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Happy Monday! Welcome back to The Gig — the private daily email helping freelancers go beyond the 9 to 5 and build profitable client businesses. 

We hope you haven’t been affected by the havoc of Hurricane Ian 🙏

Experts say it will be one of the costliest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S., with the total economic damage surpassing $120 billion.

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Facebook, Instagram, and Meta. Plus 5 hacks to crush it on Upwork, what science says is the secret to satisfying shut-eye, and reverse psychology in copywriting.

Read time: 4 minutes and 39 seconds

Together with AdSkills

No Ad Platform Can Escape Them

New ad platforms crop up all the time. And having first mover advantage can often lead to massive profits. But mastering the ins and outs of each new ad platform takes time and money. That’s where AdSkills comes in. Inside their platform, you’ll learn how to write killer ads, craft campaigns that convert, and run profitable traffic at scale across every ad platform from Google and Facebook to TikTok, Native, and more.

Plus, as an AdSkills member, you’ll also get the stamp of approval that 9-figure companies like ClickFunnels, DigitalMarketer, and VShred look for when hiring freelancers. So if you’re looking to partner with top-tier businesses and make more money per client, click here to try a free AdSkills class today.

Making the Rounds

  • Facebook leads can now request a call back on Call Ads. The new update provides another option for users to respond to a Call Ad instead of just immediately calling the business.
  • Meta freezes new hires. It’s starting to get chilly out there… and we aren’t talking about the weather. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbeg notified staff that he’s freezing new hires until further notice. He’s not the only one: Google, Microsoft, and Apple have also slowed or frozen hiring, while several other tech firms have been forced to lay people off.
  • All Facebook and Instagram users can now share NFTs. After testing the feature on both platforms earlier this year, Meta has rolled out NFT sharing platform-wide across Facebook and Instagram. Just in time for the massive frenzy dropoff in overall NFT activity, as the number of active wallets trading them has declined by 79% over the past year, according to NonFungible.

Working With Clients

Need Help Landing Clients? Try These 5 Hacks to Crush it On Upwork

Upwork has 5M+ client accounts and 100,000+ open jobs on a daily basis.

It’s our favorite freelancing platform by a country mile.

So if you need help landing clients…

Try these 5 hacks to start crushing it.

1 – Check it every day

Speed matters.

Most clients on Upwork are looking to hire ASAP, so the faster you can respond, the better your chances are.

Make it a habit of checking for new gigs at least once a day.

2 – Submit relevant samples

The #1 most important factor in a winning proposal is relevance:

– task relevance

– niche or market relevance

For example:

If you’re applying for an email copywriting gig in the health niche, submit email samples in the health niche. Or if you’re applying for a video editing gig in the biz opp space, submit biz opp video samples.

3 – Create custom samples if you don’t have relevant ones

Don’t have relevant samples to submit?

Take the time to create some. Especially if you’re new to the platform.

The purpose of submitting relevant samples is so clients don’t have to imagine what your work will be like in a different medium or market.

This is an easy way to get your reps in too.

Paint the picture for them.

That’s how you get hired.

4 – Ask for reviews

One of the biggest benefits to freelancing on Upwork is the social proof.

So you should be doing everything you can to over deliver and provide a 5-star experience to clients.

Then make a personal appeal for an honest review (not just a rating) when the job is done.

Every 5-star review you get makes the next client easier to land.

5 – Don’t be afraid to apply to older jobs

Even though you’re much more likely to get hired for jobs that have just been posted…

Don’t be afraid to apply to older jobs either.

Sometimes clients aren’t able to interview people right away, and by the time they are, the freelancers they wanted are booked or don’t respond.

And sometimes clients just don’t get any good applications.

We’ve had a lot of success applying to older jobs with something like:

“Hey, I can see this job has been open for XX days, but I wanted to apply anyway just in case you weren’t able to find the right freelancer the first time around.”

The results may surprise you.

Working For Yourself

Science Says This is the Secret to Satisfying Shut-Eye

Even if you’re not an early riser…

Optimizing your sleep is essential to performing at your best.

So what’s the #1 best evidence-based way to hack your circadian rhythm for quality shut-eye?

We’ll give you a hint…

It’s not sleep masks, white noise machines, or keeping your bedroom cool…

(although all of the above do help)

Instead, it’s viewing sunlight.

Specifically, within 30-60 minutes of getting up and then again in the late afternoon before sunset.

In this podcast episode, Stanford neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman explains how light viewing can help optimize not just sleep, but many other facets of your health as well.

Now if your podcast queue is already fully loaded…

Then click here to check out all of Dr. Huberman’s actionable recommendations to improve your sleep:

Check out Dr. Huberman’s Toolkit For Sleep here

From The Copywriting Gig

Reverse Psychology in Copywriting

Persuasive direct response copy tells the reader exactly what to do and when to do it… right?

Not so fast.

If you want to convert as many people as possible, there’s a hidden psychological landmine you’ll want to avoid.

It was first discovered by Sigmund Freud in the early 1900s…

And it’s called “psychological resistance.”

Translation: people don’t like being told what to do. 

So they rebel by doing the opposite.

How does this apply in copy?

Using the word “need” — as in “this is exactly what you need to achieve XYZ” — can trigger psychological resistance in some prospects and lead them NOT to buy.

So if you want to sidestep this little IED embedded deep in our psyche…

Avoid framing your solution as something your prospects “need” to do.

Instead, try using repulsion marketing to repel the people you don’t want. 

Because this can sometimes be even MORE effective than trying to attract those you do.

Gig Alerts

Looking for clients? These freelance jobs were posted on Upwork in the last 24 hours:

Quote of the Day

“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.”

— Frances Willard