🤑 Ignoring prospects for fun & profit

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Happy Tuesday! Welcome to The Gig, the only place where you can learn how to build a profitable client business with memes and GIFs.

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Twitter, Elon, inflation, retail sales, Netflix, and Microsoft. Plus why experience doesn’t matter on Upwork, how to set boundaries with clients and colleagues, and our favorite low-cost page builder.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes and 49 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Some Wall Street experts think Elon will have to pay up to settle Twitter suit. In his most recent article, Puck’s William Cohan reveals why the Tesla and SpaceX CEO may have to pay as much as $5 billion to settle his legal dispute with Twitter (and claim top spot for the definition of “stupid tax”).
  • U.S. retail sales rose 1% in June. What recession? Consumer spending in the U.S. went up 1% last month, despite growing fears of an economic downturn. The increase is partly due to inflation, but it seems like consumers may not be as worried about the economy experts think — or at least not yet.

  • Will Microsoft gobble up Netflix? Rumors are swirling that Microsoft’s recent advertising deal with Netflix could lead to an acquisition down the line. The streamer has shed over $200B in market cap in the past year, and now sits at a much more snackable $84B. Their Q2 earnings report comes after the bell today, and if the news ain’t good, their stock could tumble further.

Working With Clients

Looking For an “Expert” Freelancer, You Say?

Estimated budgets aren’t the only thing you should ignore when looking for jobs on Upwork.

Don’t pay attention to the desired experience level either.

Before we explain why…

Here are the three options clients choose from when posting a job:

  • Entry: Looking for someone relatively new to the field
  • Intermediate: Looking for substantial experience in the field
  • Expert: Looking for comprehensive and deep experience in the field

Now this seems simple enough, right?

But here’s the thing…

Most clients don’t know what “substantial experience” might cost vs “comprehensive and deep experience.”

Or whether they really need someone who’s been in the field 5+ years vs someone who’s only been doing it for six months.

And even if they do…

Nine times out of ten, they’ll happily pay more for the right freelancer…

Or accept someone with less experience (even if they come in under budget) who’s got good samples and submits a strong proposal.

So, bottom line:

Our advice is to ignore the experience level in the job posting and apply to anything that seems like a good fit for you.

In the end, you’ll submit more proposals and (likely) land more gigs.

Working For Yourself

Wish I Was Free, But…

The numbers are in:

For many of us, working from home often means working (a lot) more than 8 hours a day.

And with notifications pouring in from dawn ‘till dusk (and sometimes even long past then)…

Maintaining more than a shred of work/life balance is a constant battle.

So here’s a simple tip to help you stay stane:

Use “work speak” to set effective boundaries.

Since your home and your office may be the same place, being “out of office” doesn’t have to apply only when you’re away from the computer. 

It can simply mean you’re unavailable.

Whether that’s because you’re doing deep work on a project or going deep into the next season of Schitt’s Creek.

And “meetings” don’t always have to be work-related — they can also be calls to catch up with family or friends.

Bottom line is:

Many people have an easier time understanding (and respecting) your boundaries when you use the right language to set them.

Tools We Love

The Fellowship of the Page Builder

WordPress powers 37% of all websites on the internet.

But with over 31,000+ themes to choose from, setting up your own WordPress website can be more than a little daunting.

That’s why we’re in love with GeneratePress.

It’s a fast and free lightweight theme that makes setting up a clean yet professional-looking website easy as pie.

Plus, they’ve recently rolled out a free block-based builder called GenerateBlocks that makes building landing pages a breeze.

Did we mention it’s got over 1,000+ reviews, 90,000+ happy customers, and 4M+ downloads?

Click below to check it out:

Learn more about everything GeneratePress can do here.

Gig Alert

Quote of the Day

“Don’t follow your passion, but let it follow you in your quest to become really good at what you do.”

— Cal Newport

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