This week, I spent 30 minutes on LinkedIn Live with Jim Rowe-Bot discussing freelancing in Conversational AI, as a follow-up to the launch of Bot Jobs Freelancers.
Here's the video:
You can see the original LinkedIn video here. Transcript below:
Jim Rowe-Bot
I was prompted to do this from an early conversation we had when I was talking about, I brought up to you the whole thing about freelancing, and then running projects and being able to find freelancers and the frustrations I was added. And at that time, you said, right, I've got something coming very soon. And you did you presented it really quickly. So it was obviously something you'd been working on. And obviously, I've been in and had to play with it. And I've seen a few freelancers have already registered. That, you know, I suppose really why?
Martyn Redstone
It's a really good question. It always starts with why. And ultimately, I think I don't put the time and effort into into building things unless I think it's going to really solve a problem. And I've bought jobs in itself as a kind of job board has been running for just over two years now. So it's gone really, really quickly. But in all of that time, there's been two questions that are continuously asked to me if I'm at an event, or I'm doing a webinar on anything to do with careers or jobs in conversational AI. And the first question is, where do I go for opportunities as a freelancer? Yeah, you know, I mean, there's, there's top five questions, you know, and that's definitely one of the top five. The second one out the top five is, where do I build a portfolio? And so, and I get asked those more than anything, I think, if I was to think of the others, it would be, how do I get started? And what kind of salary should I expect? I think those are kind of the major ones that I get asked continuously. From a conversation designer perspective, let's just make that very, very clear. And, and so I thought, you know, what, you know, my, my big kind of plan with Bob jobs, ultimately, not secret is to make it into you know, the the number one careers destination for conversational AI. So, if I'm going to add anything to it, it has to be something that's going to prove useful and valuable to the community. Because that's what it comes down to, as far as I'm concerned. So I went about last year, thinking about okay, you know, out of all of those topics, what can I do? And so the first thing I thought was, I can absolutely build a freelance system, where people can a register themselves as freelancers or be, go and buy services and projects from as freelancers. So I set about building that. And when I was building that, I also thought, You know what, one of the things that we can add into here is the ability for freelancers, and anybody who wants to register for it, basically, because you don't have to actively be a freelancer, but the ability to create your own portfolio. So So within both jobs is the opportunity to register as a freelancer and when you are registered, you can then go into somebody's profile and take a look at their portfolio. If you look at mine in there, I'm the cheapest one in there $1 an hour. I think from a little bit further up that you kind of skip past it. But but that kind of you know, if you click into somebody's profile, there I am, you can then take a look at the portfolio as you scroll down. And I'm just throwing the odd kind of example in here because I don't I'm not I'm not looking for freelance opportunities through this myself right now, which is terrible to say, but I'm busy enough. But it's a great example. And actually that's public facing as well. So so you can send people the link to your your, your portfolio, there's a Share button at the bottom that you can do that. So so so those were the two, two out of the kind of big four questions that I was asked, you know, where do we go for freelance opportunities and how do we build a portfolio and look, there wasn't anywhere. Standard within the community and within within the conversational AI industry, where you could find freelance opportunities. You go on to Upwork you go on to free freelance.com You can go on to Fiverr and there's no thinking they're really they're all heavy either on admin design or digital. Yeah. However, what Martyn redstone does today the rest of the world does tomorrow. That's the the shackles of being a trendsetter, five are actually announced this week that they are also starting to work with AI. As they said AI We come in peace. So they're they're creating categories around generative AI and also around chatbots as well, which is really exciting because it's great for the community. So that's the why, ultimately, that's the why. So yeah, and like you said, as you saw on that quick screenshot, there are plenty people are starting to register for it, both as buyers and as a freelancers as well, which is really, really exciting. And just to find myself, I'm pitching here, I'm pitching it as per bought jobs as well. I am not making any money out of this. The only charges are to cover monetary transfer fees, basically. So that's the only thing. So I'm not actually making any money out of it is my gift back to the community to give something to them.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, fantastic. It's interesting, because I started as a freelancer, you know, I never worked within a conversational AI company I self taught came from the Facebook Messenger world, and then obviously just progressed, I didn't want to stay in that world, I just got the bug and I wanted to learn more and against the kind of intelligence stuff and, and bigger projects, then as a freelance, I found it really hard to get on those projects. Because at that time, they were done by internal teams, it would be the product supplier, their knowledge, and then it would be the internal team and they would work together, I think there are companies are starting to look for experienced freelancers that can bring in on projects. So I ended up them really just going out and finding my own customers, which is so so difficult. And anybody in this room knows that. So being able to, to have somewhere where project owners can go and find the talent they need. And that's kind of where I am now. So if I get a project ID, I scope it out. And I'm at that very early stage are building resource costs, I'm going to need a couple of conversational designers, or whatever I need. Even if it's kind of kind of admin support either. Perhaps admin support, somebody has worked on that type of project. And it's just hard to you know, you can go out to LinkedIn or search or search for those people. But it's difficult. So yeah, I think having something like the bot jobs, freelancers section, it's just, it's just, it's made in heaven for people I meet makes my life so much easier. But as you know, we just need to get more people in there, get more people registering, and more people like me that get involved in projects, sticking their projects on there, whether it's my own personal project or a project I'm working on, I don't have to tell them who the client is that I can tell him the type of client that type of product is and the skill sets I'm looking for. So yeah, I think it's really excited. We've seen a lot of layoffs within the tech community and conversational AI was one of those, it's been hit hard. So there's a lot of people that are suddenly on the market. Some have already considered freelancing, which is great, some of will walk straight into other roles. But there's a lot of just milling around not sure what to do. And I think for them just get registered and stuff like that. You never know what project might just drop and drop into your lap.
Martyn Redstone
Well, exactly. And like I said, even if you're not in that headspace of what you want to do right now, one of the most important things, especially from a designer perspective, is to have so much cool your own from a portfolio perspective and show off the work you have done at previous employers need previous projects. So that's why we recommend people signing up for it, especially when they're going through that the unfortunate situation of being laid off is that if you're if you're not if you're not ready, so I'm looking at the comments that are coming through if you're if you're not if you're not in that headspace yet of what you want to do, then come and register on bot jobs comm and register on bot jobs, the site comm register and freelancers for your portfolio, and then you'll start seeing opportunities coming through and then you can make your own mind up there's no pressure but come and give yourself a home. Can we give you a portfolio home because that's the second most important part of what we're doing is giving people a place that they can come rather than some people on notion some people on Wix, some people on Squarespace, etc. In there, there's no standard templates. It's all there. It's all there and waiting for you. So So you know, at least it gives you a chance just to start lining your lining of ducks up basically.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, and as we said before, before you Before we kind of started chatting, and I went on chat GPT, and asked what the biggest challenges were for freelancers. So, as we said, you know, we could have come up with that list in an hour. I got it within 60 seconds by using chat GPT. So
Martyn Redstone
I'm gonna chat GPT for the answers,
Jim Rowe-Bot
issues, issues or freelancers will always struggle with is finding consistent work. And I know that it's very much feast and famine. So you need to be keeping an eye on the market. But understand that you're going to have downtime when you finish your mod project. Moving on to the other. Along with that is pricing in negotiation. So I see this with freelancers, that is they'll underprice themselves, because they just need to get the work. But then they might have a period of a couple of months out of work. And then they struggle managing their finances because they're responsible for doing their own invoicing or bookkeeping, making sure they've got money for their downtime, maintaining a work life balance, because got to take the word when it comes to marketing and promotion, which is where I see both jobs fitting in is helping to kind of market and promote themselves can be very isolating. So I think freelancers need to come come together. And obviously, Baron with Batra printers is, has been doing that really, really well. I was thinking that within your freelancing section that eventually whether we have a group or some sort of way, where freelancers can talk to each other, and competition, you know, you're going to be competing against each other. And, you know, that is the nature of freelancing. But I think, you know, you've got a profile here, just have the best profile. If you're not in work, at the moment, create some bots stick examples on there, that potential people looking for freelancers can have a look at, show off effectively?
Martyn Redstone
Well, exactly, exactly. And, you know, just to kind of hammer home that last point, you know, that that is the point of portfolio. And over the years I've seen, I've seen, you know, so many different portfolios. And when I think there's some huge differences, you know, there's a lot of people out there, as you know, that are right now, looking at conversation design as a career option. So they're not even experienced designers right now. So there they are, you know, doing a certification course, training to be a conversation designer as part of that. They're, they're creating, what, not real chat bots. Yeah. Ultimately, they're they're creating test environments they're creating, what's the word? You know, things that they're they're training on, basically, my brains, I haven't had enough coffee or caffeine yet today. Anyway. So So we're seeing portfolios that are made up of, of, of not real life chat bots, where people just design them for the certification. And we're seeing portfolios of people that have spent years in the industry and design the most amazing experiences, not putting them on their portfolio. And I just think why you know, and so that's kind of where you have the opportunity to show off your skills, your experience and your background. I think that on the other end, one, you start off with finding, finding work, you know, and finding freelance opportunities. I've been, you know, self employed consultant for several years. And same as you, and not many people. There we go. There's Jeremy. Not many people are not many people are salespeople ultimately. And so when you're a freelancer, you have to be you know, you have to do your job. Well, you have to be a really good conversation designer, be yourself be a good salesperson and a good marketer. Yeah, we don't we don't come into conversation designed to be it to be a salesperson. So having a platform that's able to collect all of the opportunities and send them, send them out to you. It's much better because that's the most stressful bit of being Freelancer is Where's where's your next paycheck coming from? So yeah, so I think they would just kind of tune bookended issues that you mentioned, I wanted to
Jim Rowe-Bot
cover off here. So I think, you know, whilst you're looking for the next project, you're in between, then you get on to BART jobs, and you just you just update that profile, you get as much on there as you can. The challenge I have had a lot as a freelancer and actually still have now when I work on projects is NDAs. So because I'm an outsider, I have to sign NDAs and I'm not really allowed to talk about the projects. I'm involved in. The last two projects I've done it been a lie that I've been brought in as an external consultant effectively, and I can't share that but you can be a little bit creative and just basically put that in your profile there. Did you know that you're working with big brands? Although you can't say, there, were there were you can talk a little bit about what the project was,
Martyn Redstone
I think. I think so I think one of the things within, within the portfolio on portrait freelancers is that not only are you able to kind of send a link to a YouTube video or website, we've also got a text area. And you should make the most of that as well, because the portfolio shouldn't just be about the final product, it should be about the process that you've been through to get to that final product. So are there is there's water as well? Yeah, and, and, you know, we should talk about, you know, what challenges you were solving with the with, with the Chatbot, the voice, whatever you were building, it should be about the process you went through to build that, you know, so it shouldn't just be, here's a link to the bot for you to try it out. So I think that if you're under NDA, you can be very creative with that. And you can talk about, you know, the project without talking about the project, ultimately. Yeah, yeah. Waters made a very good point, you know, he said, challenge number 11, convincing employers that 100% remote work is just as good as hybrid. I think I think he's got fair point. I actually do think that it's easier as a freelancer to do that. Because when you're looking for freelancers, as an employer, and you can talk to this bit better than I can, you're looking for people to fill a need for for. I've got something going on here. Lots of things just went off, somebody's ringing my bell. So I was saying, yeah, so ultimately, you're trying to fill a need in a surge in resource requirement for a project. And I think most of the time, employees that come comfortable taking on Freelancer knowing that they're not, they don't need to be there with the team. It's different for a permanent member of staff sometimes nowadays, but I think with a freelancer, I think it's a bit more flexibility. Not always, and which is a difficult thing. I think there is a little bit more flexibility when it comes to freelancers.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, it's interesting. I'm currently putting another ebook together about managing conversational AI projects. And a key element of that is whether you're in the business or you're an external project manager. There's benefits to both from the challenges to both Oh, totally. Yeah. Because that's the kind of level I'm at now, I, I really like to manage the projects, because I've done so many, I've built so many, I like to manage the project, and then bring in some conversational designers to help and price even some developers sometimes for integration work. And yeah, being external. I like it now. Because I've done corporate life and burned myself out doing corporate life. So being external now it means I can pick and choose the work as well, which is nice,
Martyn Redstone
lovely, lovely.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Well, this has been interesting. So people need to get registered, they just need to go to the blog job site, click on the freelancing section, and take some time to fill out their profile.
Martyn Redstone
Yeah, absolutely. Doesn't take long at all. But keep up to date, any new projects you're working on add into there, the more people that registered, the more employers will want to use it. I think that's the key bit. It's different to running a job board where it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. When it comes to freelance platforms, you know, and I'll build it in public. You know, I'm happy to tell people about the different challenges and different problems. But the biggest challenge is asking employees to use it when there isn't a strong community of freelancers on there. So the more that you the more people that register, the more opportunity will go on there. And I will say very quickly that on. On bottoms, you can actually also create services to sell and projects to sell. So So if people are thinking, You know what, I don't want to do the hourly stuff. I don't want to do the daily stuff. Yeah, I just want to do, you know, Persona design or whatever you're wherever your specialism is, wherever you're stronger, create a service around that creative project around that and put it up for sale because employees can come in and pick and choose exactly. We don't need a full blown conversation designer, we don't need any of that we need somebody who can come in and help us design personas. And I'll pick off that project and I'll give it straight to that person. So I think that's something to bear in mind as well on there as you build your build your portfolio, but also create your services that you want to sell as well.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, quite a question here. What are your approaches to pre pricing conversational AI and bot projects? Is it hourly or flat rate? So when I was a freelancer, I used to basically do a very brief kind of scope with the client getting to agree to what they wanted to generate. And I would basically work out how many hours I thought it's gonna take me, now I just do a project. And also because I'm working with bigger companies now, when I do the scope, I charge for the scope work. Because that continue to take me anywhere from five to 10 days to develop the scope for bigger companies. And effectively, once they got the scope, they could decide whether or not to work with me. So they, they pay for the scope. And then if I ended up then project managing or being the conversational diet designer on that project, then I just take the price and the scope offer the end price that works for me, customers, clients seem to like that approach. It's honest. And I get something for five to 10 days work. You know, I learned the hard way, doing anything for free. Yeah, doing quotes and proposals and all that type of stuff, which effectively was turning into scopes anyway. Yeah, and then people would not come back, they just take the scope and do it. So I started charging it. So yeah. Adrian Thompson. Yes, do your scope discovery as a paid piece of work, because it takes a lot of skill and a lot of knowledge. I always recommend products at the same time. So within that, I'll talk about resourcing risks, opportunities, do the whole SWOT thing, I'll talk about what I think the minimum viable boss should be. And also potentially blue sky stuff where they could be going. Because, you know, we all know, a conversational AI project is just not a one shot deal. You're looking to create something over a couple of years, and my clients tend to stay with me was working it out, they often stay at least nine to 18 months of work. It's been with me for two years. And it just keep iterating. So yeah, it's definitely worth doing the scope. And I think it shows it does show off your expertise, the scope. And then within that, I basically put my feet basically, yeah, this is the project, this is what I suggest you do in phase one, and this will be my fee. I hope that makes sense. So another question there from Theo, do you get many companies or hobby for you to run the project as an external contractor? Yes, but that's took me a long time to get to that stage. It's a lot of experience a lot of referrals. And you've got to talk, the tug of war, the war, basically, you've got to be, you've got to know your subjects. I was a project manager, many years ago, that prints to project manager. So I've got that background. So I'm comfortable doing it, I've got the tools, I've got my processes in place. Sometimes they have to change slightly when you're working with a big corporate because they have certain ways of working that communication in any of these projects, communications key. managing risks, that's something I learned as a project manager, you're always managing the risk.
Martyn Redstone
Yeah, I agree. I think I don't know about you. But so I'm the same way I printed the project manager. And, you know, back in, kind of before this world, I was contracting as a project manager as well, there's some businesses where if not had experienced project management, they sometimes find it very hard to all of a sudden, they have this very defined process. Because you come in as a principal project manager, you've got all of your lovely processes and your paperwork and all those kinds of things. And it's sometimes a bit too much for people. So actually, they they appreciate the experience of an external contractor who who would come in, manage that one on their behalf. And they can be as hands on or as hands off as they want. But ultimately, they know that you know, through it through your statement works, whatever you're going to do that they know that you're going to output for them at the end a successful project because you've got that experience and knowledge to take it from A to B.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, yeah, my last probably 1012 projects of all I've used monday.com. And clients have liked it, because of basically built the board, the project board, everything's in there, nothing could be missed. Things aren't flying around on email, which I love, because things get lost and missed. So all the communication is done through monday.com. Everybody knows what their responsibilities are communication channels are nice and clear. Yeah, so I the project management as much as I like geeking out and building bots, which I do, and I do it all the time. You know, I'm doing a lot with Juji at the moment. I'll have something very exciting next Friday with Juji because they've now integrated with generative, generative generative AI. I can't wait to test it later this week and then show it off the following week. So I love the geeky stuff. And I think as you know as a project manager, I managed fleet delivery. Security for buildings, server room builds I did anything and everything and prints to really means that you could probably do most projects Yeah, I think being a geek and loving conversational AI just puts me as an advantage when I'm project manager, because I know what should happen and when and how it should be managed. There's always I'm always learning don't get me wrong. That's why I love working with freelancers, because they'll have experiences that I haven't got. So I'm always learning. But yeah, I won't get my hands dirty. I'll go in there. And, you know, look at the logs. Why that why that conversation is not generating the right response. Yeah, I love all that stuff. And the analytics really get off on the analytics as well.
Martyn Redstone
You know, it's, it's funny, and I know we're kind of coming to the end of our session now. But but something I think that's really important to point out is that you say your your background is project management, I know you've got, you know, very background, really interesting one. But to be able to geek out over something that you're passionate about, such as conversational AI, and take the skills and experiences that you've had over the last, you know, several years or decades or whoever all we all are. Yeah, and merge that together is just absolutely fantastic. So taking your your skills and experience in project management, taking your passion and geekery, around around conversational and putting these together. You know, I think that I think I think that provides a lot more power to what you offer to your customers and your clients. And that's exactly where I've come from, you know, I've spent the last 17 years in recruitment. There isn't, there isn't anything that I don't know about recruitment, I you know, and I'm, I'm confident to say that, but ultimately, over the last six years, I've been in the world of conversational chatbots, for recruitment, but totally geeked out and fell in love with with conversational AI and everything about it. And I wanted to bring the two together, which is why I created bot jobs because I thought, you know, I'm doing conversational for recruitment, why can't I do recruitment for conversational and just turn it on its head. And that's what I love, you know, and so that's why I want to bring bots together as this whole can number one career destination. For conversational AI, you'll see that through kind of content, I'm starting to put out my blogs, yeah, helping people prepare for interviews, all those kinds of things that I get asked all the time, it's all going up there as blogs now. So so so that, that that's what I love is you know, bringing to different areas of your of your world and your careers together and bringing it together and some that you're really passionate about. It's fantastic. Absolutely.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah, we've both had very careers to get to this point. And all that stuff adds to experience, which is fascinating. For conversational designers. And you know, I delivered that ebook, which has sold really well actually how to be a great conversation or designer. And I think as a few people were shocked that it wasn't really about conversational AI, it was about how to be an asset, and how to be good at that thing. Not about you know, how to follow the happy path and what to do and human fallback, and all that kind of stuff. But some other some lovely feedback about that, and I think is conversational. People work in conversation, if you're doing conversational design, as much as the skill of conversational design is important. And understanding understanding customer behaviour. And, you know, I'm learning I've learned a lot about linguistics, something I never get involved in. But also it's about being good. And being being hireable. You know, being able to communicate clearly being an asset to the team, continuously learning. And the book kind of dives into that.
Martyn Redstone
So this is if you haven't bought it, buy it because it is great.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Yeah. If anybody wants to just ask in the comments, I'll give you a 50% off I've got no code. So you get it for like five
Martyn Redstone
or take advantage of that.
Jim Rowe-Bot
Well, this has been interesting, buddy. I think we should do stuff like we should do stuff like this again, focusing on individual things that are happening out there. I know we were talking about some of the bullshit around what people are saying about chaps up to the moment that could be fascinating. But let's do something again. And let's definitely push back jobs freelancing project side as much as we can because we need
Martyn Redstone
your what's your what you're one of our project buyers on there. So yes, register and you might you never know you might end up working on one of Jim's projects. So yeah,
Jim Rowe-Bot
my projects are good. Trust me. I love them. freely speak to you, Martin. Get back to work.
Martyn Redstone
Yeah, you too
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
freelancers, conversational, project, people, portfolio, bot, scope, jobs, designer, freelance, register, ai, managing, build, opportunities, create, thought, ultimately, bit, freelancing