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Author

Jim Hamilton
October 18, 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.

Welcome to the 45 subscribers who’ve joined us since the last edition.

Mentioned in today’s email: Instagram, Meta, Spotify, the FTC, Amazon, and Upwork. Plus why every freelancer needs a “wins file,” and 4 simple habits to transform your weeks.

Read time: 3 minutes

Together with Beehiiv

Who really owns your audience?

Being a Creator has never been easy, but unpredictable algorithms make connecting with your audience on social media harder than ever.

Enter beehiiv, the newsletter platform used to send this very email.

beehiiv frees you from the algorithms, giving you the tools to connect and create a more direct relationship with your followers.

Plus, with a network of premium advertisers and paid subscription options, you can tap into new revenue streams from day one.

Working With Clients

Why Every Freelancer Needs a “Wins File”

What’s the #1 biggest hurdle to raising your rates?

We’ll give you a hint…

It’s not how many followers you have on social media…

Or how good your sales skills are…

Instead, it’s how much proof you have.

Proof of results is what allows you to raise your rates.

The more extensive your track record is, the more you can charge.

So if you want to 2X, 4X or even 10X what you charge right now…

It’s essential to create a “wins file” to collect as much proof as you can.

Get in the habit of screenshotting client messages…

Asking for testimonials after a big win…

And then sharing those wins with future prospects along with your audience on social media.

(if you have one)

Because there’s no amount of copywriting magic or verbal jiu jitsu that can stand up to a laundry list of client wins.

Making the Rounds

POLL: Do you have an Amazon Kindle?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Working For Yourself

4 Simple Habits to Transform Your Weeks

A great year is made up of lots of great weeks.

But it’s easy to lose sight of your macro goals when you get bogged in the stress of the day-to-day.

And let’s face it:

Your to-do list is like a hydra’s head…

As soon as you cross one item off the list, two more take its place.

So if you’re sick and tired of riding the productivity rollercoaster and holding on for dear life until the weekend…

Then check out this article from Sahil Bloom.

Inside, you’ll discover 4 tiny habits you can use to retake control over your weeks:

AI Prompts For Freelancers

Prompt of the Week: The Vintage Image Generator

This AI prompt is designed to help you generate hyperrealistic images with a vintage feel.

Here is the prompt:

Please visualize the following into a landscape orientation image for me:

[DESCRIBE IMAGE]

Here are the instructions for the image:

- A hyperrealistic illustration with a vintage feel, mimicking mid-20th-century commercial art.
- Rich and warm colors with a focus on earthy tones and vibrant blues.
- Detailed attention to textures and materials, such as the sheen on suits, the grain of the wood desk, and the foliage of palm trees.
- Characters should have expressive, but still somewhat idealized, facial features and postures.
- The illustration should tell a story that implies more than what is seen, inviting the viewer to ponder the circumstances of the scene.

NOTE: There’s no example output today, as chats with images can’t be shared. But we encourage you to test this one out for yourself.

Sponsored by 1440

Seeking impartial news? Meet 1440.

Every day, 3.5 million readers turn to 1440 for their factual news. We sift through 100+ sources to bring you a complete summary of politics, global events, business, and culture, all in a brief 5-minute email. Enjoy an impartial news experience.

Tool of the Week

Create your own viral short-form video clips in seconds with OpusClip

Short-form video is all the rage these days.

OpusClip is a generative AI video tool that repurposes long talking videos into shorts in one click.

Plus it automatically adds those Hormozi-style captions that work so well.

So if you’ve ever produced any kind of long-form video content…

OpusClip can help you slice and dice it into multiple short-form clips and post them directly to your social media platform of choice.

Something we’re eager to lean into in 2025.

They’ve even got a free trial available so you can take it for a test-drive.

Check out their website to learn more:

Bonus Points

💼 Work: They’re desperate for work—and being brutally open about it (link)

💪 Success: Why Ryan Holiday doesn’t have goals (and what he does instead) (link)

📚 Books: This book made Ali Abdaal a millionaire (link)