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SHOWING 10 LATEST NEWS OUT OF 887

WEEKLY DIGEST #44 OF 2026

• How To “Create” A Personal Brand As A Freelancer – Lizzie Davey argues every freelancer already has a personal brand—in their email replies and in what clients say about them. No influencer theater required, just shaping it on purpose. Drawing on her path from Upwork bids to inbound referrals, she weighs the trade-offs and shares three rules for what to keep private, starting with “share the lesson, not the wound,” plus a hub-and-spokes model for growing beyond one-to-one work.
• I'm Not Doing 996 – Elena Verna pushes back on “996”—9am to 9pm, six days a week—as a badge of honor in AI startups. Hard work isn’t constant work, she argues, and productivity gains only raise expectations. She writes about company culture, but her lessons fit freelancers just as well, since nobody will protect your time but you. Elena suggests naming your boundaries out loud, judging output over hours, and trying a five-year regret test when work and life collide.
• Let Your Clients Make Terrible Decisions – When a good client insists on a decision you know is wrong, Sara Gibson argues that your job is to advise, document, and then let them make it. She shares two email templates—a “paper trail” note that flags the risk once without sounding like “I told you so,” and a “pivot proposal” that turns the eventual fix into a new paid sprint. Her rule of thumb is simple; you can’t care more about their business than they do.
• Rethinking Your Work After Thirty Years – On the Wisepreneurs Podcast, Nigel Rawlins talks with cognitive scientist Lia DiBello, who argues that people don’t learn anything new—they reshuffle what they already know. Her “strategic rehearsals” compress years of business into a day, so people can fail, iterate, and rebuild their thinking. She also explains why lasting success means balancing finance, operations, and supply and demand, and why experience pays off on the second try.
• The Growth-by-Addition Trap & The Way Forward to a Simpler, More Profitable Business – Are you trying to grow your freelance business by adding new offers, channels, and tactics? Austin L. Church calls it the growth-by-addition trap—each move makes sense on its own, but together they leave an overgrown business full of half-finished projects and obsolete offers. Hidden inside, he argues, is a simpler, more profitable one, and the way to find it isn’t another addition but deliberate subtraction.

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HOW FREELANCERS GET CLIENTS?

How do independent professionals actually get clients? Not through their content, argues Nigel Rawlins—most work comes from people you stay in touch with. Revisiting his podcast conversations with Mark Goulston, Michael Zipursky, Karen Wickre and Laetitia Vitaud, he unpacks the skill inside word of mouth: figuring out what the other person needs to hear.

"Keep writing. I do, every week, because writing gives people something to forward and a reason to remember you. Just stop pretending the writing is the pipeline. The conversation is."

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WEEKLY DIGEST #42 OF 2026

• The Only Skill That Matters Now Is The One Thing AI Can Never Steal! – Rick Rubin tells Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO why he ignores metrics—and why the best work is often “indefensible.” The producer behind Jay-Z, Adele, and Johnny Cash splits creation into four phases (seed, experimentation, crafting, finishing), sets deadlines only once a project is 90% done, and argues you should pay the bills separately so money never pressures the work.
• Your Website is Fine. AI Still Can't Find You – Nigel Rawlins draws on his Wisepreneurs Podcast talk with Gill Andrews, whose own site lost traffic because AI tools couldn’t find her name anywhere else. He argues your website is now where trust gets confirmed, not where you get found, and suggests a quick test: ask an AI who it would hire for your work.
• From Burnout to Balance: Pacing Your Business as a Neurodivergent Freelancer – How do you build a freelance business that doesn’t burn you out? On the Being Freelance podcast, photographer Celie Nigoumi tells Steve Folland how tracking her time in Toggl led to a big price jump, why she merged two niche brands into one, and how she protects her energy with a buffer day every two weeks.
• Future is Freelance Forum – Struggling to stay visible? On October 20th, Sarah Duran hosts the next Future Is Freelance session, “Show Up Consistently: Building a Visibility Practice That Actually Works.” Alongside guest speakers Tangia R. Al-awaji Estrada, Katelin Tiernan, and Megan Bungeroth, this hands-on, collaborative workshop will explore what story keeps you from showing up, what you lose by staying invisible, and which visibility strategies actually work for people in your field.

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WEEKLY DIGEST #41 OF 2026

• How I Structure My Freelance Proposals So Clients (Usually) Say Yes – Why do some proposals get a quick yes while others go unread? Lizzie Davey shares the six-part structure she uses every time, built around the client rather than herself: keep it to two pages, restate the conversation, quote the client’s goal in their own words, map scope and timeline—including what you need from them—offer three price tiers, and link to similar work and testimonials. No slick template required.
• When The Business doesn't Fit Your Life, It's Time To Redesign – What do you do when the business you built no longer fits your life? Recapping a Future is Freelance forum with Ashley Cisneros Mejia and Mandy Ellis, Sarah Duran argues that adaptation is the skill, not the plan: stability has to be rebuilt again and again. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control whom you approach, what you offer, and where you focus. Start by asking “Does this work for who I am now?”
• 50+ Ways to Deliver Your Freelance Expertise – Your freelance expertise doesn’t have to be delivered 1:1. There are more than 50 other ways, says Elina Jutelyte—from audits and workshops to calculators, diagnostic tools, licensing, and train-the-trainer programs. She shows how a vague “I consult on marketing” turns into a defined 3-week positioning audit, and advises combining formats so each offer leads to the next.
• A Brief Existential Guide To AI – Feeling overwhelmed by the endless stream of new AI models? Jeppe Borg argues the answer isn’t chasing every tool—it’s tying your work to a problem worth solving. Drawing on the jobs-to-be-done idea, he suggests defining your focus as “I will help X do Y,” then choosing the medium, format, and content that fit today. Tools will come and go in the coming shakeout—the problem you solve stays.
• Stop Treating Your Annual Review Like a Performance Review – Tiago Forte used to punish himself into a better life with every annual review. In a 14-minute video, he shares the four mindset shifts that changed it. He explains why criticism distorts what you can see, why part of your review belongs on paper, and why emotions are the best data you have.

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NEW MEMBER: MIROSLAV BERAN

Meet our new member: Miroslav Beran, an online marketer specializing in Google Ads, Sklik, and Favi who helps e-commerce businesses build profitable advertising in the Czech market. Working with online stores of every size, from the smallest shops to large retailers, Miroslav focuses first and foremost on profit, applying the 80/20 principle to find the optimizations that pay off from the very start of a collaboration.

With more than 10 years of experience and credentials including Google Partner, Heureka Partner, and Mergado Specialist, he brings deep knowledge of shopping aggregators and comparison engines. The focus is on long-term partnerships rather than quick wins, and more than 90% of Miroslav's projects continue for over a year. One example: advertising costs held at 5% of revenue on roughly €2.05 million in sales, for a management fee of under €410 a month.

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TOO BIG TO DELIVER ALONE?

Landed a project too big to deliver alone? On Freelance to Founder podcast, Austin L. Church tells Preston Lee to skip both hiring first and winning first—build a micro-agency roster instead, testing freelancers on small, low-stakes jobs. Taking the leap anyway? Pad timeline and budget, write a precise brief ("if it's not in the creative brief, then it doesn't exist"), and split deadlines into many smaller ones.

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WEEKLY DIGEST #39 OF 2026

• No Killer Channel: Why 'and' Beats One Platform — Nigel Rawlins tackles the common question: Which single platform is best for getting clients? Citing marketing experts and industry data, Nigel shows why there is no "killer tool," and why sustainable visibility relies on combining short-term offers with long-term authority building into one coordinated campaign.
• How Freelancers Can Prove Their Impact — Elina Jutelyte reveals how freelancers can escape the "low-cost task-doer" trap and position themselves as high-value strategic partners—even without access to a client’s financial dashboards.
• 7 Lessons for Building a 7-Figure Freelance Business — How do you build a stable, profitable freelance business without burning out? On the podcast with Austin L. Church, Satta Sarmah Hightower shares 7 rules for success: treat your business like a business, market continuously (not out of panic), build long-term client partnerships, and have a crisis plan. Entrepreneurship should be a sustainable system that serves your life and respects the season you’re in—not destroy you.
• The 15-Minute Portfolio Polish — Most freelancers let their portfolios collect dust or get bogged down in endless redesigns. Sara Gibson shows how to polish your portfolio in just fifteen minutes: trim your weakest work, frame projects around business results, and implement quick micro-upgrades to convert more high-paying clients.
• Your Fellow Freelancers on How They Handle Rejection, by the Freelancers Union – This article gathers perspectives from independent workers on how to navigate professional rejection. Rather than letting a "no" damage self-worth, the contributors advocate for treating rejection as a statistical certainty (like a baseball batting average), recognizing it as a simple lack of fit rather than a personal failure, and recycling unused pitches into future opportunities.

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OVERCOMING THE ODDS

What if your biggest failures are actually your greatest breakthroughs? Tim Ferriss uncovers raw stories from Terry Crews, Tim McGraw, Jessica Lahey, and other professionals about turning crushed dreams into triumphs. The discussion focuses on self-reliance, strategic pivots, and managing non-linear paths—offering a grounded framework for handling uncertainty, processing setbacks, and maintaining long-term focus.

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WEEKLY DIGEST #37 OF 2026

• Why Great Tactics Fail Single-Person Businesses — In a conversation with Ricardo Brito, Elina Jutelyte explains why isolated growth hacks—like doubling rates or posting daily—fail solopreneurs. Without a holistic business system, tactical tweaks break down. Using her 8Ps framework, Elina shows how freelancers can align positioning, service design, and pricing while extracting hidden Intellectual Property from their daily work to build a resilient solo business.
• Drowning in Success: How Many Clients Can You Actually Handle? — How many clients can you juggle before you completely burn out? Sara Gibson addresses the "success trap" where booked-out freelancers drown in work. Because business operations eat up roughly 30% of total bandwidth, a 40-hour billable week is unsustainable. To solve this, she provides a realistic capacity formula alongside four key strategies to regain control of your schedule.
• How to Hire Help and Become the CEO of Your Freelance Business with John Jonas — “What is the thing that you're spending the most time on? Hire someone to do that.” In a chat with Austin L. Church, John Jonas breaks down the shift every independent professional eventually has to make: moving away from doing everything solo and toward outsourcing. That means handing off not just what you dislike, but whatever eats up the most hours, freeing you up to actually run your business like a CEO.
• Freelance Rate Calculator — What should I actually charge for my work? If this question is on your mind, an online calculator by Amy Suto can help you with the math.
• How Much Should a Consultant Charge? — Nigel Rawlins argues pricing shouldn't start with hourly rates. Costs define your floor, but the ceiling comes from the value created for the client. Pricing is a matter of positioning, scarcity, and trust. His article shows why freelancers undercharge for years and why their most valuable asset is strategic thinking, not execution.

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WHAT IS YOUR WORK WORTH?

Nigel Rawlins argues that pricing should not start with your desired income or hourly rate. Your costs define the floor, but the real ceiling comes from the value your work creates for the client. That means pricing is also a question of positioning, scarcity and trust. His article explores why many independent professionals undercharge for years—and why the most valuable part of their work may not be what they deliver, but the thinking behind it.

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