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🔐 TikTok paywall

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Happy Thursday! Word of mouth always makes for the best marketing. So if you’re enjoying the newsletter, share it with a friend to unlock rewards. One referral gets you a free copy of our fill-in-the-blanks Upwork proposal template. You can see the rest of our referral rewards here.

Discussed in today’s edition: TikTok, angry shoppers, and Reddit. Plus the importance of paying yourself first from a business bank account, and the latest episode of Inspector Lander.

Read time: 2 minutes and 50 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • TikTok launches new 20-minute paywall feature. Who needs 10-second videos when you can upload 20-minute ones instead? TikTok’s new Series features lets creators upload up to 80 videos in a single collection and charge anywhere from $0.99 to $189.99 for access to them.
  • Revenge of the consumer. Hell hath no fury like a shopper scorned, as a new study found the percentage of consumers seeking revenge (via angry reviews or posting on social media) for product problems or negative experiences has tripled since 2020.
  • Reddit testing TikTok-style video feed. Our favorite market research platform announced they’re experimenting with splitting out text and video into ‘Read’ and ‘Watch’ feeds, as vertical video continues to eat the entire internet.

Newsletter Shout Out

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Working For Yourself

Pay Yourself First (Out of a Business Account)

If you’ve ever read The Richest Man in Babylon or Rich Dad, Poor Dad…

Then you’ve probably heard the phrase “pay yourself first.”

It’s simple, but powerful.

Especially when you’re running a freelance business…

Because the #1 goal of any business is to generate profit…

And paying yourself first ensures that profit ends up in YOUR pocket instead of being gobbled up by unanticipated expenses.

But here’s where most freelancers go wrong…

They don’t have a dedicated bank account for their freelance income.

Not only does this make it tough to manage cash flow…

It’s also a signal to your subconscious that you don’t take your freelance business seriously.

Treat it like a hobby and it’ll pay you like one.

But if you want to build a healthy six-figure client business, then it’s time to treat it like a real business.

And that starts with having a dedicated business bank account.

Marketing Strategy

🕵 Inspector Lander #008 is Now Live On YouTube

Audits are a great way to position yourself as not just a copywriter, media buyer, graphic designer, or other service provider…

… But as a marketing strategist.

And positioning yourself this way helps you charge more and attract better clients.

In this week’s episode of Inspector Lander, watch as Jim audits a landing page promoting a low-ticket info product that starts off strong, but then goes completely off the rails.

Click here to check it out:

[WATCH]: Freelance Marketing Audit: The Ultimate Sales Script (Inspector Lander 008)

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

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” 

— Henry Ford

Going from zero to one is never easy.

But the more momentum you create, the easier it is to move forward.

(Share this on Twitter)

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.)

🕵 Investigating TikTok

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Happy Friday! Here’s a fun fact to end the week: on this day in 1947, the United States Air Force issued a press release saying they had recovered a “flying disc” in Roswell, New Mexico. They later retracted the statement and claimed it was a weather balloon. 👽 or 🎈? We may never know for sure.

Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Layoffs, Reddit, TikTok, and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Plus 5 tips to succeed on Upwork, how to develop FOMO resistance, and the lazy media buyer’s guide to winning video ads.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes and 0 seconds

Making the Rounds

  • Website launched to track layoffs in 2020 becomes recruiting tool. The founder of Layoffs dot fyi reports that recruiters are now using the site to find and hire workers in a competitive job market.
  • Reddit launches new NFT marketplace. Users can now buy limited-edition NFT profile pics for a fixed price and without a crypto wallet. 
  • Senate Intelligence Committee asks FTC to investigate TikTok. The ripple effects of BuzzFeed’s recent reporting on TikTok’s privacy issues continue to reverberate. Last week it was an FCC Commissioner asking Google and Apple to remove it from their app stores, and this week, it’s the Intelligence Committee urging the FTC to investigate. 

Working With Clients

5 Tips to Get More Clients on Upwork

Upwork has 5M+ client accounts and 100,000+ open jobs on a daily basis.

It’s our favorite freelancing platform by a country mile.

So here are 5 tips to help you land more clients:

1 – Check it every day

Speed matters.

Most clients on Upwork are looking to hire ASAP, so the faster you can respond, the better your chances are.

Make it a habit of checking for new gigs at least once a day.

2 – Submit relevant samples

The #1 most important factor in a winning proposal is relevance:

– task relevance

– niche or market relevance

For example:

If you’re applying for an email copywriting gig in the health niche, submit email samples in the health niche. Or if you’re applying for a video editing gig in the biz opp space, submit biz opp video samples.

3 – Create custom samples if you don’t have relevant ones

Don’t have relevant samples to submit?

Take the time to create some. Especially if you’re new to the platform.

The purpose of submitting relevant samples is so clients don’t have to imagine what your work will be like in a different medium or market.

This is an easy way to get your reps in too.

Paint the picture for them.

That’s how you get hired.

4 – Ask for reviews

One of the biggest benefits to freelancing on Upwork is the social proof.

So you should be doing everything you can to over deliver and provide a 5-star experience to clients.

Then make a personal appeal for an honest review (not just a rating) when the job is done.

Every 5-star review you get makes the next client easier to land.

5 – Don’t be afraid to apply to older jobs

Even though you’re much more likely to get hired for jobs that have just been posted…

Don’t be afraid to apply to older jobs either.

Sometimes clients aren’t able to interview people right away, and by the time they are, the freelancers they wanted are booked or don’t respond.

And sometimes clients just don’t get any good applications.

We’ve had a lot of success applying to older jobs with something like:

“Hey, I can see this job has been open for XX days, but I wanted to apply anyway just in case you weren’t able to find the right freelancer the first time around.”

The results may surprise you.

Working For Yourself

How to Develop FOMO Resistance

Everyone you meet in life is selling you “their way” — whether they realize it or not.

But don’t forget there are lots of different ways to reach your destination.

Especially in online business.

As Rich Schefren says, it’s all about tradeoffs vs payoffs.

For example:

With ecommerce and affiliate marketing, the results can be quick…

But you’ll need startup capital to fund your paid traffic costs…

And you’ll need to navigate the steep learning curve of how to run paid ads at a profit…

Otherwise you could lose it all.

Plus the margins are typically on the low end, around 15-20%.

With service-based businesses like freelancing, coaching, consulting, or agencies…

You can start landing clients and getting paid with virtually ZERO startup costs…

The margins are much higher…

But that means investing time on cold outreach and freelancing platforms…

Always being on the hunt for the next client…

Plus now you’re on call + have to be available for meetings, answering emails and DMs, etc.

Don’t get us wrong — both businesses can be wildly profitable.

Ultimately though, you have to decide what your priorities are and what you’re willing to sacrifice to achieve them.

Because no business model is all upside.

And measuring yourself based on the games other people play is a recipe for unhappiness.

Figure out what game YOU want to play and commit to it all the way.

From The Paid Ads Gig

The Lazy Media Buyer’s Guide to Riches Winning Video Ads


Hooks are often what separate winning video ads from creatives that won’t convert.

So…

If you’re producing video ads, or having someone else produce them for you…

Record the first 5 seconds separately from the rest of the video ad.

This way, you can easily transplant new hooks onto an existing video to test new angles.

And what you’ll find is…

A new hook can extend the life of a winning video ad, sometimes by a lot.

Eliminating the need to create entirely new videos from scratch.

Quote of the Day

“Not failure, but low aim is the crime. In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”

— Bruce Lee

ICYMI: