Niall Doherty's Blog, page 189
May 14, 2019
Survey Junkie Review
Earnings Per Hour 1
$2.50
Payment Options
PayPal, gift cards (US only), bank transfer (US only)
Minimum Payout 5
$1.50 per new account.
Overall Rating4/5 6
Join Survey Junkie For Free
See all our top-rated survey sites »
What is Survey Junkie?
Survey Junkie is a popular and top-rated website / app which pays you for answering simple surveys.
We’ve spent 20+ hours using and researching the site ourselves. This Survey Junkie review will help you decide if it’s a good way for you to make money online.
Table Of ContentsWhat is Survey Junkie?Is Survey Junkie legit?How much does Survey Junkie pay?How does Survey Junkie pay?Survey Junkie rewardsSurvey Junkie sign upSurvey Junkie login
Survey Junkie access deniedSurvey Junkie hacksIs Survey Junkie safe?Survey Junkie affiliate programIs Survey Junkie worth it?Top Rated Survey SitesHave you tried Survey Junkie?
This review is a joint effort between Niall Doherty (founder of eBiz Facts) and a hired freelancer named Hannah based in the USA.
Our process:
We hired Hannah to sign up to Survey Junkie and spend 10 hours filling out surveys on there.Hannah documented her work and tracked her progress.We searched online for additional information about Survey Junkie and carefully noted our findings.We wrote a first draft of this review.We sent the draft to our Freedom Business Builder community and the folks at Survey Junkie and asked for feedback.We made our final edits and published the review.Note: We may earn a commission if you decide to join Survey Junkie via a referral link in this review. Read our full disclosure here.
Is Survey Junkie legit?
Two of the most popular things people search for in relation to Survey Junkie:
Is survey junkie legit?survey junkie scamYou might be wondering yourself if Survey Junkie is a legitimate way of making money online.
We’ll tell it to you straight: Survey Junkie is legit, but you’re not going to earn a lot of money on there. Or on any other survey site, for that matter.
Survey Junkie are upfront about this themselves, stating in their help section:
You will NOT get rich by taking surveys. The rewards for each survey will vary but with commitment and regular participation, you’ll have the opportunity to earn extra cash each month.
Survey Junkie is also accredited by the Better Business Bureau, which has awarded the company a B rating, and notes that 300+ customers have given the company an average review of 4.5 stars.
Furthermore, we spent more than 10 hours completing surveys on Survey Junkie ourselves and were able to cash out easily.
Why then do so many people question if Survey Junkie is legit?Most likely, it’s because there are many misleading Survey Junkie reviews online.
Many of those reviews are written to generate affiliate commissions, and so tend to make exaggerated claims about how much money you can earn on Survey Junkie, in the hopes that you’ll get excited, click an affiliate link and sign up.
For example, we’ve read reviews claiming that you can earn $100/day on Survey Junkie, or even $15 in only 20 minutes. Based on our experience and research, earning such amounts is extremely rare if not outright impossible.
In summary: Survey Junkie is legit, but most Survey Junkie reviews are not.
Join Survey Junkie For Free
How much does Survey Junkie pay?
Your earning potential on any survey site comes down to two primary factors:
How much you can earn per hour, on average.How many surveys are available for you to answer each day.If you can earn a high amount per hour and there are endless surveys available, you can earn a lot of money.
On Survey Junkie, those two factors can vary greatly depending on demographics.
For example, our researcher Hannah is 19 years old, has not completed university, and lives in Florida. After spending 10 hours answering surveys on Survey Junkie, she earned a total of $15, or $1.50 per hour.
Other (believable) reports we’ve found online note earnings of $3 per hour, and more is likely possible if you fall into a “richer” demographic.
Given all that, here’s our best estimate for how much you can earn on Survey Junkie:
Earnings Per Hour 7
$2.50
Which is about average for survey sites. (See which survey site is best here.)
Where Survey Junkie really excels however, is in the number of surveys available each day…
Survey Quantity 8
good
Although your earnings per hour are likely to decrease as you spend more time on the site, it’s still possible to spend several hours per day on there answering paid surveys.
We even found a report of someone spending 4 hours per day on Survey Junkie for an entire month and earning $248 total, which works out to about $2 per hour.
Of course, there are many ways to earn more money per hour working online, but the reason many people like using Survey Junkie for this purpose seems to be because answering surveys is easy and doesn’t require your full attention.
Time and time again we’ve heard Survey Junkie fans saying things like this:
I love that I can be eating pizza while watching Netflix or listening to a podcast, and earning a few easy dollars answering surveys at the same time.
Join Survey Junkie For Free
How does Survey Junkie pay?
Payment Options
PayPal, gift cards (US only), bank transfer (US only)
Minimum Payout 10
$1.50 per new account.
This is how some folks earn BIG money with Survey Junkie.
We’ve read of people earning $10,000 or more per month as affiliates for survey sites, and Survey Junkie has one of the best affiliate programs in the business.
Essential info for Survey Junkie affiliatesSurvey Junkie only accepts traffic from the US, Canada, and Australia. Anyone who clicks on your affiliate link from another country will land on an error page.The payout is $1.50 “per conversion.” Survey Junkie counts a conversion as an email submit, single opt-in.
That second point really separates Survey Junkie from the pack.
Most affiliate programs only pay you once a sale is made, but Survey Junkie pays you just for sending them new users who sign up for a free account.
That’s not to say it’s easy to earn money as a Survey Junkie affiliate. Becoming a successful affiliate marketer usually requires quite a bit of work up front.
Learn more about affiliate marketing »
Is Survey Junkie worth it?NO if you’re looking to earn a living working online. (There are much better options for that.)YES if you’re looking for an easy way to earn extra cash while watching Netflix or listening to a podcast.
Overall Rating4/5 11
Join Survey Junkie For Free
See all our top-rated survey sites »
Survey Junkie is one of our top-rated survey sites
Best Survey Sites
Best Overall
Earnings Per Hour
Survey Quantity
Payment Options
Quick Payout
Mobile App
Outside USA
Affiliate Program
See all our top-rated survey sites »
Your Survey Junkie Review
Have you tried Survey Junkie?
Please consider leaving a review below – good or bad – doesn’t matter so long as it’s helpful to our visitors. Thanks for your support!
May 9, 2019
eBiz Weekly #19
Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archiveThis week:
Book Recommendation
Remove image backgrounds in 5 seconds
Offline Connections
Online productivity hack
Get more links to your website
Passive income for teachers
Active income for teachers
Why email is still king
How I got you to open this email
Every freelancer should do this at least once
Book Recommendation
Mindset by Carol Dweck is a modern classic, diving deep on the concept of fixed vs. growth mindset. It’s one of our reads this month in the Freedom Business Builder book club.
An excerpt:
Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. This is so important, because many, many people with the fixed mindset think that someone’s early performance tells you all you need to know about their talent and their future.
Darwin and Tolstoy, for example, were considered fairly ordinary children. But by working persistently at their craft, they produced much better and more impactful work than many people who were considered to have more talent.
Remove image backgrounds in 5 seconds
Words can’t describe how excited I am to have found remove.bg, a tool that removes the background of any image… for free… in only 5 seconds.
I’ve probably spent weeks of my life cutting people out of backgrounds the old tedious way in Photoshop.
Never again.
Offline Connections
Sometimes, the best way to find clients or customers for your online business is to connect with people offline. This guy challenged himself to walk into 500 businesses in his local area and offer his services.
The result?
$30,000 in increased sales the first month.
(Related: the same guy mailed 500 lottery tickets to his existing clients and generated a nice chunk of additional business.)
Online productivity hack
This productivity “hack” probably saves me more time than any other.
It’s a free plugin for Chrome that allows you to easily adjust the speed or skip around pretty much any video online, most of which can be watched at 1.5 or 2x speed without loss of comprehension.
Works on YouTube ads, too.
Use the keyboard shortcuts for bonus productivity ninja cool points.
Get more links to your website
You know I’m a big fan of the guys at Authority Hacker, have learned a lot from them over the years.
They’ve just released a new course called The Shotgun Skyscraper Blueprint. Only serious SEO geeks need apply.
Check the latest episode of their podcast for a solid overview of how they build links to their websites at scale.
(By the way, if you get good at building links there’s a massive opportunity to sell that as a freelance service. I’ll likely by hiring someone for that myself later in the year.)
Passive income for teachers
If you teach online but are tired of trading your time for money, check out Teachers Pay Teachers. It’s an online marketplace for original educational resources.
For example, this 47-page reading comprehension guide for kids sells for $8, has almost 2,000 ratings, and presumably many more sales.
Active income for teachers
Of course, passive income ain’t easy. (See here for the inconvenient truth.)
But while you’re building that up, you can jump on some of the many “active income” online teaching jobs available.
For example, BlingABC will pay you up to $38 for teaching English online.
Why email is still king
Here’s an interesting article from WIRED: We Launched a Paywall. It Worked! Mostly.
They don’t give exact subscription numbers, but some good takeaways in there nonetheless, including the importance of testing different offers.
Here’s the bit that really caught my attention:
So what’s the lesson here? I think it’s that people will subscribe after reading all kinds of stories if they’re done well.
They’ll particularly pay, we also learned, if you send them newsletters. The propensity to subscribe by people who enter WIRED.com on a mobile device is rather low—unless they come in via a newsletter. (To give one data point, a visitor who reaches us via search is 1/19th as likely to subscribe as one who comes in from a newsletter; a reader coming in from Facebook is 1/12th; and a reader coming in from Twitter is 1/6th.) That’s one reason why we’re launching all kinds of new newsletters, tied to specific sections of the site.
How I got you to open this email
Speaking of email marketing, here’s a handy list of 87 email subject lines you can draw inspiration from.
I used formula #3 for this email.
Since you’re reading, I guess it worked 
Offline Connections
Sometimes, the best way to find clients or customers for your online business is to connect with people offline.
A great example of this comes from Max Maher. In the video below, he details a self-assigned challenge to boost his business.
My goal was to in-person cold contact 500 businesses that could potentially refer my business to their clients. This challenge took 142 hrs over 7.5 weeks. The challenge resulted in over $30,000 in increased sales the first month.
Note that Max’s business is a moving company, which obviously can’t be considered an online business.
However, there’s no reason why the same approach wouldn’t work for someone selling an online product or service.
For example, it’s not hard to imagine many businesses in your local area needing help with:
Facebook AdsGoogle AdWordsGraphic DesignSearch Engine Optimization (SEO)Social Media Marketing (SMM)Web DevelopmentThink about the people and businesses in your local area. Might they have a need for your services?
Go connect with them and find out.
This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.May 3, 2019
eBiz Weekly #18
Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archiveThis week:
SEO Geeks Only
How Much Should You Charge?
Charge More Than You Think You Should
Hate Marketing?
Nomad Train
Premium Coffee
Robotaxis
Don’t Start A Podcast
Prepaid SIM Cards
April Finance Report
SEO Geeks Only
The guys at Authority Hacker have been releasing some great content recently, all about link building.
This in-depth article blew my mind, detailing how they built 700+ links in a year for a site they eventually sold for six figures.
Then there’s an interview with fellow Irishman Jason Malone, who builds links as a service. Super geeky stuff but highly recommended if you’re serious about SEO or building an authority site.
Also, I’ll be attending the Chiang Mai SEO Conference this November. Let me know if you plan to be there, too. Looks like there are still some tickets available.
How Much Should You Charge?
If you’re having trouble deciding on your freelance rate, IWT has three good rules of thumb:
Drop Three Zeros Method
Double your “resentment number”
Do what the next guy does
Alternatively…
Charge More Than You Think You Should
Great advice for freelancers on Reddit.
Note for service providers worrying about charging “too high” a price or considering “starting small and working up”. Remember that it’s easier to negotiate DOWN than UP. In other words charge WAY more than you think you should.
The full post is worth a read.
Hate Marketing?
This thread on Twitter gives a good perspective of marketing and how it doesn’t have to be sleazy or inauthentic.
Key point:
“To me, marketing is the practice of making it easy for the people who would benefit from knowing me, to find me.”
Nomad Train
The Trans-Siberian railway is the most epic train trip on the planet, taking you from Moscow to Mongolia (and beyond) across some spectacular landscape.
Nomad Train has a 2-week trip scheduled for this September – they do a few overnight stays at some towns/cities en route – so you can organize everything easily and get to know a bunch of other digital nomads along the way.
Use promo code EBIZFACTS at checkout for a €50 discount.
(Fun fact about Vladivostok, a city in Russia which marks the end of the Trans-Siberian railway: it’s closer to Australia than it is to Moscow. Also, here’s a 5-star read for the train.)
Premium Coffee
From Jim’s Marketing Blog:
People don’t visit coffee shops for the coffee. They already have coffee at home. They go and pay 500% more for coffee at the coffee shop, because of the experience. Understanding this principle is essential if you’re serious about growing your business. Don’t just sell the thing you do. Sell the way you do, the thing you do.
One way to show prospective clients what it’s like to work with you is via Ground Zero Case Studies.
Robotaxis
Okay, so this isn’t related to online business, but if it comes to fruition it definitely counts as passive income.
Last week Elon Musk unveiled plans for a Tesla ride-sharing app (watch the 3-minute video here). Which means you could own a Tesla and have it drive around autonomously when you’re not using it, operating as a taxi and earning you as much as $30,000 per year.
Don’t Start A Podcast
Advice from someone who has recorded 300+ episodes of a podcast that has made several top business podcast lists:
now that podcasts are all the rage — do we recommend that you start one? Not at all.
How much business has the podcast brought us? None whatsoever.
[…]
So what should you do instead? It’s way easier to be a guest on a podcast than it is to host a podcast. You can piggyback onto all of their marketing and let your brilliance shine to their audience. By guesting on a number of podcasts you can reach a much larger audience than you would by building your own podcast.
Prepaid SIM Cards
Wish I’d known about this website when I arrived in Bali last week: it’s a wiki that collects information about prepaid mobile phone plans all over the world.
Really useful if you move countries regularly and need to stay connected.
We’ve added it to our shortlist of recommended travel resources for online business builders.
April Finance Report
I’ve been tracking everything I earn and spend since January 2011 and posting monthly reports online.
…
That’ll do it for this week.
Keep working at it, and let me know if I can help with anything.
—
Niall Doherty
eBiz Facts
P.S. Hi from Ubud in Bali. If you’d like to read some of my more personal ramblings, my latest Momentos are here.
By the way...
Travel Hacker’s Toolkit
Check out the top resources I recommend for the traveling online business builder. Cheap flights, a jet lag app, free VPN software, and more.
Great Value Courses
My go-to websites when looking to learn or enhance a skill are Skillshare and Udemy. Both have thousands of courses on many different topics, rated and reviewed so you can easily tell what’s best. Udemy is pay-per-course, whereas Skillshare is a subscription model (my preference).
Start Earning Online
Check out our free crash course to help you build an online business, consists of 11 videos and accompanying articles.
Freedom Business Builder
FBB is a private community of online business builders. Our 300+ members range from people just starting their first online businesses, to experienced online entrepreneurs earning thousands of dollars each month. More info here.
Facebook and Twitter
If you enjoyed the above, come follow eBiz Facts on the socials. We share this kind of content daily on Facebook and Twitter.
May 2, 2019
Momentos
These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.
16
Been all around the world, fifty-odd countries, but there’s plenty of Ireland I’ve yet to explore. We’re up around County Galway the next few days, staying in a small town that had more heads before the spuds went bad. Yeats lived near here in a castle, and now a bunch of Brazilians call the place home.
17
Hiking in the Irish countryside, across streams, through woodlands, up and over a couple of hills that once told time. You can see as far as the Shannon from up here. Later we’ll drive to a village and sit and chat at a cafe that feels like someone’s house with a couple of auld petrol pumps out front and a young lad on a fine big horse.
18
Galway is buzzing with the sunshine today, live music up and down the main drag, heaps of people claiming spots of green along the waterfront, drinks and skits. I enjoy the walks and the talks around the place, trying not to let that run in with the homeless lad earlier take up space in my head.
19
Had been waiting several weeks for particular affiliate payments to come through. My account showed I’d been paid hundreds, but I’d yet to see a penny. Four emails unanswered. Looked like they were going to screw me, little I could do about it. But some relief in my inbox this morning.
20
There’s a part of me when I’m back in Ireland that wonders what if. What if I’d never left, eleven years ago? What if I’d returned for good, eight years ago? In a village like Kilsheelan on a day like today, walking in sunshine by a gentle river, it’s easy to imagine being happy here.
21
Been asking more people about working online. Would they be happy enough sitting in front of a computer all day? Or would they rather be out and about, having more human interaction? Responses are mixed. For some it’s a dream, for others a nightmare. No one path right for all.
22
I likes having a go at a sudoku puzzle every now and then because it reminds me to be persistent. You get stuck on one sometimes, feels like an impasse, but eventually, if you keep going, it’s like the grid yields to your will and coughs up the next number.
23
There have been three main cities in my life. Waterford, where I grew up. New Orleans, where I lived a teenage dream. And Amsterdam, which mesmerizes me for a million reasons. Back there now for a short stretch, among the bikes and the canals and the woeful customer service.
24
The fact that weed is illegal in most places is nothing short of crazy. Especially when things like alcohol, tobacco and gambling are above board. Gambling proves that addiction isn’t a substance issue. Criminalizing drugs isn’t helping anyone.
25
We’re about forty minutes north of Mokum by train, stopped at the corner of a spectacle. Throngs of tulips, bright strips of color stretching off into the distance. We’ll get caught in a downpour cycling back, but that’s okay. No rain, no rainbows.
26
On a flight to Bali, via Singapore. Reminding myself that we booked these flights for free. Credit card points. And the same card gets us lounge access, free food and drink at every airport. Credit card companies bank on us being irresponsible and racking up debt. Don’t do that and it’s easy take advantage.
27
At a raw vegan place. A lady across the way orders a big bowl of salad. When it comes, she places her hands over the bowl and pulses them while taking a breath so deep her shoulders reach her ears. I this very annoying, probably because I wish I cared as little as she does about what other people think.
28
Here we go again, my least favorite thing about travel: finding accommodation. We scoot around town for a few hours, checking out a bunch of places. Do this in Chiang Mai and you’re spoiled for choice. Here, we’ve yet to find a half-decent spot with a kitchen, even beyond our budget.
29
One of the best things about switching my business focus a few months back has been giving up the “lifestyle” posts on social media. Used to do that as part of marketing my course, showing that I was walking my talk. Not that I hated doing it, but it’s a relief now not to be documenting every sight I see, every place I go.
30
Finally found a place. Proper kitchen, great location, easy on the budget. Can’t move in for ten days, but we can stay at our current place until then, no big deal. Will likely stay a couple of months in Ubud all told. Looking forward to getting back into a routine, getting back to work.
April 25, 2019
eBiz Weekly #17
Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archiveHey there,
Writing to you from Amsterdam this morning, about to hop on a flight to Singapore. I’ll be in Bali by tomorrow.
My first time there, will be checking out Ubud first. Any tips or recommendations?
If so, drop them in the comments 
April 19, 2019
eBiz Weekly #16
Once per week, we email 3,400+ legendary subscribers with some good stuff related to online business. We also post the content of each email here on the website.
Sign up to get the next edition of eBiz Weekly delivered to your inboxView the archiveHey there,
Writing to you from County Galway in Ireland this morning, a small town called Gort in particular. The poet W.B. Yeats once lived near here in a big stone tower.
He wrote stuff like this:
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
Anyway, here are a few bits and pieces related to online business I think you’ll dig…
Get Clients
If you’re a freelancer looking for clients, here are three methods I recommend, in order:
The Billboard Method
The Door-To-Door Method
The Classified Method
This week I updated The Billboard Method with an example of a lady posting about her copywriting services in a Facebook group and generating four leads within 24 hours.
Beyond those three methods, I’ve recently added Ground Zero Case Studies and Laptop Decals to our Get Clients section.
Udemy Easter Sale
You never have to wait very long for a Udemy sale. Their latest ends Monday, so you can buy a bunch of courses on there at the moment for as little as $12 each.
Here are six very popular, highly-rated courses on there that you can grab for only $12 right now:
The Complete Copywriting Course – 4.6 stars, 1.5k ratings
Ultimate Google Ads / AdWords Course – 4.7 stars, 27k ratings
Facebook Ads & Facebook Marketing MASTERY 2019 – 4.6 stars, 18k ratings
The Complete 2019 Web Development Bootcamp – 4.7 stars, 12k ratings
Machine Learning A-Z – 4.5 stars, 78k ratings
An Entire MBA in 1 Course – 4.4 stars, 24k ratings
(Note: as I’ve said many times before, if I was just getting started with freelancing and looking to learn a profitable skill, copywriting, Facebook ads and Google ads would be on my shortlist.)
20-20-20 Rule
One of the downsides of working online is staring at a screen for long stretches of time. Not great for the eyes.
Here’s a handy rule from the American Optometric Association, “to help alleviate digital eye strain…”
follow the 20-20-20 rule; take a 20-second break to view something 20 feet away every 20 minutes.
Build Your Business In Prague
My friend Dan Johnston is hosting a 4-day event in Prague this June for a small group of business builders. There will be a strong focus on psychology and personality types to build the perfect business for you.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, you can find more info here. The price is usually $1,295 but Dan has kindly offered eBiz Facts readers a $300 discount
April 18, 2019
Momentos
These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.
1
Pretty much all my adult life I’ve used an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. Experimenting without one now. Set a timer when I go to sleep, stop it when I wake up, see how long I slept. In theory, my body should rest as much as it needs to, and wake when it’s good and ready. We’ll see.
2
Also quitting coffee for the next 10 days, until I’m back in Ireland. The past year or so I’ve gone from 5 cups a week to 2 or 3 a day. That’s too much for me. I’d rather not feel so dependent on it, and I doubt it’s doing my digestive system any favors.
3
Reading a biography of Tony O’Reilly, considered to be the first Irish billionaire (before he lost it all). He’s the reason you see Kerrygold butter in supermarkets all around the world. Definitely a natural-born entrepreneur. Unlike me. This shit doesn’t come naturally to me at all.
4
Writing a review of Respondent. Before I write any review, I google around and see what the existing reviews are like. Most of the time I’m encouraged by what I find: shallow reviews by people who didn’t actually try or test the thing they’re reviewing. I believe it was Zig Ziglar who said, “there are no traffic jams on the extra mile.”
5
Was at the coworking for a few hours this afternoon, right by the beach. Took a basketball break at the outdoor court nearby and ended up playing a fun 5-on-5 scrimmage. Walking back there was a dude on a unicycle and beyond him three kite surfers skimming waves. It’s a good place to be, Las Palmas.
6
First proper virtual reality gaming session, four of us at a place here in the city. Customer service ain’t great, but the technology is impressive. We spend 40 minutes botching a bank heist and another 20 trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Sweating by the end of it.
7
Meditating, and there’s a sadness there. I try and sit with it, don’t push it away. There’s a line I try to remember at times like this: “We don’t need to feel better. We need to be better at feeling.” But I don’t sit there long. Just a few minutes. Then I drown the sadness out with work and Netflix for the rest of the day.
8
Been reviewing these survey sites. I think they’re crap and nobody should waste their time. And yet I read reviews from non-affiliates (i.e. non-biased reviews) and there’s plenty of praise. How can anybody enjoy doing such dull work for $2-3/hour? I don’t get how people can value their time so little.
9
At the coworking, encouraging myself to get stuff done. Been in a slump all week, trying to be gentle with myself. Getting frustrated won’t help. Coworking isn’t helping either. I end up watching crappy YouTube videos and shooting pixels. The start of a slippery slope.
10
I watched a whole season of a show on Netflix today. 12 episodes. That season was shot in multiple countries, required the skill and communication of hundreds of people, probably took a couple of years from inception to completion. And I blow through it in ten hours.
11
There’s a sport popular here in Spain called padel. It’s a bit like tennis, but with walls. Imagine if tennis and squash had a baby together and you’re close. Anyway, for my final evening on this island myself and a few friends went to a padel club atop a mall and smacked balls at each other for a bit.
12
We’re living in a world, he says, where everyone wants to be remarkable. And all we see on TV and the internet are remarkable people, extraordinary things. Very few people are willing or able to embrace their ordinariness. But if you can embrace your ordinariness, well… that is something truly extraordinary.
13
A holy trinity for my mental health: stretching, meditation and free writing. 5-10 minutes of each gach lá makes a massive difference. Keeping the coffee to one a day helps too. Mad that I’m 37 years old and still figuring this shit out.
14
Been in Cork and Waterford city centers the past two days. Loads of prime retail locations sitting empty. Hard to succeed with a brick and mortar business. Rent, rates, insurance, all that jazz. The odds are stacked against you. So glad my work is online, way less hassle.
15
Slept ten hours each of the last two nights. Didn’t even think I was that tired. I tend to sleep better back here in the Irish countryside though. Probably some combination of the quiet, less artificial light, cooler temperatures, and a lighter workload when I’m home.
April 15, 2019
Ground Zero Case Studies
In the video below, Derek Halpern explains why clients don’t value your work, and how that results in them trying to underpay you.
“The problem isn’t that your customer is stupid. The problem is that you didn’t accurately explain your process. You didn’t tell them what you do. You didn’t show them how you do it.”
Instead of having a simple portfolio page showing samples of your work, Derek recommends creating “ground zero case studies.”
“A ground zero case study is an example of your great work, except you’re going to put context around it. This context tries to bring to life your process and the client’s experience, for new clients.”
For example, if you’re a photographer, instead of showing a bunch of pretty pictures with no context, you create a case study of one particular photo (or collection of photos) you shot and edited for a client.
In the case study, you explain what went into creating that photo.
For example, you could flesh out the following points:
Met with the client
Brainstormed ideas
Created a storyboard
Planned and scheduled the shoot
Provided wardrobe recommendations
Provided and transported all equipment
Shot photos at 3 locations
Edited photos and sent 5 for review
Helped choose the best photo
Did the final edits
Met with client for final review and feedback
“Once people see the behind-the-scenes, once they see that this whole shoot took three weeks to prepare for, they’re not going to try to offer you $200 anymore. They’re going to know that this is a different level of service.”
“This is all an opportunity for you to showcase your value to your customer in a great way.”
This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.
Laptop Decals
If you like working from cafes or coworking spaces, turn all those strangers passing by into potential clients by letting them know what kind of service you provide.
How?
With a simple sticker/decal attached to your laptop.
For example:
Freelancer at Work has dozens of decals like the above, promoting a variety of different services.
More examples:
Copywriter At Work
Marketing Consultant At Work
Social Media Manager At Work
SEO Expert At Work
Video Editor At Work
Stick one of those on your laptop, go work at a public space, and generate leads for your business effortlessly.
Here’s how one freelancer described the impact of having a decal on his laptop:
“I spend most of my time in coffee shops or coworking offices doing my work. Since I’ve had my decal on my laptop I probably get 2 or 3 people a day asking me for my business card or inquiring about my services, it’s like having a free advert for everyone to see!” — Patrick Brady, developer
Check out Freelancer at Work and see if they have a decal to passively promote your business.
This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.
