Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's public safety briefing led by deputy mayor for public safety Phil banks Following our last speaker. We will take a few questions from the media followed by some questions that have been submitted by the public ahead of today's briefing I would now like to turn it over to deputy mayor Phil banks Good afternoon and welcome everyone. I Would like to wish everyone And those who are observing Ramadan round I started yesterday Ramadan will buy it and certainly a peaceful and blessed Ramadan period for all And continue to keep New York City safe as the safest big city in America You're gonna be joined by four people today. One of them you've heard from before. He's chief Michael Petrie He's a chief of crime control strategies for the NYPD and he's going to be speaking about two topics one topic is going to be about these illegal weed shops and The proliferation of them and the damages that they're causing throughout the city He's also going to be talking about auto and auto related thefts Then you're gonna hear from the parks apartment I'm joined today by the deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark folk and he is accompanied by Assistant commissioner Edwin Rodriguez and they're gonna be talking very excitingly about a new initiative That they are going to be utilizing as far as keeping the park safe cleanliness of the parks go hand-in-hand with public safety and It's actually very exciting to see that they're looking at this initiative I think that the citizens are gonna be very happy about what we're doing to keep our parks to continue to keep them clean And last but not least we're gonna be here from the Ana Logan who is the director of the mayor's office of criminal justice She is going to briefly explain to you exactly what that office does But then she's gonna have a presentation and she's going to discuss recidivism And what exactly that means and the impact that it is having on our our city And he's a small number of individuals that's committing an inordinate amount of crime and impacting the city And it's a very interesting very informative Presentation Diana and I know that everybody's going to get a lot a lot out of that So for those of you who are tuning in thank you. I appreciate it We're gonna have these discussions. You're gonna see them expand You're gonna see a lot more people from city and city government in the future You're gonna see people from our external partners that we work with come up here and this discussion and this informative session We believe there's gonna be very beneficial. So we like for you to Share with your friends here with your colleagues here with anyone who you think would benefit share with everybody Go to hear from Eric comm you can sign up you sign up on the link you get a link We will inform you about the topics that we will be discussing It'll be a platform for you to submit your questions So that we can answer your questions and then you can it's to start for you to engage in these conversations with us So once again, thank you for all who is joining Our first topic today that we're going to be speaking about is this increase of these illegal weed shops, right? Smoke shops that you're seeing that's taking place all throughout the city And if you have not seen them I just asked you to open up your eyes because every day they seem like there are more and more that are opening up and I just want to take a minute or just a brief second to really explain what we're faced with here before Michael Petrie goes into the details New York City and New York State like many other states have looked apart and looked historically at the enforcement of marijuana for decades and Come to the conclusion that there was unjust enforcement It was over enforcement in this area and it was a lot of people in a lot of communities that were severely impacted by the marijuana the marijuana laws and New York State said we're gonna do something about this We know legalized cannabis and we're going to allow and have a system in place that communities and people who were unjustly And unfairly Targeted by the criminal justice system who got swept up into that into that net that they will be given an opportunity Right to be able to prosper from the legal canonization in New York But there's a group of people out there who says no stop. We're not going for that We're not going to wait in line. We're not going to flood the application We're not going to have our marijuana regulated and we're also going to sell it to your kids And we're gonna talk to your kids and we're going to disguise it as candy and we're gonna disguise it as breakfast cereals So let's think about this. We as a government have decided to say hey We're gonna correct the wrong and then we're going to now look to positively impact Certain communities and we're gonna legalize cannabis Other people that have said no they're not going to be able to do that And I am and I think you're gonna hear that I believe Albany has is listening. I think Albany has heard I'd like to thank the governor and all the people in Albany who are at least taking this and making this the level of importance So that we can strengthen our laws to be able to impact the individuals who decided that they are not going to play by the rules And I think this is something that as a city and as a state we need to keep that high level of Importance in priority and quite frankly, I think we need to drive them out of business It is going to it and it has already impacted our communities as you hear shortly about the violence that's associated with it, etc Etc. So so chief of petri. Can you start telling us about these illegal? Shops that we're seeing smoke shops and what we can be doing about it. Yes, sir. Thank you deputy mayor So as as the deputy mayor stated we've seen a sharp increase in both the ownership and the selling of Illegal cannabis inside of smoke shops. We've identified almost 1,700 Smoke shops in New York City and they pop up daily So what we've been looking at is are these smoke shops acting illegally Are there complaints associated to those smoke shops? Whether it be 311 or 911 complaints. How many feet is the smoke shop from the nearest school and With the illegal sale of cannabis in some of these stores comes a cash business that Individuals are targeting We've seen over a hundred smoke shop related robberies already this year and what we're also seeing is the use of multiple motor vehicles that are either stolen or have paper plates being used to Then commit these these robberies. So what's the NYPD doing? We have really stepped up our enforcement with our partners and other city agencies but we've also have Robbery task force and most of our boroughs both on the patrol and the detective side of the investigations and We've you know, we've made hundreds of arrests just this year and we're going to continue to to focus on not not only the illegal sale of marijuana But also make sure that that these stores are safe and so are the surrounding areas one thing that the deputy mayor and myself have been speaking about in the police commissioner is an increase in catalytic convert of thefts in New York City Over the past two plus years Over 13,000 catalytic converters have been stolen in New York City and when I speak to other law enforcement professionals around the Tri-State area, they're also seeing the same problem. So why? Well, it really started in 2021 where we saw our shop increases in these thefts and it's a low-risk high-reward kind of crime But it also affects families think about going outside and thinking you're going to to school or to a game Or to the store and now you can't use your car and it takes a while for it to get fixed so the city passed two bills last year that is helping with the enforcement and also the state is Has just passed a bill in regards to catalytic converters. So I like to speak about a specific Program that the NYPD had started in the summer of 2021. It's called the NYPD CAT scan program So what this does is We etch a unique serial number onto the catalytic converter and then we enroll that into a database That serial number allows the NYPD to identify the vehicle that the catalytic converter belongs to And then what we can do is all we have to do is scan a QR code with The NYPD issued phone and check it through that database We've had four of these events where we've have done etching and we have Two events tentatively scheduled for April in Staten Island in Queens and we also put a Vehicle catalytic converter NYPD CAT scan program sticker on the vehicle identifying The thieves that that car is in the system of the NYPD's CAT scan program So I'm going to go back to something Mike and and so it's intervention right so we have the People stealing cars oftentimes when they are stealing your catalytic converter. They're stealing them out of Illegal cars.  But let's just go back a second to the the illegal smoke shops I want to be clear. We're talking about the illegal smoke shops Are not the ones who are operating and performing with the laws Um, I understand that robberies up in these establishments significantly. Is that accurate? That is correct So so we've really seen an uptick in these types of robberies in new york city Last year and it continues into this year And you have approximately what percent is of that in in? A tick is and he's but he's armed robberies people going in with guns. Yes, Rob the location. Yes Most of them are With gunpoint robberies Multiple perpetrators will enter and what we see is they then go on to commit another one and another borrow Go commit another one in another borrow. We've had upwards of of groups of individuals Do 20 to 25 smoke shop robberies in a month And they're targeting the the cash that's on site Now why why are these businesses having so much cash on site? Well, it's it's to Circumvent the tax law and I think that the mayors have proposed new bill To increase civil and tax penalties for unlicensed unlicensed and illicit sale of cannabis Will be something that that will help You know that if Cannabis has been legalized and decriminalized on the state level The federal laws have not quite caught up with that if you are Deposit money into a federal bank and it was Proceeds of Cannabis are you a committing a federal violations? These businesses are not going to play with the feds right because the penalties are too harsh So they're not putting this money into the bank and then it makes it an attraction For that cash to be on hand and then for the bad guys and the bad girls with their guns are going to rob Right, so they're not going to try not to break the fed law because the penalties are severe inadequate and sufficient But they're willing to break the state and city laws So I just want to actually applaud Our part is in orbony because I do believe they are looking at this and I believe that they're considering um increasing the potential sanctions that we can impose When we uncover these illegal Smokeshops who are targeting our our individuals there. So thank you orbony for actually taking a look at this and certainly For city for the residents for for bringing this out to us and for city government for Raising this particular issue, but it is uh, it is very very important issue. So So thank you chief for petri. Thank you So next we're going to uh speak to our partners in the parks department and they're going to inform us about a new initiative that Is uh, I'm actually excited about because I do believe cleanliness is next to godliness And certainly it is a hand in hand related to public safety, which is very important. So So, uh, commissioner Tell me what we're going to hear. Well, thank you very much, deputy mayor banks We greatly appreciate the invitation and we also do agree that cleanliness goes hand in hand with public safety Last week we marked the arrival of spring Which is really the beginning of the ramp up of the busiest time at parks Just for a bit of context we at new york city parks are responsible for 30 000 acres of land in the city Which is almost 14 percent of the city of new york We've over a thousand playgrounds 800 athletic fields. It's a very large system As the weather warms up. So does our operation We've been grooming ball fields and we shortly will begin to turn on over 3400 drinking fountains 800 spray features, which are really critical to help keep new yorkers cool and hydrated as the temperatures warm up We're also preparing to open all of our beaches and over 50 of our outdoor pools Again critical to help new yorkers cool down and enjoy the summer But as the deputy mayor noted Safety and cleanliness and programming go hand in hand It's our mission at parks to make sure that everyone is welcome and safe when they visit any one of our 1700 parks We believe one of the best strategies to do this is to have well maintained parks Our maintenance is a key to that To that end we're so pleased that mayor adams included in his get stuff clean campaign For the first time ever a dedicated second shift cleaning initiative At a select number of parks across the five boroughs These 240 newly hired parkies will be working afternoon and evening hours From thursday through monday. So over the weekend cleaning what we at park called hot spots Which is our heavily used sites during the warmer weather months. So think of picnic areas barbecue sites places where families and patrons gather We're dedicating staff to make sure that they're clean. So when you show up to use the park It's clean and along with cleanliness comes safety Simply put we're committed to maintaining our parks over a broader period of time at a larger number of parks across all five boroughs Critical to that also is the staff maintaining our over 1400 public restrooms There's been a lot of conversations in the press and amongst Our colleagues in government and the public about the importance of the public having access to safe and clean restrooms We are very pleased at parks that we provide more public restrooms in any other agency in the city And 1400 of them open seven days a week throughout the year We do really like to remind new yorkers though that clean safe parks is also dependent upon your use And your coming to parks. So if you see issues you see concerns Please call either 911 or 311 to report cleanliness issues And if you're coming to barbecue, we really do appreciate if you clean up after yourselves pick up after yourselves Bag up the trash and then place it right next to one of our trash containers And we'll make sure it gets out of there very quickly And or if you want to carry it out carry in carry out. We also appreciate that So again on behalf of all our hard-working colleagues at parks We appreciate this opportunity deputy mayor and we look forward to a great summer. I appreciate you So so so let's let's go over a couple potential takeaways one Is that if you are visiting the parks and if you see something Whether it's cleanliness related or not that does not look appropriate We like for you to call 311 or of course if it's an emergency call 911, right? That's the first takeaway, correct? Correct. Absolutely either 311 or 911 And the second takeaway is that if you're utilizing the park do the best you can right to clean up after yourself, right? Put your garbage in the garbage cans or I think take it with you or however you're going to see but you could help us Uh by helping yourself, right? You can you can how's it go? You can help us help you Correct by you actually doing a lot of cleaning up yourself But we're also dedicating resources where they were not dedicated before Right dedicated shifts the evening and weekend hours, correct So this would be a correct statement that the areas at least where we're starting this initiative I think you said it was you know 62 different facilities that the people should see cleaner this year than they did previously Absolutely. That's our goal. Okay. Yep. Very good. Excellent Okay, so last but certainly not least right. I am joined here by deanna logan Director of the mayor's office of criminal justice me and deanna speak Five or six times a day She has a very very critical and important job And I think it's going to be interesting what she is going to be speaking about now. So So deanna if we could just get a real quick overview because a lot of people may not Truly know or understand what the mayor's office of criminal justice does And then you're going to have a presentation that's going to focus in on recidivism and just certain areas in the criminal justice system, right? Yes, okay, it's on you. Okay. Well, good afternoon everybody I'm really happy to be here with my colleagues from the parks department from new york city police department They keep me with chief lepetre all the time apparently, but Uh, thank you mayor. Thank you deputy mayor banks My name is deanna logan and I am the director of the mayor's office of criminal justice We affectionately refer to ourselves as mac jay and a lot of people refer to us as mac jay as well We serve as the think tank and coordinating entity for the city's criminal justice system And what does that mean? It means that we advise mayor adams and deputy mayor banks on criminal justice policy and serve as the mayor's representatives to the courts to district attorneys Defender organizations state criminal justice agencies among other entities We work with our law enforcement Partners with city agencies not for profits foundations the public And our goal is to implement data driven Anti-crime strategies and promote the operation of a fair justice system Our efforts include projects to address current crime conditions prevent offending and build strong neighborhoods that ensure enduring safety mac jay's work is grounded in data We have our research innovation and policy teams. They work collaboratively to identify concerns that may be barriers to public safety And so now deputy mayor i'm going to just kind of go into some of the collaboration and the efforts that we've had on the one of the main main Crime challenges that we've been seeing right so Under mayor adams leadership with deputy mayor banks the city's public safety agencies began an Unprecedented collaboration to align crime data across the city systems mac jay New york police department department of correction and many providers of our service work together to coordinate the data systems And produce an accurate picture of public safety landscape within the criminal justice framework of new york city We also mac jay have a long-standing relationship with the office of court administrations data team That both drives the data that's available and helps to analyze criminal justice trends So with our sister city agencies and state city agencies We also work with the partner service providers and justice involved individuals To obtain and review not only the quantitative data that you hear us talk about in terms of numbers But qualitative data like how it actually works for them on the ground To inform the city's government's critical criminal justice work Our unprecedented collaboration across all of these multiple data streams allowed us to drill down Into the city's most challenging public safety matters That one challenge that new york city is facing right now Is the recidivism problem and when we talk about the recidivism problem What we are really talking about is the deep dive into the data that shows us that approximately 9 000 people that have a Recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court And so I want to be really clear about that because when we're talking about a recent persistent Criminal charge pattern. We're not saying that everybody's been convicted We're saying that these individuals in a very short Quick period have been coming back on recurring criminal charges And they're failing to actually show up in court for those charges, right? So in the last year 2022 There were approximately 190 000 arrests and chief lapetri will let you know because you see he's smiling at me because he knows that that's accurate of those 9 000 individuals that were charged in court that had that pattern of recent persistent recurring criminal charges The population of 9 000 Represents 8 percent of all arrests right 8 percent And then when we looked even closer what we realized is those 9 000 with that pattern Of them there are approximately 2000 that would go on to commit violent felony offenses, right? 9 000 that have the recurring and within that population. There's a pocket Small pocket of 2000 individuals that go on to commit violent felony offenses Now putting that information into perspective what we know is people with recent persistent pattern Of recurring criminal charges and missing court Are at high risk for failing to appear in court and committing another crime However, they're also the small concentration of people who commit those crimes, right? We identified this group by working with all of our partners across agencies service providers and we worked together and we said What do all of these people have in common? What do they share? and When we look at data, I can tell you that the research innovation team they're they're usually really complicated and The the thing that was most astonishing about this group of people Is that what they shared was absolutely common sense? It wasn't complicated. It was that within this group. They were recent pending felony cases in court multiple warrants two or more in the past five years several open cases and three or more right several open cases means three or more within the past five years Once we actually honed in on those shared factors It wasn't hard for all of the experts in the area to replicate our findings, right? That's when we know that we're we're on to something when we can give Our partners the information of what we're seeing and they can take the data and they can do it themselves And they did and they concurred that these individuals Were most likely to reoffend and miscourt the same way that we came to that understanding Now what we also know is true from our data is that People within this within the arrest population who don't have these shared factors And don't exhibit the pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court Are actually returning to court So people who Don't have warrants in the last five years No convictions in the last three years No felony convictions in the last 10 years And no pending cases Generally have significant fewer incidents of recurring criminal charges So the data is clear It shows that people who have Recent patterns of recurring criminal charges Are driving a considerable amount Of the crime we're seeing today, right this population of individuals as you should be seeing on your screen I hope you're seeing on your screen disproportionately accounts for a significant percentage of the crime and non-court compliance 8% of the arrested people as you're seeing out of the 190,000 citywide arrests in 2022 That group accounted for 27 percent of felony arrests 22 of all or 22 percent of all arrests 29 percent of felony robbery arrests 57 percent of felony burglary arrests 36 percent of grand larceny arrests 33 percent of larceny auto arrests, which I'm thinking chief laboratory falls into your catalytic converter population and then 60 percent of misdemeanor pettit larceny arrests The small population of individuals with this recent persistent pattern Are actually really struggling. We know that they are struggling to modify their own behavior They're also individuals that are not susceptible to the supports that work for the majority of people that we talked about that aren't seeing that pattern We understand that for some individuals with this recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges A period of incarceration is warranted and in some cases the necessary mechanism to order to disrupt that cycle But we also understand that true public safety requires multiple methods and partners that can deploy the tactics to combine strong accountability and robust prevention strategies We know that many among the recidivist group are struggling with a heightened level of need And it means that in specific cases we must employ a much more targeted form of support And supervision to provide Intent services accountability coping skills that will afford these individuals the ability to overcome their behavior Based on research in new york and other jurisdictions. We can improve outcomes for many of this group With a much more precise response to address their behavior and needs that would include more active and stringent supervision While they are out of jail housing supports mental health care Trauma informed therapeutic supports to help guide better responses to difficult situations Stressors and fears what we know about this population is that they respond to what we take for granted getting up and going to an appointment Rises in them a level of fear and flight or flight response that does not actually happen for average new yorkers and citizens Improving the outcomes for this group is possible And we will be coordinating across our incredible array of talented service providers to do everything in the city's power to increase the intensity Precision and effectiveness of how we help this population Successfully return to court to answer their charges and to avoid reoffending So what you know is more intense individualized supervision and clinical supports equals reduced rearrest rates Increased court appearance rates to go back and finish their cases and address their crimes and fairer more efficient system operation for the criminal justice system Excellent So if I could just you know a couple of things, uh diana and first of all, thank you that was very informative And I i'm i'm relatively confident that our listeners here, you know got a thorough education understanding of this issue here so small percentage of the population creating an inordinate amount of A crime has taken place right driving the numbers are for the percentages are higher And even within that small amount like we can identify even within that small amount the ones that are actually We've taken that and are creating violent felony offenses against us so we can see the population It's nine thousand that population will change because since it's common sense Criteria then people roll in and people roll out but the trend of nine thousand People that are overall reoffending stays and two thousand of them will go on to commit violent felony offenses And since we're talking about recidivism, we we know who these individuals are correct In Well, we know we can identify them at arraignment And so we know that we need to do something different for those individuals exactly and and and that difference Can be harsh in conservation races, but it could actually just be services that they actually need as well Right. Absolutely. There's the two things that you can give them, right? You know if it's required from conservation, which as a society We do want to make sure that that is only a last step a last result We want to be very able to make the assessment the tree yard to determine will housing work will job work will mental health Assisters worth work to be able to get these individuals out of criminal justice systems and as the last resort In conservation if need be just to save the rest of society would I be accurate and framing it? That is very accurate Okay, thank you Okay, so listen here that That actually sums up our our presentations for this week once again Thank you, and I believe that we're going to go to some type of questions Thank you deputy mayor We will now take a few on-topic questions from the media related to today's presentations We encourage those who have an on-topic question related to today's briefing to use the raise hand function now For any off-topic questions, please follow up with the press office for a response Our first question will come from Debra Lee Santos Who is with the Manhattan Times Bronx Free Press? Debra, you know, Debra Lealon is now unmuted Terrific. Good morning. Can you all hear me? Yes Terrific. Thank you for the time in the presentations Um in time the conversation uh to public on public safety to a change in seasons and the uptick Uh of use of the park screen spaces and overall increase in just the use of public spaces Um, you know, it's an obvious concern that the youth related incidents that we've seen uh proliferate Involving guns in instance some instances not involving them in others. For example, the uptown platform seen where a young man was was brutally beaten by another group of of youth The concern also Is uh exacerbated as we turn again in terms of the the season and think about how there'll be more use of public spaces There'll be more congregation. There'll be more opportunities, rightfully so And I want to ask um the deputy mayor uh to speak to how it is at the nypd And the city agencies that are represented here today um specifically plan on addressing That concern uh because again, you're you're already seeing that uptick in in youth Violence and youth incidents. Um, and that's likely only going to be exacerbated by The change in in weather Thank you for the question deborley. Unfortunately, we only have time today to take questions related to the presentations that were made during this briefing Uh, we will refer that question to the press office and somebody will follow up with you later this afternoon our next question comes from Bernadette Hogan from the new york post Bernadette your line is now unmuted Great. Hi guys. Thank you so much. Um, this is a question for director logan The figures that you provided about the group of 9 000 and then the smaller group of very violent, um offenders the 2000 How do those figures compare to 20 or 2019 or 2018? What's the five-year arc and how can you explain? That transition of numbers so So unfortunately when we look at the data part of this unprecedented Collaboration was to get us additional variables that really start in 2020 and don't allow us to go back Into the 2019 2018 to do that. We do know that our partners in criminal justice uh, uh, so Cja is what we refer to them as Have a dashboard that kind of gives a little look into this population But overall the data really starts and is reliable when we look starting in 2020 Thank you Earlier this week the administration reached out to new yorkers asking them to submit questions for the officials that have joined us here today We will now get to as many of those as we can with the time that we have left Our first question comes from alice and queens and is for the parks department She asks if a park is overgrown with invasive vines such as english ivy. How can I report it to be removed? Great. Thank you very much alice for the question Um, certainly control of vegetation and parks is one of our primary focus And if there's overgrown vegetation, we encourage any citizen to call 311 And report it through 311 with the location And if you have a sense of the type of vegetation you can also submit photographs And then we'll follow up on that request. Thank you Our next question comes from richard from the bronx and is for the nypd He asks the most recent opportunity for the community to participate in the bronx calm stat was a real example of transparency and fostering trust How can the community further support the nypd with community oriented policing separate and apart from precinct councils? Thank you. Yes, so we we just had our really our second Comstat community meeting which went very well With the bronx this week You know as always, uh, you know, it's the community and police working together, right? So the police department needs the community For the eyes and ears, you know call 311 call 9-1-1 You know walk into your local precinct and really meet the offices From that precinct or or the area that that you live in or the area that you uh work in Thank you Thank you chief Our next question comes from kathleen in brooklyn for mac jay In response to the covet pandemic mac jay worked with community organizations to open emergency reentry housing To decarcerate rikers island does mac jay remain committed to the emergency low barrier reentry housing model in addition To the transitional housing bed scheduled to come online this summer So the administration and mac jay are committed to making sure that housing is a priority When we opened up the reentry emergency hotels that was always meant to be a short term emergency We are now working to move into transitional housing, which is a much more cost-effective Way for the city to provide housing to all of those people who have criminal justice involvement Most importantly what the emergency reentry hotels did for us was allow us to take Best lessons learned meaning that as we're moving into transitional housing We will make sure that the partners that are providing it have immediate policemen for individuals within the 24 to 48 hour period that we had to do with the emergency hotels We will have the onsite services that support individuals and we will be able to do it at a much more Much more cost effective way for the city and for all of the people that need the supports Our next question comes from lauren from queens for the parks department She asks has the past infestation of the spotted lantern fly compromised the health of street trees Is there a plan to survey street trees and exterminate spotted lantern flies? Thank you lauren for that question Actually, the state's department of agriculture is the lead agency on spotted lantern flies and we regularly coordinate Approaches in response to them the spotted lantern lantern fly is mainly threat to agricultural crops Alone they are they do not kill trees although in great Quantities they could weaken trees At this time we at parks are not considering any widespread Treatment or certainly not removal of trees in order to control the spotted lantern fly population We do encourage all new yorkers though if you see a spotted lantern fly Please feel free to just squash it and dispose of it. Thank you All right, the next question comes from greg on statten island and this is actually related to the chief's presentation just earlier Are there more local police patrols being planned to combat people walking around in early hours of the morning Chicken car doors and private driveways and parked on the street Thank you greg so yes, so we have seen a optic in Motor vehicle break-ins in statten island We actually just had statten island Into comp stat just just a couple of weeks ago and that was one of the things That we were questioning the commanders on so what the commanders have done is they have moved Some patrols to the to the areas and to the times that they do see A cluster of car brakes and we're also looking at Car brake recidivists recidivists who might live in the area, but you definitely will see and And are seeing a more increased patrol in regards to car brakes in statten island Next question comes from roger from statten island. This is for mac j Does your office track repeat offenders when it comes to shoplifting? This is a big problem in our city So Mac j doesn't actually track individuals We review aggregate data to identify trends and patterns that allow our partners to work And support individuals, but also for nypd does the enforcement part of that work We do however Work with the mayor on those initiatives that are Most pressing and so as it regards to retail theft there will be more to come because We have been working very closely with deputy mayor banks and with the mayor for the retail theft plan On individuals that are the recidivists that are driving that So if I could just add to it, so the new york city police department does track Shoplifting recidivists as we track all recidivists in new york city And I will tell you this we know who the 327 individuals are that have been arrested over 6,000 times in the past year 327 people Have been arrested 6,000 times for shop shoplifting related crime and when you look at Those individuals almost half of them are convicted felons. So those are the individuals Some of them that diana logan was speaking about during her presentation Thank you Our next question comes from sarah in brooklyn and is for the parks department Can you tell me more about the plan to bring legal e-bikes into parks? Great. Thank you sarah for that question. We're very excited about this pilot initiative We at parks along with the entire city has seen the significant growth in electric micro mobility including e-bikes And in coordination with our sister agencies across the city We're very pleased to be part of mayor adam's recently announced micro mobility plan This includes a pilot which will allow e-bikes on parks roads and designated green ways These are critical part of the city's infrastructure of mobility As with all things safety is our top concern so micro um e-bikes will not be allowed On pedestrian only pathways The goal of the pilot is again e-bikes on park roadways and green ways Through the pilot we will be looking at interventions that help support safety on these paths including signage Education to help reduce conflicts. We'll have more details about the pilot closer to its rollout in the beginning of the summer Thank you Our next question comes from laurene from queens, which is a question that we've received repeatedly during this week's responses from the public And it focuses around Regulation of law and licensing for e-scooters mopeds and flybikes when it comes to riding on sidewalks This is very dangerous. And if someone is caught doing so, can it be confiscated? So, yes, so Bicycle enforcement through our patrol officers or 20,000 approximate patrol offices and our Highway offices is something that we take very seriously and it is Illegal to ride recklessly on a sidewalk Things of that nature So it is something that we enforce and we've seen a sharp increase in that type of enforcement Thank you chief on behalf of the Adams administration I would like to thank everyone for tuning in to today's briefing. We look forward to seeing you all at our next one. Have a great day


So we're getting ready to break the siege of Gaza, the naval blockade, by taking this enormous ship, and there'll be hundreds of us on board, as well as our enormous cargo ship that's taking so much desperately needed humanitarian aid. But just take a look at the preparations that are going on so that we can get aboard and break the siege of Gaza.


If you've been thinking about starting freelancing, or you've been doing it for a while and you've been struggling to sort of get some momentum going or built up, and you're looking for tips and tricks and ideas on how to get into it. A little while ago, I did an interview with Kyle Prinslew, who teaches people how to freelance, and this is the edited version of that. And normally these interviews, I try and get them down to like 30 minutes, but Kyle just kept on dropping tons and tons of really good information. So I wanted to leave all of that value in there. But I have put timestamps to all the parts that you might want to jump down to down below. So you can sort of get to the different things that might be interesting to you the most. Or of course, you can just watch the whole thing, because as I said, Kyle just kept dropping tons and tons of really awesome knowledge. And I really appreciate the interview. So thank you very much, Kyle, for doing that. I'll let him introduce himself a little bit more in just one second. But I just want to say that at a few parts during the interview, his picture sort of goes a little wonky because of some connection issues and something I was trying that clearly didn't work. I think it only happens maybe two times or three times. So it's not too bad. It's just a few seconds here or there. But anyway, I just want to let you know to be expecting that when it does happen. And yeah, let's go and jump in and learn a little bit more about Kyle. And we're going to go into things like finding clients, pricing and just tons of other things as well. So I really hope that you enjoy this interview. As you said, my name is Kyle Prinslew or Kyle Prinslew. And I'm from South Africa. I'm a freelance developer slash business owner and also an educator. I enjoy teaching others and helping others to become freelancers. I have a blog, StudyWebDevelopment.com where I teach that and also a few marketing agencies where we do service clients. And that's also a big part of our business and a big part of our focus this year to expand on that a whole lot more. So that's pretty much a quick intro about who I am. Awesome.  Can you just give us a quick word on that as well? Sure. So I started StudyWebDevelopment.com in, I think it was December, 2015. So, well, five plus years ago. And the whole focus of it was I was learning web development back then and I saw the potential of what it could be if you had this skillset. So I thought, okay, let me sort of learn but publicly learn. So share some ideas that I had as I was learning. So it was very much a blog, very much almost like an accountability website in some ways. As I came across certain courses, I would recommend it as well. As I was learning something, I would share it. And it sort of started from that perspective and then it grew into, okay, now you've got web development as a knowledge or as a skillset, but now how do you make money from that besides from a job perspective? And that's when I thought, okay, let me, I'm getting involved with clients now. Let me sort of share what I know in terms of how I get the clients, how I charge for my services, the mistakes that I've made and so on. So I'm so grateful today that it sort of grew into a helpful resource for many, many people around the world. And it just started out of, sort of almost like an accountability blog in a way. So we're winding now from what you're up to these days to the very beginning. One thing that I get asked all the time is when it comes to freelancing is what your education is and whether you studied specifically for it or if you're self-taught. So I left school early. So I'm what they would call a high school dropout. So I went into the self, well, I can say I went into business, right? So it was a whole story. Some of it, most of it failed.  And I learned a lot from that. Eventually I took a loan from a few friends, a small loan to study something called digital marketing. And that was just a short course because I didn't have a college level of education. So I couldn't qualify for a more advanced course. So it was a three month course and I learned a lot from that. Eventually I got a good job in marketing. And in short, I learned a lot there on the job experience through Udemy, through Google, through YouTube. So in short, most of my learning came through a lot of the reading on free resources or cheap resources like Udemy and very much on the job. So self-taught. And maybe if we, so I mean there you're saying everything very much self-taught, which is really awesome. Along the way of learning, were you working other, were you doing something else before you got into the web development and how did you decide on that as where you wanted to go? And so I had many different jobs. I don't want to bore everyone about the different types of jobs. But I found the accounting which is quite ironic because I just passed accounting in school. So I don't know how I got the job, but I got it. And I was there for a while and then eventually I got a job into RT. And I had no RT experience. So I don't think I was tech knowledge. I was literally just holding the ladder. I think as you call it a ladder in the US, I think.  So I was very much almost an assistant, you know, in that regard. And I learned a few things from there.  That sort of forced me to listen. I can't be, I don't want to use a harsh term, but let's just say screwing around.  And then I thought, okay, what am I interested in? And I thought, okay, I enjoy marketing. I didn't have any experience, but I enjoy the psychology of marketing. And then that led me to learning a course on digital marketing. And I went to, in my career, as a marketing manager of quite a large company. So I was in charge of literally making them more money online by improving their website, by improving their marketing and all of that. And I was there for about three and a half years, but after about two years, I thought, whoa, I'm married now. I need to, my wife couldn't legally work. I needed to earn a much higher income to pretty much get by. And also it was almost like a yearning inside that I just wanted to do something different.  And it was at that moment where I thought, okay, what am I going to do? And I must say, I've got the best wife in the world because she said, okay, why don't you study web development? And I thought to her and I told her and I said, that's just weird. I don't want to learn about all this weird language, because I was exposed to it in my tech job through these guys and they were coding websites and doing all this and I was like, what are you doing? I'm not going to touch that. And anyway, my wife was persistent and she recommended a Udemy course. I don't know if you know Rob Percival. He's quite a well-known teacher on Udemy. And I took that course and as they say, the racist history, but it started very much like that. Yeah, thank you. That was really interesting. And then I guess, I know for some of the people I've been interviewing, they were working in, they had like an established job first. They got in, they studied web development. They either went to school for it or were self-taught, but then they landed their first jobs and then eventually decided to become a freelancer in your, is it the same story for you or did you get into freelancing right away? So what I did was I wanted to do something where I was almost feeling a bit more like I was doing something important, right? Like I was making a difference, let's say. So because I saw the potential of, I had the marketing knowledge and I thought, okay, what goes well with marketing, which is web development after chatting to my wife and actually realizing, wow, it actually goes well to get extremely well. Now I could offer clients a very good service, a very good package. Now offer the website, which is a ones off and in the marketing, which is a monthly retainer or monthly income. So in short, once I had the knowledge, and I'm talking very simple knowledge, just literally HTML and CSS that I could just create a website, a simple standard website. I knew that the marketing side was extremely important to get clients and for sales for this, for my clients. So I pitched that service. I immediately went to, I don't know if you wanna learn maybe about or want me to explain how I got my first few clients, but in short, what happened was I pretty much after literally after a month, I just started trying to get clients. So it was interestingly, after about a year after I was getting clients freelancing on the side, I was actually matching my full-time income. So it actually did pretty well. And I was still there at the company for a while before I saved up a lot more and had more clients. And then eventually I moved into full-time freelance. So I mean, that does follow. You were mentioning, I'd definitely be interested to know on what steps you did to get those first clients. I think that's one of the hardest things for a lot of people is finding the first clients. I think there's a few stages along the way. It's hard, you have to get those first ones, then you need that, you have to move on from there because sometimes that's once you're used to that. But I'd also be curious a little bit with that, like, I guess, well, actually, I won't do a multi-step question. We'll start with just how did you actually get those first few clients? Sure. Okay, before I answer, I want to maybe preface it to say that, look, because it worked for me, I'm not saying it's going to work for others, right? I mean, for others, it might be they might have it easy or they might have it more challenging. But maybe you can just learn a few principles from my approach in how I started that first. So to get to it, I actually went on Fiverr and before everyone just laughs or anything, what I did was I sort of approached it and looked at it like, okay, what is everyone doing? How are they getting attention to get sales of their $5 service or something? And I thought, okay, how can I be different in that? Because a lot of people, if you go on the section like web development, right? And it would be like there are thousands of people to choose from. And it's like, hmm, if I was the customer, I wouldn't find me, you know? I mean, you've got people who've got thousands of reviews and various other things. So I'm like, how can I sort of think about this a bit differently? So what I did was instead of offering the direct service of web development, I actually offered a $5 website analysis report. So what that was is they would come on, I can't remember the exact category it was, but I can't remember it now, but in short, it was a website analysis report where I critiqued their website for $5, giving them conversion strategies. So in other words, hey, move this around here or do this or change the color of this or add this so that you will get more sales. And that was literally my approach. And what I did also to stand out even further was I noticed that a lot of people, the good accounts had instead of an image as the first image, they had a video. So I remember at the time I didn't have any money whatsoever. So I remember it cost me $84. I'll never forget that because there was a lot of money for me at the time. And I made the investment into an animated video intro and in short, that sold my services to say, hey, I'm Kyle, I will help critique your website to help you increase your sales and so on and so on, order today to get started. And something very short and simple. And before I knew it, I got the notification on my phone at work and I was like, whoa, I got to say it, you know? I was so excited. Definitely, yeah. So the moment I got home from work, I literally got started on this father project. And what I did was I aimed to over deliver. So I would create, I think it was a three or four page Word document. And I would just say, okay, this is what I would do. This is what I like. This is my suggestions. If you would like a more detailed report, I can help you for $100. So that was almost like a wireframe, almost like a visual design of what I would recommend the website should be. And before I knew it, I've sold the guy. I was like, sure, I would have to go ahead with that and I over delivered again. I said, here's my visual design, every single page of the designs. And I just designed it on, I can't remember if it was Photoshop or Microsoft PowerPoint at the time. I'm talking very simple. And I had to just figure it out and just make it work. So I just figured it out, learned on the job. I had no idea sort of what I was doing in that sense, in the design sense, but I just figured it out. And I made sure it was good. And I sent it through to him. And I'm like, okay, now I've sent you the visual design. If you would like me to code this for you to make this design a reality, I'm going to charge you $1,000. And before I knew it, they signed up to that. And it's quite an amazing story in a way because this client, five years ago, maybe a bit over five years now, he signed up to this package. He signed up to eight more websites with me. And he's still with me to this very day. It's quite amazing. And not only that, but he's on a monthly marketing retainer. So if you really think of it and you boil it down, that $5 turned into a lot of income literally from a $5 report. So as I say, the whole Fiverr sort of upwork, sort of freelancing platform, it's got this weird sort of approach and understanding that a lot of people think, screw it, it's not going to work for me or why would I work for peanuts and so on and so on. But it depends at what stage you are and my recommendation is always to try it. You never know what can come from it. The freelancing platforms is just one sort of avenue, right? So maybe I'm going on a bit of a tangent now, but sure, so in short, that's pretty much how I got my very first client. And I got quite a few decent clients from Fiverr. Then before I knew it, they started telling their friends and the referrals I got from them really helped me a lot. And then I thought, hmm, how can I start getting clients in other ways? So I started doing the cold email approach. We had just started emailing a lot of random different businesses. I started doing Google ads. I started doing LinkedIn ads. I started doing calls. So, excuse me, and Facebook ads, I literally did everything and some work, some didn't. And over the years, I've started to refine my approach a lot more and I've started to see what type of marketing strategies and marketing channels actually yield and produce the best ROI in terms of what am I investing in terms of my time and my money? Am I ultimately getting clients from it? And I've sort of figured out a decent approach to it. And yeah, sorry, I'm going on a bit of a tangent, but that's pretty much it. I think just a nice follow-up from there because we've been talking a lot about marketing and you do have more of a marketing background than the other people I've talked with. But when it comes to your date today, how much time for you would actually be development work versus marketing versus email and just housekeeping and accounting and all those different things? Because I think when we think freelancing, people think, oh, my own boss, I just get to develop all day long. I don't have to worry about anybody else, but I don't think that's necessarily the reality. For sure, for sure. Okay, so my life right now is a lot more, how can I say, easier or let's say fortunate right now because at the beginning, I was doing all of the work and then eventually my wife, because she couldn't work at the time, so she started learning web development and she eventually helped me and also for the content writing for clients. So in short, we would offer clients the web development as well as the marketing services such as SEO, ranking on Google, Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, designs, email marketing, infographics, content writing, literally the full package, right? So there's obviously a lot of elements that go there. And now what I found was, whoa, I'm doing all of the work. I need to try and find a way that I can sort of step back a bit more and also run a profitable business. And the way to do that was I started outsourcing a lot and I found a lot of contractors to work with on Upwork, on Fiverr, on Hubstop Talent. And to this day, we work with quite a few contractors, but now we are actually, I think, well, from this month, sorry, went at least five or six full-time stop. I think, yeah, around five or six at the moment. And then quite a few contractors that we work with. And we've all got our different roles, right? Like for example, my wife does pretty much almost all of the web development now. We've got customer service, we've got salespeople, we've got accounting side, we've got, there's a few different things. So now, for example, from my side, I just focus on more the advanced marketing side. I just focus a lot more on SWD, creating content. I focus a lot more on sitting up the structures and the technical strategies on generating clients for us and sort of just growing and then keeping the wheel going. Maybe if I can also just add sort of what we do now. So we do a lot of client work. Obviously the SWD, the study with development, the teaching and the content side. And then a big portion right now is actually E-commerce. We got involved about two years ago into dropshipping and that's actually doing very well for us. That's actually, if I can just be transparent, that's actually our biggest income generator. So it's doing very well. So we've got a bit of a diverse portfolio, if I can say that. And what I'm doing now, I'm sort of finding a balance of work and play, because I don't want to be working eight to five, the rest of my life. So I've sort of structured things along with my business partner, Johannes.  So now it's like, how can we do things keeping that in mind? So we sort of slowly starting to step away a bit more. But right now I'm focusing very much on the growth aspect of keeping the business going and getting more clients. That's awesome. And it actually, it corresponds a bit the first interview I did was with Nile and he's in Ireland, but a little bit similar. The starting was different, but when it came to, as you grew, it was fine, you're not doing it all on your own and you sort of hit a limit, I think. And it's when you start bringing in other people to work with you, I think is an important step in something. Again, I think people always think freelancing, I'm on my own, I do my own thing, but it's more about, it doesn't that you're not making the next Fortune 500 company necessarily, but it is, you're developing something that should have room for growth. And at one point you need to bring in other people to be able to do that. When it comes to the branding and sort of like how you're forward facing side, I'm just curious on like how you've built up your brand, what type of, is it, obviously, I think it's a little bit different now as your website or as your company has reached new levels, but maybe earlier on, when you were just by yourself, when it came to branding yourself, like how would people find you? Do you have a website with a portfolio? Did you have a different approach? Obviously you were doing outreach as well than you had Fiverr and other things, but I'm just curious how you sort of would do that to promote yourself. Sure, so I just want to confirm, are you referring to getting clients? Yeah, like say, if a client were to find your website or if they're on Fiverr, and I don't know enough about Fiverr, but if they can click through to find out more about you, just like how you would brand yourself and show yourself to four clients when they were seeing you, I guess is, yeah. Sure, so what I did was, I think is incredibly important in today's time. As I say, the freelancing platforms is one channel to get clients. That is actually not my recommendation. My final recommendation is your own website. And we say that again, it's your own website. And there's various reasons for that because you can control this. You cannot control a work or Fiverr.  So at least there's something that you can control, such as a portfolio website, and this is where you can really showcase your skills. So you have a blog, you have case studies of what you've done for clients. And in short, you've got this nice website, you've got your SEO going, which is a big topic, and I think I'll get to that now. But you've got this nice website, but now you need the marketing and the sales to get to this website. And that's where the advertising comes in. So now you're generating targeted leads, interested potential clients coming to your website. Now you need to persuade them that you are the answer to their problem and you have the solution to help their business grow. That is your portfolio website there. The portfolio website is incredible because I mean, for example, we've got three websites. When I talk about a portfolio website, I'm also referring to like an agency website in that sense. So it could be your own if you wanna brand it yourself or if you wanna brand it as a company. And we've got three. We've got one in the medical niche. We've got one in the therapy niche. We've got one in more like a generalist sort of niche where we service more higher paying clients. And in short, it's incredible how clients find these websites. Even when last year, towards the second half of last year, I didn't want to take on any more clients because we're just too busy, I turned everything off. And it's amazing how many leads we got. Purely because they found our website through various other means, maybe it's through referrals or maybe it's through social media or whatever it is. But where most of them came from was SEO. And that's the fact of ranking on Google. And it is highly underrated.  Wow, I mean, you're going to get a lot of leads. And the way to do that, I recommend this to Nishtar because there's often a lot less competition in that. And sorry, maybe I'm not here. But yeah, I mean, in short, I just want to highlight how important it is to have a portfolio website because that's definitely the route I would go to and use today. That's something we are using even more so today. But if I just start off from scratch, I would definitely focus on this a lot sooner. Awesome. Yeah, the idea of having multiple niches, I think I was going to ask about the importance of a niche. So obviously good timing on that. And I do think that idea of having like multiple websites that are targeting different niches that you could help. I think is a super cool idea and a good idea that a lot of people probably don't think about. I agree, I agree. Yeah, so next I guess is one of the more fun topics and one of the ones that people have a lot of trouble with as well, which is pricing and figuring out how much to charge. I know that there's lots of different ways to tackle it. There's finding an hourly rate, estimating how long the project will take, trying to do that game. There's the idea of like value-based pricing. Just having a project-based pricing. So I'm curious, maybe how you, how, maybe we could start with how you started with it and maybe where you're at now and the evolution to what you've gotten to. Sure. Sure, so before I sort of answer that, I just want to say that pricing is a massive topic. And I wrote a very, very detailed guide on this. So if you want to really go through it in a lot of detail and understand the breakdown and the psychology of it, you can literally just type in, I think you just type in like how to charge for a website or something on Google and study with development should be somewhere out there towards the top and just go through that article because it's quite in depth because obviously speaking it out, you sort of talking generally speaking. So to get your answer now, what we do is we do not charge by the hour. We do not. I never have and I never will. I believe that it's actually not an efficient way of doing it because it actually, if you really think it through, it actually encourages, it encourages you to be inefficient because at the end of the day, you are getting, if you are getting paid, let's call it $50 an hour. Some people get $10, some people get $150, but whatever. Let's just call it $50 an hour. Now, you know, whoa, I need money. I'm low on cash, this should actually take me one hours of work, but I know this client is going to pay $400 or $300. So no problem, I'm just gonna take my time because they're paying for my time, not the outcome. And that's sort of a very nugget, simplified overview of it. There's obviously a lot more pros and cons to it and all of that, but in short, we do not charge by the hour. We do as our first priority is charging value-based pricing. And then we go to fixed pricing or project-based pricing. So generally speaking, I don't know if you're familiar with the value-based pricing. I know about it, but maybe just a really quick overview for anybody who doesn't know. Sure, sure. So in short, yes, the summary of a value-based price. You are essentially charging your price for what the potential return could be for the business. In terms of, let's say you, and it's interesting, I actually posted a tweet recently and I think it sort of boils down and sort of explains the concept. So let's say for example, you know that if you had to make this change to a client's website, it will easily increase their sales. Let's say about $50,000 extra for the whole year. You just know it because based on your experience or based on your knowledge, you know that if you had to change a call to action year or add a video year or change the layout year or change the colors or whatever, you know that they could increase their sales. Now, this business comes to you and I say, hmm, you know what, John, you know what, Sally, I want you to quote me on making this change to this page or the checkout page or something. Now you say, no problem, it's going to take me an hour. So you charge your hourly rate, $50 or $100. But yet they are making a massive amount of money for your short amount of time. The point is they should be paying you for your expertise and the outcome that your expertise will result in. So therefore, if they are going to result, you know, in let's say $50,000 extra in sales, you can easily, easily charge $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 and so on because it's relative to what they will be making. I don't know if you want an example on a website, you know, in quoting from scratch, but in short, I mean, the value-based pricing model is something that you need to get a mental shift on because you're not making a website. People think it's just a website. You're effectively selling a marketing solution or a solution to a business that can generate more sales whether that's an existing website or whether that's a new website. If you can improve it and you can help them get more sales, you are not doing your self-justice and you're not doing the business justice, you know, to charge an hourly rate. Yeah, I've got quite strong opinions on an hourly rate. I don't want to, you know, I'm just going to sort of leave it at that, but in short, you know, the value-based pricing method is actually a win-win because you're getting paid based on your expertise and not based on your time. You do not want to get paid based on your time because let's say, for example, hypothetically, if you're always getting paid based on your time, you have to work from eight until five. Let's say if you don't want to do that, now you can say, fine, I'm going to work from eight until 12, but now you've got existing clients and you usually charge $50. Good luck telling them you're going to charge $100 now because you think your time is worth more. You know, it doesn't work that way. You need to start by charging value-based pricing. That's the only way to step out away from the time and to charge based on your value and your output that you're delivering to the business. Would you say if somebody's just getting started in freelancing, because I think that's like, I think a lot of people see the, I think everybody would agree with what you're saying as you're hearing it, but if you've never charged that way before or if you're just getting into freelancing, I think if you've been working in the industry, you can sort of have an idea of the value, but if you're just sort of starting off, I guess sometimes maybe you make a mistake along the way or just like, if you're, do you have any tips or tricks that somebody could use to just to get started with it, with that type of idea? So I made a lot of mistakes when Arthur started freelancing, but, and if I'm sort of speaking, but sort of passionately on this topic, I know in theory it can sound very nice and then all of a sudden it can become overwhelming, especially from a beginner's perspective to think, whoa, you know, slow down a bit, you know? I'm not there yet. I'm sort of a beginner. I'm sort of just getting started in that and I'm with you, right? So let's just acknowledge that that's sort of the best approach in the long term, even in the medium term, now what can we do in the short term? So I know this might sound a bit weird, but it very much begins with your mindset of how you view a website, because if you just view a website as a commodity, sort of off the shelf product, you're always, always going to be considered as a generalist or as someone who can be replaced, right?  No, you know what? So and so down the street charges $900. Well, you're selling the same thing. It's a website. I'm just going to go for them, you know? And I think if you start doing that and you view it like that, you're always going to be on the race to the bottom in charging the lowest fees just to get the client, right? And that is not conducive for anyone. I mean, that's not good. You do not want to be in that game. So now it comes to, okay, what can you do? How can we sort of approach this and sell this? And again, it boils down to what you are pitching, what you are selling. If you really believe that you are selling something that is not an off the shelf product, that it's something that can produce more sales, you will then change your way of selling it and believing in it to justify the price. And then, okay, so that's one aspect that I want to mention. The other aspect is confidence. Now, I do have to mention this because, and again, it sounds so simple, but I'm just laying the foundation first because it's amazing when our first thought it's phoning clients on the phone.  And then I put the phone down. So I just got so nervous. I just couldn't do it. I just could not do it at all. And now over the years, obviously, you know, you get more experience. You get sort of used to clients and the questions they ask and the rebuttals they have and the objections they have and all of that. And you sort of know what you are delivering is working. So that sort of helps in your confidence levels. So this is a process, right? This whole process of like starting to go perfect with value-based pricing and perfect with charging the right price, that's not gonna happen, you know? It's going to take time. It's going to take a few clients. It's going to take a few stuff ups, but that's the way that you learn through this process. But I would say to a beginner, right? Just some practical nuggets and some practical takeaways on this. I don't know if, you know, a lot of people disagree with me on this, but this is my approach. I'm starting out from scratch. What I would do is I would get a, I would focus on the generalist niche for now. I would just try and take any client and all clients just for the first two or three clients. Once you've got a few clients, then I would focus on niching down. You know, your services based on certain clients that you work with or based on certain potential that you see and so on. But I would get a portfolio website. I would offer my services and say, I would not say, hey, I'm a web developer. He has my knowledge. I've got 67% JavaScript knowledge. I've got 82 HTML, you know? I'd like you 100% CSS, but let's just ignore it. You know, don't do that type of stuff. What you need to be doing is you need to say, you need to start it off by saying something like, how can I say it, I help businesses get more sales. Or you can say, focus on running your business while I focus on growing your business.   And yes, not a lot of people will agree with me, but this is just my approach. So I would pitch it like that. And then what I would do is this is very crucial, very, very crucial.  I'm going to say, hey, I'm a website designer. I can help you build a website. I don't agree with that approach, but let's say you do that and all versus you go with my approach. Either way, either way, if you would like your potential client, what do you want to see? What do you want to see? A newbie person just saying, hey, I can make your website or hey, I can help your business grow. Or do you want to see someone like, whoa, I've just helped these two other businesses grow. I can help do the same for you. Who do you think you would choose if you were the business owner? You would choose someone with experience. And that's what you need to do. So now you need to get projects. And when I say projects, I know that might seem intimidating and so on and so on. And there's various ways to get clients and all of that. But the first two projects, I'm a big advocate of doing work for free just to get some work under your belt. And I'm not saying indefinitely, I'm just talking to get for the first two clients so that you can show an example of websites you've created an example of websites that you've helped the client and you get their testimonial, you get their reviews so that you can put it on your website because that is the social, how can I say, that builds confidence and trust that a potential client can trust in you to deliver for work for them.  And once you've got that sort of system going, once you've got your first paying client and your second paying client and your third and your fifth, then you're onto something very, very nice because then you can scale, then you can grow, then you can outsource tasks, then you can niche down and so on and so on. So that has potential, but to get there, you need to show some experience and the hardest part is the beginning. The hardest part is the first one or two real clients but my sort of takeaway if you can take this as a beginner is to create a website portfolio, is to build some experience and show what you can do, not talk about it, show it, show it. And then from there, focus on getting clients and growing. And if I can add to not view this as a sprint, there are many people who make good income within three months or six months freelancing but some people take a year, some people take two years. There was one stage where I almost gave up myself. I just thought, whoa, it's just too much, it's just taking a bit slow.  The only way to get these once you build experience and you get used to and you learn on the job, I actually treated out today, I said something like, if you worry about getting everything right, making everything perfect, you're procrastinating. The point is just to figure out the overall ideas and concepts to stop, to make something happen and to learn on the job. That's how you really learn, that's how you really get experience. So don't worry about finding out the smaller details and making sure this, making sure that, just focus on getting clients, literally just focus on getting clients and the rest will fall into place. Just as some of the questions start coming in, a few questions about clients and we've been talking a lot about marketing, a lot about finding clients, pricing. But, and you did mention it early on with your first client that you were over delivering a lot to help with, it gives them a reason to come back to you for that next thing that you'd be charging more money for. And it does help for referrals. Do you have any other advice when it comes to dealing with clients, especially early on for people and just, whether it's making sure that they're coming back or getting referrals or anything else like that that you can give information on would be great. So yes, I would say obviously the standard answer is, communicate well, over deliver, all of that, good. I would say that what I've seen freelancers do well and not do well and sort of what I would suggest is what we've been doing, I think works pretty well. And this is what we also teach to say that most people only focus on the once-off service such as the website. And that's great, right? I mean, you can charge a good amount of money for it. I know plenty of guys who do, and they do really well, congrats. But I keep thinking, just think this through a bit, is there maybe a better approach to this? Can you not do the once-off plus make monthly income from this client? Because remember, it's very difficult to get new clients. But once you've got a client, keep them. And in essence, if you get a client and you're offering a once-off service plus a marketing service, you're controlling the whole sphere of how they are generating results. And hopefully you can get them results. We can, in short, you just need to learn the skill set or outsource the skill set or whatever. But in short, you need to get your clients results. And I believe the best way of doing that is to offer a once-off service as well as handle the monthly marketing service because let me maybe illustrate this in a different way. Let's say you are a website developer and you offer websites only to clients. You don't know how to do marketing.  There are plenty of people like you, so do not worry. I'll get to a solution on how you do that now, but let me just illustrate this point. Now you charge $10,000 for this website, which is a great amount of money for a website. That's really excellent. Now you get this client. Great, what about next month? Now you have to rely on another client, another $10,000 or $5,000 or $8,000, how much you want or you need as a salary. And now you need another client the next month and another client and so on and so on. And some people make it work. Some people do it very well. But now, is there not a better way if you look at it from an annual perspective? Instead of charging $10,000 that you're making from this client, our approach and the approach that I teach would be instead of charging $10,000, charge $5,000 for the website, right? Charge $5,000, but then you charge, let's say $1,500 a month for monthly marketing services. And I went into the digital marketing, the SEO, the content writing, the ad words, the Facebook, the infographics, the email marketing and so on. And you offer that as a service. And that way it's interesting. If you take the calculation, $1,500 times 12, it's $18,000 a year plus the $5,000, that's $23,000 a year. So think of it this way, would you choose $10,000 once off or $23,000 for the year? And that's sort of the approach that I want to get at and leave people. Again, the finer details we can talk about, you can ask follow up questions, you can I'm more than happy to help on Twitter or something Kevin's also more than happy to help anything. So no problem, but just understand this concept of like, don't leave money on the table. It's a win-win solution because you can help the client and they can pay you for it. So you might as well offer a complete package, the ones off and the monthly marketing. So that's pretty much my takeaway. I just wanna say that, yes, you can make the ones off work, but my suggestion is to do both. Yeah, awesome. And I think that also leads to the idea of actually having a consistent income instead of just constantly sort of chasing the next year. And I think that's always the worst case. So yeah, that's really good. Miss Spunky has asked at the beginning of your career, did you ever feel discouraged by the number of different disciplines? Like the tools, languages, you know, we're talking a lot, you're talking about marketing, we're talking about building websites these days. I think one advantage back in the days, it was a lot simpler to make a website. There's so many different possible stacks and different things to consider these days as well. You know, for somebody who's looking at it going, there's so much to do. Do you have any advice? I guess is what we're getting to. Yes, I do and I love this question because it's such a common question. And I've almost got to the point now where I actually get so upset in a way of like, the type of teaching that a lot of people say, it's just too over complicated, right? My advice to you is a Miss Spunky email for someone who ever else is also interested in this is to not over complicate it. Please do not over complicate it. There are thousands of different frameworks and, you know, CMSs and platforms out there. And it's just overwhelming and confusing. When I first started, I was really overwhelmed. I don't know where to go, what to do, but once I understood the concept of HTML and CSS, people laughed at me, but I thought, whoa, that's all I need to know. HTML and CSS, I can just create static websites and that's good enough for me. My advice now would be to not over complicate it. And if you want to focus on freelancing, you do not need to know JavaScript. Let me make it clear. You do not need to know it. It is not a requirement. Is it helpful? Perhaps, but where I would say most of the time and the focus comes in that you can generate an income with this knowledge is understanding how to make a website. Let me say that again, how to make a website. How you make it, the tool is not important. It is not important, the tool. How you make it is up to you. As a suggestion, it could be HTML and CSS, like Tailwind or, I mean, there's so many other ones. I went blank, like CSS Grid and some of these other ones, Bootstrap and all the rest. And, but then you can also make use of CMS or no code and the website builders, such as Webflow, such as WordPress. Shopify is also a good one to niche down and offer e-commerce Shopify websites. And let me say this, it might sound so simple, but I know plenty of businesses and people, freelancers who generate incredible incomes through this method. I myself, you have no idea how to code in PHP or React or Angular or all these other fancy frameworks, but I can tell you now that we deliver for our clients based on simplified knowledge and whatever we need, because we know that it's just about an important conversion-centered website. If I can add to that, so now you know that, I would also suggest learning CRO, conversion rate optimization. So that is where you almost learn the psychology of creating a website. Anyone can create a website. Your nine-year-old niece can create a website. What differentiates you from her? Right? A valid question. So think about that. If you really think about, okay, I'm going to create a website, but I'm thinking of the user that's going to use this website. I understand the psychology of the layout of if I had to add a checkout like this or add a button like this. And there are so many examples of like how one button could generate a million dollars or whatever in additional sales. If you want to just Google the interesting case study, just up in the Amazon button case study. It's incredible. It generated hundreds of millions of dollars extra just by changing one word on a button. So that's the psychology of a website. Now you get colors, now you get layout, now you get all of that. So that's important. Then I would also suggest digital marketing. It is incredibly helpful to learn this whether it's getting your own clients. It helps you get your own clients, but it also helps you get more sales for your clients. So it's almost a win-win solution. And maybe I can add this because it might seem a bit overwhelming and all of that. You don't necessarily need to know all of the work. That is okay. I and we outsource plenty of tasks. You can do the same and I advocate for it. If you are not interested in offering marketing services for a client, just focus on the website. Just make a good website. But then if they do ask for a marketing services, don't say no. Just say yes and you will try and find out a friend who can help you and you charge a client a higher amount and you pay your friend that much so you make some profit on that. So your project managed the service as well. So how can I say like, it's quite complex in a way, but don't get overwhelmed. Don't try and overcomplicate it. Just start with how to make a website. If you can make a website, you can start selling your services. Sarah, Sarah22 is asking about platforms to find work on. So things like Upwork, Fiverr, People Per Hour.  Is there any that you would recommend that people still do use or that you still have any experience with? So right now I cannot speak from experience for myself, right? Although I can speak from what I've seen work for others and yes, I would recommend, just at least try Upwork, at least try Fiverr, also the approach that I mentioned earlier on, don't be the generous approach. I'm a web developer. You know, then you're swimming in a broad ocean and you pretty much won't get clients. Try and niche down, try and pitch it a bit differently, as I mentioned earlier. Hubsoft talent is very good. You can also try LinkedIn and Danny. I mean, Danny joined earlier, Danny Thompson. You can check out his LinkedIn. He's got great advice on LinkedIn there. A great resource. Also, if I can add a very interesting way of getting clients is Facebook groups. I mean, for example, if you had to join small businesses in your area and you just happened to just sort of add value in this sort of business chat that people talk in, it's bound to happen that someone's going to say a marketing question or a website question. After you've added value in it, you can say, hey, I can help you. And then you pitch your services. That also helps a lot with the Facebook groups as a platform. So just something to consider. A really good question here from Brent. He's asking, when it comes to trying to find the value for a product and discovery, when you're talking with the client and doing discovery to find out what they really need, that sometimes it's hard to talk to the business owner or the client about money. And they sometimes are hesitant on the money side to start bringing it up. He sees that as a warning sign of them just wanting the cheapest price and not somebody who's willing to pay more for value. Yeah. So. Great. So Brent, great, great, great question. And this is something that I've learned over the years in dealing with stingy clients. Clients who literally just waste your time, who do not understand the value, who want to pay like $100 for a website. You know what I mean? How you do that is very simple, very simple. And I boiled it down to asking one question so that you don't waste your time. And man, I can tell you, I've wasted days of my life about wasting time and so on and so on. And now, immediately, if I get the sense that a client is wasting my time, I ask them a simple question. I say, do you have a budget set aside for this project? And is it at least over X? Now, X, the amount is whatever you desire as the minimum amount.  So for example, let's say you get the feeling, you know, they're very low on budget or something and you want to at least get, I'm just, maybe you want $3,000 for this website, right? So you say you have a budget set aside, I mean, God, you have a budget set aside for this project and is it at least over $3,000? So you started on the, you don't say, is it exactly? You say, is it at least over the minimum amount that you would lack for the project? When you're trying to dial in on the value for them or based on their project, is there a way to, they say you don't want to lose them along the way. If all of a sudden, like the number seems really high and they're just, you know, immediately, in their mind, you know, if you throw out a big number and they were expecting a much smaller number, let's say, or say you say, say in the case even there where you say at least $3,000 and in their head, they were thinking $500. Is there a way to recoup that or is that just, okay, I'm, you know, is there a time when you just cut ship right away, you're out of there or is there a way to try and make them realize that it's worth that much? Good question. And I think in these cases, it depends who you ask because some people might say, you know what? You deserve more than that, you know? Just say goodbye, you know, and say, boom, boom, boom, done, but there are more variables than that. You know, you need to consider, look, do you need the money? And you know, if you do, you'll literally take anything, you know, so it's quite complex in that regard. So in this case, but this is where you really need to use your intuition because if you feel that this is going to be a very difficult client and they just want the lowest amount possible and you just got a weird feeling, I would suggest not taking it. I know it might sound hard, especially if you need money but I would suggest you not. If you feel that this client is genuine and sort of like, whoa, that's a bit out of my price range. When they use words like, oh, that's just a little bit more than I expected or something, that can be a good thing, especially if you need the money, right? Because then that's when you have the value-based pricing with them and then that's when you explain your value to them and say, look, you know, this is an investment. This is not an expense. You are going to potentially increase your sales by X, Y, Z due to my changes. You look at your current marketing, look at your current advertising. It's doing all right, but I can see so much potential. I can see at least a 20% increase in your sales. Maybe we can talk about how I come up with those numbers and whatever a bit later, because that's often a follow-up question. You know, how you sort of figure out if you're gonna make a difference in their business and so on and so on. But it comes to the education side. They obviously don't understand the value in your expertise and their budget is this low, but then there's another solution to this. And this is where I think a lot of people go wrong. They only offer one price. They only offer one price and one solution. I found that this is not right. What you should do is you should offer three options, three website pricing options. And if you do want a website proposal template, I've got it on my website. You can just download it there. So it's literally the template that we use. So for example, let's say they look, they say, whoa, that's too expensive. Your next follow-up question should be, how much were you expecting to pay? Because if they say 500 and you say 3,000, whoa, that's a big difference, right? I mean, that's just like, but if they had to say, for example, look, I mean, the maximum we were willing to pay or we were budgeting was one and a half thousand, that happens. I mean, that's happened with us and that still actually continues to happen. We end a little bit differently now, but let's say when we, at the beginning, we would try and take every client we could. So in that situation, what you do is you offer three pricing solutions. You might offer a website for one and a half thousand. You might offer option two, which would be a website and some marketing improvements for let's say two and a half thousand and you might offer option three, more advanced website changes and a better way of marketing setup for let's say four and a half thousand. And what you are doing there, let me ask you this question. How would you make a $10,000 watch or $10,000 Rolex look affordable? And the solution is you just put it next to a $50,000 Rolex, right? Because you're literally price anchoring and that's what you're doing when you do three pricing options.  Obviously there's a lot more to it. I'm just simplifying it. So that's my advice on that. Super. One last question that I can see coming in the chat is from Redlaw asking about e-commerce platforms and you're mentioning you're doing that. So I guess just a quick, he did mention WooCommerce and Shopify. So if you have opinions on either of those or any other platforms. Sure. So my recommendation now is to use WooCommerce. That's something that we pretty much use a lot. Yes, we've got experience in Shopify and OpenCott and Magento and all of that. But my 80-20 answer is you can't go wrong with WooCommerce. Perfect, great. So yeah, I mean, if anybody else has any questions, feel free to drop them in the chat. I will take the little time now to still let you know that Kyle here, other than just freelancing, we mentioned it at the beginning, but he also has the website, studywebdevelopment.com which offers a ton of, or it's a big bundle that helps teach people about freelancing and to get into freelancing. Maybe you can mention a little bit more about it now. Oh, sure. So this bundle is in essence a valuable resource to help people interested in freelancing become freelancers. It has a community. It has almost everything that I've learned over the years as a freelancer and still as a freelancer condensed into one affordable, once-off-price package. And I'm so thankful. I mean, Kevin and I spoke about it earlier about our products and all of that. And I'm just very grateful. It's really doing very well and it's highly rated. I'm just very grateful to see the results and the fruit of people who buy it. And so yeah, I mean, Kevin, you can maybe explain a bit further. Yeah, so I mean from, oops, sorry, I was on the, I went to click through, but it went to that article that you'd mentioned before. Sorry, I got distracted. But yeah, I have jumped into it to see all the different things that he has in there. And it's just for anybody who is learning to get into freelancing and you're not sure sort of where to start or you're looking for advice or you've started in your stock, I do think it's a really cool resource. As you said, there's a community involved in it. There's looking at how to sell your services. There's more information on proposals, search engine optimization. I mean, there's tons of really, I think good stuff in there. And just chatting with you now, we've been here for just over an hour and you've already dropped a lot of knowledge on us. So I think that, you know, it gives an idea of the types of things that you could get in there. And it's also useful, I think, because you're helping out with like some templates as well for getting started on invoicing and other things like that. We've covered a lot of topics. I've taken a ton of your time already. So I really, really appreciate it. Is there anything that you think we missed or any general advice that you might have just to close things out? Well, I mean, I don't know who's still with us or who's still will watch up to the in pod. But if you joined us as far, thank you. Well done.  And the reason why I think it's complex is because you're dealing with people in different areas of the world with different knowledge, with different personalities, with different comprehension skills, with, you know, different resources, different interests, all of those things, different backgrounds and all of that. And it's very difficult to almost give like a general answer when it's almost, you know, personalized to a degree if you really think of it. So I think a lot of what we said is quite broad. I mean, I know, for example, just, I mean, in terms of pricing, you know, and value-based pricing and all that, there's so much more to say, which we didn't touch on, which someone can say, like, whoa, this is just too overwhelming and too complicated, like, I'm sticking to hourly, you know. And all of that for many of the other things that we spoke about. But I hope you took some form of value or some form of nuggets from our conversation. And also, if you want some expanded knowledge, I mean, if you're not interested in the bundle, no problem at all, I do have a lot of free content on the blog and very helpful content that I've heard from others. And I know that will help you and it will expand on a lot of the topics that we discussed today. And there's obviously so much more to talk about. But yeah, I just hope that within this like hour, hour and a half chat that, you know, you got some value. So I really hope you liked that. If you do wanna check out that bundle, the link to it is down below. If you wanna check it out, if you follow that link, you will get a nice little discount and it is an affiliate link. So it also helps support my channel. And if you enjoyed this interview and you want to see more perspectives of other freelancers, I've done several interviews like this. The playlist for it is right here for your viewing pleasure. With those interviews, each person has a completely different perspective on the freelancing thing, which is really cool. So if you are looking to get into freelancing, check that out. And with that, a really big thank you to Stuart and Randy, who are my supporters of awesome over on Patreon, as well as all my other patrons for the monthly support. And of course, until next time, don't forget to make your corner the internet just a little bit more awesome.