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A few days ago, I published my notes on building CRM, cold emails, hiring, onboarding clients, and the outcomes of your services. It blew up with engagement—I got 10+ replies to my emails mentioning it was useful (what more does a creator want? cough… cough… mone… 🤧 )

Anyway - today will be the part two of the previous issue, where I share my private notes on:

1. Work with the right people

2. Work first, Optimize later

3. Why hope is a bad thing?

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6. Work with the right people

It’s true that the environment shapes you.

I remember being on spaces with Shreya Pattar once, and I asked her, “What do you expect from your clients? Do you want to have a certain kind of clients because they help you grow?”

I liked the perspective. It was honest and, in many ways, truly professional. But it’s one of those topics where we can agree to disagree.

This is what I believe: The people you work with should help you grow.

By growth, I don’t mean they should take responsibility for your skills, mindset, etc. But the brand, team, or work should be such that it challenges you to become better.

If someone approves my work on the first go, it means either I am really good or I am not working in a challenging enough environment - and it’s mostly the latter.

You might know this old cliché - You are the average of five people you surround with - and I think it’s so damn true in content careers.

If I don’t have people around me who are unsatisfied with mediocre work, it will get really hard to keep up with big clients when they come along.

It happened to me once.

I worked in a non-challenging environment for nine months and when a tougher gig landed, I felt rusty.

To clarify even more, a few examples of what I call ‘challenging work’:

• Having a content manager with high standards

• Having to convert a rigid audience

• New industries I get into

• Educating the audience with unfamiliar topics

• Making money with products that are hard to sell

…and so on.

7. Have a rate card playing on your mind

I was once on a call with this lead.

He wanted me to build an email sequence and write copy for his B2B business.

We talked about my credentials, previous experience, what the brand needs, brainstorming ideas, etc. The conversation was going smoothly.

But but…

It was a forty-minute call. He had already asked my price thrice by then (price-thrice, heh pun, ok never mind.)

I dodged the question thrice because, in my mind, I thought, “I had to come up with personalized pricing.”

He kindly asked, “Can I give you some advice?” and continued to say,

He didn’t have to do that, but he did. It was kind of him.

He also gave me five minutes to come up with a price while on the call, and it was a done deal.

Within a week, I prepared my rate card. In every call I get into now, I have a range in my mind.

8. Hope is good (in movies)

I am big-time guilty of this. In many ways, I still am.

As freelancers, I feel many of us - at least in India run our businesses on hope.

What do you want as a freelancer?

More clients?
Better clients?
High-paying clients?

Let’s assume more clients.

How do you land them? By reaching out more, right?

Yep. But what do we do instead? We create content all day for other freelancers, don’t build a system that attracts businesses, and don’t reach out to anyone unless we see a hiring post or face burning pockets.

Each one of us knows the equation is simple.

But we still choose to do something else.

I am not saying everything we do is bad. Of course, it’s important; I get clients from my content, but we must also consider ROI.

Posting and waiting on inbounds is hope, not strategy.

Lead Gen is crucial in service businesses. Instead of looking at it as inbound vs outbound, we must focus on diversification. You need a good lead magnet, content that attracts, and a constant outreach system.

9. Work first, Optimize later

Speaking of doing important tasks, I want to emphasize on systems.

We usually see a system working for someone or read about it and we build it for ourselves. In my opinion, that’s the wrong approach.

To give you an example, my Mondays are for reviews.

I only review different aspects of my life on Mondays and nothing else.

Some include:

• Newsletter Stats of Cognition and Vikra’s Café

• The people I reached out to and related stats

• Cognition Insiders stats and meeting with discussion leaders

• Sharing clients’ updates/reports about their brands

• Reviewing my workouts, measuring my body, weight, etc.

• Documenting my health, community growth, etc.

• Everything I track in my extracurriculars

• Building my website

• Planning out the week

…and I have a huge list to tick every Monday.

I am aware I do a bunch of things - which if not tracked and reported - are easy to forget and I’ll never revisit them until they randomly hit my memory.

I built this Monday review system when I realized I was doing too many things and it’s all chaos. Similarly, you will notice your lack of systems too.

I had my phase of Optimize first, Work later (or more like never work) but lately I have become more of an “Is it an important task?” type of person.

As a friend, I’d recommend that to you too.

That’s my time - that’s all I have for this issue. It’s ~1300 words, so let me park this here and return next week.

1. Useful Notes on Freelancing - Part 1

2. Screenshots of my cold emails

3. Closing leads with 7 types of result statements

See ya soon!

Love,
Vikra.