Shane Pearlman is a man of many hats, in the best way possible. Besides his role as partner at Modern Tribe, he’s also a freelance evangelist (he’s the founder of Freelance Camp, a worldwide network of events), a real estate investor, a frequent speaker, and a supporter of projects that contribute to the greater social good.

In all of his endeavors, Shane finds ways to incorporate his six keys to happiness and balance – family, friends, fun, finance, fitness and faith.

This sounds a whole lot like someone you want to get to know, doesn’t it? That’s why we invited Shane to present at Prestige Conference Minneapolis, where he’ll be speaking about how to land bigger clients.

In 3 sentences or less, please describe what you do for a living:

I’m a partner at Modern Tribe Inc and personally lead indie teams in UX/UI, web, mobile & product design and development. In addition to launching successful projects for fortune 500 companies, government institutions and well funded startups, I’ve led internal product efforts that have ended in a successful acquisition (Surfline iPhone App) and a multi-million dollar revenue stream (The Events Calendar).

Other things that describe me: Entrepreneur, Freelance Evangelist, Project Manager, Speaker, Blogger, Surfer, Kid Wrangler, Goat Herder, Real Estate Investor, Teacher, Intrepid Traveler & Voracious Reader.

Tell us a little about which came first for you - deciding how you wanted to work vs knowing how you wanted to live.

Ha. You know what is really going to mess with your mind? When you realize, there is no spoon. There is only life.

Why this career and not something else?

It provides me the right ingredients to carve out a meaningful life. The time and location flexibility to interweave work with play and family. I work with my best friends (and that is a great thing). I make enough money to live in the bay area without an overwhelming sense of financial doom. And is the nexus for an ongoing series of adventures that keep me engaged and excited. I could say a whole lot more, but would rather do that over a nice bourbon. =)

Once you figured out where you wanted to go, how did you start making things happen?

I grabbed onto people’s coat tails and actively sought mentorship.

I clocked my time methodically and voraciously consumed the data to make strategic decisions.

I made a daily plan on 3 things that I could do TODAY that would move my business in the right direction. It allowed me to keep the important in motion despite the pull of the urgent.

Who have been your most valuable mentors? How did you connect with them?

My dad. He has helped me with landing customers, leads, and guided me through so many challenges.

Quinn was the first freelancer I met who opened my eyes to the possibility and gave me my first client. I met him at a coffee shop.

Tom ran huge teams in an MLM and really taught me sales. Want to learn the basic of business? Few environments exist with the training platforms and human challenges offered by Amway.

The WordPress community. While I can’t call out anyone in particular, the relationships and conversation with people like Jake, Karim, Alex, Pippin, Jason, Chris and so many other WP agency owners have been extremely valuable.

What were some of the biggest roadblocks you encountered on your path to success?

Paying $20,000 out of pocket to SAP to build their solution. You haven’t internalized the meaning of over budget until you burned through your labor budget, overhead, then profit and start paying hard cash for the final push based upon principal. It caused Peter and I to sign up for the UC Berkeley school of project management. #neveragain

Loosing $67,000 in revenue to a poorly through out internal process from which birthed “The Clock Blocker”. =)

What is one early lesson you learned about working with a fully distributed workforce?

Be artfully intrusive. Relationships don’t grow without thoughtful investment, and that is what you need to cultivate a sustainable team.

My favorite litmus test: Do you know each person on your team (who you work with directly) well enough to buy them a super personal and awesome Hanukkah present?

What’s coming up next for you?

Service-wise the pipeline has a higher ed bent at the moment and we continue to grow (JOIN US).

Products-wise, in the short term, we are focused on some long due maintenance and addressing frequent requests from our user community. Beyond that things get more exciting: community powered tickets, a free ticketing plugin, flexible event recurrence, improved internationalization, recurring tickets, and maybe even special support for bands.

Within MT, we have a number of epics. A lot of people call them goals, but you can fail at a goal. An epic is a journey. We are working to extract the partners from pivotal execution roles in day to day service projects. We are building models for long-term sustainable teams. We are scaling (elements of) the products business.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

I typically have a few books that I wander between on my phone (thank you amazon kindle app) depending on whether I want to think, be inspired or escape. I easily read anywhere between 3 - 8 books a month.

Currently in Progress:
* Fool on the Hill
* Scaling up
* Let My People Go Surfing
* The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Just for fun. What’s your favorite junk food?

As of yesterday? Ripe summer figs with pan crisped prosciutto.

But typically - fresh made salsa and hot chips.

What are you looking forward to most for Prestige Conference Mpls?

This is a many pronged trip.
* Hang out with some tech buddies.
* We have a manager meetup which I have been working towards with enormous anticipation.
* I get to see my buddy (business partner) Reid’s new place and meet the newest addition to his family.
* I’m kind of excited to go running with our pm Carly who is coming out and see if I can just keep up with her. I’m training more and she had to take a break. I might have a chance.
* I have an offer on the table to buy two apartment building near the university and am excited to walk the neighborhoods and get to know another part of Minneapolis.