16:40Alex Cattoni · Talking Head
Why Substack Should Be Every Copywriter's #1 Social Strategy
The platform grew 9,900% in seven years, and copywriters already have every skill it rewards.
June 10thThe argument in one line.
Cold outreach fails because distrust is now the default, so freelancers should apply only where hiring interest already exists and grow their network from the warmest circle outward, one no-pitch message at a time.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A freelance copywriter, marketer, designer or other creative service provider who has sent cold DMs into the void and heard nothing back.
- Someone with a small network who assumes they have nobody to reach out to and needs a concrete daily outreach quota.
- An introvert who wants a client-getting routine that does not require posting on social media every day or cold pitching strangers.
- A new freelancer deciding whether Upwork, Facebook groups or job boards are worth the time versus DM outreach.
SKIP IF…
- You already have a referral engine and steady inbound leads; the first hour is remedial for you.
- You want cold email copy, sequence templates or deliverability tactics. The session argues against cold outreach rather than teaching it.
- You are selling products rather than services. Every example is a freelancer looking for a client or a job.
The full version, fast.
Cold outreach used to work because trust was the default online; now distrust is, and brains filter unsolicited messages in 80 to 100 milliseconds, which is why cold email converts at 1 to 5 percent while warm introductions convert at 30 to 40 percent. The session replaces it with two strategies that run in parallel. Optimized outreach means applying only where hiring interest already exists: Upwork, niche and local Facebook groups, and freelance job boards, with a personalized application that follows directions and passes a face-to-face test. Strategic conversations means working your network from the inside out through four circles: advocates you remind, acquaintances you inform, connections you reconnect with, and future connections you contact. The daily assignment is 14 no-pitch messages, because everyone is a potential referrer and the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.
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00:00 – 09:00
01 · Welcome and the humanity warm-up
Day two opener, gratitude for the global replay audience, a riff on dead internet theory and AI comments, the vulnerability hangover from day one bios, and a chat game: finish the sentence 'if you really knew me, you would know.' Point made: shared non-work details lower a stranger's guard.
09:00 – 20:10
02 · Day one recap, shout-outs and prizes
Recap of the P in the POSSE framework (proof, both skills and humanity), the live schedule for the week, member wins read aloud, action-taker and POV award winners, Spark scholarship deadline, workbook reminder and how to ask questions.
20:10 – 24:06
03 · Client-getting strategies and the cold outreach ick
Today covers the O and S of POSSE: optimized outreach and strategic conversations, taught together because they work together. Chat dumps every feeling about cold outreach: cringe, rejection, begging, shouting into the void. Diagnosis: most people were taught outreach wrong.
24:06 – 32:00
04 · The five biggest outreach mistakes
From someone who receives hundreds of cold messages a week: insulting the prospect's business, templated and obviously AI-written messages (including em dashes and 'hey, quick one'), making it all about you, too much too soon like proposing on a first date, and overselling. Real screenshots for each.
32:00 – 40:23
05 · Why cold outreach does not work anymore
Trust is no longer the baseline; distrust is. Scam statistics, the dating-app analogy for not taking it personally, the auto-rejection phenomenon at 80 to 100 milliseconds, cold email at 1 to 5 percent replies, LinkedIn at 10.3 percent. It is not a you problem, it is a trust problem.
40:23 – 43:40
06 · Warm outreach and the restaurant test
Warm introductions and referrals convert at 30 to 40 percent. A friend's restaurant recommendation versus the same restaurant's leaflet on your door. Your job is not to convince strangers but to show up where trust exists or build it over time. Sets up the two strategies.
43:40 – 51:54
07 · Optimized outreach: Upwork, Facebook groups, job boards
Cold outreach assumes interest; optimized outreach goes where jobs are posted, like a flyer inside the pet store. Upwork, where everyone is hiring. Facebook groups for adjacent professionals and local businesses, plus the per-group profile customization trick. Freelance job boards with member results.
51:54 – 58:49
08 · How to apply: directions, research, personalization, no self-rejection
Follow directions and hunt for the hidden secret code. Twenty researched applications beat a hundred blasts. Personalize with a bit of who you are. Do not disqualify yourself; Missy's story of applying under-qualified and reaching 10K a month. The face-to-face test via a friend's rant about over-creative applications.
58:49 – 1:04:29
09 · Strategic conversations: know, like, trust and the referrer mindset
The second strategy pulls people in rather than reaching out. Nobody hires you until they know, like and trust you, so the daily goal is to let one more person know what you do. Not everyone is a potential client, but everyone is a potential referrer. Member referral wins.
1:04:29 – 1:10:02
10 · The 4 Client Circles
A network is four layers deep. Advocates: remind them and make referrals easy. Acquaintances: inform them what you do and the problem you solve. Connections: reconnect by finding common ground. Future connections: make contact. Chat poll on where most people's networks sit. The closer the circle, the faster the result.
1:10:02 – 1:12:54
11 · The Inside Out Method
Most people work the circles backwards, cold-pitching the outer ring. Start with the warmest relationships and pull people inward while applying where jobs exist. Introvert friendly, compounding, and amplified by community. The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.
1:12:54 – 1:22:14
12 · Day two action steps: plant 14 seeds
Naming the resistance that shows up after the call. Build a hit list of 14 people: 2 advocates to remind, 3 acquaintances to inform, 4 connections to reconnect with, 5 future connections to contact. Word-for-word message templates for each. Tracker, the Ava assistant for pass holders, and the bite board.
1:22:14 – 1:36:08
13 · Live Q&A: no excuses, no niche gate, no line
Pushback on anyone claiming they have no advocates or acquaintances. Connect with complementary service providers, not just peers. There is no line on applying under-qualified. Stay specific to be memorable. Discovery calls are about listening. Prioritize the advocate over the boss. Outreach is not niche-specific. Commitment to 14 seeds and sign-off.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Cold outreach did not get worse because your message got worse; it got worse because distrust became the default setting for everyone online.
- Your brain filters out unsolicited, irrelevant messages in 80 to 100 milliseconds, so most ghosting is automatic, not a judgment of you.
- Cold email replies run 1 to 5 percent and conversions 0.2 to 2 percent, so 95 to 99 of every 100 cold messages are statistically supposed to fail.
- Warm introductions and referrals convert at 30 to 40 percent, roughly ten times cold outreach, which makes warming people up the higher-leverage activity.
- Optimized outreach is posting your dog-walking flyer inside the pet store instead of throwing flyers in the air; apply only where someone has already said they are hiring.
- On Upwork every single person is hiring, which beats DMing strangers on Instagram and hoping one of them happens to need you.
- Join Facebook groups for the professionals who hire your skill, like web designers for a copywriter, rather than groups full of competitors who are also looking for clients.
- Facebook lets you edit a separate profile for every group you belong to, so a local business group can see a bio written for that city without changing your main profile.
- Hidden secret codes in job descriptions exist to filter out people who do not read, so following directions alone puts you ahead of most applicants.
- Twenty researched applications beat a hundred copy-paste ones; a few specific details prove you actually looked at the business.
- Apply even when the posting says three to five years of experience; those requirements filter the totally unqualified, not the right person with the wrong resume.
- The face-to-face test: if you would not say it to someone at an event, do not write it in an application or outreach message.
- Your daily goal is not to find a client but to let one more person know what you do, because nobody hires you until they know, like and trust you.
- Not everyone is a potential client, but everyone knows one, so treat every contact as a potential referrer and the pressure to sell disappears.
- A network is four layers deep: advocates, acquaintances, connections and future connections, and the closer the circle the faster the result.
- Most freelancers work the circles backwards, cold-pitching strangers in the outer ring while ignoring the friends and former colleagues who would happily refer them.
- Reminding an old friend what you do and asking them to keep you in mind is the easiest outreach that exists, and almost nobody responds negatively to it.
- Fourteen seeds a day across the four circles compounds; a connection made six months ago is the one that hires you today.
- Approaching every conversation with the expectation of compensation changes the whole vibe, and people can feel it.
- Being specific makes you memorable; list the one thing you specialize in, not the eighteen things you can do.
Stop convincing strangers. Warm up the people you already have.
WHAT TO LEARN
Cold outreach loses to a reflexive distrust filter, so apply only where someone has already said they are hiring and grow your network from the inside out with fourteen no-pitch messages a day.
01Welcome and the humanity warm-up
- Non-work details in a bio, like hobbies or hometown, give strangers common ground and lower their guard faster than any credential.
- Sharing something personal and regretting it the next morning is normal; that detail is what starts conversations.
02Day one recap, shout-outs and prizes
- Proof has two halves: the skill you sell and the human behind it, and most freelancers only present the first.
- A daily action thread with prizes turns passive viewers into people who actually send the messages.
03Client-getting strategies and the cold outreach ick
- Expect the physical ick around cold outreach; it comes from being taught to pitch strangers who never asked.
- Outreach and conversations are taught together because applying where jobs exist and warming your network compound each other.
04The five biggest outreach mistakes
- Never open by insulting the prospect's business; agitating pain from a stranger reads as a scam now.
- Templated, bracket-filled or obviously AI-written messages signal you do not care, and em dashes and 'hey, quick one' are the tells.
- Do not ask for a call or claim to love someone's content when you do not even follow them; the mismatch is visible.
05Why cold outreach does not work anymore
- Distrust is the default online now, so an ignored message is a systemic filter, not a verdict on you.
- Brains discard unsolicited information in 80 to 100 milliseconds, which makes ghosting an automatic reflex.
- Cold email replies run 1 to 5 percent and LinkedIn roughly double that, so budget your hours accordingly.
06Warm outreach and the restaurant test
- Warm introductions convert at 30 to 40 percent; a friend's recommendation and a doormat leaflet sell the same restaurant with opposite results.
- Your job is to show up where trust already exists or to build it over time, not to convince strangers from scratch.
07Optimized outreach: Upwork, Facebook groups, job boards
- Cold outreach assumes interest; optimized outreach goes where a job is already posted, like a flyer inside the pet store.
- Upwork is a room where everyone is hiring, and a personalized 20-minute application beats the thousands who copy-paste.
- Join groups for adjacent professionals who hire your skill and local business groups, and share real value before mentioning what you do.
- Edit your per-group Facebook profile so each community sees a bio and cover written for that audience.
08How to apply: directions, research, personalization, no self-rejection
- Follow the directions and find the hidden code in a job post; reading carefully alone beats most applicants.
- Twenty researched applications outperform a hundred blind ones; mention something specific about the business.
- Apply when you are under-qualified on paper; requirements filter the totally unqualified, not the right person.
- Run every message through the face-to-face test and drop the clever subject lines and analogies.
09Strategic conversations: know, like, trust and the referrer mindset
- Nobody hires you until they know, like and trust you, so the daily task is getting one more person to know your name.
- Treat every contact as a potential referrer rather than a potential client and the pressure to sell evaporates.
- Telling people what you do, repeatedly and plainly, is how referrals start; hiding is the real problem.
10The 4 Client Circles
- Advocates already trust you; remind them what you do and make referring you easy.
- Acquaintances know of you; inform them what you do and the problem you solve to turn them into advocates.
- Connections are loose ties; reconnect over common ground with no pitch to turn them into acquaintances.
- Future connections do not know you; follow, connect and comment to pull them into the outer ring.
11The Inside Out Method
- Most people work the circles backwards, pitching strangers while ignoring friends who would happily refer them.
- Start with the warmest relationships and move outward; the method is introvert friendly and needs no daily posting.
- Seeds compound: a connection made six months ago can be the one that hires you today.
12Day two action steps: plant 14 seeds
- Name the resistance in advance; the urge to re-edit your bio instead of sending messages is what kept you stuck.
- Send 14 messages a day: 2 advocates, 3 acquaintances, 4 connections, 5 future connections, tracked by name and circle.
- Every template ends with a referral ask or a common-ground note, never a sale, so the worst case is a friendly reply.
- Celebrate any positive reply as a bite; small wins are the proof that the process works.
13Live Q&A: no excuses, no niche gate, no line
- Everyone has two advocates and three acquaintances; the goal is reminding people, not finding buyers.
- Connect with complementary service providers like designers and strategists, since their clients ask them for referrals.
- There is no line on applying under-qualified, and specificity about what you do makes you memorable.
- On a discovery call, ask what is going on in their business and let them tell you what they need.
Terms worth knowing.
- Cold outreach
- Contacting a stranger who has shown no awareness of you and has not asked for help, hoping they happen to need your service.
- Warm outreach
- Reaching out to someone who already has some awareness of you, such as a referral or a prior contact. Converts at roughly 30 to 40 percent versus 1 to 5 percent for cold.
- Optimized outreach
- Applying only in places where hiring interest already exists, such as freelance marketplaces, job boards and niche groups where someone has posted a need.
- Strategic conversations
- Planting seeds with people already in your circle so that you are the first name they think of when they or someone they know needs your service. No pitching involved.
- Inside Out Method
- Working your network from the warmest circle outward: remind advocates, inform acquaintances, reconnect with connections, make contact with future connections.
- The 4 Client Circles
- A model of a personal network as four rings by trust level: advocates, acquaintances, connections and future connections. Each ring has one action that pulls people one ring closer.
- Auto-rejection phenomenon
- The brain's subconscious filtering of unsolicited or irrelevant information, measured at 80 to 100 milliseconds, which makes most ignored messages an automatic reflex rather than a decision.
- Face-to-face test
- A filter for outreach copy: would you say this sentence to the person if you met them in real life? If not, cut the clever subject line or analogy.
- Fish hooks
- Personal, non-work details added to a bio or profile, like hobbies or hometown, that give strangers common ground to start a conversation.
- Vulnerability hangover
- The regret that follows sharing something personal in public, such as a bio detail that feels like too much information the next morning.
- Bite
- Any positive response to an outreach message, from a reply saying good to hear from you to a request to talk. Counted as a win regardless of whether it becomes a client.
- Dead internet theory
- The idea that much of what appears online is generated by bots and AI rather than humans, used here to explain why audiences are skeptical of every message.
Things they pointed at.
50:54productCopy Posse Spark job board (members only)
1:19:01productAva assistant (Client Week all-access pass)
19:50productClient Week workbook (Access Hub)
Lines you could clip.
33:27
“Trust is no longer the baseline. Distrust is the new default and it is at an all-time high.”
37:36
“It is not a you problem. It's a trust problem.”
40:52
“When a friend recommends a restaurant, you go. When a random leaflet shows up on your front door for the exact same restaurant, you throw it in the recycle bin. Same restaurant, completely different result.”
44:35
“On Upwork, every single person there is hiring. Every single person there is hiring.”
54:10
“Let them tell you no. Don't be the one who tells yourself no.”
1:01:13
“Your goal every day is not to find a client. It's to tell one more person about what you do.”
1:02:08
“Not everyone is a potential client. But everyone knows a potential client, which means everyone is a potential referrer.”
1:08:54
“The closer the circle, the higher the trust, the faster the result. Most people do this ass backwards.”
1:10:43
“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. But if you don't plant seeds, you ain't ever going to eat that fruit.”
1:27:48
“There's no line. The line is a mental construct that you're making in your head. The worst thing that could happen is they just don't get back to you.”
1:31:53
“When we approach every conversation with the expectation of compensation, it changes the whole vibe.”
Word for word.
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metaphoranalogystory
Hello, welcome. You are here. You made it to day two of client week.
How's everybody feeling today? I am feeling so good. So, so freaking good.
I feel like once you get out kind of like the day one jitters, and then I feel like I get to know all of you reading your intro posts in the group. And I just I'm so excited for today and everything I have planned for you, because let me tell you, today is where rubber really meets the road and things really start moving forward with client week.
So I'm really, really excited. Huge shout out to those of you who are showing up again live. And if this is your first live, welcome.
You made it. You are here. And if you're watching this as hashtag team replay.
You're freaking doing this. You are doing it. We have so many people on team replay because we have people from all over the freaking world, literally thousands of people from around the world signed up for this.
And I have to tell you this morning, I was like feeling all sorts of emotional and grateful reading your posts in the group. I read every single one, every single one. And I was just filled with like so much gratitude because.
It's easy when we're so in it in our businesses. We get hung up on client outreach and what we're doing and what we're doing wrong and how we're feeling and what something might mean. And it's so easy to get kind of stuck in the weeds.
And it's easy to forget why we're doing this, why this matters, which is why on the kickoff call, I asked all of you to think about what does your dream look like or dream business look like? And what would that make possible for you? And for me, my dream business is being able to serve people all around the world and have a lot of fun doing it.
And I had this realization this morning looking at all of your Facebook posts. I was like, this is why I do this. This is why I freaking do this.
So thank you. Thank you for helping me make my dream business a reality. Oh, I have goosebumps.
It's always good when I get goosebumps because I just feel so grateful. I feel so grateful that you're here. I feel so grateful that you're investing time in this, that you're showing up and that you're showing up for yourself.
It's just, there's truly not a better gift in the world. And I don't know if you guys feel like this too, but lately, especially with like all this AI content being published everywhere, and then you get like AI comments on your content, and then you get AI comments on your AI comments. and you're just like what is even real anymore you know you've heard of this like whole like people call it a conspiracy and i'm like um it feels more real than anything else it's like dead internet theory where we're like where are all the humans at like hello is anybody out there like echo echo echo and being here live on this zoom call seeing all of your incredible faces reading your posts in the facebook group i'm like we're real, you guys.
I know this is like, duh, we're real. But can you feel that for a minute? The internet kind of sucks right now, but there is something so magical about just showing up in all of our humanity, right?
And that was the whole point of yesterday's session, is to really just show up as ourselves. And I know it can feel a little scary. Someone commented, um in the group I think it was Sean um possibly I think if I'm remembering correctly who was like oh my god I updated my bio but now I'm feeling like I need to go like maybe I was too personal I should go back and change it I'm like yes we call that a vulnerability hangover and I feel it too sometimes when I like share a little bit too much or I'm like I shouldn't have said that it was too personal TMI nobody cares um But that's what makes us so unique and that's what makes us special and that's what people are so grateful for right now.
And I feel like if we can't be ourselves in a community like this, like where can we truly be ourselves? And it was just so cool reading so many of your intro posts and also your fish hooks because I'm like, wow, you guys are actually like, not that I'm surprised, the coolest freaking bunch of people. And don't get me wrong, like I love knowing what you do.
I love knowing what your business is or what you're building. That's cool. Like, I think that's cool.
But what I think is actually cooler is all of the other stuff, like all of the other stuff you're into. So we're going to just do a fun little game in the chat. Okay.
I like to start with like a question to get the chat fired up. You're going to finish this sentence in the chat. Okay.
And this can be one of your fish hooks. Finish this sentence. Okay.
And you're going to share one random, weird, like wonderful thing about you that has absolutely nothing. to do with your business or what you do for work. Okay.
This is purely fun. So finish the sentence in the chat. If you really knew me, you would know.
Okay. You don't have to rewrite that first part. Just finish that sentence in the chat.
If you really knew me, you would know that I collect bones and bugs. Abel, that is amazing. I love dogs.
I wrote a spicy book. I was a clown at a children's birthday party. I'm a chiropractor.
Hey, that's what you do for work. Oh, my God. I'm a black belt.
I'm delusional. Hey, Delulu. We're all little Delulu.
I love romantic books. I watched every criminal series ever. Same.
I'm a total true crime junkie. I want to be a millionaire. Yeah, me too.
Gilmore Girls. I socialize like it's a competitive sport. I'm an alien.
Oh my gosh. I love 90s R &B music. Me too.
Oh my gosh. I like to dance and finish people's sentences with song lyrics. I read fan fiction.
Hell yeah. I never turned down a long walk. I love rescuing cats.
I'm the biggest introvert you've ever met. I'm a weekend fan. I'm a professional dancer.
Oh my gosh. We definitely have a few dancers in this group, you guys, like for sure. I love sleeping.
Me too. I'm a curious cat. Oh my gosh.
You guys, my face hurts. I love reading manga. I have a big heart, yes.
I'm obsessed with, oh, that went too fast. I'm out of office on powder days. Oh my gosh, me too.
I live close to the mountains. I love to go snowboarding. I love traveling.
I'm super nosy. Kelsey, thank you for just owning that. I review anime shows as an unpaid job.
What? You guys, this is what I am saying to you, right? I'm well caffeinated.
Me too, Dan. Me too. Keep going if you want to keep going in the chat, you guys.
Seriously, I wanted you to do that so that you can actually see like how many of you now actually feel more connected to the other people on this line because all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, me too. Even just reading your posts, I'm like, wow, I have so much in common with so many of you. And this is the thing that I think is really special about this community.
And I mentioned this on... I think it was the kickoff call now. All the days start to blur together.
It's like, where do those of us who have chosen to follow an untraditional path, where do we go, right? And the answer is right here. You found us.
And there are so many things that connect us. And I know sometimes we think that these things that you're still putting in the chat, Star Wars is my, I love Star Wars. Okay, I grew up on the old school trilogy.
I love Star Wars. Okay, I'm gonna close the chat because I'm getting way too distracted, but I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna read every single one of those later. Keep going.
Um, that's the stuff that connects us. And I know that we think our clients don't care. No, that's what they care the most about.
So when we're seeing AI generated content every single day and our spidey senses are like up because we're like, is that real? Is that not real? Is that a human on the other end of that?
Am I being scammed? Right? Like maybe some of you felt that when you signed up for client week, if you've never been to any of my stuff.
Right. And although that kind of hurts my heart a little bit because I would never want anyone in a million years. think I was like a scam artist or whatever.
You know, I get it. I get that distrust is low. And the more that we can create those shared connections with those little fish hooks, you will be so surprised at how that can lead into the most beautiful connection client conversation.
It's magical. It's absolutely magical. So for those of you who are feeling like a little bit of that vulnerability hangover, like, oh my God, I can't believe I admitted that I was such a nerd.
In my bio, like, are my clients going to think I'm like wacky? Like what's going on, right? Those are the things that start more conversations and get your foot in the door and create common ground, which we're going to talk about more today, more than absolutely anything else that you can do, okay?
So now that we're all feeling a little bit more connected, let's start with day two. Are you guys ready? Give me a hell yes if you're ready to rock in the chat.
I just say that because it buys me time to open my slides, you guys. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay. Here we are.
Day two of client week. So y 'all remember day one, right? Because that was just yesterday.
Yesterday, we talked about the very first part of my POSSE framework, proof, right? And we talked about the two different types of proof. that your future clients are looking for.
Your skills, yes, we know that's important. We need to know what you do, right? And for those of you who are in the Facebook group, which should be all of you, by the way, I posted a thread because I was so curious.
I'm like, what do we all do? What do we call ourselves? And that's kind of the most interesting experiment that I find in this whole world of freelancing.
is everyone kind of has a different title for themselves. Like sure, you could be like a copywriter, but you could be like also a marketing strategist or a content strategist or a brand strategist. You could do a million different types of freelancing roles and maybe you wear like 18 different hats and you're like, I don't actually know I do everything.
It's important to be able to share what you do, the skills, okay? We know that. I help X with Y, okay?
But the humanity piece is the piece that it seems like everyone forgets about. So you identified those six fish hooks for your homework. You prepared the line, like literally.
What we did yesterday was like you're sitting on the dock, sitting on the dock. Who said that they finish each other's sentences with song lyrics? I just did it to myself.
You're sitting on the dock. You have like your fishing line and you're like, OK, now I'm ready. I'm ready to go fishing.
So who completed their day one homework? Comment in the chat and say me if you did. And if you didn't, it's not too late.
It's not too late. You can absolutely still go and do that. I was loving seeing all the action takers in the day one action thread.
As a reminder. Make sure that you're posting your homework inside the action threads. Like 99 .9 % of you did that, which is amazing because that's where we select our daily action taker winners from.
Okay. And if you missed the replay from yesterday, you can go upgrade to the all access pass to get the day one replay, the kickoff call replay. And then you'll own every single part of client week for an entire year.
So my team will drop the link down there in case you want to go upgrade and we are going to keep going. Okay. Keep sharing your wins, your progress, your gratitude in the Facebook group.
My favorite part of my morning routine during client week or any type of live workshop I host is I make myself a coffee. I sit down in my favorite chair in the corner of my living room. I turn on the fire.
If it's like cool out, I wouldn't do this in the middle of summer. And I just read your posts literally word for word. And I just want to give a couple of shout outs to some incredible posts that I saw in the group this morning.
So shout out to Mara. Mara, I think I saw that you're on here. She says, I'm a caregiver for a family member right now.
So squeezing in this class is hard. I'm enjoying client week immensely. I watched the kickoff call replay yesterday.
It was so important to learn that Alex said she networked in person. So her words get in those rooms. Thank you to everyone making client week a success.
Yes. And Mara, thank you for being here. I mean, being a caregiver is no joke.
You are holding a lot right now. So the fact that you're making time for you and showing up here today is really special. Shout out to Cindy.
Cindy says, hashtag win. Earlier today, I had a cold reach out on LinkedIn, all from commenting on a post. It might be about a job.
Yes, this is what we're talking about. Hashtag progress. I have also scored two interviews over the past couple of months for roles without any network connections.
So I do believe that cold searching can work. I agree 100%. And the more you really lean in to showing up, commenting on other people's posts, and not being a total ghost, right, and leaning into your humanity is what makes that even better.
While they haven't led to anything yet, I'm making contact and feel relevant in a tough job market. Amazing. And gratitude.
There are so many great people like Alex on LinkedIn, dropping knowledge and connecting people to one another. I've learned so much these past few months, whether in career -related webinars, AI learning sessions, now this freelance series. It's wonderful learning and meeting like -minded creatives.
Someone on the chat asked about having confidence writing if English isn't your first language. Not quite the same thing, but I wanted to share that through an unrelated AI series, I connected with a creative strategist from the Philippines, and we are now having weekly coffee chats in part so she can practice speaking more English to help her confidence increase for global clients.
Woo! Just got goosebumps again. How amazing is that?
Like, what if after client week, you guys... You walked away with someone that you could connect with on a regular basis. I am so proud to say that so many of my Sparkies, of my Launchpad grads, of my Posse community still to this day meet up in person.
In fact, one of my Launchpad grads ended up becoming really good friends with her accountability partner from the program. And she invited her to her wedding. Like how amazing, I got goosebumps again.
How amazing is that? So sometimes, you know, we go in with like a very clear idea of what it looks like to like get a win. But sometimes it's like the little things like that, that can truly change the trajectory of your business.
And it's the connections that you can make in groups like this that are so powerful. And Dawn says, hashtag win, hashtag gratitude. I'm always, I've.
Always afraid to take action because I was afraid of others might, what might, let's restart that. I've always afraid to take action because I was afraid of what others might think of me, afraid that I might fail and doubting myself. I'm grateful that Alex said courage comes before confidence.
You need to get moving before you can feel confident. It's about taking consistent daily steps to get to where you want to be. Yes.
Forget about what other people are doing. Focus on the one step that you can take to achieve your goals, no matter how small they seem. Yes.
Cheering you on no matter where you are on your journey. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Beautiful share. And now don't forget that when you post your homework each day inside the daily action thread, you will be entered to win a prize.
Now I literally take the number of comments there are in the thread. I put it into a random number generator and it tells me a number and then I find whoever's comment that is. So this is truly a random draw.
And the winner, drumroll please, of our day one action taker award goes to Annie. Annie, congratulations. I am sending you some posse swag all the way in the mail.
Real snail mail. Real mail. And you are also getting a $50 posse credit to put towards any of our programs in the future.
And I love your bio. You said marketing and communication storyteller for purpose driven businesses, dog lover, Jane Austen fan would rather be outside. Yes.
Message me to talk shop and share stories. Now what's cool about this is you might get a message from someone who's like, what kind of dog do you have? Or what's your favorite Jane Austen, you know, whatever.
This is the special stuff, you guys. This is the stuff that makes us feel so connected. So Annie, congratulations.
Also, I invented a new challenge yesterday. I told you guys the hashtag client week POV award. I asked you guys to share where in the world you're tuning in to client week from.
And I asked you to share a photo on either LinkedIn, or Instagram. And the winner of our Posse Client Week POV award goes to Letitia.
Congratulations, Letitia. I think you go by in the Facebook group. I loved what you shared on LinkedIn.
You said, I've been building websites since 1999 and selling online courses since 2018, but there's always room to hone skills. Thanks, Alex. for Client Week POV.
Yes. And I love that you are taking a selfie and you're in it and my slides are there. It's just like the perfect shot.
So congratulations, Letitia. I'm giving you a $25 posse cred, which is enough to cover any one of our mini courses. So we will be in touch about that.
And I'm going to do this again today, you guys, because it was so much fun for me to see your posts. So it's not too late to enter to win for tomorrow's award. tag me at Copy Posse or LinkedIn Alex Catoni and show me where you are tuning in to Client Week from.
And we already posted this in the group, but the chat cheerleader award from yesterday's session goes out to Claire. So Claire, congratulations. You also win a $25 Posse cred.
So contact our team. And this goes sort of to anyone who wins a prize as well. We'll reach out to you, but you can reach out to us first to make our jobs easier.
You also win a $25 Posse cred. And again, my team is going to pick a chat cheerleader winner today. So I love giving out prizes.
And speaking of prizes, you guys, I want to remind everyone that today is the last day to apply for the annual Spark membership scholarship. There's a pinned post in the Facebook group. We also are sending emails with the details.
But today's the last day to apply. So I wanted to just. quickly remind you, I will be announcing the winner on tomorrow's live call, day three of client week, okay?
Reminder of how to apply and qualify. You must complete your application by Tuesday at midnight. That's tonight.
Complete the application only once, please. You must be present on tomorrow's call in order to win, which means if your name is selected and you are not there, we will move on to the next name.
Okay. You must be an active participant in the Client Week Facebook group. As I've mentioned before, we love to reward action takers.
And so the more you put into this experience, the more you're going to get out of it, including more of an opportunity to win this scholarship and access pass holders. You get an automatic extra entry. Okay.
Couple, oh, and details what we sent via email, which I said already. Couple other quick reminders. If you haven't yet, download your Client Week workbook, okay?
That is in the Access Hub. Follow along. Each day has your daily action steps.
And reminder of how to ask questions. I will be answering questions live at the end of today's session. Type your question in the chat with the hashtag question.
Ready? All right. Let's go.
Today, we are talking about how to expand your network with the inside -out method. So, my friends, Today is where we are really starting to get moving.
Today we are talking about client getting strategies, okay? This is truly going to set the tone for the rest of client week. And my invitation to you...
is to imagine that this can feel really easy. I think sometimes we program ourselves to believe that things are hard, and then when we start believing that, it becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy. Someone in the Facebook group said this morning, I have been way overcomplicating this.
Yep. Most of the time we tend to do that, but if we can go through this process with an energy of fun and joy and the feeling that this can be easy, it's going to make it so much more enjoyable, okay? So we are diving into the next two parts of my Posse system.
O stands for optimized outreach and S stands for strategic conversations. And we are covering both today because they are way more effective when used together, okay? But first, let's talk about the awkward elephant in the room, okay?
Drop in the chat. When I say cold outreach, What do we feel?
What's happening in our bodies right now, friends? Like type it in the chat. What is the fear, the doubt, cringe, no, major ick, hide, like a salesperson, run, cold calling, getting cussed out, ew, you freak, auto rejection, disappear, clenched jaws, how do I do it, barf emoji, rejection, stress, right?
Okay, now you're going to join me in, we did this the other day, like shake it out. Okay, shake it out because there is another way. But all of this is completely normal, right?
You might think I've sent DMs into the void before. I've heard absolutely nothing back, not even a no thanks. I don't even know what to say when I reach out.
It comes out weird and try hard. I'm an introvert. The idea of putting myself out there makes me want to close my laptop forever.
I feel gross, right? I think there's a few disgustings in the chat there that I'm bothering people or that I'm begging for work. My network is tiny.
I don't know the right people. I don't know clients. I have no one to reach out to.
I've tried posting on social media. Nobody engages. It feels like I'm shouting into the void.
I'm scared of rejection. What if I reach out and they say no or worse, ignore me or get cussed out like someone said? I don't want to seem desperate.
I'd rather wait for clients to come to me or I've gotten a few bites, but I have no idea how to make it happen reliably and consistently. And like I said, I don't blame you at all for feeling this way. And that's because most people have been taught how to do outreach all wrong.
Right. And that's why it leaves you and honestly, everyone with such a bad taste in their mouth. Kind of like I said the other day, like if you have no connection to someone and they don't need your services and then you keep following up with them, you know, that that's kind of a bad experience for both people.
Right. And so there's a way to do this that doesn't feel so exhausting. OK, people are making the exact same mistakes when it comes to outreach and they don't even really realize it.
OK. So as someone who gets hundreds of cold outreach messages a week, probably if I were to combine my DMs with email, I'm just going to call out some of the biggest mistakes that I see right now, okay? I'm not going to ask you to own up to any of these if you do them, but I am going to tell you as someone who receives them what I see that kind of frustrates me, okay?
The first one, and I don't know who's teaching this, but it happens more than you would even think. I get emails that are basically like insulting me. This one isn't so bad.
I couldn't find one that like really stung, you know, but you end up getting emails that it's like, hey, your website sucks or like. You're making it like you're making these three issue or you're doing these three issues that are killing your content. That kind of content or that kind of outreach used to work.
You know, it's very much that pain, salt in the wound, you know, agitate it, make them go, oh, my God, thank God you noticed that. I'm going to immediately hire you now to solve this for me. No, it doesn't work like that anymore.
Nobody wants to be told that their business. is broken by a complete stranger, especially because we don't even trust it anymore, right? We're like, you pointing out these mistakes doesn't make me trust you anymore.
I mean, if anything, if it was something that I agreed with, I'd be like, oh, thanks. And then I would send it to my team to fix it. You know what I mean?
Like this no longer works, okay? The next one is really templated outreach. Nothing says I don't care about you quite like a generic copy and paste message.
I really love this one. Hey, Sam.
I said, outreach tip, when you copy and paste your message, change the first name. I mean, in this example, I mean, this person did get a response from me. So maybe that was intentional, but you would be shocked.
Or I often get messages that are like, insert something personal and relatable here. Like literally, they didn't even edit the like templated, you know, square bracket text. And I was like, guys, come on, right?
Um, what else? Um, oh, I was going to say this includes obviously AI written outreach. Like I'm not saying you guys can't use AI to help you draft messages.
Okay. Like if, and I said this earlier when I was talking about Ava and the assistant that you get with the all access path, I would much rather you, you do it yourself and take the time to just like craft a really great message. But I also understand that some of us get in our own way and we overthink things.
anyone else and we make it harder than it has to be so we spend way too much time humming and hawing and if getting ai to help you start a draft message is going to get you into action faster okay i'm not here to like poo -poo on your parade right but when the message is so obviously written by ai it's like almost comical like this conversation it was in response to me trying on jeans it was like on my personal instagram story and the first message was like A little like, what's this AI?
You know, it's like the classic language. The trying on jeans usually sucks energy followed immediately by a full fitting room session is a very specific contradiction. I was like, was that AI?
It kind of sounded like AI, but I'm going to give this person the benefit of the doubt. And I wrote back and said, hence the word usually. This time I loved it.
Ha ha. And then I get the exact same type of message back. The this time I loved it energy is very fool me once.
Are you actually converted or still suspicious? I'm sorry, what kind of conversation am I having with AI right now, right? This is a person trying to like build rapport with me.
And I went, this is the most AI generated question I've ever seen. And these days I'm so cooked that my conversation started to feel like AI. I'm like, honey, no, this is AI.
This person would have gotten a response from me if they were like, I like those jeans. Cause just sidebar, I was trying on a bunch of jeans and I was like, which ones fit the best? If that person was like, I like those ones.
I would have been like, yeah, cool. Thanks me too. And we would have had like a genuine human conversation going on.
Instead this, I can't, I can't, I cannot. Please don't make me look at it any longer. Okay.
And another bonus tip. Don't use em dashes. I am so guilty of this.
Like I actually do use them, but unfortunately it has become the most telltale sign that it's an AI message. Okay. Hey, quick one.
That's another one. Hey, quick one. Hey, quick one, quick one, quick, quick.
And I don't even respond to these. It's like, if you can't take the time to be a real human, I ain't going to respond. Right.
The other type of mistakes that I see is when it's all about you, right? Like, okay, I'm going to tell them all the reasons why they should hire me. Like, good morning.
I hope you're doing well. My name is Blank and I've been studying your niche some time now. I decided to start a journey.
I'm just like glazed over. Absolutely glazed over. Like I'm not responding.
Okay. So remember, like your first point of contact isn't about just like slamming a pitch in someone's face when you've had no contact with them at all in the... In the past, there's been no, like no rapport built.
They have no idea if I'm actually looking to hire in this case. Could you provide the affiliate link, get an affiliate partner? I don't even know what they're asking for.
So just, you know, careful there. Number four, too much too soon, right? It's like the equivalent of .
Like, and by the way, I find this really interesting. Hey, Alex, really love your content for copywriting. Do you notice something about this screenshot that just like kind of seems a little suspish?
You don't follow each other on Instagram. So how can this person love my content on copywriting if they don't even follow me?
Right. It literally screams bullshit immediately. and these are the things that people look for myself included if someone sends me that message saying i really love your content for copywriting and they're not even following me or they've never engaged with me before and because i have an automatic message that goes out the second someone follows me i can actually tell this this screenshot was from before that automation but kind of a side benefit of adding that automation is i can tell exactly when someone follows me I just scroll up and I go, oh, look, yeah, this person has been following me.
And if they've been following me for at least a week and they say that, I'm still like, okay, they've been on for a week. But if they don't follow me, I'm not into it. And then literally the same day, to get to the point, okay, thank you.
I mean, I like a brief message. I manage communities for creators. Are you open for a quick chat?
You don't follow me. You just messaged me for the first time, and you want me to get on a meeting with you? Like, you guys see the problem here, right?
And so the issues that I have with the way people teach outreach is that they are teaching it all wrong. They're making it seem like if you just send these messages, yeah, someone's going to get on a quick call with you for sure. I'm sorry.
No, we are all busy. Right. Like I don't have time to hop on a call with someone when I have absolutely zero connection with you.
I don't know who you are. I don't know the skills. You haven't made any point of proof to show that you're someone that I should talk to.
And I don't doubt that this person's a nice person. It's just like, no, I don't have time. Right.
Is this landing with you guys? Sorry if you feel called out, but like, you know, I get on my sassy high horse and sometimes I just need to like make sure we're all clear and starting on the same page here. Um, overselling.
And this is another one that I get. I get so many of these messages. I'm sure you guys too.
Like, it's almost like what bot is going around here doing this, but the messages that just read like a sales pitch immediately. Right. I mean, I don't even need to talk about that.
Like we can like, we're not getting back to that. Okay. Um, so why does cold outreach not work?
Well, you've probably kind of got an idea now, right? If you've ever sent a cold DM or an email into the void and heard nothing back, this, what we're going to talk about is going to explain a lot.
Okay. Because I'm not saying that you guys do these things. I'm not, I just wanted to call them out in case maybe you've seen it or maybe you've tried it, or maybe there's someone teaching this.
I don't know. And I'm not looking for you to call anybody out, but it's like, that doesn't work anymore. Okay.
Um, and hopefully what we're going to talk about next is really going to put your mind at ease because it quite literally, you guys has nothing to do with you. If a client doesn't get back to you, right? And you will get ghosted.
I mean, this is like part of the game here. It's like if I said to you that every single person you swipe right on on a dating app, if anyone here has ever dated on apps, and if they don't swipe back and it's a match, you're like offended. Like, of course not.
Like, we know romantically we're not a match for everybody. Yet somehow when we do it, like, you know, cold outreach message or we contact someone who we want to give us money. and they're not a match, we somehow take it personally.
Isn't that funny, right? We somehow take it personally. So here's the reality.
Cold outreach, like even the examples I showed, used to work, but now it doesn't for one very, very, very clear reason. You've heard me say it. Trust is no longer the baseline.
It used to be that if you connected with someone online, especially if they had like a social profile and you could see their face, like trust was actually the default, which is kind of crazy to believe. Like, and if that person had a website or even just like sniffed professional, you would be like, wow, this person, like, look at them.
Now it's the opposite. Distrust is the new default and it is at an all -time high, right? We are living in a trust crisis, a trust recession.
We've all heard it. But people are more skeptical, more defensive, more filtered than ever before. And maybe you even realize this in like your own behavior.
I mean, I have a setting on my phone that my phone won't even ring if it's an unknown number. I'm like, if it's important, I'll leave a message. So I don't trust a single thing anymore.
And it's not just me. 96 % of Americans, you know, are targeted by scammers every single week. Every single day, someone's inbox, DMs.
feeds, Instagram, you know, are filled with AI, with bots, with scammers, asking for, you know, time, attention, money. 90 % of U .S. adults say they receive scam emails weekly.
83 % receive phone calls each week. 82 % receive at least one scam text per week. And 60 % receive at least one social media scam per week.
That's crazy. So imagine now that your super sweet outreach message is landing in that whole sea of crap that they are getting. What do you think they're going to do?
Like, it's not you. It's like the filter has just been shut off, okay? And so again, resist the urge to take any of this personally.
This is like a systemic issue that we are seeing, okay? What else? Before buying or booking or meeting someone new, nearly half of Americans, 47%, say that they always investigate first.
They might look at review sites. They might do background searches. Or they might go peep your profile, which is why having a bio which shares who you are as a human does so much more good than just saying, like, I'm a strategist who's going to help you double your sales, book, you know, click here to book a call with me.
As soon as you say like, I love dogs or I'm into anime, they're like, oh, that's fun, right? It just immediately lowers the guard, which is why we spent so much time on that yesterday. And there is something called the auto rejection phenomenon, okay?
So when I mentioned there's this filter that's been turned off, most of us aren't even conscious that it's there. So people are not consciously rejecting your messages if your cold outreach isn't getting through to them or they're ghosting you or they're not responding. In fact, our brains are doing it for us on autopilot.
So there's been a lot of fascinating research out there about how quickly our brain filters out unsolicited messages. And studies show that our brains consciously reject or filter out irrelevant information so fast, in as little as 80 to 100 milliseconds. That's crazy, right?
That's wild to me. So we're constantly filtering, we're swiping, we're deleting, we're ignoring, because it's a lot to try to process all of that information. So think about your own inbox for a second.
How many emails have you deleted in the last 24 hours without ever reading them? How many DMs do you leave on read because you're like, what is this? No, right?
And unfortunately, that's what's happening in the cold outreach world too, every single day, right? So some takeaways here, cold email rates in 2026 remain low at one to 5 % while only 0 .2 to 2 % convert into sales. You know, that means 95 to 99 out of the 100 people you reach out to are likely to ignore you.
Meanwhile, you spend all this time like drafting these perfect emails and then you feel hurt when you get ghosted, but it is not a you problem. It's a trust problem. You know, it's, it's, it's.
It's happening everywhere to even the most successful, well -established brands and businesses. And cold outreach by its very definition is cold. It starts from a baseline of zero trust.
Now, I want to say that, of course, cold outreach can work. And some of you have shared this, right? This is just showing the LinkedIn numbers as well.
The average cold email response is 5 .1%, down from 7%. To compare, we found LinkedIn response rates averaged 10 .3%, more than 101 % more replies than cold email. So LinkedIn is better than email, but it's still not like, oh my God, great.
But I do think LinkedIn works better than cold email with outreach. And this is how you feel when someone doesn't get back to you. You're like, so sad.
But that's because you're making it about you and it's not about you. It's absolutely not about you. The game has changed.
So we need to play by a new set of rules. Okay. If you only have so many hours in the day, how can you optimize this process?
So when I mentioned cold outreach can work, like it absolutely can. You saw those conversion rates. It can work.
So I'm not saying you should never do it, but like I said, if you only had so many hours in the day, what might you change? This share from one of our members, Michael, said, guys, I'm in shock. I've just landed a full -time gig for a seven -figure business through cold outreach.
And then they want a retainer arrangement, asked me to name a salary. Thanks in advance, I'm buzzing. So every now and then we do get comments like this, like, holy shit, amazing, you did it, great.
But it's definitely not as common as someone saying, hey, I found a client through optimized outreach, which we're talking about today. So what actually works? OK, I've talked a lot about why you're feeling so discouraged about cold outreach.
And I hope that the it's not you statement like really lands here. We have to find new ways to get through to people. OK, this is what marketing is, whether you're.
Selling your own products and services and business, or you're trying to reach out to clients, it's all the same. Marketing has changed and we need to figure out how to break through. So warm outreach works a million times better, which is reaching out to someone who already has some awareness of you, okay?
Warm introductions and referrals convert at 30 to 40 % versus 1 .5 % for cold outreach. So think about it this way, right? When a friend recommends a restaurant, you go.
But when a random like leaflet shows up on your front door for the exact same restaurant, what do you do? You throw it in the recycle bin, right? Same restaurant, completely different result.
The only difference is a baseline of trust. And your job isn't to convince strangers to trust you from scratch. Your job is to show up in the places where trust already exists or to build that trust and warm up contacts over time.
Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, duh, Alex, obviously. But how do you actually do warm outreach if I'm a freelancer who is just starting out?
or who doesn't have a big audience or a network, and I don't have any of that built -in trust yet. Well, that's exactly what we're going to cover today with the two strategies that I'm sharing. And as I mentioned, these two strategies work together to build the warm network that gets you hired, okay?
So we're going to start first with strategy number one, which is optimized outreach, okay?
And this is so, so different than cold outreach. And the difference is simple. Cold outreach is reaching out to strangers who have no idea who you are and they haven't even asked for help.
Like if you think about that for a second, like cold outreach is just assuming that they want your services, even if they haven't expressed any interest in that. So not only are you up against the trust problem, But you're also kind of just hoping that there's interest and desire there.
And if neither of those two things exist, again, the likelihood of getting a response, this is supposed to be an arrow, by the way. I don't know why that's not showing up. Whereas optimized outreach is targeting the places where jobs and interest already exist, right?
So it's targeted, not random. It's like posting a flyer. for your dog walking services inside a pet store versus throwing a bunch of flyers up in the air and then hoping for the best and that hoping that the dog people will see them, right?
These are people who have already decided that they need your help. They've maybe posted a job. They've listed an opening.
They've put up their hand and your job now is just to show up. and show them that you're the right person and the right human. So there are three channels that I recommend for optimized outreach, okay?
The first is Upwork. It is the largest freelancer marketplace out there, and it is great for building early reviews and getting found. And I know there's some of you out there that are thinking, nope, I've tried it, it doesn't work for me.
Well, guess what? It works for a lot of people. And if it hasn't worked for you yet, it could just be that you haven't kept going long enough to get that first bite.
Because if I had to pick a place to show up as a brand new freelancer to get my name out there, rather than just DMing people on Instagram and LinkedIn and hoping for the best and hoping that one of them just happens to need my services and then actually gets back to me, I would rather try my luck and spend my time. on a platform where every single person there is hiring.
Every single person there is hiring. And as someone who has hired from Upwork before, I can tell you, from your perspective, you think that you're one out of like thousands of people applying for the same job. And guess what?
From the business owner perspective, that might be true. But the percentage of people who are actually reading the job, following, the correct action steps in the post, showing their humanity and just being a regular cool person versus trying to convince me why they're the one with like all of their skills and how they're going to double my sales and all of this.
I will go with the real person who took the time to create a personalized application. Now, I'm not saying spend hours. I'm saying spend 20 minutes, okay, on this.
The second. is Facebook groups, right? Niche communities frequently post job opportunities for freelancers.
And here's a little tip. Freelancer groups are great, like Client Week, for example, right? You're here, you're networking, but everyone here is looking for a client, right?
Your dream client is probably not in this group. However, you can join other freelancer groups. Like imagine if you are a...
marketing strategist or a brand strategist or a copywriter, and you go find a niche Facebook group for web designers, what do web designers always need or who do they always work with? Copywriters and brand strategists and marketing strategists. This can be such a great way to build a referral network.
And I'm not saying you jump into these groups and you say, hey, everybody, I do this and you should hire me and DM me if you want me to help. No, go in there and share real value like a real human. And local groups are so powerful too.
Like if you are in a city where you're like, I know there's business owners here that need my help. How can you find business focused local Facebook groups where you already have some common ground because you live in a similar place? These are where your ideal clients are already hanging out and they post opportunities all of the time.
Okay. So I love this share from Claire. She said, following advice from Jenny's last call, I've been making an effort to be more active in local Facebook groups.
I posted an intro about my services in a local women's. business group, and the next day someone in the group emailed me to set up a discovery call and that she's been looking for someone that does what I do. This is legit the first time I've had someone come to me that's not a direct referral from a previous client or a friend.
Seeing this in my inbox felt like a huge milestone, and it was so affirming. In human design, I'm a projector, so my natural strategy is to wait for the invitation. Any other projectors here?
I love that share. Now, here is the coolest tip of all, if you guys don't know this already, okay? Did you know that you could customize your profile, your Facebook profile, for every single group you are in?
Did you know that? That means you have full control over what people in every different group you're in see. Okay, so here's how you do this.
You go into any Facebook group you're in. You could go into the client week Facebook group, right? You click on your name and you come to what looks like kind of a, it's not your profile.
It's like your group profile, if that makes sense. It's what other people see when they click on your name. Because I don't know if you've noticed this.
I'm sure you have if you're like creeping on people, right? When you click on someone's name in the Facebook group, you don't just go immediately to their main Facebook page.
You guys know that, right? You go to this page where you can then go click on view profile and then you get taken to their main public page. But what you might not know is that when you do that to yourself, to your own name, there's a little button here that says edit.
Okay. This gives you the ability to update your profile for any group you are in. See, changes you make here will affect how you appear, this is from an old group, in Posse Week, but not your main Facebook profile.
Do you know what this means? It means if you're in a local Facebook group, for example, let's say it's Vancouver, my home, and you're in a business group for Vancouver, you're in a Facebook group for Vancouver business owners, and you're also in Vancouver. You could update your profile to say, I'm a copywriter or a blank serving blank, blank businesses in Vancouver.
You could update your bio. You can update your cover photo. You can completely personalize what people see.
So without having to like jump in and say like DM me to learn more about what I do or whatever, if you're just showing up in these groups and you're optimizing your profile, you're creating like a little business card. And in your bio, you can say everything you want to say from day one. How can they contact you to learn more?
Is this cool, you guys? It's the smallest little thing that can make a huge impact in the way. that you network in Facebook groups.
Okay. Then of course, the other place that you can look for optimized or do optimized outreach is job boards. This is where businesses post jobs specifically for freelance help where there is absolutely like no middleman.
Okay. Now there is a lot of different Facebook groups out there. There's the pro blogger job board.
The WeWorkRemotely job board. There's LinkedIn job boards. We have a job board at the Copy Posse that's exclusive for my Spark members.
And I will talk about how you can access that tomorrow. But there are so many job boards out there where you can show up in front of people who you know have already raised their hand and said, I'm looking for what you do. That's optimized outreach.
And you see this all the time with my members, like Lucy, who found a client on the job board that covered her entire investment in my Spark membership. Or Connie, who said the job board is where I gained 90 % of my clients. Or Linnea, who landed a full -time retainer job from the job board.
And I will talk more about the job board tomorrow and show you some really exciting changes that we're making with it. So for all of my Sparkies on here, It's a little bit of an exciting update for you too.
So some tips for applying, okay? I kind of already mentioned this on the Upwork thing. Follow directions closely.
A lot of these companies, when they're posting jobs, will literally sneak in like little secret codes somewhere in the job description. And basically, they're looking to see who's reading and who's paying attention. This alone will get you ahead of 90 % of applicants.
So anytime I post on Upwork or now I hire from the posse, but anytime I post on Upwork, I would say like somewhere hidden in the job description, I would say, use this secret code like somewhere in your application. And then I would just filter out. I'd like command F and if that person didn't include it, I'm like, they weren't paying attention, right?
So a lot of companies do this. The next thing, research. Before applying just a little bit, right?
Like you don't have to spend hours on this, you guys, but 20 applications where you've actually done the time to taking the time to understand the business will go so much further than like a hundred trigger applications where you're just like, apply, apply, apply, apply. If it's a business that you're really excited by, get on their, get on their email list, follow their social media, right?
Look through what they're currently working on. If you're able to mention specific details in your application, it really shows that you care and that you're paying attention.
Personalize your applications. So again, I'm not saying that you need to write a custom cover letter or a custom job application for every single one, but don't just copy and paste every single time, right? Add a little bit of really relevant information and include a little bit about who you are.
Because I want to know the human behind the application more. than anyone else. Like I said on day one, I would way rather hire someone who has a shared, you know, set of values, interests, hobbies, a cultural fit, the personality that I want to hire versus someone who just has the skills.
And last but not least, don't disqualify yourself, okay? Apply even if you don't feel confident. Like truly, what is the worst that can happen?
The number of times I've heard people say or ask me, Alex, this job said this, should I still apply? I'm like, why the heck not?
Like you wasted time asking me that question when you could have just applied. Like what's the worst that could happen, right? And again, I quoted Missy on day one, I think it was.
But here is just a little story about Missy. So she's the one who said, let them tell you no. Don't be the one who tells yourself no.
This advice came after she applied for a position at a company that she literally said, oh my God, it said in the job description that I needed three to five years of experience. And she's like, I just applied anyway. So it said, I have a interview tomorrow with the head copywriter at blank for a full -time position.
After I followed up, he told me they had an open position and that if I'm interested, his head copywriter would talk to me about it. So we're having a chat tomorrow. I'm happy and excited and I want to thank you for supporting me.
And then she said he saw my portfolio and liked it. Alex, how are you? Guess who landed a new client today?
I wanted to let you know. Thank you for everything. And then she messaged me sometime later and said, I'm coming to you first with a juicy scoop.
Guess who just joined the 10K a month club? And it all started because she didn't say no to herself and she applied for every freaking job under the sun, even if right there in black and white, she was technically unqualified. It's similar to when job descriptions say you need to have performance metrics to prove that you do this.
These are things that companies put into place to filter out people who are entirely unqualified. Because as I mentioned before, a lot of times when you're a freelancer, you don't require any sort of formal education.
So you can't just say like, oh yeah, you need to have a business degree or you need to have a writing degree. Like that doesn't exist in our world of freelancing. And so they have to put other qualifications in place.
With that being said, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't break their own rules if the right person applied. Like, let's all like stop being such rule followers, right? Like the worst that could happen is they say you're unqualified for this role and you go, okay, it was worth a try, right?
And then you like practice and you got your name out there. The best that could happen is they go, dang, I know we said three years of experience or I know we said performance metrics, but I really like this person and I like their style and I like their personality and I like their portfolio. Let's give them an interview anyway and see, okay?
And then last thing is, does your application or outreach pass the face -to -face test? My good friend, Anik Singhal, posted this on his Facebook and I just had to screenshot it because I see this all the time too. He says, okay, I can't take it anymore.
Copywriters, word of advice. When you apply for jobs or work, don't be over creative and apply copywriting ideology to your application.
Ironically. Don't write swanky subject lines for the email that you are using to introduce yourself. Don't use obnoxious analogies.
Stop trying to tell me what my problems are and that you relate to them. It is so transparent and weird. It's strange and it comes off unprofessional.
I get where the thought comes from to do these creative applications, but it makes you look silly, so stop it. Apply for the job like a normal human. being.
And here's what I mean by that, right? Like I'll sometimes get a cold email that something like the subject line is like Frankenstein, something, something, whatever. And I'm like, what the heck?
And then it's like, this person's trying to like weave a story about Frankenstein. And I'm like, what? Whereas if the person was just like, hey, Alex, been following your work for a long time.
I'm honestly a big fan. Like, I am wondering if you're interested in this. I put together this.
I saw you have an open application, whatever, right? Like, it's like a little bit refreshing just to get an email from a human. And so, you know, when I say, you guys, this is so painfully simple, but the number of people who do this wrong, it like, it really can be easy.
And so my face -to -face test is, would you say this to someone if you met them in real life? You wouldn't walk up to me at an event and be like, Hey, does Frankenstein, whatever, right?
I don't know where that example came from. But you would be like, hey, I'm Alex. Like, or hey, I'm so -and -so.
And it would start a normal human conversation, okay? So now let's move on to strategy number two. And this is strategic conversations.
This is all about planting seeds and pulling people into your world. So I want you to think about optimized outreach as going to the place. where interest already exists, right?
So that's one strategy. You're like, okay, I'm going to throw my hat in the ring because at least all these people told me that they're hiring and that they're interested in what I offer. But simultaneously, strategic conversations is about planting seeds with people who are already in your circle or network so that when they do need someone like you, you are the first person they think of, okay?
This isn't about cold pitching your friends or pitching your friends your services. This is about planting seeds, okay? So one strategy is about reaching out.
The other strategy is about pulling in. And this is that inside out method of, okay, I'm going to go here. You know, that's my hunt method.
I'm going to find the jobs. But then over here, I'm going to start gathering.
I'm going to build my network over here. Okay, is that making sense? So in order for someone to hire you, they have to know, like, and trust you first, period.
They won't hire you unless they trust you. They won't trust you unless they like you. And they won't like you unless they know you.
So it always starts with just getting people to know your name. That's it. Getting people to know your name.
So your job every single day is not selling. It's not pitching. It's about letting one more person, one more person know about you and what you do, regardless of whether they hire you.
Who cares, right? So if your name can show up in important places or in someone's comment section, or on someone's LinkedIn, or in a DM, or even like a reaction to an Instagram story, guess what?
They just saw your name. And you're planting a little seed of recognition. Okay, is this landing?
So like I said, your goal every day is not to find a client, it's to tell one more person about what you do. And if you approach every single day, not as how can I get more clients, But how can I create more conversations and create more connections?
This will change everything about how you feel about building your business. Now, I want to give you another mindset shift that will make you think totally different about client acquisition, okay? Not everyone is a potential client.
And this holds so many people back. Why would I message? That friend from high school, they're not going to hire me.
They work for the government, right? But guess what? Everyone knows a potential client, which means everyone is a potential referrer.
Like what if that friend who works for the government, one of my best friends works for the government, and that's who I think of when I think of this. Guess what? She knows a ton of different business owners.
She's got friends in tons of different places who run businesses. And if she knows what I do, and then she sees one of them say, oh, I really need help for my marketing strategy or my copy. She goes, I know someone.
I actually know someone, right? So if you think of every single person in your world as a potential referrer and not as a potential client, the pressure just completely evaporates. You stop selling yourself and you start connecting.
And connecting is what actually works because you're planting those seeds. You're creating recognition. You're expanding your network from the inside out.
Okay, I love these shares by some of our Sparkies. Alex said, I recently landed an amazing copy project through a referral. And if that's not amazing, guess what?
She's been a walking green flag from the beginning. A pleasant change for me after I attracted so many red flag clients. She's cooperative.
She never questioned my pricing and she's my ideal client. And Janet shared, I wanted to share last week that I scored my first writing gig from a referral after I shared with the person my latest trajectory, which was writing for businesses and professional development. Not only was I hired to co -write a speech for a high school valedictorian, his sister reached out to me today so that I can help prepare for her speech on Thursday.
That's two gigs from the same referral from a friend. I'm ecstatic. And that's how easy it can be.
But you got to tell people. You got to tell people what you do. You got to stop hiding, right?
So . And before you tell me that your network is too small and you don't have the right people and you're just getting started, I'm going to actually show you how to naturally and consistently expand your network starting today, okay? Because your network isn't just one big blob of people, blob.
It's actually four layers deep, okay? First layer, you have your advocates. These are people who already know, like, and trust you.
You have your acquaintances. These are people who are aware of you, but they don't really like know you well yet, right? Then you have connections.
These are people that you're loosely connected to. but trust is not yet present. And then you have what I call future connections.
They have no freaking idea who you are, but they're a future connection because they will know who you are if you catch my drift, okay? So those are the four levels. We're gonna go into them one by one now just to really make sure you understand these four levels, okay?
Advocates, people who already know, like, and trust you. Family, close friends, former colleagues, current and past clients. Your goal.
is to turn advocates into referrers, okay? Your action step here, and don't worry, I'm going to give you very clear action steps for the day, but your action is to remind. It's simply to remind them what you do.
Because here's the thing that's so great about advocates. Nothing feels better. to your friends, family, close friends, former colleagues, people who just know you, like you, trust you, nothing feels better for them than to refer you.
But in order to refer you, they need to know what you do. And then they need, you need to make it easy for them to actually refer you. And people have short, you know, memory spans.
You might have told a friend a year ago what you're doing, but like how, how much harm would it be to send a quick message reminding them? I'll show you how to do that in a sec. Your second circle, your acquaintances, right?
So these are people who are aware of you, but they don't know you well. So family or sorry, friendly contacts, maybe online friends, people you've met once, but you're like, I wouldn't say they like really know me, like me, trust me yet, right? Your goal is to turn acquaintances into advocates.
So see how we're like pulling people into your circle, like your web. You're like, come my pretties. Very like October themed.
Turn your acquaintances into advocates. So your job here is to inform them. Simply tell them what you do and the problem you solve.
And I'm going to show you how to do that. The next circle, these are connections. And I call these connections because like maybe you are connected on LinkedIn.
Maybe you follow them on. you know, social media, but you're like, that's it. Like, I don't even know if they would like really know who I am, but we are technically connected.
So these are people that you meet in like online communities like this, maybe people who are posting jobs, LinkedIn connections. Your goal is to turn connections into acquaintances. You see where we're going with this, right?
We're bringing people in. The action here is to just reconnect. Like remind them, hey, hi, remember me?
I'm here. That's it. You're going to comment on their content, shoot them a DM.
You're not selling anything. You're not selling anything. You are simply finding common ground and connecting.
And I'm going to show you how to do that. And then you have your future connections. So these are people who have no freaking idea who the hell you are, which might be.
where most of your contacts fall right now. And that's okay, right? These are people who don't know you yet, dream clients, businesses in your niche, fellow freelancers, local businesses.
Your goal is to turn future connections into connections. And your action step is to make contact. Follow them, send a connection request, comment on their stuff.
You're just trying to make contact, okay? So where would you say your network falls right now? Like if you think about who you have in your network, Would you say most people fall in a one, two, three, four?
Drop it in the chat. And it's totally normal if most of them are more on the outer edge of that. But I think you'd be surprised how many advocates and acquaintances that you maybe haven't even thought of bringing into your strategy because you're like, I know them.
They know me, right? So let me open the chat here and see. Three mostly, one, two, and three.
Okay, great. Awesome. Advocates and acquaintances, amazing.
Okay, so here's the beautiful thing about this, you guys. These layers are not static. Here's what I want you to remember.
The closer the circle, the higher the trust, the faster the result. Most people do this ass backwards. They are sending cold outreach.
To this like void of people out here in the future connections world. They start there. And they're chasing after people who do not trust them, who do not know them, who do not like them.
And you're wondering why you don't hear back, right?
Instead of putting a little bit of love into the people who are in your inner circles. And I'm not saying sell them. And we're going to talk about what to do now.
We are going to pull people in while starting from the inside out with our warmest relationships first. And that is the inside out method, right? Both optimized outreach and strategic convos, they work together.
It's not one or the other. You're going to where jobs exist and you're working on building your network. And the more consistent you are with both of these strategies, the more these results compound.
And this is completely introvert friendly, by the way. I'm not talking about going and posting on social media every single freaking day. Isn't that amazing?
I'm not saying go send a million cold outreach emails. This is about being intentional with your energy because you never know who is watching. A connection that you made six months ago might end up hiring today.
And I said this, I think, Winnie, to you in the Facebook group where I said, yeah, you're planting seeds, girl. You're planting seeds. .
Can you guys drop that for me in the chat? Because I need you all to let this sink in, okay? The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.
But if you don't plant seeds, you ain't ever going to eat that fruit. Okay, this is like science over here. So what's really important to remember is that communities like this are a major amplifier of this strategy because you're no longer just doing it alone.
You're actually doing this alongside other people. And that's how referrals can happen at like lightning speed. Right.
I think of like Anne -Marie, who's like this community has been so freaking valuable. She's the one story I was telling you guys about the other day who she started writing in like science and tech and then lately has switched her niche into hospitality. Or Erica, who said the constant support and confidence that I got from Sparkies or in this case, client weekers, those of you who are in this room can really help when you're feeling discouraged about doing any sort of outreach.
OK. Or Jane, who said when you have a group cheering you on every single step of the way. Or Alicia, who said being part of a community who actually understands what I'm going through.
And Lilith, who you are actually going to meet on Friday when she says having a community that you can tap into. Being a part of a community like Client Week just absolutely amplifies the success that you get with these strategies. Because I know, you guys, that it can feel uncomfortable to put yourself out there.
But what if, I'm going to quote my friend Susie Moore here, what if it could be easy? Let it be easy. Let this be a fun part of your business process because it is a business process.
It's not a personal rejection. It is not something you're failing at. It is not something that you're doing wrong.
It is just a natural part of building your business. And as you'll hear from our spotlighters on Friday's call, this is a process that you have to keep. doing as you grow your business.
So don't let it stop you now before you've even gotten started. Okay. Let's talk about your day two action steps.
Okay. Before I give you the action steps, I'm just going to call it out. I mentioned this resistance is going to come up.
Okay. You're going to want to get off this call and you're going to want to be like, okay. I'll do it.
But you know what? I'm just going to go for a walk and oh, look at that. I had a phone call come in and oh, look at that.
I forgot I have to go to this meeting. Like you are going to come up with a million reasons why now is not the time to take action, right? You'll think, oh, you know what?
My bio just wasn't right. I'm going to go back and workshop day one. Nope.
You're going to think, oh, what if people think I'm weird? Or what if like I should just wait until I have more experience? Like I'm just going to like watch and see.
Nope. I want you to hear me when I say this that This is what has kept you stuck so far.
It's not your skills. It's not your experience. It's not the perfect portfolio.
It's not any of the things that you've been saying, right? It's that voice in your head that's been saying to you, you just need to do something else or now is not the right time or whatever it is, okay? I mentioned this before.
There are people out there with less experience than you already making bank. So it's about time that you did. right?
A few seconds of courage is all it takes. So it all starts with building your day one outreach hit list. And we're going to make this really like easy to start.
Okay. Every day you are going, and like, this is for the rest of client week, but we're going to do a day by day. You're going to make a list of 14 people.
Now, you could do it this way, or if you feel like you have more advocates than future connections, you can absolutely change up these numbers. What matters is that you have a total of 14. Okay, so here I had five future connections, four connections, three acquaintances, and two advocates.
If you're feeling spicy, you want to up it and do more than 14, hell yeah, do that, okay? So you're going to identify two advocates. These are people who know, like, and trust you.
And your only job, my friends, is to remind them of what you do. Here's a template that you could use.
Feel free to screenshot this. Hey, name, hope you're doing well. It's been a while.
Just wanted to reach out and let you know that I've been building my blank business and it's going well. I'm currently looking for type of client. If you hear of anyone who needs help with whatever it is you do, customize that, please, for the love of God, do not send square bracketed text in your message.
I'd love if you kept me in mind. Thanks. Does that feel salesy?
Does that feel cringy? No. And anyone receiving this, they're going to be like, hey, it's so good to hear from you.
Yes, absolutely. I'll keep you in mind. Right?
That's the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is they go, oh my gosh, crazy. I was just having a conversation with someone the other day.
Thank you for reminding me of this. Okay? This is easy.
We can do this. Right, guys? Comment in the chat if you're like, yes, I can do this.
You're going to send this to two people. Two. That's it.
Two. Okay. Step two, you're going to identify three acquaintances and inform them about what you do.
Okay. Super simple. Hey, name.
Again, feel free to screenshot this. You crossed my mind since we remind them of how you met. Maybe it was in person.
Maybe it was at a conference. Maybe it was on an online session of some sort. Right.
And I wanted to reach out. I've recently started slash transitioned into working as a blank and I'm helping type of business with what you do. It's something I'm really excited about.
I know you're connected to a lot of people in blank. So if you ever come across someone who could use help in that area, I'd appreciate the intro. If there's anything I can do to support you, let me know.
You guys, this is chill. Okay. Three acquaintances.
That's it. That's it. Step number three, identify four connections.
So these are people that you already have some sort of like online connection with. Maybe you're following each other or you're connected on LinkedIn, right? Don't worry about, but they're not my dream client yet.
Like, don't even think about that, right? Just reconnect. Hey, Jessica, I see you live in NorCal.
So find common ground. So do I. I grew up here and love making connections with people in the marketing industry who are local.
Nice to meet you. It's one example. Or, hey, so -and -so.
I see you have a doodle. I love doodles, whatever, right? Like find common ground.
That's it. That's all you're doing. Notice, no sale.
There's no sale here. You're just connecting and reminding them because they might go, oh, that's so nice. It's nice to meet you too.
And then they might go to your profile and then go, oh, that's cool. This person's a SEO copywriter or this person is a marketing strategist or this person does XYZ. That's interesting.
I'm going to log that in my, you know. Head for the future. And step number four, identify five future connections and make contact.
Okay? These are people who don't know you yet. And all you're going to do is go follow them, send a connection request, subscribe to their email list, comment on their content, like one thoughtful comment, right?
Don't immediately follow it up with, hey, do you want to hire me? Your goal here is just to warm up. the relationship.
Your goal is to turn this future connection into a connection. Okay. So you are going to plant 14 seeds today.
For those of you who didn't upgrade to the all access pass, here is a tracker in your workbook and you can just fill it in. Okay. You're going to send, you're going to list the name on the left.
You're going to say what circle they're in. So whether they're a future contact, future connection, friend, you know, you know where I'm going with this.
One, two, three, four. Then you're going to say the action step, the date, and then any notes that you want to share. Okay.
Remember the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. Now, if you are an all access pass holder, you can do this inside the Ava assistant that we created. for you all you got to do is add a contact we're just asking for name and their company this is all totally private and confidential and then the channel that you plan to connect with them on and then you can say uh you can change their the field to contacted once you've reached out to every single one of them okay and then really simply uh oh and i forgot to mention in ava for those of you who are all access pass holders We have loaded up all of our templates and not just the ones I shared today, but so many more into Ava and Ava will help you craft as a first draft your outreach messages.
So you can actually store them and draft them here and then reuse them for future days in client week. And this is just a really cool perk of upgrading to the all access pass. Then your only job.
After that is to post a screenshot of or a photo of your action tracker inside the day two action thread. Now, of course, feel free to like, you know, on your iPhone where you can like do a marker, like cross out personal information. Like I don't want to see their names, but really just to prove that you had mapped this out and that you contacted all 14.
We are going to post something in the Facebook group today called the bite board. Okay. We love to celebrate every single bite that we get here.
So you will see this posted later today. And the goal here is just to come celebrate the moment anyone responds positively to your message. This doesn't mean that they were like, you're hired, right?
Even just like a, so good to hear from you. Tell me more, anything, any little bite. is a positive reinforcement that what you're doing is working.
And we love to celebrate around here. So when you do get one and you will get one, if you stay committed to this process this week, run to the bite board, post about it, tell us how they reached out, what they said, because when someone else sees your post, they're going to get inspired. And that might just be the one thing that they need to keep pushing forward all of those feelings that come up when we start actually putting ourselves out there.
Okay. And then I'm going to see you right back here. for day three, tomorrow, where I am walking you through the three systems that you need to have set up in your business to take you from bite to booked.
Because getting bites is one thing, right? Getting bites is one thing. But then what do you do once you get that bite?
Like, how do I take a client from interested to then actually working with them? So I'm going to walk you through those systems now, okay? And now I'm going to stop sharing my screen.
Hi, guys. Good to see you.
And let's dive into some questions.
So I want to remind everyone that the goal here is 14 seeds planted today, okay? Don't get caught up on the numbers. And I want to be clear, future connections is an infinite number, you guys.
Right? Like who doesn't know you in the world? Like probably like mostly everyone, right?
So the goal isn't like, oh my God, you know, I don't have, I don't have an, like, I mean, and here's the thing. I'm going to push back on anyone who says you don't have two advocates in your life or you don't have three acquaintances or you don't have four people that you're connected to on social media. I'm going to call bullshit on that one.
Because the goal here, and I need to restate this, you're not sending these messages to people who you think will hire you. Let me say that again. You are not sending these messages to people who you think will hire you.
If you're going in with that expectation, you are doing it ass backwards. Remember what I said. Not everyone is a potential client, but everyone is a potential referrer.
So just because you might not know business owners personally who you would call advocates, you have two people in your life who know business owners or who know a potential client. A hundred percent. And you don't even have to know that.
The goal is just to make the connection and to remind them, hey, if you ever meet anyone or know anybody who could use this, send them my way. So I'm going to call like a big fat BS to anybody who says you don't have those people. Because even after being in this week, in this client week, for a day, you have more people than that, right?
So this is the resistance coming. Like you're going to get fixated on a number that doesn't even matter, okay? Your goal is to tell people what you do, regardless of whether or not they have a business.
It doesn't matter, okay? It does not matter.
Aisha, I don't have acquaintances or connections. Bullshit. That's bullshit, Aisha.
Of course you do. Like, of course you do. Friends from school, your parents' friends, people that you are connected with on social media, you mean to tell me you don't have a single acquaintance or connection?
Remember, we are getting in our own way when we think that those people have to be people who will hire us. Absolutely not. The goal is, and if, and if, and I'm being frank here, like if you really are like, I absolutely have no acquaintances, no advocates and no connections, meaning there are zero people that you are connected to on social media and you have zero friends or family members or anybody that can, that you can reach out to, then you have 14 future connections who don't yet know you.
Everybody does. And I know I'm being like really direct, but you guys came here to get your asses kicked into gear. And I'm going to do that.
I'm going to be like your loving bestie who is like, yep, girl, I see you over there. I know it's scary. I know it feels awkward.
I know there's resistance coming up, but you joined client week to get into motion and to move that, remove that friction. Okay. And look at, you're doing it alongside like all these amazing people, all these amazing people.
So I want everyone right now to drop some love into the chat for everybody else who's feeling major resistance. What do you want to say to them? What do you want to say to them?
Okay. Beth, I've been connecting with other copywriters on LinkedIn, not potential leads slash connections, but I'm struggling with my main audience. How do I get clear on my audience?
Honestly, Beth, I would say don't worry about it just yet. Like your audience, like eventually is people who have businesses, right? And it's great that you're connecting with other copywriters.
My advice would be go send connection requests to people who aren't. Like maybe there's other people who aren't necessarily copywriters, but people who are like different types of service providers, like web designers or brand strategists or marketing directors or people who offer complimentary services. Because if they're working with clients and then you connect with them and then their client says, oh my gosh, I've been looking for a copywriter.
They're like, oh, I actually, I know someone. I met a girl on LinkedIn, right? So remember your job here is to connect and find common ground.
So if you don't have many leads or connections on say LinkedIn. Go find some and find common ground. Look at people in your area.
Look at people who do similar work to you or who do related complementary work. Remember, the point is just to find common ground. Like anything.
Like, hey, I see you're a freelancer too. Cool. How long have you been doing this for?
Right? Or, hey, I see that you're in Boston. I don't know where you live, Beth, but you get where I'm going with this, right?
Once you find common ground and you just talk to someone like a real human, you're so much more likely to go, oh, cool. Like that's great.
Tell me what you do, right? Abel, where is the line though about applying for things you're not qualified for? How do you know when it's too far?
There's no line.
Abel, there's no line. The line is a mental construct that you're making in your head. Like the worst thing that could happen is they just don't get back to you.
Okay. Right? There's no line.
There is absolutely no line. We're breaking rules here, guys. Like seriously, like we're like coloring outside the line, right?
Elaine, I'm currently editing in health and sciences, but I'm capable of working in so many organizations and businesses. With my outreach, can I be more general even though my website is specific to this niche?
Elaine, I will tell you the more specific you are, the more memorable you are. So I would still be specific, but maybe you can tailor your outreach dependent on who you're reaching out to.
And find something that kind of lands and feels specific enough where you're not just saying like, I can help, right? But if you're saying like, I specialize in, it doesn't mean you can't do all these other things. And that's, I think, a big mistake that a lot of freelancers make is just because we can do everything doesn't mean that we should like.
either one water down what we do and just kind of try to lump it all together in one generic blob. But it also doesn't mean we need to list out every single thing that we do. Because find the way to describe what you do in the way that seems the most relatable.
And then once you start the conversation and there's like trust there, then you can say, oh yeah, and by the way, I do all these other things. And so we don't want to like lead with too much because it kind of makes people go, wait, what? How does this person do 18 things?
But you don't want to be too generic because people aren't going to really understand what it is that you do. So I hope that helped.
When I post in the group and get some clients on a call, should I ask them what problem they're facing? Totally. If you're able to get someone on a call, the first thing you should ask them is, so tell me, what is it that's going on in your business where you think you could use some help?
Like, here's a little secret, and we'll talk more about this. So tomorrow is discovery calls are way less about you and like way less about what you say and way more about just creating space for them to talk. Because if you do this correctly, you don't even have to sell yourself.
You're literally hearing them tell you what they need. And then you're like, great, I can do that. So we'll talk about that tomorrow.
Alexa, I have two contacts in a business I want to work with. One is my direct advocate and the other is the big boss. Who should I prioritize?
Alexa, I would always prioritize the advocate first. This is like an interesting situation where you kind of have like two contacts in one business. I would start with the advocate first because that person will advocate for you.
You know, like you might connect to the big boss and if that's just kind of like a loose connection, they might be like, I don't know. But if you go to your friend first and then maybe, you know, you can decide if you want to contact the boss later, but that person is going to advocate for you, which is the power of our advocates, right?
And again, these aren't necessarily people who even work in companies. Like I want to reiterate that, you guys, that the goal of this exercise is not, because of course we immediately, our brain immediately goes to the people who we think are going to hire us. right?
But like, what if one of your advocates that you reach out to, you're like, I don't even like, you know, I don't even think they know any business owners because they are a nail technician. I don't know. I'm just making this up, right?
Color outside the lines because this is what holds people back and keeps people stuck is we make assumptions about who's worth reaching out to.
is to just let one more person a day see your name connect with you. Don't even think about the likelihood of that turning into anything. Because I personally think when we approach every single conversation with the , I'm going to say that again, when we approach every conversation with the expectation of compensation, it changes the whole vibe.
And I'm not saying that you don't eventually do that. But I want you to kind of just get in the habit of getting comfortable talking about what you do, regardless of whether or not it's going to lead to a direct client. Because I will say it again, the day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.
You are expanding your network organically and slowly, but then coupling that with optimized outreach and applying for jobs where interest already exists on the other platforms that I talked about. Okay. Question is step four.
Identify future connections, niche oriented. Great question. No.
Honestly, unless you already are a seasoned freelancer who has been able to specialize in the niche that you want to work in, which means that you have said no to clients who don't fall in that niche. I would say don't let that hold you back from doing outreach. Another huge mistake that freelancers make is they think, well, that's not worth my time because that person isn't in my niche.
And I've seen freelancers literally shoot themselves in the foot a million times over because they're just like sitting around waiting for this like perfect niche person to show up. I said this on day one, creating connections in any niche. will get you faster to working with your dream niche clients than trying to wait around for that one perfect connection.
So I would say absolutely not. It's not niche specific. Okay, you guys, we're going to wrap up day two.
I know that you're all like, okay, this feels nice, but can I get a commitment right now in the chat that we are going to plant 14 seeds today? Say, yes, I'm going for it. I'm doing it.
14 seeds. Remember, so many of these seeds, you guys, is literally reconnecting with people who already love you. And that's the easiest thing to do in the world, right?
Again, we think we're being annoying. No. If anyone literally gets a negative response from this, I would be below, like, blow my socks off, shocked.
Because nothing feels better than when you connect with an old friend. And I bet many of you will be pleasantly surprised. And I bet for those of you who plant these 14 seeds today, we will have some bites on the bite board.
Okay? So that is it, everybody. Thanks so much for joining for day two.
Ask your questions in the Facebook group. If you feel any resistance, we are here for you. Those of you who upgraded to the all act.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The session opens as a community call, not a lecture: twenty minutes of chat games, member shout-outs and prize draws before a single slide about outreach appears. That warm-up is the thesis in miniature. The reason strangers ignore your messages is a trust problem, and the fix is to build trust in rooms where it already exists.
Named ideas worth stealing.
1:04:29model
The 4 Client Circles
- Advocates: already know, like and trust you (family, close friends, former colleagues, past clients). Goal: turn into referrers. Action: REMIND them what you do.
- Acquaintances: aware of you but do not know you well (friendly contacts, online friends, met once). Goal: turn into advocates. Action: INFORM them what you do and the problem you solve.
- Connections: loosely linked, no trust yet (LinkedIn connections, online community members). Goal: turn into acquaintances. Action: RECONNECT by finding common ground.
- Future connections: no idea who you are (dream clients, businesses in your niche, local businesses). Goal: turn into connections. Action: MAKE CONTACT by following, connecting, commenting.
A trust-ranked map of a personal network where each ring has exactly one job: pull the person one ring closer. The closer the circle, the higher the trust and the faster the result.
Steal forany service business or launch that depends on referrals; also a clean segmentation for a personal CRM
1:14:00list
The 14-seed daily hit list
- Step 1: identify 2 advocates and remind them what you do, asking them to keep you in mind.
- Step 2: identify 3 acquaintances and inform them what you now do and who you help.
- Step 3: identify 4 connections and reconnect over common ground, no sale.
- Step 4: identify 5 future connections and make contact: follow, connect, subscribe, one thoughtful comment.
A fixed daily quota across the four circles, logged in a tracker with name, circle, action, date and notes. The split can shift but the total stays at 14.
Steal fora daily networking routine for any solo operator, or the onboarding assignment inside a cohort program
43:40list
Optimized outreach channels
- Upwork: the largest freelancer marketplace; every poster is hiring, good for early reviews and being found.
- Facebook groups: niche groups for adjacent professionals who hire your skill, plus local business groups; customize your per-group profile.
- Job boards: ProBlogger, WeWorkRemotely, LinkedIn jobs and private community boards where businesses post freelance roles with no middleman.
Go where hiring interest already exists instead of assuming it. Targeted, not random: the flyer inside the pet store.
Steal fordeciding where a new freelancer spends their first 20 minutes a day
24:06list
Five biggest outreach mistakes
- Insulting the prospect ('your website sucks') to agitate pain.
- Templated or obviously AI-written messages, including unedited square brackets, em dashes and 'hey, quick one'.
- Making it all about you and your journey before any rapport exists.
- Too much too soon: asking for a call in the first message, like proposing on a first date.
- Overselling: a message that reads as a sales pitch from the first line.
The patterns that get a cold message deleted, compiled by someone who receives hundreds a week.
Steal fora pre-send checklist for any outbound message or application
51:54list
Tips for applying
- Follow directions closely and look for the hidden secret code.
- Research before applying: 20 informed applications beat 100 blasts.
- Personalize, and include a little of who you are as a human.
- Do not disqualify yourself: let them tell you no.
- Bonus: does it pass the face-to-face test?
How to stand out in a stack of applications without spending hours on each one.
Steal forany job or gig application, and hiring filters when you are the one posting
1:00:15concept
Know, like, trust ladder
Nobody hires you unless they trust you, nobody trusts you unless they like you, and nobody likes you unless they know you. So the only daily task is getting one more person to know your name.
Steal forreframing any top-of-funnel activity as name recognition rather than selling
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
1:21:46product
“See you right back here for day three, tomorrow, where I am walking you through the three systems that you need to have set up in your business to take you from bite to booked.”
Soft pitches run throughout: the all-access pass for replays and the Ava assistant, the Spark membership scholarship and job board, and prizes for posting homework. The hard close is just the next free session. The description link sells the free Client Week ticket with a doors-close deadline.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
AFFILIATECommission earned if you click.
Visual structure at a glance.
