🚨 Twitter whistleblower comes forward

Happy Thursday! Welcome to September and the last month of Q3. Are you on pace to hit projections? Hit reply and let us know.

Mentioned in today’s issue: Twitter, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Elon Musk, YouTube, and Notion. Plus how to avoid giving clients cold feet, tradeoffs vs payoffs, and a high-converting tweet framework to get more subscribers on your email list.

Read time: 3 minutes and 58 seconds

Making the Rounds

Cybersecurity whistleblower claims he was fired by Twitter for not concealing security flaws. Peiter Zatko filed a 200-page complaint to the SEC alleging that Twitter ignored critical vulnerabilities and refused to accurately count spam accounts. Something tells us his name might come up when Elon v Twitter kicks off in October.

YouTube stealth launches dedicated podcast page for U.S. users. The new addition lists podcast channels, episodes, playlists and more for users in the U.S. Who needs a formal announcement, anyway?
How to use Notion, Gen Z’s favorite productivity app. If Asana, Trello, and Basecamp all got together and had a child, it would probably look something like Notion. Check out this step-by-step guide from WSJ to learn more.

Working With Clients

Screwing This Up Will Give Clients Cold Feet

What’s the most high-stakes aspect of working with clients?

A) The sales process

B) Submitting your work for approval

C) Seeing how your work performs

D) Getting paid

Answer:

None of the above.

The most high-stakes aspect of working with clients is the onboarding process.

That’s because the onboarding process sets the tone for the rest of your work together, including what expectations they have, and how they perceive your work.

In fact, according to ZenDesk, 62% of B2B customers buy again after a good customer service experience.

But unfortunately, most freelancers don’t have a structured onboarding process in place.

So new clients are stuck feeling like they’re prepping to cross the Atlantic in a rubber dinghy…

Instead of a $40M yacht that will get them safely and smoothly to their final destination.

If you want to give your clients clarity and confidence that the project is going to be a smashing success, develop a rock-solid onboarding process.

This should include:

Signing an official agreement
Filling out any worksheets + background docs you need to start the project
Getting access to any software tools, ad accounts, shared folders, etc
Discussion of timeline, budget, project expectations
A kickoff call to review and make sure everything is in order before you begin

If your onboarding process could do with a little bulking up, share the newsletter with just 3 friends and we’ll send you the Digital Marketer’s Template Toolkit — a bundle of worksheets for new clients to fill out so you can extract all the information you need to knock the project out of the park.

Working For Yourself

Taking a Scroll Down the Feed

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.

Tools We Love

How a Single Tweet Added 1,249+ Subscribers to Our Email List

Twitter’s been our #1 growth channel since we launched in late March.

And there’s one specific type of tweet that’s proven to be insanely effective for attracting more engagement, followers, and subscribers:

The auto-DM.

This simple tweet follows a “2-step” structure where you tease a piece of content (video, template, cheat sheet, checklist, etc) and then ask people to like, comment, or retweet to get it.

Here are some recent results from our last couple auto-DMs: