Happy Tuesday! This is not a political newsletter, but we’re feeling the Bern today. And after reading today’s newsletter, we hope you will be too.
Here’s what’s happening…
Making the Rounds
- FTC fines Twitter $150M for privacy violation. The platform used user phone numbers collected under the guise of security to target ads. And the fine is steep. For context: $150M is almost 20% of their $818M EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) from 2021. Yikes.
- Household spending went up 0.9% in April. But it came at the cost of household savings, which dipped from 5% in March to 4.4% in March, the lowest it’s been in 14 years. Are we headed for a recession? TBD.
- New Twitter Circle feature expands rollout. Users can use it to limit who sees their tweets by adding up to 150 people to their Circle, similar to Instagram’s “Close Friends.” If you’re looking to grow your following, you may want to avoid it though — apparently, people in your Circle can’t share anything you post to it.
Working With Clients
The One Thing Dream Clients Are Allergic To
“That’s too expensive.”
Three words most new freelancers are terrified to hear when pitching clients.
But here’s the thing…
You’re far more likely to underprice yourself vs overprice, especially if you’re less established…
And if your rate’s too low, then you’ll scare away great clients.
So, what’s the answer?
Make friends.
Get to know other service providers and find out what they charge — even if it’s just a rough ballpark.
Because the better you can understand the lay of the land…
The easier it will be to price yourself competitively and land top-tier clients.
Working For Yourself
Struggling to Set Goals? Forget 5-Year Plans and Do This Instead
You’ve gotta know what you’re aiming at before you can hit the target.
But the problem is…
Humans are notoriously bad at long-term planning.
Why?
Well, for one, we’re terrible at making long-range mathematical predictions (see also: stock market investing).
But secondly, individual variables can change fast…
Especially in business.
Making it virtually impossible to set long-term goals.
So what’s the answer?
Forget 5-year plans and focus on quarterly goals instead.
90 days offers the perfect balance between short-term and long-term..
It’s short enough to narrow your focus and long enough to make major progress towards a goal.
That’s why many experts like Gino Wickman, author of Traction and creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, believe in quarterly goal-setting.
With the end of Q2 only four weeks away…
Carve out some time this month to set your intent and decide what you want to achieve in Q3 💪
Tools We Love
TextExpander For President
Ever find yourself typing or copy-pasting the same thing day after day?
Whether it’s messages to prospects, colleagues, or clients…
Document templates…
Daily reports….
Or even usernames and passwords…
Truth is, all that time spent typing adds up.
That’s why we’re big fans of TextExpander.
TextExpander lets you set up shortcodes and abbreviations to save time on stuff you type.
Once you set it up, all you have to do is type in your shortcode, and TextExpander will automatically paste your text for you.
Learn more about how to save time with TextExpander.
Quote of the Day
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”
— Jonathan Swift