Metaverse

📺 Netflix ad sweepstakes

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Happy Friday! We’re hunkered down at our satellite office in Toronto to celebrate a wildly successful Q2. And we want you to celebrate with us! So look out for details on our first ever subscriber giveaway next week, where you’ll be able to win some cool prizes.

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Google, Roku, Comcast, Twitter, and Shopify. Plus what to do with leads you can’t help, 24 side hustle ideas that can make you an extra 1k/m, and scaling 101 for paid ads.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes and 42 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Adobe, Meta, and Microsoft join Metaverse Standards Forum. One conspicuous absence from the group is Apple, who’s rumored to be working on an AR/VR headset that could make them a major player in the metaverse.
  • Netflix looking at Google, Roku, and Comcast for their first advertising partnership. With the streamer aiming to launch their ad-supported tier by the end of 2022, multiple companies are vying to win the business.

  • Shopify users can now sell straight from their Twitter profiles. The new integration gives merchants two options: display up to 5 products in a carousel, or link to a Twitter Shop where they can display up to 50 products.

Working With Clients

When in Doubt, Refer Out

Got a lead you can’t help?

Don’t just send them away…

Refer them to someone else in your network.

Becoming a “connector” helps you build goodwill and social capital with both parties — the lead and the person you refer them to.

Something that often comes back around to you…

Whether it’s a referral fee, a client being referred to you, or something else altogether.

And if you don’t have a network of other service providers you can refer to, it’s time to start building one.

Aim to have at least one person you can refer to for all the services adjacent to yours.

– If you’re a copywriter, get to know someone who runs paid ads
– If you run paid ads, get to know someone who does graphic design or video editing
– If you’re a graphic designer, get to know someone who builds funnels

A bigger network always means more opportunities.

Working For Yourself

What to Do if You Picked the Wrong Side Hustle

Freelancing is one of the easiest side hustles to get started with.

There’s no overhead and you can spend as little or as much time on it as you want.

But once your freelance biz becomes your main hustle…

You may want to find a new side hustle to work on in your spare time.

We like to think of it this way:

Side hustles are stomping grounds for accelerating your skills.

Having skin in the game totally transforms the way you approach a project.

And if your end goal is to build something of your own…

It’s never too early to get started.

But there are a dizzying number of options when it comes to picking a side hustle.

If you’re on the hunt for one that meets your criteria for both lifestyle and income goals…

Check out this article from Shopify:

24 Best Side Hustle Ideas to Make an Extra $1,000+ a Month

From The Paid Ads Gig

Scaling 101

If you’re running a paid ads campaign that’s converting…

There are two main ways to scale it:

1 – Vertical scaling

Where you increase the budget on winning ad sets and/or campaigns.

2 – Horizontal scaling

Where you take winning ads and roll them out to new audiences.

Once you’ve hit on something that works, vertical scaling is the easiest to start with.

But depending on your audience, offer, and platform, you’ll eventually bump into a budget ceiling.

That’s when horizontal scaling comes into play.

Pro tip: the best way to achieve horizontal scale is to reposition your offer.

For example: a biz opp/make money online offer might start out being positioned towards young professionals as a way to escape the 9 to 5…

But it could also be positioned towards stay-at-home parents as a way to provide for their family without having to leave the house or hire a babysitter.

Make sense?

If you want to scale an ad account to the moon, you’ll need to scale both vertically and horizontally.

Quote of the Day

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

— Victor Frankl

💦 Twitter unleashes the firehose

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Happy Friday! Formula 1 is in Baku this weekend for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. And Jurassic World: Dominion aims to unseat Tom Cruise at the box office with a projected $125M opening. 

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson, TikTok, Twitter, and Ready Player One. Plus the one thing that can make or break your freelance portfolio, four ugly truths about being a digital nomad, and an old school trick to keep your attribution clean even after iOS 14.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes and 23 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Twitter unleashes the firehose on Elon Musk. The board has finally caved to Elon’s demands and will give him access to its massive internal data stream of 500M+ daily tweets. Will Musk be satisfied? Or will it prompt him to formally pull out of the deal? Either way, one person loving all this drama (aside from Elon himself) is probably Walter Isaacson, who’s been working on a biography of the Tesla CEO since 2021.

  • TikTok introduces Avatars. Similar to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, TikTok users can now set up and “become” their avatars when recording videos. Ready Player One takes place in 2045 in a world where people spend most of their time living as their VR avatar, and so far, the timeline is looking pretty accurate.

  • Twitter launches Product Drops. As we’ve reported in recent weeks, the push into shoppable ads and content continues to heat up. And now Twitter is entering the fray with Product Drops, which allow users to sign up for reminders about upcoming launches right from the feed.

Working With Clients

The One Thing That Can Make or Break Your Freelance Portfolio

Want to increase your chances of getting the gig?

Make sure you’ve got relevant sample pieces in your freelance portfolio.

There are two ways to think about relevance:

1) Task-specific
2) Market-specific 

Task-specific relevance means that if you’re applying for a job to write emails, you should highlight email work you’ve done in the past (instead of sales pages or video scripts).

Market-specific relevance means that if you’re applying for a job to run ads for a health company, you should highlight previous work you’ve done in the health space (instead of another niche like finance or relationships).

And if you want to pull a Mike Tyson and hit the bullseye…

Aim to have both.

Working For Yourself

4 Ugly Truths About Being a Digital Nomad

The laptop lifestyle is what attracts a lot of people to freelancing and digital marketing.

But it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.

Here are a few ugly truths about digital nomadism we’ve learned the hard way:

#1: Everyone else is in vacation mode

Working from exotic locations is tough.

Spending 8 hours a day glued to your laptop while everyone else is partying, sightseeing, and having fun isn’t exactly what most people have in mind when they board a plane overseas.

Temptations are everywhere.

Staying focused when you’re surrounded by distractions is less fun than it looks.

#2: You have to work odd hours

Having clients in the West means you might have to stay up until 12-1 AM to take calls and attend meetings.

This can be brutal.

If you’re an early to bed, early to rise kind of person, this will really jam up your normal rhythm.

Which leads us to…

#3: Routines are hard to maintain

As Jocko Willink says, discipline equals freedom.

But when you’re living overseas and often on the move, it’s hard to maintain structure.

You’re always on the lookout for good coffee shops, gyms, grocery stores, etc. near your new place.

Which sucks up more brainpower than you might think.

#4: Relationships are transient

You can meet lots of cool people while you’re traveling.

But it’s unlikely any of those new relationships will compare to the ones you have back home.

You can’t recreate that kind of depth in a week or a month.

Everyone’s headed in different directions, so nothing lasts.

Now this isn’t to say that it can’t work for some…

In fact, your humble newsletter writer spent a life-changing 8 months in Southeast Asia.

But the digital nomad lifestyle isn’t for everyone.

And since it’s always glamorized so much on social media…

We think it’s important to shine a spotlight on the not-so-sexy parts of it.

From The Paid Ads Gig

iOS 14? Never Heard of It

Apple’s iOS 14 update detonated a bomb on browser-based tracking last year.

Paid ads haven’t been the same since.

And even though every SaaS company and their grandma claims to have “solved iOS 14,” the truth is that the ad tracking capabilities we used to have ain’t coming back.

But the good news is…

There’s an old school strategy that can help you combat Apple’s anti-ad agenda:

Building separate funnels for each traffic source.

If you’ve only got traffic from one source (like Facebook, YouTube, organic, etc) coming into a specific funnel, attributing ROI is a cakewalk.

There is a bit more work up front to get this set up…

But as you (or your client’s) company grows, you’ll be glad you did it.

Quote of the Day

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.”

— Harry Golden

📱 Social media mysteries in the metaverse

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Happy Wednesday! And welcome to June. This is The Gig with news, tips, and A+ memes to help grow your freelance biz.

Here’s the latest…

Making the Rounds

  • Substack abandons $75M fundraise. The newsletter-biz-in-a-box company was attempting to raise $75M to $100M in new funding at a valuation of $750M-$1B. But with VCs and Wall Street bearish on tech companies these days, it looks like they’ll have to wait.

  • SpaceX president defends Elon Musk against sexual misconduct allegations. Gwynne Shotwell, who’s also COO, came out in support of Musk in an email to employees, saying she believes the allegations are false.

  • Foursquare founder announces $4M in funding for mysterious new social media metaverse company. The project is called LivingCities and aims to integrate web3 technology into a “mirror world” you won’t be able to find in app stores. Not sure exactly what that means? Don’t worry – us neither. 

Working With Clients

What to Do When a New Client Questions the Strategy

Kidding.

While you may want to Force choke a client on occasion…

(we’ve all been there)

Client success can be boiled down to one thing:

Learning how to manage expectations.

It’s the bedrock that long-lasting relationships are built on.

Here are some tips to help you to do it better:

  • Be transparent about the process
  • Offer multiple options or strategies
  • Set deadlines with wiggle room
  • Overcommunicate
  • Avoid getting carried away with too much excitement or enthusiasm 

And if a client is eager to pursue their own strategy instead of the one you’ve suggested…

Make the potential risks clear.

Explain that it’s your job as the expert to speak up.

Then establish clear criteria to determine whether the strategy is successful or not.

If it pans out, they’ll appreciate you pushing forward despite disagreeing.

And if it doesn’t, they’ll respect your judgment for being right.

Win-win.

Working For Yourself

The Dark Side of a Short Commute

Blurred lines are an occupational hazard when working from home.

Sure, the morning commutes may be a breeze…

But when the office is always just a few steps away, it can be tough to turn off your work brain.

That’s why one of the best ways to stay sane is…

Create a structured work schedule and stick to it.

That means getting up, starting, and finishing work around the same time each day.

Establishing boundaries like this will not only help you be more productive…

But you’ll sleep better too.

From The Paid Ads Gig

Ads Not Working? Try This

Ads not performing?

First things first: check to make sure the link isn’t broken 😂

But assuming that’s not the problem…

The next step is to analyze the leading metrics so you can figure out where the dropoff is happening.

This includes:

  • CPM
  • CTR/CPC
  • Page speed
  • Landing page conversion rate

A sub-1% CTR + high CPC could mean a market-message mismatch or a weak creative.

Slow page speed could mean visitors are exiting before the page loads.

And if your landing page is converting at 20% or less, that’s a sign you may need to do some conversion rate optimization (CRO) before the campaign hits your KPIs.

Quote of the Day

“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.”

— John Maxwell

🥽 Will this VR headset replace laptops?

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Happy Monday! It’s a great day to give thanks for being alive 🙏

Here’s what’s happening…

Making the Rounds

  • Twitter accuses Elon of violating NDA. After tweeting on Friday that his takeover bid of the company was “temporarily on hold,” pending an analysis to verify that fake/spam/duplicate accounts make up less than 5% of users, the company accused Musk of violating an NDA by revealing they only sampled 100 users to come up with that 5% number. We’re no statisticians… but that seems a touch on the small side.

  • 180 million people have used Snapchat’s new crying filter. Talk about going viral. Since launching a little over a week ago, a whopping 180 million Snapchatters have tried out the new Crying Lens.

  • Project Cambria: new VR headset coming to a Meta Store near you? Turns out that $10 billion dollar annual budget for AR/VR may be starting to yield fruit after all. Meta’s newest VR headset, codenamed Project Cambria, is reportedly lightyears ahead of the Quest 2 in terms of resolution and immersiveness. Zuckerberg thinks it has the potential to eventually replace laptops and workstations.

Working With Clients

Why “One” is the Most Dangerous Number in Business

One big advantage of freelancing is being able to diversify your income streams.

There’s a reason they say “one” is the most dangerous number in business…

Because if you rely exclusively on…

  • One traffic source
  • One ad account
  • Or one client

… for all of your income, then you’re in a very precarious place.

And it wouldn’t take much to knock you off your perch.

So…

A word to the wise:

Avoid relying on one client for 100% of your income.

Aim to have at least two — this way you have something to fall back on if things go sideways with Client #1.

Plus, as you build your track record…

The list of clients you’ve worked with in the past will grow…

Which can also serve as a back-up plan if you need to drum up work.

Working For Yourself

This is a Meeting-Free Zone

Meetings can be a major timesuck.

Especially if you’re collaborating across different time zones.

So if you want to protect your time and maximize efficiency…

Focus on asynchronous communication instead.

What is asynchronous communication?

It’s any one-way message where the sender and recipient are not synchronized.

  • Emails
  • DMs
  • Voice notes
  • Screencast videos
  • Etc

The benefits of using voice notes or screencast videos over written messages are that it’s much easier to provide context and illustrate your point…

Plus hearing someone’s voice or seeing their face helps build a stronger connection.

When it comes to recording screencast videos, our weapon of choice is SnagIt.

And nowadays, most messaging apps like Slack, WhatsApp, and Telegram have voice notes as a built-in feature.

Just make sure to keep your voice notes short and punchy.

Otherwise, your colleagues may come to dread them.

From The Copywriting Gig

Scrap Those $5 Dollar Words

Writing copy isn’t like writing essays in college. You don’t get bonus points for using big words. 

In fact, it’s the opposite — the more $5 dollar words you use, the fewer sales you’ll make.

Why? 

It’s not because everyone reading your copy is dumb. 

It’s because simple words get read faster. 

And the easier it is for people to grasp what you’re trying to say, the more people you’ll get to take action.

So aim for short, punchy words with 2-3 syllables. And try to avoid anything with 5 or more.

Run your copy through a tool like Hemingway to see how you’re doing.

If you can spit out sales copy at a 5th-grade reading level…

You’ll be one step closer to writing winning pieces that make your client’s cash register ring off the hook.

Quote of the Day

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

— Napoleon Hill

🩸There’s blood in the Excel sheets

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Happy Wednesday! If today is Hump Day, let’s hope for an easy slide down the Thursday-Friday slope and into the weekend.

Here’s what’s going on…

Making the Rounds

  • Big tech companies shed over $1 trillion in market value. Since the Fed raised interest rates last Wednesday, the stock market has been a bloodbath. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla have lost over $1 trillion in market value. Our advice? Avoid checking your portfolio if you can.

  • Apple targeting expansions into streaming and advertising with its Services division. The iPhone maker is reportedly gearing up to make plays for a variety of sports broadcasting deals as rights come up for renewal, following its deal for Friday night baseball. Bottom line: they’re not against ads so much as they’re against… other companies making money from ads 🙃

  • Meta’s belt-tightening may extend to news partnerships. Looking for ways to cut costs across the board, Meta may reduce the money it gives to news organizations.

Working With Clients

What Makes a Great Hook, Email, or Ad Angle

Mainstream wisdom is everywhere.

Your audience is bombarded with the same advice all the time.

But what sets you (or your client) apart from everyone else is where they disagree.

So ask yourself: what controversial opinions can I highlight?

What mainstream advice do I (or my client) DISAGREE with?

That’s often what makes for the best hooks, emails, or ad angles.

Now, a caveat:

You need to be able to make a logical case for why you disagree.

Don’t just disagree to be a contrarian or to grab attention… unless you can back it up.

Working For Yourself

Triangulating the Fulfillment Trifecta

Finding fulfillment is something many freelancers struggle with in their careers.

If you’re one of them…

Look for work that aligns with these three things:

1 – What you enjoy doing

2 – What you’re good at

3 – What you can get paid for

We like to think of this as the “fulfillment trifecta.”

Pursuing a paycheck at the cost of personal enjoyment is just as bad as choosing a career you enjoy or are good at, but has minimal market demand.

The road to happiness starts by finding alignment between all three.

From The Copywriting Gig

The Shortcut to Making 120k/yr as a Freelance Copywriter

Specializing as a copywriter is one of the fastest ways to hit 6-figures.

And when you boil it down…

There are only two ways freelance copywriters can specialize:

#1: Market specialization

This refers to the audience you’re writing for.

The “big 3” are: health, wealth, and relationships.

#2: Task specialization

This refers to the specific deliverables you’re responsible for, such as:

– Facebook ads
– Emails
– Sales letters
– Video scripts
– etc

If you’re wondering which one is more important…

Or which one you should tackle first…

Go here:

This Twitter thread explains exactly how to specialize as a copywriter so you can go from zero to 10k/m and beyond.

Quote of the Day

“It’s not about money or connections – it’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.”

— Mark Cuban

♾️ Visiting the metaverse IRL

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Happy Tuesday! Enjoying the newsletter? If you know anyone else who might like to start their day with The Gig, use your share link at the bottom of today’s email to refer them and unlock cool rewards.

Visit your referral hub to see what’s up for grabs.

Now here’s what’s happening…

Making the Rounds

  • Meta opens their first IRL store. Similar to competitors Apple and Microsoft, Meta now has their own store. The inaugural Meta Store threw open its doors in Burlingame, California yesterday, where shoppers can test-drive Meta’s VR and AR hardware.

  • Elon plans to 5X Twitter’s revenue by 2028. According to a pitch deck presented to investors, he’s projecting $26.4 billion in revenue by 2028, which would be a 500%+ increase from last year’s $5 billion.

  • Shopify acquires Deliverr for $2.1 billion to improve shipping and delivery times. Despite a falling stock price and slumping ecommerce sales across the industry, Shopify is pushing ahead to develop end-to-end logistics by acquiring the fulfillment company.

Working With Clients

How to Pass the “Real Person” Test

Video calls are an essential part of running a remote freelance biz.

But even though we love a good 60-minute Zoom as much as the next person…

It can be tempting to go “camera off” sometimes.

Whether you’re talking to a new prospect…

Or if you just had one too many tequila shots on Taco Tuesday the night before.

The benefits of being on camera can’t be overstated, though.

Being on camera helps develop a strong personal connection with colleagues and clients.

Relationships are what your business is built on.

So don’t be that guy or girl who’s making it weird by having your camera off while the other person’s camera is on.

“Camera on” is a mindset.

When talking to prospects, it proves you’re a real person and not some deepfaked AI-bot from the Philippines.

And when talking to existing clients or colleagues, it adds valuable context to deepen the back-and-forth.

Now, on a related note…

Working For Yourself

Look the Part, Be the Part

One of the best parts about working remotely is the dress code.

As in, there is none.

But as nice as it is to spend the day working in sweatpants and a hoodie…

Here’s the thing…

When you’re on video calls, it’s important to “look the part.”

If you want to be taken seriously as a service provider…

Meaning you want to be seen by your clients as someone who knows how to get results…

(and is paid handsomely for it)

Then you need to come correct.

That doesn’t have to mean business formal attire, but it should mean a clean and wrinkle-free outfit.

Studies have shown that what you wear can and does affect how you feel…

So leverage the science of fashion to show up the way you want to inside your business.

Tools We Love

Turning Subscribers into Bounty Hunters

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’s where SparkLoop comes in.

SparkLoop is specifically designed to help newsletter operators get more high-quality email 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

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.”

— Malcolm Gladwell

🕹️Slowdown in the metaverse

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Happy Friday! TGIF. We’re officially ready for the sun and warm weather. Aaaaanytime now.

While we wait out the spring that never ends, here’s what’s happening.

Making the Rounds

  • Meta pumps the brakes on metaverse investments. Despite beating expectations for daily active users and earnings per share this quarter, Meta is slowing the pace of some of its investments in the metaverse. Reality Labs, the company’s VR/AR division, posted a loss of $2.96 billion in Q1 2022, up from $1.83 billion in Q1 2021.
  • Pinterest can feel TikTok breathing down its neck. “I found it on Pinterest” is old news. Now it’s “TikTok made me buy it.” And Pinterest knows it. They’re shifting focus to new video-based features like Idea Pins to avoid being left in the dust. Considering TikTok’s dominance in the App Store, it may be too little, too late.

  • Twitter shows growth but admits to overcounting users. In what could be its last earnings report as a publicly-traded company, Twitter beat expectations on user growth with 229 million vs 226.9 million expected — but also admitted to overcounting users with multiple accounts linked together since 2019. Woops. Best to get that out there before Elon shows up at HQ with a paintball gun.

Working With Clients

Don’t Bungle it

One of the easiest ways to build trust with prospective clients is to have a step-by-step system for how you’ll complete the project.

Giving them insight into your process will put their mind at ease…

So make sure to share during the interview process or on the sales call.

Pro tip: keep it simple and stick to 3-5 steps or pillars.

Having a step-by-step system implies consistency in your work, because inputs dictate outputs. 

So if the quality of your inputs (aka the process) are consistent, then the quality of your outputs (aka the project deliverables) will be too.

Working For Yourself

Work in a Clean Office Just Hits Different

Workspace distractions sap your focus.

And while a cluttered desk may not *always* be the sign of a cluttered mind…

We’re firm believers in keeping your physical workspace organized.

As David Allen, productivity expert and author of Getting Things Done, says:

“When your space is filled up with things you haven’t organized, all of those things are constantly ‘yelling’ at you.”

So, if your office looks like a disaster…

Carve out 15 minutes to tidy it up this week and see how it affects your productivity.

Getting work done in a spotless office hits different.

From The Paid Ads Gig

Scaling 101

If you’re running a paid ads campaign that’s converting…

There are two main ways to scale it:

1 – Vertical scaling

Where you increase the budget on winning ad sets and/or campaigns.

2 – Horizontal scaling

Where you take winning ads and roll them out to new audiences.

Once you’ve hit on something that works, vertical scaling is the easiest to start with.

But depending on your audience, offer, and platform, you’ll eventually bump into a budget ceiling.

That’s when horizontal scaling comes into play.

Pro tip: the best way to achieve horizontal scale is to reposition your offer.

For example: a biz opp/make money online offer might be positioned towards young professionals as a way to escape the 9 to 5 and corporate rat race…

While it might be positioned towards stay-at-home parents as a way to provide for their family without having to leave the house or hire a babysitter.

Make sense?

Quote of the Day

“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.”

— Elvis Presley

👻 Ghosting the metaverse

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Happy Tuesday! Today marks 90 years since President Herbert Hoover suggested a 5-day work week for the first time. We’re pretty sure he didn’t factor in how many Zoom calls you can fit into 40 hours when he made the suggestion… but we’ll let it slide.

Now let’s get you caught up on the latest…

Digital Marketing News

  • Will the metaverse be a ghost town? Maybe. According to a new survey, Gen Z is pretty skeptical. 50% of teens surveyed said they were “unsure, or had zero intention” of buying a device to access the metaverse. But considering virtual concerts by artists like Travis Scott and Lil Nax X have drawn millions of viewers on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite, we’re not ready to declare the metaverse DOA just yet.
  • Brands shift focus to zero-party data. Forget first-party data — brands are now going after zero-party data to personalize their marketing. But what the heck is it? Zero-party data is information you share voluntarily, such as what types of products or services you’re interested in, typically via survey. As the aftershock of iOS 14 continues to ripple out, zero-party data may come to be worth its weight in gold.

  • WhatsApp aims to take on Telegram with new Communities feature. Don’t confuse them with Facebook Groups though: the new WhatsApp feature will focus on private, non-searchable communities where members can see each other’s phone numbers. 

Working With Clients

What to Say When That One Annoying Client Won’t Stop Sending You Voice Notes


Freelance power dynamics typically favor the client.

But it’s important to remember that no client is worth nonstop Slack messages, neverending voice notes, or needlessly urgent “pivots” that have to be executed right after the last one.

Healthy working relationships are built on boundaries and expectations.

So…

Don’t be afraid to fire clients who can’t respect your boundaries.

If a client’s expectations are not aligned with yours (aka they expect you to be available to turn something around on a Friday night at 9:30 PM when you’re already two margaritas deep), the chances of them being unhappy when the job is done are pretty dang high. 

And that poses a serious risk to your reputation, which you’ve got to protect at all costs.

Working For Yourself

When You Treat Your Mind Like a Filing Cabinet, This is What Happens

Staying productive can be a battle when you’re working from home.

But instead of looking for some fancy productivity system to keep you on task, here’s an old school solution to try:

Write all your to-dos down on paper.

Because if you’ve 479 mental tabs open at the same time, well, that’s gonna suck up all your juice and make it difficult to get things done.

But when you write everything down, you can free up your mind’s computing power to do more important things — like finding the perfect the GIF to get your point across 😂😈

Tools We Love

Let the Hate Leads Flow Through You

You don’t need a sales funnel to land your first few clients.

But when it comes to scaling up your offer, starting a side hustle, or sketching out a new strategy for a client…

Having a dedicated funnel builder is a godsend.

That’s where ClickFunnels comes in.

It’s armed with:

  • A simple drag-and-drop builder
  • 100s of templates to choose from
  • Seamless split-testing
  • One-click upsells
  • Solid reporting

Setting up your first funnel is fast and easy.

So if you’re ready for the leads to start flowing…

Start your free 14-day ClickFunnels trial today.

Quote of the Day

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

— Peter Drucker

🍎 $16 billion reasons to hate Apple

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Happy Thursday! Today’s a great day to remind yourself how lucky you are. Life is good 🙏

Now let’s get you caught up on the latest…

Digital Marketing News

  • Apple’s privacy updates may cost Meta, YouTube, Snap, and Twitter up to $16 billion in lost revenue this year. Meta and Snap are projected to be the hardest hit, followed by YouTube and Twitter. Ouch. Something tells us Apple may get left off the social media Christmas card list this year.
  • Making money in the metaverse. Meta is experimenting with new ways to help creators monetize in Horizon Worlds, its Quest VR metaverse platform. Meta will reportedly take a 25% cut of all virtual items and effects sold by creators, on top of a “platform fee.”

  • Etsy sellers go on strike to protest price hike. Speaking of transaction fees, Etsy just raised theirs from 5% to 6.5%, and sellers are not impressed. More than 14,000 have gone on strike this week to protest the increase.

Working With Clients

Try This Simple Growth Hack to Get More Clients

Most freelancers tend to overcomplicate the process of getting clients.

So here’s a simple tip to try:

Once you’ve scored a big win for a new client and asked them for a video testimonial…

Ask them for a referral.

Keep it simple and straightforward by saying something like…

“Given how we’ve been able to [achieve client’s desired result], I wondered if you might know anyone else looking to [achieve desired result]. I’m looking to fill a spot on my client roster and I’d love to help someone in your network achieve similar results.”

That’s it.

You can also get creative and incentivize them by offering a discount, gift card, bonus, or referral fee. 

Bottom line is:

Referred clients are typically much higher-quality than those found via cold outreach or on freelancing platforms.

Plus, everyone likes to “have a guy.”

It allows us to build social capital by playing the connector.

So when it comes to finding new clients, you should always start with your existing client base.

Working For Yourself

Why Not All To-Do Lists Are Made Equal

To-do lists are probably our favorite productivity hack….

But they’re not all made equal.

That’s because the most effective to-do lists are written the night before.

If you want to hit the ground running first thing in the morning, you should already know what comes first, second, and third.

Otherwise, you’ll waste valuable energy and momentum trying to decide what to tackle first.

Plus, as an added bonus, you’ll sleep better too.

Tools We Love

We’re Pretty Sure You Deserve a Raise

If you’re an international freelancer, getting paid in USD is great…

… Until you actually convert it into your own currency.

Traditional solutions like PayPal (or god forbid, your own bank) will make you pay out the nose to convert USD into your local currency.

That’s why we use Wise (formerly TransferWise). 

Not only do they give you a much better rate than PayPal on currency conversions, but they also give you a local USD bank account so you can get paid via bank transfer instead of a wire.

Open a free account today and start keeping more of your hard-earned money for yourself.

Quote of the Day

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”

— Stephen Covey