STEPH BARRY WOODS
Founder & Head coach, SMLTB
STEPH BARRY WOODS
Founder & Head Coach, SMLTB.
My Story
My career in tech started in 2009, when I embarked on a degree in Business Information Systems in UCC (something I would recommend to anyone who wants to work in tech). During this this 4 year degree, I studied a mix of business and technology modules. We learned financial accounting and economics alongside programming languages like C#, Java, and web development languages (HTML, CSS, Javascript). This course made me fall in love with tech, and showed me the incredible career opportunities I could have if I worked as a software developer.
After graduating with a 2:1, I briefly started a masters in animation – but I quickly realised that I just wanted to get out and see the world. I dropped out and joined a graduate program at a leading investment bank in London in 2010 – working in IRP Risk, calculating P&L for front office traders. It was a fun and exciting role, and starting as a graduate meant that I had excellent training. In 2013.
After working in London for 6 years, I was in a career I truly loved – but I was tired of the 9-5 life. I was tired of giving 40+ hours of my life away, trying to fit all of my other passions into whatever hours I had leftover in the week. I needed a change.
In April 21st 2016, my 29th birthday, my husband and I took off on a one-way flight to Bangkok – hoping to stay away for 1 year. 6 years later, we still haven’t returned to our old lives!
Now, I run successful travel business and tech business – and am so lucky to have a career that combines my two biggest passions. Tim works as a full time freelancer, fully booked and working as and when he wants to. Through learning how to freelance, we opened up our worlds and created careers that made us completely location independent. Back in 2016, this seemed like a pipe dream – but now it’s our reality.
The SMLTB Story
Creating SMLTB is truly one of the best things that has happened to me over the past 6 years, and I am so proud to have created an incredible community of developers who can work when and where they like – just like we do.
SMLTB started with our first course: The Freelancer Bootcamp. This bootcamp filled a glaring gap in tech learning. What if you don’t have the time or resources for a 3 or 4 year degree in software development, what if you want start working with clients as soon as possible? And you want to be paid well, instead of working for free at the beginning?
A lot of short tech courses online teach you the technical skills for building websites. You can go to YouTube, Udemy etc and find cheap or free courses that show you the basics of putting together a basic site. But this is not enough knowledge to become a fully booked, well paid freelancer – one that knows how to run a successful and profitable freelancing business.
The market needed an ‘all-rounder’. A course that not only taught you how to build GREAT websites, but also showed you how to work as a freelancer. I wanted to create a course that allowed students to take on highly paid freelancing jobs immediately after they graduate. And I am proud to say that we achieved this!
The Freelancer Bootcamp has grown from a one month intensive, to a 3 month comprehensive course on how to be a freelance web developer. We have launched follow on courses in SEO, CSS, and PHP – and have also created courses for online entrepreneurs and bloggers. In 2023 we will be expanding our courses to help many more digital entrepreneurs and freelancers.
Let’s Work Together!
If you’re an aspiring freelancer or online entrepreneur, sign up for 1:1 coaching and let me help you with your strategy, execution, and growth. Let’s deep dive into your future goals, and work out how to create an impactful strategy for success. Book in via the links below!
Book A Freelancer Coaching Session
Become a Fully Booked Freelancer in 2023
1:1 Freelancer Coaching is designed to analyse and optimise your current or proposed freelancing process. Have a marketable skill, but unsure of how to find clients, pitch to them and deliver a top tier service? I’ll help you create a sales cycle that will have you fully booked for 2023.
On our 90 minute call, we will look at your:
- Marketing
- Onboarding
- Offboarding
- Service delivery
- Communication
- Invoicing
- Pricing
- Upgrades and addons
Before the call, you will submit your current process via an online form. Steph will analyse your current process, and determine how you can improve it, streamline it, or automate it. She will spot ways in which you can find better clients easier, impress the hell out of them, and provide an even better service in an easier way.
On the 90 minute call, Steph will outline this improved process to you and learn more about your business and how you work.
After the call, you will be sent a set of custom templates to use for marketing. invoicing. communication, and onboarding.
if you are new to freelancing, and would like to create – rather than improve – your freelancer process, sign up for the Fully Booked Freelancer Package. Over a series of 4 calls we will design a custom freelancing strategy for you.
Book A 2023 Strategy Session
Hit your goals in 2023 with a custom business plan from Steph
Forget about setting goals, crossing your fingers, and hoping things work out. Start 2023 with a mission: “I am going to reach my goals this year”. Next, let’s make a plan to make it happen.
When you sign up for this deep dive, you will fill out an in-depth questionnaire which will give Steph an insight into your current business.
Next, you will join 90 minute deep dive we will delve into your goals, ambitions and the opportunities open to you in 2023. We will put everything on the table, and take a good look at what you want to achieve over the next 12 months.
Along with focusing on your business and personal goals, Steph will identify potential opportunities for growth or income that you may not have thought about.
After the call, Steph will send you a custom 2023 Strategy, with your full roadmap to hit your goals.
The call will cover:
- Brainstorming new products or services you can offer
- Finding your target client or customer, or niching down to a different market
- Marketing your business so that your target customer can find you
- Setting long term and short term goals, to stay accountable throughout the year
- Setting rewards, to motivate you to hit your goals
- Automating time consuming tasks, to save your hours of admin
- Leveraging technology (free or paid website, apps and services) to make doing what you do easier while providing a better service to your clients
If you don’t have a business set up yet, but want to start your own in 2023. This call will focus on what you need to do to get started.