⭐ Project Starline — the future of meetings?
Jim Hamilton
May 12, 2023
Happy Friday! Welcome to the 26 new subscribers who’ve joined us this week. Each week, we send out a short memo with the news, tools, tips, and tricks to help grow your freelance business.
Mentioned in today’s newsletter: Project Starline, LinkedIn, creators, Microsoft, and productivity. Plus how to win repeat business without being pushy, and what not to do if you want to increase your productivity.
Read time: 3 minutes and 26 seconds
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Making the Rounds
Is Project Starline the future of meetings? Google unveiled a slimmed-down version of its Project Starline technology at the latest I/O event. Project Starline is designed to make virtual meetings more immersive by projecting photorealistic AI simulations of participants onto a custom light field display. If you listen real close, you can hear the sound of Meta’s VR department quivering in their headsets.
Generative AI posts are coming to LinkedIn. Why stop at AI-generated profiles and job descriptions when you can have it write posts for people too? LinkedIn is testing a new Draft with AI feature to help users crank out content faster. Let’s face it: this is ChatGPT’s world now, we’re just living in it.
Goldman Sachs report finds creator economy could be worth $480 billion by 2027. Creators are the future of media. And according to a new report from one of the world’s leading investment banks, the entire creator economy could double in size in the next 4 years.
Director of Product reveals the playbook for creator success on LinkedIn. Looking to leverage LinkedIn to build your personal brand? Check out this interview with the platform’s Director of Product on how to succeed as a creator on LinkedIn in 2023.
Microsoft study finds users spend 57% of their time communicating in chats and meetings. If you’ve ever felt like you can’t get any work done despite putting in a full 8 hours every day, you’re probably suffering from a lack of interrupted focus time.
Working With Clients
How to Win Repeat Business Without Being Pushy
The easiest deals to close are with existing clients.
Why?
Because they already know, like, and trust you.
And if you’re looking for a simple way to win repeat business without being pushy…
Send out a short summary after you finish every project.
This should include:
The goal
Quick breakdown of the work you did
Results (was the goal met? why or why not?)
Potential next steps
Not only does this demonstrate accountability…
But it also kickstarts the conversation about next steps and makes it easy for the client to say ‘yes.’
Working For Yourself
Avoid This if You Want to Be More Productive
Multitasking is the mind-killer.
Research has shown our brains are not wired to handle more than one task at a time.
So while you may feel more productive when juggling multiple tasks…
Truth is, you’re leaking mental energy every time you jump back and forth.
This concept is known as “context-switching.”
By focusing on just one task at a time instead, you can reduce creative leakage from context-switching and work more efficiently to produce better results.
And if you’re charging a flat rate or per-project fee…
The faster you work, the more your effective hourly rate goes up.
So if you’re looking for an easy way to give yourself a raise…
Stop multitasking.
Tool of the Week
Shift: The workstation for productive people
Shift is a desktop app that streamlines work by displaying each email account vertically (along with any other apps you’d like to include) along the left-hand side of your screen.
It sounds trivial, but this accordion-style set up is a game-changer for productivity.
Plus it lets you organize browser tabs by email account, making it much easier to flip back and forth without losing your place.
It’s quickly become one of our core tools for running a freelance business.
Bonus Points
Looking to level up in life and business? We’ve scoured the internet to find even more helpful content for you across all of our favorite platforms:
📸 Instagram: 8 soft skills to fast-track your career
Gig Alerts:
Looking for clients? These freelance jobs were posted on Upwork in the last 24 hours:
NOTE: We only share job postings from Upwork. We’ve found it to be the most trustworthy platform with the highest-quality clients.
Furthermore, job postings must be for high-income skills like copywriting, media buying, funnel building, graphic design, remote closing, etc in order to qualify.
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