Happy Monday! Welcome back to The Gig â the daily email helping freelancers go beyond the 9 to 5 and build profitable client businesses.
Mentioned in todayâs newsletter: Patreon, Snapchat, Twitter, and Elon Musk. Plus the easiest way to fish for new freelance clients, savvy advice for anyone scaling up their side hustle, and one simple trick to avoid ad fatigue on Facebook and Instagram.
Read time: 3 minutes and 58 seconds
Together with AdSkills
When They Find Out Youâre AdSkills Certified
Most certifications arenât worth the paper theyâre printed on. But not AdSkills. Their Matchmaker program generates high-quality inbound leads for media buyers of all experience levels. It doesnât matter whether youâre brand new or a seasoned vet. Once you graduate, youâll have the chance to apply for real gigs with legit clients whoâve specifically requested an AdSkills media buyer.
As an AdSkills member, not only will you learn how to launch & scale paid ad campaigns, but youâll also get the stamp of approval that 9-figure companies like ClickFunnels, DigitalMarketer, and VShred look for when hiring freelancers. So if youâre looking for a new high-income skill to add to your freelance toolkit, click here to try a free class today.
Making the Rounds
- Leaked memo reveals Patreonâs valuation has plummeted 70%. The creator economy darling recently laid off 17% of its workforce, and a leaked memo reviewed by Insider may explain why.
- Snapchat continues to get hammered by slowdown in digital ad market. The company is projecting zero revenue growth for Q4 as advertising budgets shrink going into 2023, which sent its share price down another 25%+.
- Elon Musk plans to cut Twitter workforce by 75%. If he completes his Twitter takeover bid, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is planning to slash headcount and get rid of 5,000+ employees, according to a new report from the Washington Post. Time to update your CVs!
Working With Clients
The Easiest Way to Fish For New Freelance Clients
If youâre a new freelancer looking to land clientsâŚ
Youâve got two choices:
Go fishing in the equivalent of the Atlantic Ocean by trying to persuade any and every business owner out there to hire youâŚ
Or go to a small pond where the density of fish is much higher.
Where do you think your chances are better?
The small pond, of course.
And thatâs exactly what freelancing platforms are.
Places like Upwork and Fiverr are where you can find paying clients looking to hire right now.
So if youâre just getting startedâŚ
Donât waste your time messaging random strangers on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
Focus on freelancing platforms instead.
Then aim to take your work off the platform once youâve built strong relationships.
Plus, if you share the newsletter with a friend, weâll send you a free fill-in-the-blanks Upwork job proposal template.
Use your unique share link at the bottom of todayâs edition to start referring today đ
Working For Yourself
Savvy Advice For Anyone Scaling Up Their Side Hustle
If youâve ever thought about scaling up your freelance business from a one-person operation to a full-fledged agencyâŚ
Or are thinking about starting a new side hustleâŚ
Then an important question to consider is:
Should you partner with (or hire) your friends?
On one hand, the people you work with represent a huge chunk of your day-to-day interactions, especially as you get olderâŚ
So wouldnât it be nice if one (or more) of those people were your friends?
But on the other hand, adding a business layer to an existing friendship requires a strong foundation and stellar communication â and even then, things can still go wrong.
Ultimately, thereâs no âperfectâ answerâŚ
Because regardless of whether you choose to hire your friends or notâŚ
The two key things you should be screening for are:
1) Competence (can they do the job?)
2) Culture (will they fit in + influence others in the way YOU want?)
Friends may get top marks in the Culture category, but lack the skills and experience youâre looking forâŚ
While outside hires may have the competence you need without being a culture fit.
Bottom line:
Great hires should score high in both categories.
From The Paid Ads Gig
Avoid Ad Fatigue on Facebook and Instagram With This One Simple Trick
One of the biggest roadblocks to scaling your ad account on Facebook and Instagram is ad fatigue.
Once you start spending thousands of dollars per day or moreâŚ
You need to give the algorithm more to work with if you want to maintain performance.
Think of it like a deck of cardsâŚ
If youâve only got a few copy and image variations, youâre only giving the algorithm a few cards to play with.
And the result is that your target audience ends up seeing the same ads over and over again.
So⌠how do you avoid this?
By using dynamic creative.
This lets you upload up toâŚ
- 5 variations of body copy
- 10 images or videos
- 5 headlines
- 5 descriptions
All within the same single ad.
So you can âstack the deckâ…
And allow the algorithm to mix and match each individual asset, creating TONS of different variations to test and run.
Ultimately, this allows you to avoid burning out your audienceâŚ
Find more ad variations that convertâŚ
And scale up your ad account much faster.
Gig Alerts
Looking for clients? These freelance jobs were posted on Upwork in the last 24 hours:
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Quote of the Day
“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
â Voltaire