FREELANCING MASTERCLASS ROADMAP

Why Do You Want To Freelance?

• Setting your goals is very important. You need to know WHY you’re freelancing, what’s the
end goal for you?
• Typically, it can be one of the following:
- You want a lifestyle that gives you FREEDOM and TIME.
- You want to learn what it takes and generate capital to start a BUSINESS that will
change the world.
- You want to get skills and ultimately join a high-growth startup or be a founder in
one.
• If it’s the first, then you can remain a freelancer, and use the income to enjoy your
freedom and your time.
• If it’s the second, then be prepared for a gruelling journey ahead. Business and
entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Most entrepreneurs fail, and it’s very very hard.
You’ve literarily got to work almost nonstop. To make it, you need something other than
money and freedom to drive you. Pride, a burning desire to make an impact or change the
world. If you don’t have those, then don’t choose this goal. You will make yourself
miserable, and when the going gets tough, you will NOT be willing to pay the price you have
to pay to be successful. I always tell people that if you want to be very rich, and have most
of the freedom and luxuries that money can buy… join a startup. Get behind an
ENTREPRENEUR, join his team. Don’t be the entrepreneur yourself. You’ll get richer a lot
easier this way, if money is all you’re after, while bearing a much smaller risk.
• The final option is great for those who want to make a lot of money, and need to learn
high value skills that will make them indispensable assets in an entrepreneur’s journey.

How To Get Started If You Have Nothing

• The first thing you need to do is figure out a service of value that you could offer.
• Ask yourself:
- What do people need help with?
- What am I good at?
- What do people say that I’m good at?
- What things do I like to do?
- What am I excited about?
• The ideal here is to find a skill that’s at the intersection between demand, your abilities,
and your likes. Don’t worry about monetizing it and getting clients, first figure out what that
is.
• But what if you have no valuable skills to offer?
• Then I suggest you look at the intersection between things that are in demand, and things
that you like or may like. For example, some people will like something as general as
working from a computer. Maybe you’re introverted, or you prefer intellectual work over
physical. In that case, looking at things such as graphic design, web development,
copywriting, content, seo, and so on is profitable. The opposite is also true… if you’re
extroverted and prefer physical work, there are a lot of opportunities for you… for example,

1
photography, and even more innovative areas like AR (Artificial Reality) in Real Estate,
where you buy the equipment, and you can help realtors create a 3D experience of their
property.
• How do you learn the skills that you need, if you don’t already have them?
- Books (search on Google)
- Courses (Udemy.com)
- YouTube
• So if you don’t have the skill, the first step is getting it. Once you have the skill, you can
move onto customer acquisition.

Customer Acquisition Basics

• The mindset: a big mistake that many freelancers make when they get started, and even
much further in their careers, is that they approach getting work with a scarcity mindset.
Now this can manifest in different ways, not all of them equally obvious:
- For example, there are many freelancers out there who want their clients to buy
their services, but they would NEVER buy another freelancer’s services. If, for
example, you’re a writer, but you’d never consider paying a decent rate for a
developer to build you your website, that’s likely to be a symptom of the scarcity
mindset.
- Feeling guilt about the rate you charge… you know, thinking that the rate you’re
charging is not fair. It’s not your duty to recognise that, your clients will tell you if
your rate is too high.
- Feeling that there is a limited amount of work out there, and in order to be
successful you have to take it from others. Successful freelancers think in terms
of creating new opportunities, and illuminating new problems for their clients,
and hence creating their own opportunities.
- Thinking that either you’re either a success or a failure, a ready-made person.
This can lead into many pitfalls. You’ll avoid taking on challenges because you’re
afraid of failure, because deep down, you think that failure is an illustration of
who you are. Instead try to adopt a growth mindset – you’re always a work in
progress. The goal is to get better every day, and you’ll never be finished. The
real pro is always the guy who works every day as if it was his first.
• Successful freelancers adopt a positive, abundance mindset: they think that money is
abundant, they create their own opportunities, they always focus on doing their best job for
whatever work they accept to take on, and they take ownership of their results.
• We can’t stress enough how important mindset is. Without the right mindset, it doesn’t
matter how good you are, you will not make freelancing a massive success.
• Some great readings for mindset: Think & Grow Rich, Psycho-Cybernetics, Mindset (Carol
Dweck).

2
We’ll cover 4 Methods of getting your first clients:

Platforms (like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer)

• This is the low hanging fruit when it comes to getting clients.
• It’s okay to start with, but generally the competition is very high, and client quality is low.
This doesn’t mean you can’t find great clients, but a large number of clients that hang
around platforms are super small businesses without any significant budget.
• The general strategy here is to create a strong profile, and then get as many relevant eyes
as possible to it. Follow this with getting on a call if possible with the client (always possible
apart from Fiverr).
• When you first start out, it’s best to create a portfolio of work that you can showcase,
even if it’s work you did on your own, for no one in particular.

How to Create your Profile

• Take a professional photo of yourself with a slight smile, relaxed, and positive. The vibe
you want to give is that you can get the job done (you’re a pro), and you’re likeable – you’re
a nice guy or gal to hang around with.
• Make sure that your photo is clear (not barely legible pixelated stuff), and you’re dressed
as you would be for a job interview.
• Craft a compelling headline/description for what you’re doing and what you have to offer.
The best way is to get keywords in as early as possible in the headline AND to be very
specific about what you do. For example: “Direct Response Copywriter Specialized in
Massive Promotions & Sales Funnels”. NOT: “Magnificent Writer Who Will Help Your
Business”
• Ideally treat the rest of your profile as a sales letter. You want to tell people about your
experience, what problems you solve, and what they can expect out of working with you.
Make sure that you’re specific in all this, and not vague. If you have testimonials to support
your statements, even better.

How To Attract Eyes to Your Profile

• Create a system for submitting applications if the platform allows for it, and submit as
many as possible daily. What is a system? Basically you decide on a template that you will
use, with personalization so that you can adapt it based on the job/client requirements, and
then take time every day to submit applications.
• A mistake freelancers often make is not keeping their pipeline full. This means that when
you get work and are busy doing it, you stop sending applications and focus on the work.
This is a mistake, because when the work finishes, you will find that you’re out of clients.

How to Trigger The Algorithm To Show You At The Top

• The best way to get clients is to trigger the platform’s algorithm to show your profile to as
many clients as possible. You do this by keeping a high rating – meaning you communicate

3
well with clients, do work to high standards and on time, apply to as many jobs as possible,
take on as many jobs as possible, and have a solid profile.
• The most important out of all of these to trigger the algorithm is doing a lot of jobs, and
submitting a lot of applications if possible.

How to Communicate With Clients

• Make sure that your client always knows what you’ll be doing and how you’ll be
approaching the work.
• Be polite and understanding, but at the same time stand your ground. Don’t let your client
abuse you, set reasonable boundaries.
• When interviewing for a job, appear professional and friendly, but don’t show that you’re
desperate to get the job. This is best achieved when you’re willing to lose the job if it comes
to that.
• It’s best to generally NOT yield your ground just to get a job. If you’re not satisfied with
the payment terms, just don’t get the job.

How to show up in a video interview

• Ideally you want to show up with a good background behind you. This doesn’t necessarily
have to be something impressive. It could just be a simple white wall for example. But you
want to appear with a background that makes you look professional.
• Dress nicely and professionally. You know, don’t show up in your pyjamas or anything of
that nature. Yes, you can absolutely work in your pyjamas, but when you’re talking with
clients, put on proper attire. Just think how you’d dress if you were to physically meet those
people.

How To Get PERFECT Feedback

• Ask your client for feedback. A lot of clients don’t know how platforms work. For example,
they don’t understand that if they give you a 7/10 rating, that’s the same as if they give you
a 1/10. So it’s your job to educate them, tell them how meaningful feedback is to you and
your business, and kindly ask them to leave it for you. 95%+ will do it.
• After you close the job, and the client is happy, just rinse and repeat.

Inbound Lead Generation Through Groups

• The main goal here is to identify who your target prospects are, and where they’re likely
to hang out, and then go there and build a reputation with them by providing value.
• This method is GREAT in the long run. You can build a personal brand, and have a really
easy time getting more clients, and getting people interested in what you do. However, it’s
SLOW. Don’t expect this to get you a client tomorrow, although it could.
• There are many freelancers out there who make a full-time income just through inbound
lead generation. It can be great money once you find your place, and over time you can also
create and nurture your own group.

4
• Inbound lead generation is all about attitude. You need to have a positive and enthusiastic
attitude, and be in a frame of mind of helping others succeed. If that’s how you approach
your interactions, you’re likely to get a lot of positive attention

Figure out WHO Your Target Audience Is

• Start by making a list of the individuals who could be helped by your skills.
• Also consider what specific problems you COULD solve using your skills.

Figure Out WHERE Your Target Audience Is

• Where do these people hang around? Just like you have platforms to hire freelancers,
there are also groups around the web for copywriters, or for designers. These are good
places to join. For ex. The Cult of Copy for copywriting.
• Consider: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Forums, Boards. You will need to search for places
where your target audience may hang out.
• WARNING: You do NOT want groups full of freelancers and with few clients. For example,
the “Clickfunnels” group on Facebook for building funnels SUCKS. It’s full of people trying to
sell their services, and few buyers from our experience. You want a high concentration of
buyers vs sellers ideally.

Join Those Communities & Start Interacting

• Make friends, provide value, help people.
• Keep doing it.

How To Make Sure The Community Is Right For You

• If you don’t “fit in” with the people in the respective community, it’s unlikely that you’ll do
very well in it. You want to find a community where you can become a valued member, who
fits in and who has meaningful contributions to make.
• Signs that it’s not a good fit for you include vastly different interests between you and
your average member of the community.

Identify People Who Need Your Help & Reach Out To Them
• If someone has a problem that you could solve through your services, you can start by
contacting them to pitch your services. This is very effective if you have already built a
reputation for providing value in that group. And this is also how you can make inbound be
FAST. You could start providing value and build sufficient reputation in a place in about 1
week to start contacting people privately if you have identified them.

How To Pitch Your Services

• When you have identified someone who needs what you have to offer, you can contact
them privately.
• Introduce yourself, and tell them how you can help them solve their problem. Ask for
interest first.

5
• If they are interested, then you can start discussing your price, and the logistics of how it
will work… what information you’ll need, how long it would take, and so on.
• Make sure to build and maintain rapport through the interaction.

Build a Personal Brand

• Make sure that you talk about what you do as often as possible, and even tell people stuff
like “I’m the Google Ads guy”.
• The idea is to link the idea of whatever service you offer, with your name. What you’re
doing is essentially positioning.
• And positioning is all about getting the FIRST position in the mind of your customers. You
MUST get there first. If there’s already a “Google ads” guy in that community, you’re late.
Either brand yourself differently, or go in a different community.
• If you’re in a crowded space, a good idea is to niche down. For example: “I’m the direct
response guy for anyone in the finance niche”.
• People memorise things through repetition. So you must repeat what you do over and
over again, until you become number 1 in people’s minds.

Build Your Own Community

• Over time, you may want to start your own group, and bring people from other groups in
there. That way, you’re the ONLY seller there, and they’re all buyers. That’s the ideal. If you
can do that, you’ll be a king, and you’ll have the keys to the kingdom.
• Do it slowly and privately at first. It’s best if you invite those people after you work with
them to join a private group. This can be on Facebook, Discord, LinkedIn – wherever most
people hang out on. And tell them that if in the future they need work, they can contact you
directly on there.
• Over time you will build your group, and then you can either choose to allow other sellers
(in exchange for a monthly fee) in there and vet them, thus providing more value for the
buyers.

ASK FOR REFFERALS EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

• After you work with anyone, ask them for other people that they may know who have
similar problems. And be upfront with them. Tell them that your business depends on great
people like them recommending you to others, and that’s how you find clients. So a
recommendation from them would mean a lot to you.
• Then make sure that they give the recommendation, and if not keep following up with
them. Do not be afraid to ask for it and even insist upon it, if you’ve done a good job, you’ve
earned the recommendation. Of course, if they say no, or they’re not interested, then there
is no point in insisting further, as that will only damage the relationship.

Outbound Strategic Client Acquisition

• This can be a very effective way of getting your first clients QUICKLY. The method is
remarked by its speed.

6
• The main idea is that you want to identify specific clients with specific problems that you
can solve, and then reach out to them.

Make A List of Problems You Can Solve With Your Skills

• What problems can you solve? Examples: increasing website conversions, getting more
visibility for the website, helping clients close more business or get more leads, etc.

Think about WHO would have those problems

• Who are the people who are likely to have those problems?

How could you find them

• Identify how you could find people who have the specific problem. For example, let’s say
that you help companies build a website that can sell. The first thing you need to do, is ask
yourself who has the problem. Who needs a website that can sell? And how do they use it?
Take a construction company. They use their website not to get clients, but rather, when
being considered for a project, so that they can showcase their capabilities and portfolio
effectively, and therefore win the client.
• If you have identified this problem that you can solve, you can then start Googling for
construction companies in a certain area. And start approaching them and reaching out to
them.

Reach out by email or other social media

• Reaching out should be done by email at the very least. Preferably also by phone at a later
stage, and on social media if needed.
• The goal is to establish contact, let them know who you are, illuminate the problem that
they have that you could solve, and then ask them if they’re interested.
• The goal is NOT to close the deal by email.
• It’s to gauge interest, and then use that interest to schedule a call.
• It’s highly advised that you use an email different than your primary domain when
reaching out for cold-emailing. If your primary domain gets blacklisted, which is always a
risk, that’s not good. So if your primary domain is @domain.com, you may create an email
@domain.net for cold-emailing.
• It’s also best if you warm-up the email before use. This means that for 1-2 weeks you send
and receive emails on the address so that it all looks organic and natural, like a real email
address.

Understand What They Need

• On the call, your primary objective is to understand their needs on a core level. You want
to be able to pinpoint exactly what makes them buy, the result they want to achieve, and
how they want to achieve it.
• If you focus on the pain-points that they have, this can be very effective.
• A good format for the conversation is situation -> problem -> solution -> benefits.

7
• Ask questions! Don’t TELL them what the problem is, ask questions that reveal the
problem. Don’t TELL them what the solution is… ask questions that reveal the solution.
Don’t TELL them what the benefits are, ask questions that make them realise those are
benefits.
• Persuasion here is all about empathy, putting yourself in their shoes, and listening to
them.

Negotiate
• The next stage is introducing your price. Pricing for outbound outreach should be based
on the value delivered. So your price will be different based on the value that you offer.
• In the prior stage, you MUST ask the questions required for you to figure out how much
your work will be worth to the client.
• Example: say that you’ll be doing marketing, and you want to get the client $50,000 in
sales, then you could charge a flat fee of say $1,000-2,000 and a success fee of $5,000-
7,000. It must make economical sense for both of you.
• It may be the case that you find out that the client simply does not have the budget. It
happens. If that’s the case, explain what the client should do, but do not take the job.
Rather ask for referrals, and provide some guidance to the client.

Close the deal

• If you and the client are a good fit, and they don’t have any questions left for you, be
prepared to close the deal. Closing the deal involves signing a letter of engagement or
contract.
• We recommend using HelloSign.com to sign and track your documents.

Ask for referrals

• Same as for Inbound lead generation. Never let an opportunity go to ask for referrals.
Especially when you’re doing outbound, referrals can open many gates that would
otherwise stay closed or be very difficult to access.

Build Case Studies

• The importance of collecting case studies over time, especially if you can collect the
results obtained, and the impact on the bottom line cannot be overstated. These will help
you secure more work in the future.
• Make sure you have the client’s approval before you share parts of the work you’ve done
for them and the results obtained. It can be as simple as explaining what information you’d
like to share, what steps you’ll take to protect their confidentiality, and addressing any
concerns that they may have.

Expectations
• Don’t expect to score your first client by sending 10 emails. Usually people who focus and
thrive from outbound send 100s of emails.

8
• Cold outreach has a small response rate. If you get a 1% response rate you’re good. That’s
why you must play the numbers game.

Software
You should use a CRM. A few good ones:
• Lemlist
• SmartReach.io
• Close.com

Partnerships with Agencies

• You want the easy-mode? Well then, let other people find clients for you, while you focus
on doing the work. This is the least time intensive method. If your goal is to build a lifestyle
out of freelancing that gives you high income and freedom, then this may be ideal.
• The goal here is to find out agencies who need your skillset, and then rely on them to find
clients for you. If your goal is to build a lifestyle out of freelancing that gives you both high
income and freedom, then this strategy may be ideal for you.

Identify Which Agencies Would Need Your Skillset

• Who is looking after the same clients that you’re looking after? For example, if you’re a
web developer, you could look towards marketing or web design agencies.

Who is Hiring Freelancers Like You?

• Figure out who is already hiring freelancers. This is hugely important. People who are used
to hiring freelancers already know the process and are a much easier sell.
• How do you identify them? You’ve got to be creative. If you’re a copywriter, you could, for
example, look for people who are already running ads on say Facebook, and then reach out
to them. Tell them you can increase their results, and ask them if they’d be willing to give
you a cut of the increase in revenues that you can bring. These deals can be very profitable,
but you need to be good at what you do.
• Look for actions and triggers that would indicate that someone is hiring freelancers like
you. They’re running ads, their website is changing, maybe they announced a re-branding,
and you’re a designer specialised in helping businesses rebrand, this sort of stuff.

How To Approach Them?

• Introduce yourself and why you’re approaching them. Remember the trigger that we
discussed previously. It’s very useful to bring that in here.
Ex: “Hey, my name is XXX and I’m a direct response copywriter. I saw you’re running ads on
Google. I think I can beat your current control. If I fail, I won’t charge you anything. Are you
interested?”
• Make it easy for them to say Yes. Don’t go straight for the hire, ask for interest first. The
goal at this stage is to initiate conversation.

9
• You can use the same outreach channels as for outbound: email, phone or social media.

If You Get On a Call, Treat This Like a Job Interview

• Your goal should be to ask for interest first, and then propose your services. Your service
may be more complex, so a call may be in order. If that’s the case, make sure that you treat
this as a job interview.
• The goal is to build rapport, make the employer like and trust you, resolve their doubts,
magnify their pain, and ask for action.

The Sales Formula That Never Fails (Or Almost Never! Hah!)
• (1) Give them the benefits of your service so they logically understand why they should
buy, (2) make them like and trust you, (3) shatter any limiting beliefs they may have, (4)
drive up their pain-points by making them contemplate what happens if they don’t take
action, and then (5) ask for action, ie hiring you.

If Possible, Ask For A Test Run

• Sometimes especially if they’re an agency working with multiple clients, you can ask for a
trial run. Sort of the “let me take care of one client and show you what I can do”. The goal is
to provide value through your services, and become a trusted asset for them.
• If you do well, you’re almost guaranteed to get more work. Again, the critical thing here is
actually doing well. You can’t fake this.
• Usually in the long-run you’ll want to sign a subcontracting agreement, where the agency
can subcontract you parts of its work, and you still retain your freedom as a freelancer. This
is VERY important. You don’t want to be just a remote employee! In addition, you want to
retain your freedom to be able to work for other clients.

Prepare a Portfolio
• Always have a portfolio. In these positions, it is essential to be able to showcase previous
work that you did. In some cases, if your previous clients are okay with it, you may also be
able to provide a reference, including contact details if they want to verify any of your work.

Find the Right Agencies

• Not all agencies are going to be the right fit. If the agency wants you to be a remote
employee, probably it’s not a good fit. If the agency has sporadic needs for your expertise,
then again, they’re probably not the right fit.
• Your goal should be to find as many agencies as you can who can keep your pipeline of
projects full, so that you don’t have to search for projects anymore.

Do the Work And Profit

• And that’s pretty much it. All that’s left is for you to do the work and profit!
• Now that you’re equipped with this knowledge, all that’s left is for you to go out there
and MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

10