šŸ”® AGI prediction

Author

Jim Hamilton
November 15, 2024

In partnership with

Happy Friday! This is the Freelance Gig, where we share news, tools, tips, and tricks to help grow your freelance business.

Mentioned in todayā€™s email: Sam Altman, Threads, Patreon, Amazon, Anthropic, and LinkedIn. Plus what goes through a prospectā€™s mind when they get on a sales call, and savvy advice for anyone scaling up their side hustle.

Read time: 6 minutes

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Working With Clients

What Goes Through a Prospectā€™s Mind When They Get on a Sales Call

Ever heard of Jay Abraham?

Heā€™s a legendary copywriter, consultant, and business owner whoā€™s coached some of the biggest names across many industries, including Tony Robbins, Ramit Sethi, Daymond John, Eben Pagan, and many others.

He also coined a concept called the ā€œStrategy of Preeminenceā€...

And if youā€™re a freelance service provider, implementing this simple yet powerful framework has the potential to transform your sales callsā€¦

By eliminating needinessā€¦

Reducing sales resistanceā€¦

And forcing prospects to sell themselves to YOU.

Hereā€™s how it works:

Instead of focusing on your product or service and why itā€™s a great fit for the prospectā€¦

Frame the conversation as a diagnostic tool to help them figure out whatā€™s best for their specific situationā€¦ even if that means NOT working with you.

It may sound simpleā€¦

But this subtle shift can flip the script and remove sales pressure for the prospect.

And if you can demonstrate a deeper level of understanding of their fears, problems, and goals than anyone elseā€¦

Through authentic, empathetic conversation about their current situationā€¦

Then chances are, theyā€™ll be eager to work with you anyway.

Which means you wonā€™t need to rely on fake urgency or fast action discounts to close the deal.

Plus the prospect will be more pre-framed to trust you and implement your solution.

Making the Rounds

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Working For Yourself

Savvy Advice For Anyone Scaling Up Their Side Hustle

If youā€™ve ever thought about scaling up your freelance business from a one-person operation to a full-fledged agencyā€¦

Or are thinking about starting a new side hustleā€¦

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 olderā€¦

So wouldnā€™t 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 ā€” and even then, things can still go wrong.

Itā€™s a high-risk move.

Ultimately, thereā€™s no ā€œperfectā€ answerā€¦

Because regardless of whether you choose to hire your friends or notā€¦

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 youā€™re looking forā€¦

While outside hires may have the competence you need without being a culture fit.

Bottom line:

Great hires should score high in both categories.

AI Prompts For Freelancers

Prompt of the Week: Belief Mapping

This AI prompt is designed to help you map out internal and external false beliefs that are preventing your ideal customer from buying your product or service.

Here is the prompt:

Today, you're a world-class marketing analyst with an expertise in researching customer avatars. Weā€™re going to complete an exercise called Belief Mapping. Youā€™ll identify all the False Beliefs my ideal customer has that relates to the product Iā€™m selling. These beliefs are really just stories in disguise, which are based on experiences theyā€™ve had. The purpose of this exercise is to identify the False Beliefs they have and the experiences behind them so we can uninstall them.

Youā€™re going to categorize all False Beliefs into 1 of 2 categories:

1) Internal False Beliefs

These are false beliefs the customer has about their own ability or other internal forces that will prevent them from succeeding with the opportunity, product, or service.

For example:

Experience: ā€œI tried cutting out carbs so I could lose weight, but it made me miserable.ā€

Belief: ā€œIf I try to lose weight, Iā€™m going to be miserable.ā€

Experience: ā€œI struggle to post consistently on social media.ā€

Belief: ā€œIā€™m too busy to start an email newsletter.ā€

Experience: ā€œI launched an email newsletter, but nobody joins when I post about it.ā€

Belief: ā€œIā€™m not a good copywriter.ā€

2) External False Beliefs

These are false beliefs the customer has about external forces that will prevent them from succeeding with the opportunity, product, or service.

For example:

Experience: ā€œOne of my friends eats carbs, sugar, and junk food all the time and is still skinny. Meanwhile, I canā€™t seem to lose any weight no matter how hard I try.ā€

Belief: ā€œI canā€™t lose weight because I have bad genetics.ā€

Experience: ā€œI write and publish organic content that I know is valuable, but it gets no reach or engagement.ā€

Belief: ā€œI canā€™t grow my audience because of the algorithm.ā€

Experience: ā€œIā€™ve never seen anyone else in my market sell their offer with a Google doc.ā€

Belief: ā€œMy market wonā€™t buy from a Google doc.ā€

Here is the product Iā€™m selling:

[DESCRIBE YOUR OFFER]

Give me the top 10 False Beliefs my ideal customer has for both categories. Remember: 

Internal False Beliefs are about their own ability or forces within their control, and External False Beliefs are about external forces beyond their control. Be as specific, detailed, and emotional as possible. Rank them in order from most likely to least likely to influence their buying decision.

Please format each category of False Belief into a table with the Experience on the left-hand side and the False Belief on the right-hand side


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Tool of the Week

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Bonus Points

šŸ’¼ Work: How to connect with an old colleague or boss (link)

šŸ“± Social Media: 26 predictions for social media marketing in 2025 (link)

āœļø Copywriting: Use this new 4-step formula to convert subscribers into buyers (link)