🚫 Illegal monopoly

Author

Jim Hamilton
August 09, 2024

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

Welcome to the 155 subscribers who’ve joined us since the last edition.

Mentioned in today’s email: Google, TikTok, Elon Musk and X, Automattic, and Instagram. Plus why raising your rates isn’t as easy as it sounds, and the ultimate beginner’s guide to a sore neck, chronic eye strain, and tension headaches.

Read time: 4 minutes and 55 seconds

Together with Momentous

🤯 Meet Alpha GPC: Scientifically proven to cross the suit-blood-brain barrier to enhance your memory & focus

Need a quick “pick-me-up” before your next client call?

Now you can skip the 5-Hour Energy and double espresso…

And just take Alpha GPC instead.

It’s a special compound that was discovered by researchers in the 1960s, who realized taking Alpha GPC was a powerful way to enhance cognitive function because it could cross the blood-brain barrier, unlike many other natural & synthetic compounds.

Today, it’s used by people all over the world to treat cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s. As well as by athletes in jiu jitsu, powerlifting, track and field, and many other sports to enhance memory & focus.

Plus, we’ve also found it’s a great way for freelancers to counteract the dreaded 2 PM slump 💪

Especially when you get yours from Momentous.

All of their ingredients are meticulously sourced from trusted suppliers and made in NSF-certified facilities in the USA with no additives or fillers. Plus they’re delivered in research-backed dosages to help you get the best results.

In fact, many of our go-to health and science experts such as Tim Ferriss, Andrew Huberman and Chris Williamson choose Momentous when it comes to supplements.

So if you’ve got a big pitch, meeting, or client call to prepare for…

And you want to be firing on all cylinders…

Then tap here to learn more:

P.S:

For a limited time, Momentous is offering our newsletter subscribers (that’s you!) 15% off your entire order. 

The discount code is automatically applied when you hit the link above.

But just in case, all you have to do is use code THEFREELANCEGIG at checkout.

Working With Clients

“Raise Your Rates” They Said… “It’ll Be Easy” They Said…

“Raise your rates.”

Sounds easy enough in theory…

But in practice, it’s a little trickier than it looks.

You might be wondering:

  • When’s the best time to raise my rates?

  • How much should I raise your rates?

  • Do I raise rates for everyone - or just new clients?

  • How do I justify it (aside from just wanting to get paid more)?

These are only a few of the questions freelancers are forced to figure out if they want to successfully raise their rates.

So, here’s our advice…

(+) Raise your rates as demand for your services increases (or once your client roster is full)

(+) Aim to increase prices by 10-20%

(+) Start by raising your rates just for new clients - but make sure to let existing clients know they’re being grandfathered in at their current rate

(+) If raising rates on existing clients, explain that your new rate structure will allow you to spend more time and energy on their account - but also be prepared for them to leave

As a freelancer, you’re more likely to undercharge than overcharge…

But that doesn’t mean you should arbitrarily increase your rates by 5X either.

Focus on the value and ROI you’re delivering for your clients.

Use that as a barometer to gauge what you should be charging.

Making the Rounds

POLL: Have you ever raised your rates with an existing client?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Working For Yourself

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to a Sore Neck, Chronic Eye Strain, and Tension Headaches

Forget “text neck” — that’s old news…

There’s an even better way to crumple your posture and lock in a lifetime of upper body stiffness, aches, and pains…

And that’s working on a teeny tiny laptop screen.

Now, if you’re traveling, that’s one thing.

But if your home or office set up includes working on a 11 or 13 inch screen…

Consider upgrading to a bigger monitor.

Bonus points if you grab a monitor arm so it can actually sit at eye level.

The reasons why are simple:

Squinting causes your eyes to tire quickly…

And craning your neck to look down or get closer to the screen can lead to stiffness and soreness…

Both of which can lead to tension headaches.

If you’d like to learn more about just how much the vision system affects our mind and body, listen to this eye-opening podcast with neurobiologist Dr. Andrew Huberman.

(sorry, couldn’t resist 😜)

AI Prompts For Freelancers

Prompt of the Week: The Creative Director

This AI prompt is designed to help you generate high-performing ad creatives for Facebook and Instagram.

Here is the prompt:

You're a world class creative director with expertise in creating eye-catching ad images for Facebook and Instagram. These images must be designed to grab attention immediately and generate high clickthrough rates. They always have bright colors with high contrast and include a visual of the target customer with their eyes clearly visible and/or staring directly into the camera. The images can display the target customer in either their 'Before' state (showing them struggling with the problems) or the 'After' state (showing them after my product has solved their problems). 

Here is my product: [DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCT]. 

Here is my target customer: [DESCRIBE YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER]. 

Now give me 10 different ideas for ad images I can test on Facebook and Instagram. Remember, these must be irresistible to the target customer. There should be NO text visible anywhere on the image. This is very important. Be vivid, creative and emotional.

NOTE: Unfortunately, ChatGPT can’t share conversations with images yet. But here’s an image we generated after using the prompt above:

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Tool of the Week

Can’t find the info you need? Put Perplexity’s AI search engine on the case

AI is upending the world of search.

Google recently started rolling out AI-generated summaries at the top of its search results to decidedly mixed reactions.

But when it comes to using AI to get answers fast, we’ve got a new secret weapon:

Perplexity.

It’s an AI research assistant that integrates the three of the biggest large language models (Claude-3, GPT-4o and LLaMa 3) into a single search engine.

And we’ve found it better than using ChatGPT or old fashioned Googling.

So if you’re looking to embrace the new world of search…

Tap below to try Perplexity out for free:

Bonus Points

🤝 Sales: How to sell better than 99% of people (link)

✅ Hiring: The cities where 20-somethings are still getting hired (link)

🧲 Clients: How to get high-quality clients (link)