Automatic Freelancer
The step-by-step guide to building a consistent, predictable, profitable business as a freelance web developer or designer.
When you took the leap to become a consultant or freelancer, you accomplished one of life's biggest dreams – working for yourself, from anywhere, on your own schedule and your own terms.
You remember the thrill of saying goodbye to your demoralizing day job, once and for all. The joy of working long, late hours to build a business that was truly yours. The exhilaration of scoring that first client and cashing that first check. You were finally free.
And then, you realized it was up to you – and only you – to keep it all going.
When you had a big month, work was fun and life was easy. When you had a downturn, it felt personal. You asked yourself, "Am I really cut out for this?" When your bank account balance dwindled, you started to wonder: "Would I be better off with a real job?"
If you looked to other freelancers or consultants for help, chances are, they just smiled knowingly. "Welcome to my world," they'd sigh. "It's a never-ending cycle of feast and famine."
I used to think the same thing. Not anymore.
After more than a decade of experience and experimentation, I’ve learned that the popular wisdom is wrong. The feast-and-famine cycle is not a necessary evil, and it's not an inevitable trade-off for the benefits of being your own boss. It is a symptom of specific problems in your business that you can permanently solve.
You're already great at what you do. You deliver extraordinary creative and technical services, and your clients walk away happy. You just need a trusted ally to help you with the job behind the job – the one where you build a predictable, sustainable, serious business based on your existing talents and skills.
Without that business foundation, it’s all too easy to stay on the same old grind for years, saying things like...
“I’m on the rollercoaster of feast and famine. The big months are great, but I’m always anxious because I don’t know what’s coming next.”
“I could work 24/7 and still never get everything done. There’s no boundary between work and life.”
“I’m always wearing multiple hats … when I have a rush of projects, I’m too slammed to write proposals and sell new business.”
“Clients only care about cost. How can I earn more when they already think I’m expensive?”
These are the questions of skilled creators who haven't yet built a sustainable business that turns creativity into a career. If this sounds like you, you're not alone.
I've been there, and I've spent the past 14 years experimenting, studying, succeeding, failing, and devoting my life to building a business that actually lives up to my dreams. Along the way, I've helped my fellow freelancers and consultants apply the same lessons to their lives – dramatically increasing their incomes and making life and work a hell of a lot more fun.
The result? A clear, straightforward system for building consistent, predictable profit – without spending your whole life doing sales, without getting bogged down in the "busy-ness" of business, and while delivering amazing work to clients. And most importantly, while having fun doing your job.
The path isn't easy – you'll have to pass by lots of discouraged freelancers and starving artists along the way. But if you're ready to put in the work and invest in yourself, I'm ready to show you the inner workings of a thriving freelance career.
It's time to leave the cycle of feast and famine behind – and replace it with continuous growth. As you adopt the Automatic Freelancer system, you'll shift from hoping to sign your next project to stay afloat, to being assured of ongoing retainer and repeat-client income.
I’m Rob Howard, the CEO of Understrap and Howard Development & Consulting, and the creator of Automatic Freelancer. For 20+ years, I’ve been on a full-time journey to build a thriving career as a freelancer, consultant and solo entrepreneur. Like you, I deliver high-end creative and technical services to clients – primarily in web development, augmented with interdisciplinary knowledge of design, advertising and publishing. And like you, I struggled for years to make it work as a real income stream.
Early on, most of my successes were accidental: a serendipitous introduction to a new client, a random project that paid more than the rest. Over time, I pushed myself to learn more, try everything, and book up on the inner workings of a successful consultancy. From hundreds of books, blogs and courses, I'd pluck ideas and give them a try. There was a ton of useless noise out there – but some concepts and approaches really clicked. Thanks to all that study and experimentation (and a lot of failure), after five years without a real job, I crossed over from running a sputtering business to earning a serious, professional, full-time income.
Since then, I've honed my process, crunched my data and begun sharing what I've learned with friends and colleagues in similar businesses – the first students of Automatic Freelancer. After seeing their businesses grow for years thanks to the systems I helped them build, I'm now sharing the same knowledge with you.
My businesses have been featured in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Entertainment Weekly, Quartz and TechCrunch. My clients have included Harvard University, MIT and The World Bank. Today, I'm more than a decade into a life as a profitable, predictable freelance business owner. These tools and strategies have helped me live abroad (and take my clients with me), move across the country (with zero friction), start a family, and have both the time and the money to make most of every moment along the way.
I've always had an entrepreneurial spark and a love for building businesses – but it's much more than that, too. When I see a student earning more, that's a great start. But there are a lot of ways to generate income, and most of them are not accompanied by a higher quality of life. When I see a student with a totally new mindset (and a new trajectory through life to go with it) – that's when I know we've accomplished something that really matters.
Lifetime access to all course material, so you can learn at your own pace and revisit it anytime.
37+ in-depth video lessons, with step-by-step guides you can follow to grow your freelance business. Full closed-captioning on every video.
The exact, word-for-word proposal templates I use on every client project, plus my proprietary project-fee-calculator that allows me to write quotes in less than 30 minutes.
Two special live Zoom Q&A sessions for all Automatic Freelancer students – join me on Zoom and ask me anything. The events are on November 18 and December 7 – if you can't make it, submit your questions in advance and we'll share the recording.
A four-week journey to a predictable, profitable freelance business.
Automatic Freelancer includes 37 in-depth video lessons, plus downloadable tools to help you take action fast.
Sell Less, Earn More
Live Hybrid Retainer Workshop (Freelance Business Week Denver)
The Secrets of the Hybrid Retainer
The Complete Hybrid Retainer Proposal Template
The Hybrid Retainer Brainstorming Worksheet
The Counterintuitive Unlimited Access Plan
Becoming a Trusted Expert and Friend
Bonus: The Recurring Revenue Transformation
Workshop: Learning to Love Commitment
The REAL Ideal Client Formula
How To Track The Right Data – So You Can Make Smart Decisions
No More Unicorns: How To Target Clients You Can Actually Find
Download: The Client Profit-Per-Hour Worksheet + Calculator
Workshop: Mike Discovers His Ideal Audience
Workshop: Targeting the Right Audience Without a Big Portfolio
The Magic of Exclusivity: Rapid Qualification and Sales
The Most Powerful Way to Build a Pipeline (... and what not to waste your time on)
How The 'Active' Pipeline Changes the Game
Workshop: Susan Hones Her Exclusivity Pitch
Workshop: Writing a Powerful Outreach E-mail
Nurturing Your 'Not Yet' Leads
Clients that Keep Coming Back
Referrals (and Playing the Long Game)
Workshop: Prospecting Success & Why High-Pressure Tactics Make Life Worse
Workshop: Keeping Up Your Momentum as You Build Your Pipeline
The Shocking Power of the Fixed Fee
Building Your Project Menu
Bonus: The Irresistible Offer That Makes Competition Irrelevant
Download: The Fixed-Fee Proposal Template
Raise Your Prices, Risk-Free
Creating Your 30-Minute Profitable Proposal
Download: The 30-Minute Profitable Proposal Worksheet + Calculator
How To Negotiate With Clients (And Win)
Bonus: The Personal Finance Framework for Sudden Income Surges
Before You Delegate, Eliminate
Never Check E-mail Again
Workshop: How to Defeat Scope Creep
Eat Dessert First
The 'Money Machine'
How To "Turn Off" a Thriving Business
The Dark Art of Firing Clients
Hiring Help – And Beyond...
Bonus: The Hidden Financial Formula of High-End Freelancing
Live Q&A Session: November 18
Live Q&A Session: December 7
The course will help you level up your freelance or consulting business – but it's not right for everyone. The most successful students check these boxes...
You provide creative or technical services, such as design, programming, writing or marketing
You have 3+ clients and are on track to earn $30K+ this year
You're a solo business owner or part of a small team (and all your partners are committed to improvement, too)
You're ready to commit at least a few highly focused hours a week to improving your business
You want to build a highly profitable, full-time business you love ... not chase magical, passive income from the beach
You're just starting out. You'll need data from at least three clients or projects for these systems to help you level up.
You're moonlighting and don't plan to go full-time with your freelance or consulting business.
You're earning more than $200K a year from your business. You may get a few valuable takeaways, but this course won't change the game for you. (Stay tuned for more advanced material.)
You want to hire staff to solve all your problems. This course is about building an extraordinarily efficient, profitable system with a very small team, so you can grow exponentially once you have a solid foundation.
You're stuck in your ways. This course intentionally challenges the conventional wisdom and looks at hard data and real dollars-and-cents. Prepare to exit your comfort zone.
Try Automatic Freelancer for a full 60 days, risk free.
Your investment is protected by our unconditional 60-day 100% money-back guarantee. Try the full course for 60 days, and if you aren’t blown away by the course for any reason, we insist that you get 100% of your money back.
Just e-mail us within 60 days and we’ll provide a full refund. That means you can start building your freelance business today, 100% risk-free.
I've designed the course to pay for itself with your first new (and improved) client.
Your enrollment is backed by my unbeatable 60-day 100% money-back guarantee.
Easy Monthly Payments
You have lifetime access to all course material – so you can take it at your own pace and build your business in the way that feels right for you. There's at least 3 to 6 months worth of big wins packed into 37 lessons, so plan to play the long game and implement Automatic Freelancer over the course of many months.
The course is entirely self-paced – you can speed through it and implement over time, or you can watch each lesson and digest it slowly. Either way, you have lifetime access, and you'll be able to implement the specific strategies and tactics in the course for many years to come.
First, I encourage you to take your time and make sure you're ready to fully commit before you enroll. To get the most from this program, you should run a creative or technical service business, have at least 3 clients, and be on track to earn $30K+ this year. You should be ready to spend 3+ hours a week improving your business.
I promise an unconditional 60-day 100% money-back guarantee. If you aren't blown away by the program for any reason, I insist that you get 100% of your money back.
Just e-mail me within 60 days and I'll provide a full refund. That means you can start growing your business today, 100% risk-free.
Yes, you'll have the opportunity to submit questions in advance (if you can't make the live sessions on Zoom) and will receive full recordings of both live sessions.
Lifetime access to all course material, so you can learn at your own pace and revisit it anytime.
37+ in-depth video lessons, with step-by-step guides you can follow to grow your freelance business. Full closed-captioning on every video.
The exact, word-for-word proposal templates I use on every client project, plus my proprietary project-fee-calculator that allows me to write quotes in less than 30 minutes.
Two special live Zoom Q&A sessions for all Automatic Freelancer students – join me on Zoom and ask me anything. The events are on November 18 and December 7 – if you can't make it, submit your questions in advance and we'll share the recording.
You’re on the verge of getting off the freelance rollercoaster for good – and unlocking the secret to building a predictably profitable freelance business.
That means no more questions from family and friends about when you’re getting a “real job.” No more jokes about whether or not you wear pants to work. No more anxiety and stress over the seemingly endless cycle of feast and famine.
And most importantly, no more longing to fulfill your true purpose or wondering if you’re on the right path.
Instead, you’ll stroll into your office each morning, do work that you LOVE for clients that you enjoy working with, and rest easy at the end of the day knowing you’ve got reliable cash-flow booked for the long term.
There’s a lot of freelance advice out there. You could cobble together a plan from a grab-bag of Top 10 lists, self-help books, questionable “common wisdom” and whispered advice from friends. But let’s be honest – the chances that this cacophony of Internet nonsense will actually lead you to a simple, focused, powerful blueprint for a flexible, profitable business are slim to none.
With Automatic Freelancer, you can instantly unlock a proven, meticulously documented, data-driven formula for 6-figure freelancing.
I’ve invested 20+ years learning how to make my freelance business automatic. That includes thousands of hours of reading, learning, testing and failing – again and again – before finding the techniques that worked. I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on education, courses and conferences and at least 4,000 business days in the trenches.
Everything I’ve learned – thoroughly tested and perfected – is packed into this course. And now, it can all be yours.
Don’t waste precious time and energy making the same mistakes I did. Join the Automatic Freelancer today and skip the stress, hassle and sleepless nights…
Your enrollment is backed by my unbeatable 60-day 100% money-back guarantee.
Easy Monthly Payments