both sides of the aisle.

I have these women that I have trained who are well-prepared in software and the services that they offer. I stand behind them and the things that I’ve taught them. I have a huge group of entrepreneurs, whether I’ve been in masterminds with them, done podcasts with them, whatever it is, who they are in the same position as me, where they are growing and scaling their business. It’s time for them to expand their team.

I launched the Free Mama Matchmaker to do that. It is a program where entrepreneurs can contact me for a small fee because I am not in Upwork. I am not trying to drive down prices and make things super competitive. I am in the market of curating relationships that grow business. That’s what I do. That does require a small investment upfront because what I’m going to do is prepare the entrepreneur, not exactly what it is they need.

Sometimes, we get so busy as business owners. We know we need help but we don’t know what that looks like. That’s something that I can assist them with through an initial conversation. They then get matched with graduates of my program who can assist them with the various things they are looking to outsource in their business.

It has been super fun. I’m looking at a thank you note that I got from a business owner when I got back in town, who sent me a little Starbucks gift card and said, “Thank you for connecting me with the name of the mom Bea.” It has been fun. It’s amazing because I’m constantly looking for those win-win wins. How does everybody win? These entrepreneurs genuinely need help and I have a group of very qualified women who are looking to help people. It’s been a fun extension of my business.

That’s a tremendous resource. Thank you so much. There’s the Free Mama Movement group on Facebook. How else can somebody follow you or learn more about what you teach with freelancing?

You can find me on most social media @LaurenGoldenFreeMama. If you are interested in learning about my program or even starting to freelance from home and build out your business, I offer free training to get started and you can check that out at TheFreeMamaMovement.com.

Lauren, it has been tremendous. Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been very valuable. I love finding different ways for cashflow and this one’s a big one. This is an answer to a lot of people in the show.

Thank you so much. I’ve enjoyed sharing. I look forward to connecting with some of your audience.

Everyone, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you make it a great and prosperous time. We’ll talk to you soon.

Important Links

• Free Mama Movement
• Free Mama Movement – Facebook
• Upwork
• Elancer
• Free Mama Matchmaker
• @LaurenGoldenFreeMama – Instagram