Amazon

✅ Takeover approval

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Happy Wednesday! Enjoying the newsletter? Please consider sharing it with a friend. Word of mouth always makes for the best marketing. Plus, that way you’ll both be able to participate in the giveaway we’re running soon to celebrate 1,000 subscribers. Stay tuned for more on that.

Mentioned in today’s edition: Twitter, Elon Musk, Amazon, TikTok, and YouTube. Plus what to do after scoring a big win for a client, the one thing most new freelancers don’t realize, and confessions of a control-beater.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes and 8 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Twitter board urges shareholders to approve Elon’s takeover. The deal’s been stuck in almost perpetual limbo since it was announced, but the board reiterated its unanimous recommendation in favor to shareholders in a recent SEC filing. For context: Twitter’s share price is currently trading 29% below Elon’s initially proposed price of $54.20.
  • Internal research from Amazon reveals it could run out of US warehouse workers by 2024. A leaked memo says the ecommerce giant could literally run out of people to hire in the US within the next two years. #NotTheOnion

  • Livestream shopping app installs increase by 77% year-over-year. What’s even crazier? This new report excludes both TikTok and YouTube. If you’re working in ecom, this a shift in the marketplace you can’t afford to ignore.

Working With Clients

Scored a Big Win For Your Client? Here’s What to Do Next

Scoring your first big win for a new client is a great feeling.

It also creates the perfect opportunity for you to make a strategic request:

Ask them for a 2-minute video testimonial.

Clients will (almost) never volunteer these on their own…

And you never want to wait too long to ask for one.

So make sure to put in the request while you’re both riding high on the heels of a job well done.

Plus, this way, you can transcribe it to text and have their testimonial in both written and video form.

If you want to take your testimonial game to the next level…

Check out testimonial.to — it lets you automatically collect text and video testimonials so you can display them on your site.

Working For Yourself

What Most Newbies Don’t Realize

The best thing about freelancing is that you can teach yourself the basics of almost any skill for free online.

Unfortunately, that’s also the worst part about freelancing.

Why?

Because you’ll often pick up a lot of bad habits along the way.

Things you’ll need to unlearn in order to progress and eventually master your craft.

That’s why finding a mentor is so important.

It may not make sense to look for one at the very beginning of your journey…

But once you’ve got a few paying clients and steady work coming in…

You should be looking for someone to learn from.

There’s a reason Tony Robbins says “the fastest way to achieve success is to model it”…

Because finding someone who can show you the way will shortcut your learning curve.

From The Copywriting Gig

Confessions of a Control-Beater

Looking to write strong direct response copy that converts?

Here’s a tip:

Use the active voice.

When you use the active voice, your subject takes the action.

This makes your writing feel strong and punchy.

On the flipside…

When you use the passive voice, your subject is the one being acted upon.

Which makes your writing feel weak and flaccid.

Here’s a few examples:

ACTIVE: I wrote that copy.
PASSIVE: That copy was written by me.

ACTIVE: I beat that control.
PASSIVE: That control was beaten by me.

See the difference?

If you want hard-hitting copy that can crush controls…

Write in the active voice.

Use declarations and direct commands to tell your reader exactly what to do.

Quote of the Day

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”

— Epictetus

🛒 Amazon influencers

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Happy Thursday! Here’s a fun fact: the word “freelancers” originally referred to sword-wielding soldiers for hire. As in, “free lancers.” Go figure.

Mentioned in today’s edition: Amazon Live, Insider, the European Commission, Meta, Google, and Twitter. Plus how to raise your rates, what to do when your creative juices dry up, and the list-building secret that slaps.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes and 43 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Amazon offers up to $9,000/m in bonuses to influencers. Emails obtained by Insider reveal the ecommerce king offered influencers anywhere from 2-9k per month to use its new live shopping feature, Amazon Live — on top of regular commissions based on sales.
  • Big Tech firms forced to fight deepfakes or risk paying hefty EU fines. An update to the European Commission’s code of practice will force companies like Meta, Google, Twitter, and others to implement policies to fight back against deepfakes, or risk yuge fines of up to 6% of cash collected globally (!!).

  • Study finds consumers prefer text messages over email for appointment reminders. SMS also topped email for delivery confirmations and payment reminders, while email was the medium of choice for order confirmation, flash sales, and customer support. Just like trying to decide between tequila and mezcal on a Friday night, the answer is to do both.

Working With Clients

“Raise Your Rates” They Said… “It’ll Be Easy” They Said…

“Raise your rates.”

Sounds easy enough in theory…

But in practice, it’s a little trickier than it looks.

You might be wondering:

  • When’s the best time to raise my rates?
  • How much should I raise your rates?
  • Do I raise rates for everyone – or just new clients?
  • How do I justify it (aside from just wanting to get paid more)?

These are only a few of the questions freelancers are forced to figure out if they want to successfully raise their rates.

So, here’s our advice…

(+) Raise your rates as demand for your services increases (or once your client roster is full)

(+) Aim to increase prices by 10-20%

(+) Start by raising your rates just for new clients – but make sure to let existing clients know they’re being grandfathered in at their current rate

(+) If raising rates on existing clients, explain that your new rate structure will allow you to spend more time and energy on their account – but also be prepared for them to leave

As a freelancer, you’re more likely to undercharge than overcharge…

But that doesn’t mean you should arbitrarily increase your rates by 5X either.

Focus on the value and ROI you’re delivering for your clients.

Use that as a barometer to gauge what you should be charging.

Working For Yourself

How to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing Again

Struggling to come up with a creative solution to a work problem?

There’s a reason why famous thinkers like Darwin, Einstein, and Nietzsche used daily walks to stimulate their creativity.

Next time you’re feeling stumped, try this:

STEP 1: Direct your mind to find a solution

STEP 2: Go for a walk

STEP 3: Get back to work & request the solution

What you’ll find is that your subconscious mind continues working on the problem, even after you’ve shifted your active focus away from it.

Tools We Love

The List Building Secret That Slaps

If you’re an email marketer or list owner, there’s an unpleasant reality you’ve got to face:

Unsubscribes.

In other words, every email you send shrinks your list…

And the more often you mail, the faster it happens.

… Unless you’ve got a referral program that makes subscribers excited to share your emails, that is.

That’s where SparkLoop comes in.

SparkLoop helps newsletter operators and email marketers get more high-quality subscribers on autopilot with a referral program.

It’s the ultimate combination of organic and paid acquisition.

With SparkLoop, you can flip the script so that every email you send actually GROWS your list.

Whether you opt for physical rewards, digital rewards, or a mix of each…

Turning subscribers into bounty hunters is one of the main reasons why companies like The Hustle and Morning Brew were able to grow so fast (and eventually get acquired).

If you’re a newsletter operator, try SparkLoop for free today.

Quote of the Day

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.”

— Mark Twain

👑 Ad market empresarios

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Happy Wednesday! Did you catch the Strawberry Supermoon last night? We normally jump at the chance to observe celestial phenomena, but it was a school night after all. So these pics will have to do.

Mentioned in today’s edition: Amazon, Meta, Google, TikTok, Alibaba, Apple, Twitter, and Elon Musk. Plus what NOT to do when you make a mistake, a scary stat for anyone working at a desk, and an apple a day for media buyers.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes and 9 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • 53% of all global ad revenues in 2021 went to just 5 tech companies. Faithful Gig readers can probably guess 4 of last year’s ad market empresarios: Amazon, Meta, Google, and Bytedance (TikTok) —  with Chinese firm Alibaba rounding out the list.
  • $100M settlement finalized in class-action case against Apple’s app store. The suit was originally filed in 2019 by developers who claimed Apple’s 30% fee was an abuse of market power. But now app developers will have the option to contact users by phone or email about alternate payment options.

  • Elon Musk set to field questions at Twitter all-hands meeting tomorrow. It’s the first time employees will get to hear from their prospective new owner. We predict details of the Q&A will leak to the press approximately 4.2 minutes after it concludes, so stay tuned for more.

Working With Clients

How NOT to Fall On Your Sword

If you’ve been freelancing for a while, chances are you’ve screwed something up when working for a client.

And if you’re new to freelancing, well… give it time.

Either way, mistakes are inevitable.

They can’t be avoided.

But what most freelancers don’t realize is…

How you respond to a mistake can make or break your client relationship.

So own up to your screw ups.

If your sales letter went live with a typo in the headline…

Or you embedded the wrong video on a landing page…

Or you launched ads with a broken link…

Then take responsibility.

Don’t try to deflect the blame.

Clients will respect you for it, and — assuming the offense wasn’t firing-worthy — it will help to build trust and strengthen your relationship over the long term.

Working For Yourself

The Force is Strong With This One

Spoiler alert: sitting for 5+ hours a day isn’t good for you.

According to Stanford neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman, sitting for 5 hours or more per day is enough to erase the benefits of doing 180 minutes of cardio per week.

Fortunately, you can use a standing desk to avoid sitting for so long…

But one thing you can’t avoid?

Typing and mousing all day long.

That’s why it’s so important to have a daily strength and stretching routine for your hands and wrists.

Luckily, our friends at GMB have got you covered with this excellent tutorial on how to keep your wrists healthy and injury free.

From The Paid Ads Gig

One Ad a Day Keeps the Low ROAS Away

Coming up with killer ad ideas doesn’t always require creative genius.

You just have to be savvy enough to save a great ad when you see one in the wild.

Add one new ad to your swipe file every day and you’ll never lack for creative ideas.

Whether it’s going to the Facebook Ad Library and checking in on your favorite advertisers (because you do keep a list of them, right?)…

Or simply grabbing a screenshot when you see a killer ad in your news feed…. 

It only takes a few minutes each day.

Get yourself a tool like SnagIt and/or the GoFullPage Chrome extension and you’re all set.

Quote of the Day

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”

— Salvador Dali

⛔ Twitter acquisition in jeopardy

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Happy Tuesday! Here’s a fun fact: Google’s original name was Backrub, based on the fact that it analyzed backlinks to determine search ranking.

It was eventually renamed Google after the word “googol” — aka how to express the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Trot that bad boy out on your next client meeting and let us know how it goes.

Now let’s get you caught up on what’s going on…

Making the Rounds

  • Tech industry group attempts to block new Texas social media law. The Lone Star State recently introduced a law “prohibiting social media platforms from suppressing posts based on viewpoint,” allowing users to sue platforms if their posts are removed. But a tech industry group has filed an emergency petition hoping to block the law from taking effect. We’ll be watching this one closely, as it could accelerate the “splinternet” within the U.S.
     
  • The new frontier of product placement is here. You’ll be able to tell your grandkids you were around back when product placement had to be done IRL. Soon, advertisers will be able to buy ad space in your favorite movies and TV shows after the fact — at least according to Amazon and Peacock. Look out for a Gig placement in the next season of Jack Reacher.

  • Elon says Twitter deal “cannot move forward” until the company provides proof of bot count. The Tesla CEO tweeted at 3:32 AM EST this morning that Twitter must show proof that fake/spam/duplicate accounts amount to less than 5% of total users, or the deal’s off. Stay tuned.

Working With Clients

It Might Be Time to Join a Mastermind… Just Not This Kind


People need to know who you are and what you can do before they’ll hire you.

And most freelancers try to bridge this gap on an “as needed” basis by…

  • Applying to jobs on freelancing platforms
  • Sending out cold emails and DMs
  • Running ads
  • Etc

But there’s another way to skin the cat:

Joining a paid mastermind group.

Now, you don’t want to join just any mastermind…

Instead, look for one that has a lot of business owners in the group.

Because many of these folks could be potential clients.

And by joining the group and networking with them, you get the chance to do two things:

1 – Demonstrate your skills 

2 – Show you care about investing in yourself

Aim to add value wherever you can (without expecting anything in return) and you’ll be hard pressed not to generate a few referrals.

Working For Yourself

A Different Kind of Compound Interest

Finance experts say the secret to building wealth is compound interest.

That’s why Warren Buffett accumulated 97% of his wealth after his 65th birthday.

But while we may not all be able to replicate Buffett’s investing success…

There’s another way freelancers can put this mechanism to work for themselves:

By stacking high-income skills.

You see, it takes a very long time to master a deep skill like copywriting or media buying…

And while it’s definitely worth committing to…

If you can develop other skills that complement or intersect with your primary skill…

You can see some explosive gains.

For example: 

Most copywriters know nothing about paid traffic…

And most media buyers can’t write copy.

The same thing goes for copywriting and graphic design or funnel building.

It’s an unusual combo you don’t see very often.

So by developing competence where those two skills intersect, you can carve out a unique position in the market…

Opening the door to many more opportunities than most other freelancers will ever get.

And over time, mastering these skills will deliver a much higher return than any other investment you could make (unless you are Warren Buffett, of course ;).

Tools We Love

How to Lose Friends and Annoy People

Ever been on call with someone who had lots of background noise?

It sucks.

But… it’s even worse when you’re the one with the bad background noise.

That’s where Krisp comes in.

It’s a free software solution that completely eliminates background noise.

And when we say completely, we mean it.

Whether it’s a barking dog, crying baby, or a computer fan so loud it could pass for a vacuum cleaner…

Krisp uses AI technology to cut out background noises from your mic and speaker so you (and more importantly, your clients and colleagues) can finally enjoy distraction-free calls.

Get Krisp for free today.

Quote of the Day

“The most successful people see adversity not as a stumbling block, but as a stepping-stone to greatness.”

— Shawn Anchor

🥶 Hiring freeze

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Happy Monday! Reigning F1 world champion Max Verstappen was not to be denied in Miami this weekend. Despite starting from P3, he overtook second-place Carlos Sainz in Turn 1, passed pole-sitter Charles Leclerc a few laps later, and then never looked back.

He still trails Leclerc in the championship race, but it’s shaping up to be another thrilling season on the grid.

Now let’s get you caught up on what else is happening…

Making the Rounds

  • Would shoppers really pay to go ad-free? A new survey found 28.1% of shoppers would pay $50 per month to go ad-free on social media. Meanwhile, what most shoppers are actually doing these days is cancelling their subscriptions. That’s why Netflix and other streamers are rushing to build out new ad-supported tiers. Bottom line: consumers vote with their wallets, not their mouths.

  • Facebook initiates company-wide hiring freeze amid revenue slowdown. Internal memos leaked to Insider reveal the company is putting a kibosh on new hires for the foreseeable future. Something tells us the $10B per year they’re spending on AR and VR probably isn’t helping the bottom line right now, either.

  • Dwindling ecommerce sales send stocks plunging. Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, and Wayfair have all suffered big drops in share price recently as overall online sales have declined 1.8% compared to a year ago. 

Working With Clients

Scored a Big Win For Your Client? Here’s What to Do Next

Scoring your first big win for a new client is a great feeling.

It also creates the perfect opportunity for you to make a strategic request:

Ask them for a 2-minute video testimonial.

Clients will (almost) never volunteer these on their own…

And you never want to wait too long to ask for one.

So make sure to put in the request while you’re both riding high on the heels of a job well done.

Plus, this way, you can transcribe it to text and have their testimonial in both written and video form.

If you want to take your testimonial game to the next level…

Check out testimonial.to — it lets you automatically collect text and video testimonials so you can display them on your site.

Working For Yourself

Not All Athletes Wear Gym Shorts

Being your own boss sounds pretty great in theory…

But in practice, it’s a lot harder than it looks.

That’s because there’s no one watching over your shoulder to hold you accountable if you show up late, call in sick, or botch that TPS report.

So if you’re struggling to build momentum or hit the next income goal in your freelance biz…

Here’s some advice:

Start treating your life like a pro athlete.

Even though you may not feel like an athlete…

Your goals are the same:

Performing at a high level and sustaining that performance over the course of an entire season.

This can mean:

  • Waking up and going to bed at the same time each day
  • Developing a morning routine
  • Eating healthy
  • Exercising regularly
  • Finding ways to relax and de-stress

The more seriously you take your day-to-day habits and routines…

The better results you’ll see inside your business.

From The Paid Ads Gig

Resist the Temptation

One of the easiest media buying mistakes to make is changing too many things at once.

Especially when your ads are converting well.

Not only does this prevent the algorithm from optimizing…

But it also muddies the data and makes it almost possible for you to analyze effectively.

So resist the urge to make changes to campaigns that are crushing it.

If something’s working, let it work.

Run up the score.

Because you don’t want to end up “testing away” all your profits.

Quote of the Day

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.”

— Madeleine Albright