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How to Avoid Giving Away Consultative Services as a Throw-In?

Sometimes a client is looking for labor, and expect you to bundle in the strategic piece. For instance, they expect architecture to come along with a software development project. How to handle this?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
Enov8 recently published a take on application portfolio management best practices, for you enterprise fans.
Spin has a round-up of the top SSPM vendors, if you're in the market.
I just recently learned that Industry 4 is a thing, and what it is, thanks to Influx's glossary.
If you're looking for help with Ansible tags, Netbox Labs has an introductory guide to the subject.
 

Setting Up and Filling Your Funnel with Leads to Avoid Gaps

Depending on fate to bring you business can lead to gaps between projects. How do you setup some kind of sales funnel and get leads into it to avoid these gaps?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
Enov8's guide to data masking. 
This comparison of Logstash and Fluentd from Sawmills.
Tricentis's (Testim's) AI-powered Salesforce Testing (also in German, French, and Japanese).
A definition of SSPM from Spin.AI.
 

How To Handle a Client Wanting Work When You're Sick?

You're collaborating with your client on a time-sensitive deadline and you get sick.  How should you handle that?  Whose problem is it, ultimately?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
Enov8's list of enterprise architecture tools to be aware of in 2025. 
This introduction to the subject of log parsing from Sawmills.
Tricentis's legacy tool replacement solutions (also in German and French).
A guide from Testim on unit testing in React Native.
 

How to Calculate Runway When You Have an Initial Contract

You've got a full-time job but want to go indie, and you line up your first contract. How do you think about how much runway you need to create between current savings and that first contract, for when it expires?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
A post from Sawmills, which introduces log parsing, explains its importance for transforming unstructured logs into actionable data and outlines best practices for efficient and scalable implementation.
Learn how Tricentis Data Integrity helps ensure end-to-end data accuracy and reliability across complex enterprise systems through automated testing and validation. (The Data Integrity page is also available to read in German, French, and Japanese).

How to Build a Marketing Funnel with an Audience on Another Platform

If you've built an audience on a platform other than your own website, how do you go about turning that following into a marketing funnel for something you're offering?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
This post from BlinkOps explains Identity and Access Management (IAM) automation.
A Testim blog post that provides an overview of six JavaScript editors.
A Sawmills post that gives an overview of Logstash filters, explaining their role in parsing.
An Enov8 blog post that explains how a Release Train Engineer (RTE) facilitates Agile Release Trains (ARTs) within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
An overview of Tricentis Testim, an AI-powered test automation platform designed to streamline the testing of custom web, mobile, and Salesforce applications (sites also available to read in German, French, and Japanese).

What Should You Do When Asked to Implement a Bad Idea?

It will sometimes come up that a prospect or client asks you to implement something that's either too vague to work or a flat-out bad idea. What should you do in this situation?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
This round-up of application portfolio management tools from our friends at Enov8.
Regression testing for Workday, from our friends at Tricentis (also in German and Japanese).

Is Strategic Advice a Good Up-Sell for a Programmer?

If you're a programmer (or, generally, a labor-based freelancer), is it a good idea to sell strategic advice as a kind of "up-sell" to your normal offering?
Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management
A beginner's guide to volume testing

How Should I Price an Hour-Long Training Session?

I do a lot of theory in this series, but here's something practical. How would I recommend someone price an hour-long training session to teach social media tactics to a salesforce? Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
Sprint Scheduling: A Guide to Your Agile Calendar
Not only do our friends at Tricentis offer Tosca, a powerful end-to-end testing tool, they also have sites available in these languages:
French
Japanese
and German!

How Should I Handle a Non-Compete Agreement from a Client?

Sometimes, a client may ask you to sign a non-compete agreement as a prerequisite for engaging with them. Should you do it? How should you handle this situation in general? Join us to learn more.
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
How regression testing is performed
An Introductory Guide to Application Portfolio Management
What is Security Automation? Benefits, Types & Best Practices
What Is Software Testing? All the Basics You Need to Know

How Can You Move to Niching and Value Pricing?

The default with freelancing is to charge by the hour and do generalist work. You might have, however, heard of value pricing and heard the idea that you should establish a niche. How should you go about doing that?
View this podcast as a video on YouTube.
Links of the week:
Test Suites and Their Test Cases: The Hierarchy Explained
Challenges in mobile testing and how to solve them
What is A/B Deployment (aka A/B Testing)
What is Data Lineage? An Explanation and Example