gen z

🚫 3 client red flags to avoid

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Happy Wednesday! Looking to land more clients on Upwork? You can swipe our proven fill-in-the-blanks proposal template by sharing the newsletter with a friend. Just copy this link to start sharing.

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Gen Z, and millennials. Plus 3 client red flags to avoid, and one simple way to spice up your copy. 

Read time: 1 minute and 51 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Amazon’s ad business grew 19% in Q4 2022. The ecommerce king is gaining market share in the digital advertising space while Meta’s ad revenue has dropped for 3 straight quarters.
  • TikTok adds 4 new ways to turn organic content into ads. The new features are designed to help brands and small businesses boost organic content, similar to Facebook and Instagram.
  • 57% of Gen Z and 42% of millennials prefer short-form video. It’s no secret that short-form video content is crushing it these days, and this new 5-step guide from HubSpot helps explain why.

Working With Clients

Avoid These 3 Client Red Flags

One bad freelance client can make your life hell.

Here are 3 red flags to watch out for:

1) Previous bad experiences

2) Unrealistic demands about availability

3) They don’t pay on time

Don’t be afraid to enforce your boundaries.

No one else will do it for you.

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From The Copywriting Gig

One Simple Way to Spice Up Your Copy

Use power words to spice up your copy:

-New

-Myth

-Proven

-Exactly

-Secrets

-Sneaky

-Mistake

-Instantly

-Foolproof

-Excruciating

-Cringeworthy

But remember…

You need more than just spices to prepare a great meal.

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Gig Alerts

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

NOTE: We only share job postings from Upwork. We’ve found it to be the most trustworthy platform with the highest-quality clients. 

Furthermore, job postings must be for high-income skills like copywriting, media buying, funnel building, graphic design, remote closing, etc in order to qualify.

Quote of the Day


“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.”

— Yvon Chouinard

Be kind and respectful to everyone you meet along the way.

You never know when your paths might cross again.


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Tools of the Trade

Looking to upgrade your toolkit? Here are some of our favorite tools we use to powerful our freelance business:

  • ConvertKit — Email marketing for creators. Simple, easy to use, and very cost-effective.
  • ​Kinsta — Super fast website hosting trusted by 25,000+ small businesses.
  • Fireflies — AI note-taker that can record client calls + create searchable transcripts.
  • ​Krisp — Eliminates echoes and background noise on calls and meetings using AI.
  • ​Wise — Unbeatable rates on currency conversions. Saves you a ton of money if you’re an international freelancer.

* Some of these are affiliate links. This means we may receive a small commission if you sign up for a paid subscription (at no extra cost to you.)

🤓 The 20-20-20 Rule

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Happy Thursday! Today is Groundhog Day, marking the midway point between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and the moment where famous Pennsylvanian groundhog Punxsutawney Phil presents his powers of prognostication for all to see.

We’ve got our fingers crossed for an early spring.

Discussed in today’s newsletter: Gmail, Gen Z, and OpenAI. Plus the 20-20-20 rule, and episode 3 of Inspector Lander.

Read time: 2 minutes and 16 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Gmail ships new package tracking feature. Android and iOS users can now track their packages at the top of their Gmail inbox. Desktop users are currently SOL.
  • Survey of 15k Gen Z’ers reveals divide on remote work. A new Dell Technologies study found that 29% of respondents said remote work was a top priority, while another 29% said they favored office-based positions.
  • OpenAI releases free tool to detect AI-generated text. Users can paste text into the tool and get a rating of very unlikely, unlikely, unclear, possibly, or likely to have been generated by AI.

Working For Yourself

The 20-20-20 Rule

Fun fact:

Did you know your eyes are an extension of your brain?

Well, it’s true.

And while we’re on the topic of your eyes, it may also shock you to learn that staring into the abyss a screen all day isn’t good for them.

Eye strain, mental fatigue, and dry eyes are just a few of the potential consequences you have to look forward to.

So… how do you protect them?

Blue-light glasses are one approach — and one we certainly endorse.

But another no-cost way to preserve your peepers is the 20-20-20 rule:

Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

This gives your eyes a timeout from the pixelated onslaught they’re normally subjected to…

Which has been proven to help reduce eye strain and mental fatigue.

So if you’re looking to take preventative action before your eyes become a problem…

Then give this new rule a try.

Marketing Strategy

After This Audit, We Can’t Help But Wonder…

Marketing audits are all about identifying missed opportunities.

And in this week’s episode of Inspector Lander, our new weekly video series on marketing strategy, we found a bushel of them on the landing page in question.

So if you’re looking to sharpen your strategic skillset…

And see how we’d address some of these gaping holes within the marketing argument…

Click below to check it out now:

[WATCH]: Inspector Lander #003: TheHoth

Gig Alerts

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

NOTE: We only share job postings from Upwork. We’ve found it to be the most trustworthy platform with the highest-quality clients. Furthermore, job postings must be for high-income skills like copywriting, media buying, funnel building, graphic design, remote closing, etc in order to qualify.

Quote of the Day


“No matter what, expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected.”

— Lynda Barry

Tools of the Trade

Looking to upgrade your toolkit? Here are some of our favorite tools we use to powerful our freelance business:

  • ConvertKit — Email marketing for creators. Simple, easy to use, and very cost-effective.
  • ​Kinsta — Super fast website hosting trusted by 25,000+ small businesses.
  • Fireflies — AI note-taker that can record client calls + create searchable transcripts.
  • ​Krisp — Eliminates echoes and background noise on calls and meetings using AI.
  • ​Wise — Unbeatable rates on currency conversions. Saves you a ton of money if you’re an international freelancer.

* Some of these are affiliate links. This means we may receive a small commission if you sign up for a paid subscription (at no extra cost to you.)

💲Monthly retainers

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Happy Tuesday! Our long weekend was filled with sun, good company, and a few wobbly pops. We hope yours was too. Also, a special thank you to everyone who entered our 1k subscriber giveaway. Winners will be announced later this week 🙌

Mentioned in today’s edition: Gen Z, Reddit, Meta, and Google. Plus how to go from one-off projects to monthly retainers, why you should forget time management and do this instead, and service agreements your freelance biz can count on.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes and 45 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Gen Z begins to replace their parents on social media. According to eMarketer, 2022 will be the first year where the total number of Gen X users on social media declines. Meanwhile, Gen Z’s social presence keeps growing with Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram projected to see the biggest gains.
  • Meta shuts down Novi crypto wallet without explanation. The pilot project let users make fee-free payments using stablecoins. But with stablecoins in regulators’s crosshairs after the collapse of Terra/LUNA, along with the overall crypto crash, we can hazard a guess or two as to why Novi was shut down.

  • Google agrees to pay $90M to settle with app developers. The settlement is similar to Apple’s $100M settlement in 2021: in addition to the payout, Google will reduce their service fee from 30% to 15% on the first $1M in annual revenue for app developers. 

Working With Clients

How to Go From One-Off Projects to Monthly Retainers

No freelancer wants to spend all their time prospecting.

But if you’re stuck doing one-off projects for clients all the time…

You don’t have much choice.

That’s one of the reasons why monthly retainers can be so attractive:

It doesn’t take many to fill up your calendar.

Which means less time spent prospecting and more time spent doing work that pays.

Plus it gives you some predictable income you can use to budget, save, and invest with.

But how do you make the shift from one-off to ongoing?

Well, the playbook is the same pretty much regardless of which service(s) you provide:

STEP 1: Make sure one-off projects are successful

You can’t expect to upsell clients into ongoing arrangements if the initial project isn’t successful.

So make sure you’re doing everything you can to get your client a big win first.

You need a solid foundation to build on if you want them to pay you every month.

STEP 2: Identify ongoing work you can take off their plate

Start by thinking about it from the client’s perspective:

What ongoing work are they doing on a daily or weekly basis that you could take off their plate?

Some examples:

  • Writing emails
  • Running split-tests
  • Managing ad campaigns
  • Creating social media posts
  • Etc

Unless these activities fall within your client’s zone of genius, chances are they’d appreciate you taking it off their plate so they can focus on more important things, like leading the company and being a real CEO.

Often, the question isn’t “do they want to hire someone” — it’s “will this pay for itself?” and “can I trust you?”

STEP 3: Explain why it makes sense

Even if you’ve created some goodwill with your client, you still need to make a strong logical case for this new arrangement:

– How will it make them money?
– How will it save them time?
– Why is it a smart decision?

Don’t be afraid to explain why YOU want it too.

Make it clear how much you enjoy working for them, how much you love their products, why you align with their values, etc.

Then position it as a way for them to lock down a fixed amount of your time every month.

Just keep in mind that not every client will be a good fit for a monthly retainer.

But for the right ones, it’s a win/win.

Working For Yourself

Forget Time Management (and Do This Instead)

Ever heard of Parkinson’s Law?

It states that work expands to fill the time allotted for it.

Translation:

If you give yourself an hour, it’ll take an hour.

If you give yourself a week, it’ll take a week.

And in our experience, we’ve found this law to be pretty accurate.

That’s why time management is the wrong area to focus on if you want to increase your output.

Instead, focus on energy management.

Energy is the true constraint to productivity, not time.

So here are three of our favorite tips to help you better manage your energy:

1 – Put your phone on Do Not Disturb

2 – Listen to non-lyrical music (lo-fi, chillwave, binaural beats)

3 – Go for a walk as soon as you hit a wall

Your mileage may vary…

But the more you focus on extracting the most out of yourself, the less you’ll have to worry about time.

Tools We Love

Signed Service Agreements Your Freelance Biz Can Stand On

Managing contracts is a key part of running a freelance business.

Since you don’t have a company legal or HR department looking out for you…

Your legal protection is entirely up to you.

But asking a prospective client to print out a contract so they can sign it and send it back to you is so 2004.

Enter HelloSign.

HelloSign lets you send out contracts and request legally binding signatures in seconds.

With it, you can set up templates, streamline the signature process, and easily access every signed contract you’ve ever received from anywhere.

Start your free 30-day trial of HelloSign today.

Quote of the Day

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

— Thomas Edison

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