ZF's progress thread

[ZF Lee]

Alright, just as I said. I would post some results from my Reddit tests.

It seems that the folks need to see something tangible. I still will need to develop a cheap prototype and have 50-100 batches.

I spotted a competing product being used by someone from today's meeting. I borrowed it for a while and tried using it. Not as good. Needs modification, and perhaps a bit on the aesthetics. I was flabbergested to find it priced at RM50. RM50??? You could buy a good dinner with that. Should knock it down to a fraction of the price. Underpricing can perhaps be a good secondary value attribute as long as it begins at the start of a sales funnel.

Speaking of sales funnels, I started studying up on the sales funnels of different companies in other industries. Do their products match? Are they complementary? What do the blogger pundits say about them? I even checked up some of their developments on the Wayback machine to see progress in action. Oddly, my field doesn't have visible sales funnels even with decent e-commerce storefronts. I wonder why.

I have been spending more time on diesel and coffee, courtesy of meetup.com.
Literally. I just order drinks instead of food, so that I can listen to people talk and take notes.

Coming back from this odd thread of mine...
RANT - Just When I Thought I Had it all Figured Out....
..I mentioned how in my first forays into meetup.com, I ran into another Amway trap and was fortunate to get out alive.

Today, I went to TWO meetups.

The first was a morning meeting for a money management meetup.
I met a guy working with Great Eastern insurance company and another younger college guy who did a banking and finance degree.

They discussed a rather Slowlane method of saving and planning, but I found it sound as they discouraged rash spending on speculative investing and urging me to develop a 'million dollar skill' to scale up, possibly in a biz.

Then they suggested to me an evergreen market to start out from ,which many professional like doctors and lawyers had joined for the networking. God knows what....it was selling INSURANCE....

The folks weren't pushy, but discussed matters in an educational way, which I'll give them credit for. They explained that:
1. The professional folks that come by can network and get referrals or industry know-how from each other.
2. Selling insurance is protection against uncertainty. In fact, it is merely a concept, not a product.

They invited me to pop by at their office to see how they do stuff and even a free entrance to one of their weekly meetings. I promised I would find time to hop by, for the sake of connections. Never know when you will need insurance folks.

Around the last few minutes, some crypto guy from Belarus popped by at the meeting. He started telling his long tale on working with some other blockchain folks looking to produce some open-source platform with more accurate popularity or ranking systems. Once he started pouring the jargon, the insurance guys said bye and left lol.

The guy spoke rather liberally, so I chatted with him for an hour while he worked on a Github article to explain how to fix a certain issue. There were many things we talked, but he recommended me a book called 'Doughnut Economics'. Later, I saw some videos on it, and found that it talked on some falsities of modern economical theories, as well as some suggestions to ammend that.

Later at night, I met with a group of REAL entrepreneurs for the first time in a long while. With REAL businesses. Some did property. Some did apps catering to Chinese folks. One did event organization. One did counselling for MNCs and government companies. We shared business tales, personal choices and lots of others that Fastlaners like to discuss here in this very forum. I recorded LOTS of insights from our discussions, some probably helpful to know them a tad better for upcoming meetups.

When I mentioned my work on Upwork, one of the folks took interest in it. I got a gig from him to help him out with a clipart biz selling pics for US teachers to put on kids' worksheets. The guy said it was more of a hobby to him now as he was too lazy to up the social media marketing. The guy actually asked me to be his PARTNER for that, but I told him to just get me on a contractual basis at first.

Weird. Why ask a stranger to partner up?

So things to look into:
1. Chart some time to work with the clipart guy-prepping some invoices and revving up the Wave accounting app
2. Get a prototype done and some more accurate market hypothesis to benchmark from for further testing
3. Sell off some college books for some quick capital and buy some cheaper second-hand books for my upcoming uni sem

 

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[ZF Lee]

UPDATES.

Not much, I'm afraid...

Decided not to pursue the earlier product idea. It had demand, but it would be tied to the demand of several other products, which feels like a huge commandment of control violation.

I picked up the Wallstreet Playboy's book on Efficiency, and was pleasantly surprised to find it had some good ideas that UNSCRIPTED brushed over. Namely on demand.

In a nutshell, all products have demand. But which has the best outcome? Or do you have the ability to capture it? Or is the demand subject to disruption by government or tech?

I also picked up Competing Against Luck. It's funny that when you are doing something, the right books come out to help you, not when you are sitting in a basement, wantrapreneuring away. For now, I haven't finished the book, but I can say that it is a more thorough treatise of the Commandment of Need.

It's funny that after such a long time, I hadn't really specified my goals well enough. Not even revenue or profit or leads. That's also an error I did for freelancing. I just thought 'Use this to gain experience and gain capital.' But I had little thought for to what end of capital and experience? How much capital? RM5000? Experience? Enough to pull in some programmers or more smarter people to tackle the fields you don't have time to learn? Enough to write a proposal or create a workable product to help with that?

But good thing I didn't lose much money to find that out.

Decided to redevelop my freelancing skills from scratch, after subscribing to Brennan Dunn's set of emails, after a tip from reddit (its a negative site alright, but has some good nuggets once in a while).

So I drew my earnings so far from Upwork escrow and set to private (if I continue with my regular practices, I might actually be hurting potential clients) after my gigs ended.

Amounts to few hundred ringgit...pretty dismal, as I could have earned a similar payout by working at a cafe as a dish washer. But the plus benefit is that I learned how communications and project management run about in service businesses, something a cafe dish washer might not learn that well.

From my experience as well, I realised that I had been saying terribly, wrong things about business all those years ago.

Terribly wrong things.

I remember saying on this forum like a parrot rubbish like, "Just outsource shit." Not really.

Guys like Sinister and even Fox have been talking about getting deeper into the value game by niche or tailoring to specific fields (e.g website for boring industries). I realised it was not different than a regular engineer speciallising in product manufacturing or HVAC, or a chemical engineer dealing with either petroleum or factory lubricants. The fields as a whole are universes by themselves. So, I should use my mistakes, patch them up, and then I would truly know how to pick and use freelancers in the future.

I used to hate the thought of waiting for many years in a job to gain experience before setting out to do a business, which was a notion pushed by folks around me.

But the folks may be right. Or wrong.

You won't know how to deal with shitty people until you have worked as their peer. Somewhat like how a teacher knows the antics of her naughtiest students, because she was one of them.

You won't know about how supply chain management works, until you have worked in the inner levels of a biz. I have mentioned that little quote from my marketing lecture in an earlier thread on how supply management, be it in goods and services, actually affects marketing as a whole!

Having started from copywriting as an area of interest, I'm ashamed to say that I overlooked the shipping and distribution of goods as a determinant of marketing. I paid too much attention to the emotional and psychological pull of marketing, which is pretty close to a bro-marketing tendency.

I'm thinking I might start a biz relevant to supply chain. But that's another story (more homework for me too)

Now to non-business stuff....

For university studies, I had to take marketing and biz law subjects, as well as an elective social entrepreneurship management course and business data modelling. The first three subjects were very text-orientated, and took awful loads of time for assignments.

I did learn many things from them, which have cleared up some of the mist of not knowing jack shit about business. But in the next sem, I'll just pick data related courses. It's just formulas, Excel and RCode, which can be done very quickly with Chegg and a thousand other materials online that I found. That way, the time steal can be cut significantly.

My girl just became the president of her environmental engineering club. Really proud of her. She'll get to do more things in her university. I've never had any doubts on what she could do. Saw her going on trips to visit sanitation facilities and such. But knowing how some of these industries are really like, having a lot of hard labour and all, I felt very scared at the same time for her. A Kak-sized entrepreneural and acquisitions play might be needed to make it big in some of these stiff industries. Guess I need to learn that side up eventually.

A Malaysian PHD guy from Quora basically summed up my fears on this issue with this phrase- 'the labour trap'. It is a problem that plagues my country, and to an extent, other nations. Probably a cause or symptom of the 'small business trap', it is an occurence where the biz sticks to cheap labour, as opposed to tech, for reduce production costs. In the short term, it does saves up more profits, but you could burn the workers out and more costs are incurred, even if you fire and hire aggressively. Bloody inefficient.

She hasn't discussed much with me on entrepreneurship, although I update her with my stuff regularly, only preferring to be more personal. "Don't blame the community." she said when I was ranting again on some crap about the tough world we live in. I guess that she is trying her best to do something about things, in her own way, as well.

That way, I feel less alone, even when she's studying far away.




If she's reading this here, I want to say....please work hard. I'm here for you, if you need it. I've always wanted a beautiful hardworking girl like you that pushes on. Please don't worry about BGR relationships and fitting in with your peers. Your best bet of breaking out and be free is to excel at our work, scale it and commit to help good people. Do it, and you can be happier and freer.

Before I get more mushy...I'll end here. Back to work. I think I wrote the last sentences for Fastlane dads/ BFs to tell to similar-minded partners.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Just got this in the mail for my FIRST ever resume written for a professional.

I feel it's a lot more harder to sell a person's skills rather than a lifeless product. At least for a product, you can pull more on emotional aspects of the client, like laziness and fantasy.

You know what the kicker is?

Besides writing an Upwork profile and proposals that got jobs, I had NEVER gotten an ACTUAL J.O.B with my own resume yet. I have only sent one to my university business school department just for paperwork's sake.

How did I get up to speed, you may ask?

Here's what I had to do to create a tip-top resume:

1. Visited at least 3 websites of companies where she used to work at for a better idea of the impact she left behind

2. Spent at least 3 mornings and evenings talking back and forth, answering her queries, what with the different time zones and all

3. Solved at least 2 potential crisis on Upwork, which were milestone payment issues and a little bit of lateness in replying on my client's part.

4. Looked up around 5 top LinkedIn bios for some insights (found that even the top guys write their bios very poorly)

5. Revisited the TFLF resume thread for refreshers

Was I tired and frustrated at it all?

TBH, not really. In the first place, she already listed down some great work achievements, so I was pumped to bring her fantastic skills into the marketplace. Just like sending the Gospel out.

EDIT: Saw that I have 6 proposals in the pipeline awaiting clients' responses.

Would expect them to reply latest by the weekend. Yikes!
I think I'll step back for a while and 'sharpen my axe'.

Found a book called 'Making Websites Win' and some general stuff on polishing up copy from John Carlton's Simple Writing System.

Also, AWAI has an archive of articles. Will read a few of them for their writing approaches on case studies of successful writers. Never know if a client might want a case study work.

 

[ZF Lee]

After numerous tests for a proposal that works on Upwork and freelancer, I've come to this simple format.

I made them after looking at the Lex threads, some FREE Upwork proposal samples from freelancetowin.com (Danny, the guy behind it has a similar mindset to Lex, plus the samples are real), as well as past experience.

1. Start by offering chicken to him because he asked for chicken.
Echo back what he asked for in the job.

2. Compliment his work, if any. Stroke the ego.

3. If I feel he isn't pressed for time, I'll give him 1-3 takeaways that will help his industry,
relevant to the job.

4. Link the sample work DIRECTLY in the proposal.
I know Upwork has a separate section for sample work, but if they can reach it IMMEDIATELY, instead of scrolling down, it makes their life easier.

Welp, looks like the fish took the 'new' bait.



I actually bid above my hourly rate, plus he sent me a slew of questions as part of the 'weeding out'.

I spent more time and words answering his questions rather than talking about myself.

The only time I talked about myself was when he asked me, 'Why do you think you are a good fit for the job?'

I just wrote, 'Well, let's have my past clients tell you about me.'

Then I put in some existing 5-star testimonials into the column.

Damn, @Lex DeVille. Was afraid I was gonna have dry season or an algo change lol!

Next, after I accepted the job, my client said something like this:


'I was very impressed with the details you had in your profile and the time you spent in answering my questions. I also went through the recruitment article (sample piece I sent him) and it was very well written. I have high expectations from you.'

Fantastic!


What did I have in my profile?

1. Tons of relevant work in portfolio. Not all were from Upwork clients. Some were from making samples on-the-go for prospects' own industries when bidding for the jobs.

2. Describe your damned portfolio work. Tell a story about it. What did you do? Why did you do it? What conditions does this piece work best in? What's the best thing about it?

Since I'm a copywriter, I'm already expected to do that part.

3. Re-align the best of your relevant work to the front page, so that anyone visiting it can see you've got the chops. If you want a client doing blog work to look at you, align byour blog samples to the front. If you did VA work in the past, align it to the last page of your portfolio even though a client gave good feedback for it.
I was afraid my re-edit of my profile wouldn't get read. It's good to be wrong!

BTW, on freelancer.com, very weird results on my tests so far.

I bid for jobs with up to 15 freelancers in line, and yet, no one got picked. No one!

I suspect some poor freelancer gave a great sample that was too close to the actual intended work, and the client just grabbed it and ran.

Nowadays, to combat that, I do sample pieces that are a bit different. Can be a different industry, medium and so on (e.g. send a sample copy for a plumbing website to a doctor needing his medical copy)

I'll go on there tomorrow and bid for a few more jobs, but I might spend a lot more less time on there than on Upwork.

EDIT: AWAI has been really persistent in their emails for me to join their Barefoot Writer's club. I'll have to spend some time on Friday to have a look...

Quite uncommon to see long, elaborate emails. Thought it was a lost art.

 

[ZF Lee]

Uggh...couldn't go for the trade fair.

The registration blocked me out.

Bummer.

And one thing I noticed after the critic with the entrepreneurs. The pain that the product should solve isn't very 'painful' to solve. Sure, I could market the pain to seem more 'painful'...but I'm just starting out. I'm not going to do black magic yet.

The recent tests on social media ads and google ads seem to need more capital than expected, as well as product testing, so I decided to get a few more Upwork gigs to avoid me digging into my reserves.

I just read the Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman. Got lots of valuable tips, especially on the importance of understanding the nature of the product and thinking outside of the usual market constraints.

And when I went to Upwork....I found a nice note from the team, saying that they would switch accounts automatically to 'private' after 30 days of no client activity. That was what happened to me.

Bummer.

I guess its partly my fault. I shut it for a while earlier after getting busy with my first clients.

I can still write proposals to clients though, or sign up for the Freelancer plus. So if there's something I can do about it, it'll be fine.

Funny, I applied to FB copy gigs for the first time ever. I remember being advised to test my product on FB earlier...so the coincidence is very timely.

I'm bidding for more than my usual rates. As usual, I threw in some samples for their free usage. Instead of presenting the FB copy in raw Microsoft Word form, I decided to try using an FB ads mockup generator. Very easy to use. Just google it up. I used this one:

AdParlor Mockup Generator

Not as complicated as emails and e-commerce funnel copy....the testing aside. We'll look at responses in the morning....


EDIT: I know this is kinda off-topic...but somehow listening to soundtracks of select movies during 'incubation period' (Joseph Sugarman lol) makes your revisions of copy rather different....

This is one I am listening to now...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrXTS10h2WI

Don't mind the monster. Just listen lol.

EDIT 2: Yippee...one day later and got my Upwork profile back public again!
I added a bit of copy from FB to my portfolio. Quite a bit of fun actually.

 

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[ZF Lee]

So you throw yourself in at the deep end.

I wonder how it will work out (with best wishes of success ofc )

Thanks for the support.
Speaking of the deep end...

I just spent 1 and a 1/2 hours writing the longest proposal of my life.

Client gave me 5 questions, which I knew they couldn't be answered in just 2-3 sentences.

I had changed the Upwork job filters to show me a minimum of $100 gigs, and I got job postings that
were a lot more specific in what the client wanted.

And I already had accumulated enough stories and experiences to relate to their needs!

I can no longer write proposals like a beginner. The bar has gone up.

Yet, this feels ADDICTIVE.

After I personally hear clients thanking me profusely and promising more work later, I realised
that I was literally bringing Fastlane to a world that was so needy for great value. Something like the Gospel.

BTW, the client above whom I did the LinkedIn profile was absolutely pleased.
'Speechless!' she simply said.
I'll be using some of the work with her as samples to bid for a higher-range resume job, this time with an investment banker.

 

[ZF Lee]

Saw quite a number of posts pop up on TFLF from folks struggling to build up skills for freelancing, finding actual clients, etc. I sensed a lot of confusion and uncertainty...what can we expect when most of us have been taught since young to follow orders and not to build our own things from scratch?

Guess I'll just share a recent interesting job...

A week ago, I got a call from a member of one of the church business groups I follow.

I'll call him 'Peter' for now.
I've attended quite a number of meetings and even speakers' dinners with him, so we weren't total strangers.
I've told him about my side freelance work, and even mentioned a few jobs I've done before during casual talk...

Peter told me he had a writing job for me.
He needed a Method Statement done up for a drilling project he's helping out with.
Much of the drilling work was well certified already, but since the drilling would cut across a railway, they needed clearance from the railway authorities. Part of the paperwork required a Method Statement.

I thought to myself, 'What's a Method Statement?'

I have written copy, articles, white papers before. But never construction documentations.

So I just googled 'Method Statement'.

And found LOTS of existing Method Statements floating around. Basically, they outline exact procedures, safety plans, risk assessments, tool specs and construction drawings somewhat like a business plan does.

While there were different types of Method Statements like tenders, construction and safety statements, I saw from Peter's requirements that his intended Statement would be a combo of sorts...I would have to discuss procedures, specs and safety plans.

Peter sent me the reports to compile into the method statement, but not all at once.
Some came after later site visits or liaison with contractors.

Here's how I wrote a Method Statement for drilling WITHOUT prior knowledge of the industry:
1. Know the basics of the process and general raw materials/tools/risks.
Watched 2 YouTube videos on the drilling process (horizontal directional drilling or HDD).

2. Googled for Method Statements on HDD that I could read to see how they structure things.
Most from Southeast Asia were crap...too basic, and did not outline unique procedures or tool models (eg for their pipe, drill unit or drill fluid clay composition)

I think I only found 2 good ones to model from... a paper for a sea defence wall in the Netherlands and another for an Australian company (which actually served as more of a brochure than a Statement).

3. Set expectations and follow-up with updates for client
Told Peter I would submit pre-drafts by X PM.
Told him that since the company on his other side would need to look at the document, I would help them out by filling in some general risk assessment tables, HDD procedures and safety plans. For unique specs (eg speed of the boring drill), I would just leave clear blanks for them to fill in within the paragraphs.

That way, if they didn't already have elaborate plans, the stuff I wrote could help them out.
I knew most small businesses probably didn't have that detailed of plans or writing, and their existing documentations might very well be as bland and basic as Fiverr freelance crap.

Peter was delighted and he did well to also fix regular calls at 10AM now and then (they only lasted for a few mins usually, just some review of new materials he sent via email)

From there, the arrangement were simple.

I worked in the afternoon on the pre-drafts, updated Peter via WhatsApp with a list of updates I added, attached comments in the document to walk him through, and sent pre-drafts on that set evening time.



Now, you might be asking,
'How do you know WHAT to write for the drilling procedures, safety plans and so on?'

Well, research.

I noticed that HDD scenarios would differ according to the environment.
Some drilling papers I read touched on petroleum...that means the risks and plans would centre around avoiding fires, sudden mud breakouts and water leakage (if it were done in sea rea)

But my case was just a simple one done on land, cutting through road and railway.
So the only things to worry about were just working at night, hitting utility cables or railway connections.

I took several existing plans and safety assessments from existing Statements or academic journals (I was surprised colleges do have such docs) and cobbled them together as fitting.

Peter didn't ask me to remove them so far, so I guess that went well.

Yesterday, he sent me the soil reports to include in the Statement.
Instead of just tossing them into the doc like most writers would, I took the time to look at them.

And noticed something amiss...

I said to Peter, 'Why are these documents based on soil contractors for 2016-2017 projects that are not even in the area? And these aren't soil reports on the railway...these are just general letters of approval from inspectors. Are they really relevant for the soil report section...or are they for the Certificates section for credibility purposes?'

I could imagine his eyes widening as he replied over WhatsApp, 'We are now hiring a new agency for the soil report. Looks like the project will have to go a bit longer until end of the month (as we wait for better docs to come from them)"

I said, "That's alright, if that is what is needed to wrap up well. Time-wise, you can pay me first at least with a partial payment."

Note that I hadn't asked for a partial payment first because it didn't make sense...the amount wasn't at least 4-figs. I know some writers practice a 10-20% initial deposit or payment all across the board, but I found the former approach more reasonable.

He replied, 'Nah, I'll just pay you the whole amount tomorrow. If there's more major changes later, I'll pay you additional. And when the document gets approved by the railway, I'll pay you a winning fee."

"That's great! Thanks Peter."



Takeaways:
1. To learn how to create something from scratch (not just a Method Statement), start by reading or using what already exists. Check out their strengths and weaknesses, and change them up to fit your unique markets'/clients' situation.

2. Keep the client up-to-date.
Fix regular call times, update times, revision dates, whatever.
If he has to ask after you too many times or call you desperately, you failed in that.
Something that Lex Deville taught very concisely in his Udemy course.

3. Danny Marguiles, an Upwork guru, talked about the importance of being a Consigliere (a Mafia boss' steward), instead of being just a mere serviceman.

It isn't enough to just write sales copy, build websites or design art for a client, take the money and leave.
Any F*ck can do that.
There's difficult things to accomplish for the client to set you apart...they can be spotting errors within the client's materials that could save their bigger projects, recommending better content or additional research.

4. The small good things like setting regular follow-ups, good work, compliments for good client responses can build up to some positive surprises.

I didn’t ask for full immediate payment, and honestly I would have asked for a lower price than RM300.

Yet, he stuck to it, so I agreed. For my setting, the deal was pretty OK.

That being said, I spotted Method Statement templates being sold for around $1500-2000.

I think for B2B avenues like construction and maybe law, there’s some money in prepping paperwork...professionals are usually too busy with other things to bother about clearances.

Again, if I had a tad more experience in the field (eg a construction degree or even some laboring experience), I would definitely charge a starter price at least 10% more.


5. You can get clients by networking in offline groups, and these relations can be a lot HIGHER quality than online or Upwork leads.

I already mentioned that I spent time with Peter at church meetings.
Prior time spent with him already warmed this lead well enough.

The funny thing was on the day before he gave me the job, I was talking to him how I didn't want to fake interstate travel permits to cross back to Kuala Lumpur city because I didn't want to live by fraud.

So I guess Peter saw this boy had some morals? Someone he could trust with a job he might not have full experience to begin with? I wonder...

Of course, offline networking takes time.
I didn't actively go pestering him or others to give me jobs.
But I did talk about my writing work casually and took time to listen to their biz...just being there and showing I'm approachable and not a sleazy Belfort.

 

[jpanarra]

Awesome stuff, Always saw you around the forum but now I'm looking forward to see what you've decided to go with!

 

[ZF Lee]

Wow....cheap bastard needing me to write 5-6 pages of sales copy for a damn e-book.

And wants to pay me $10. $10 F*cking bucks!

Should have billed at least a hundred.

And the topic of the e-book? How to save money.

Go figure.

Pass.

The tragedy is that there are 5-10 proposals waiting there already. Freelancers who don't value their skills and time enough....bloody tragedy.

 

[ZF Lee]

Had to help family move house.

I would have liked to delay it, but my relatives and only brother seem to have gone AWOL.

And nope, you can't just throw money at people to carry things for you. You have to wrap furniture up, but they still get dirtied or broken by incompetent fools. So much for hiring.

Hence, my freelance and Fastlane plans have been massively delayed until maybe Christmas, which by then, might be too late to do much, as most folks would be off for Christmas.

I'd like to be in the crowd that abandons his family, but that wouldn't be me. There's too many kids out there who just leave their parents or family to run away and live wild with other boys and girls.

I might start a thread on my experience of moving house. Feels relevant to logistics management and office designing (if any of you wanna scale up with employees), and my interest in seeing contractors put stuff into motion picked up.

In the few hours left today to write a few proposals for more freelance gigs, I found this blog during my break.

It looked pretty sparse for a business blog, but it had some interesting articles with titles such as:

• The Lean Start-Up Model: A Better Way to Start a Business or a Methodology Flawed From Start to Finish?
• To Scratch (Your Itch) or Not to Scratch, That is The Question…
• Domain experience: A (Startup) Must-Have or Simply Overrated?
• The Aspiring Entrepreneur’s Dilemma: Build An Audience or a Product First?
• Determined to join the hockey-stick growth club? Yes, you can’t!
• Single Product Companies: Thing of the past or still here for a reason?

Pretty argumentative, straight to the point, and deals with a lot of Fastlane survivor biases and frankenphrases.

Here's the link for you guys to read. It seems they also have a book there. I might get it after I finish some more gigs.
No More Startup Myths | Dispelling (Startup) Myths Since 2014

EDIT: Oh, I forgot this.

On February this year, I went to a talk by an alumni of my university. She's working for the Malaysian P&G division, and helped recouped some losses by closely negotiating and observing the many vendors and distributors scattered around the country.

I took interest in some points in her speech and stayed back to ask some questions and talk.

I don't remember what I said, but I supposed the P&G folks were extra alert that day because I received an invitation on Linkedin for me to join some CEO Challenge contest to solve business problems the best.

Turned out to be some corporate hiring and talent acquisition ploy by their HR department.

Ordinarily, if I weren't aiming to do Fastlane stuff, I would have happily joined. Corporate competitions are great for the CV, at most. But I've heard too much of corporate horror tales to just jump in.

Somehow though, its funny that I got an offer that I never asked for just by talking to the right person.

 

[Xeon]

By Reddit tests, you're referring to running ads on Reddit? If so, you've got balls

 

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[Azure]

I've been following this progress thread for the past 7 months(and thousands of words). After all this time, you're still unclear of what you're selling, who's problem you're solving, or how you plan to solve it.

After hours of rewriting fake article headlines for products you have no intentions of selling, dont you think you've done that enough? It seems you're caught in a constant loop of information overload and its killing your actual execution.

Take some advice from @Andy Black

"You already know enough"

Not everything has to be complicated - especially not when you're first starting out. Keep it simple, agile and adapt based off market responses.

 

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[jpn]

Been checking in on your thread occasionally. Happy to see the progress on Upwork and your efforts paying off.

Also wanted to let you know that seeing your reaction on how other people approach their university work tells me 2 things.

The good: you have the right mindset, you’re taking what you do seriously. And whether in a job or a business this is important. It will set you apart whatever you do.

The less good: don’t waste too much energy and negativity on other people. It does you no good. That energy could be spent better on your own path.

I did have a question, maybe you’ve answered it before, but there’s a lot of content to sift through. Aren’t you still selling time for money with Upwork? Do you have a plan to scale that? Or what’s the perceived path to the end goal of Fastlane? Just like to understand because I see you grinding hard at this, but I see myself wondering if there aren’t better roads to take

 

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[jesseissorude]

He only suggested that we send the copy drafts to the market test WHEN I was saying I would be dropping the towel. Pretty weird for anyone who uses sales copy to not to put their selling materials to the test as a PRIMARY focus. I could have suggested that in the first place, but he was already not accepting many suggestions from me when we first started working together after the 'trial gigs'...a red flag?

Iiiinteresting!
At my last job, I was having to write copy for email collection tests for clients. I'd done it for hundreds of sites, and in some cases increased their email signups 3X in a single test.
Still, I'd always have clients that would ask for revision after revision because they didn't want to send something inferior live.

In reality, we could run the test over the course of a few hours and know if it really was inferior or not, but they'd always be scared.

I solved the problem with future clients by just assuming the role of an expert (since I freakin' was!). If they thought of me as the expert with the master plan, then they were at least a little more willing to take my advice and test copy they weren't 100% sure about.
To position myself, I always had a few good case studies in my back pocket.
My spiel was usually "I always set things up according to best practices, but every site is different. Any time I make an assumption, I want to always back it up with data. For example, on site xyz.com, the owner said her audience would never respond to a 10% discount, so we ran the test over 1 weekend, and she collected 1200 emails (a 92% increase to her list). She knew that each email on the list was worth $4.00 in revenue, so even if every single person that claimed a discount used it, that one change over 2 days earned her an extra $4320"

Stuff like that, obviously numbers and concrete results can help. I bet there's a way you can tie customer sales to your copywriting. Still, as long as they think of you as an expert (and not just some guy on upwork that they are trying to get cheap work out of) then you might have them be more receptive to your suggestions.

 

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[ZF Lee]

WARNING. LONG STORY AHEAD

Alright, at first I was reluctant to share this because I hadn't seen the results I truly wanted.

But I saw a few threads here at risk of action-fake, so I thought some balance is needed...

Anyways...

I went to a seminar. Paid, in the thousands.
I didn't shell out a buck, and it was only because my mum fell into the sales pitch psychology at a free seminar and bought an extra seat for me without consulting me first.

(I'll rant about that some other time)

So, I just went, even though I could have just refused and demanded for a refund.

The seminar was an Entrepreneur MasterClass, at least taught by an ex-Internet marketer who went on to do other different businesses and partnerships (he disclosed that the seminars were just his hobby).

The first 2 out of 3 days pretty much could be learned from TFLF or doing, but he brought in a few of his students, who had pretty well-known brands themselves, to share their experiences ala Progress Thread styles.

The main speaker said in the first day:
'When you all go out for lunch, go have lunch with someone you never met before. Go network.'

Rings like @Kak's challenge thread on meeting 1 new person per day.
(I'd like to do it, but I can say goodbye to studying time for university, given that I'll be travelling out of SCIPRTED academia to the meetups)

On the 2nd day, I went with my mum to a nearby cafe for lunch.

Damn. Full-house.

Then a 40-50-year-old couple invited us to sit at their table.

They wore the seminar participant tags as well.

Throughout the meal, we introduced ourselves, discussed light topics, blablabla…

The next day, we ran into them as well in another café for lunch!

So we sat down, and ordered food.

We talked again.

Turns out, the wife is a Herbalife seller, while the husband (let's call him Joe) is the general manager of a mall (yeah, the actual building where people go shopping).

I listen to my mum mull over the conversation, and then I hear the hubbie mention he is facing some kind of issue with the mall he helps manages.

‘What issue?’ I ask.

‘I need to sell mall space to some educators for expansion of their international school. But the problem is that their purchase of the space won’t get through unless their investors give them money.’

‘Why won’t their investors give them the money?’ I asked.

Joe explained, ‘Well, they are educators. And even worse, they are Americans. They just talk, talk, talk and don’t really understand what investors are truly looking for- financial data. And anyway, the educators don’t know where to get the financial estimates from.’

My mind floated back to my past white paper projects, where I tired myself out scanning through market databases and economic journals for the info.

‘Well…let’s see how I can help?’ I offered.

I took out my notebook, and started probing the guy for info.

Joe was open to share more details.

I popped lots of questions, as one leads to another….

‘How long has the school been in session?’

‘Segments? Primary and secondary school? Great!’

‘Oh, they had past investors? Do they have old pitch decks from that past…huh? They didn’t send in any formal proposals or pitch slides?’

‘Foreign teachers they bring in? OK, from where? What are they good at?’

‘Who’s the founders? What are their names, passions?’

And so on…

After that, I told Joe, the general manager, that I could help him with what I knew about assembling some data together for a quick biz proposal or slides.

Technically, I wasn’t helping him directly.

I would be servicing the educators who needed the investor money, to go buy the mall space from the hubbie’s superiors, to expand their international school.

He thanked me, handed me his biz card and contact, and I said I would send him an informal blueprint of the task the next day. And if it all went well, he would forward my contact to the educators.

And I had a waiting prospect!

Or at worst, just another networking point, and some exercising on value-providing.

If the educators got the investor money, and bought the mall space from John's superiors...

The deal of the new expansion of the international school would be a potential RM15 million deal.

15 million BUCKS (number-to-number)

I have never heard of a freelancer getting close to a 15-million buck deal...

I dunno whether the deal will come through, or what’s the price point for my services will be.

I don’t even have a working Linkedin account. And my Upwork account is still in renovation (I'm changing the copy for the profile write-up again).

I have no business cards, no business name, no endorsing certification.

In fact, all I told John about my abilities was just this:

- I freelance in writing
- I did some white papers involving a little bit of financial data
(as if even putting together CAGR rates was even decent financial data to begin with)

That's all. 2 sentences on what I did in business, so far.

And yet, I got an opening.

Here's the thing though...

I dunno if the paid seminar I went to was the 'thing' that led me to such an occasion.
But I don't think so.

I could have just kept quiet while the adults talked and talked, and just 'be a kid'.

And just shoved my head into lunch, like a pig lol.

Now, looks like I'll have to dig into the private school market in Malaysia, and come up with a basic suggested business proposal blueprint for John to look at, and see what he thinks of it...

EDIT: Thank God for HubSpot. They have some decent templates and samples for proposals and stuff that I can branch out from. Would enable me to focus more on the research process...

 

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[ZF Lee]

Nothing much to update here except for some recent posts I wrote on my situation in other threads:

Very disappointed at this year’s Chinese New Year.

No, I’m not disappointed by the lockdowns, limited movement (only 2 pax a table at restaurants, no interstate travel).

I’m more disappointed at my family.

Without giving away too many details, I’ve had to see my own parents talk shit over fighting housing committee politics vs moving out, my mum and sibling making a f*cked up ruckus over a simple thing as just setting up a Messenger call for the cross-family reunion and their blatant refusal to talk things over and make amends.

Not the first time it happened on CNY.

The last few CNYs were filled with f*cking arguments as well...breakups, emotional outbursts, pushing under the carpet...

And guess who suffers lots from it all?
Me.

As much as I see the call to ‘move away from toxic family (even parents and siblings)’ arise from every corner, I decided to do what I could to keep family together.

Tried talking to each family member individually to get their point of view.

Tried getting everyone together to share their thoughts and solutions.

Reflected, admitted my own share of fault (if any) and said my sorries.

And then urged everyone to do the same and to seek peace and openness.

But all they want to do is to sweep shit under carpets, go along with their own selfish agendas (eg sleep, toxic mindsets, money, ego and a whole lot other crap), blame, fight, mind games, lip service...

And this comes from my own family...
Parents, siblings and even a few ‘closer’ aunts and uncles.

Just now I couldn’t take it anymore after trying in vain to get people to talk, and just stormed off to my room.
And I just wonder...why celebrate CNY if you don’t know how to f*cking cherish and put aside your agendas or selfish shit in your brains?!


As I hastily wiped my silent tears, I had some suicidal thoughts..feeling so alone even in a place I should be calling home.

Then I remembered Lex talking about ‘get enough matches to burn bridges’.

I thought, ‘What else do I have? What resources can I work with?’

I’m going to look for a room to rent out far away from family...I may just have to find other family-figures who will appreciate me better.

I already have a Men’s Fellowship group in Kuala Lumpur (I only see them on Zoom calls these days). When the lockdowns lift end of this month, I’ll go all in to help out the men. At least they have more respect and gratitude for me.

I’ll also need to have more financial resources stocked up since I’ll be on my own...so I have to cut down more experimental projects like my stock trading, which I started last year December...which I feel very sad about because I did quite OK, and even the hard work analyzing stocks and TA is fun.

Which reminds me of this thread:

GOLD! - HOT! - PEOPLE - How to stop getting abused by people?

TLDR: Some people in life are particularly perverse and will abuse you and your kindness and when you realize it happened, it's too late. How do you prevent this from happening? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The full story: IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

This made me sadder, as I realize a rising trend of not just friends...entire families being destroyed as perfectly good folks are forced to get far away from shitty loved ones.

I can understand saving your sanity by getting away from toxic, uncooperative people....but how about your roots, people you stayed with since you were born? How much cutting-off will continue until one is left without an identity?

I guess that’s up to one’s tolerance and emotional bank account.

As families weaken and people go their own ways, let’s say that’s the beginning of the end.
Truly...I am very disappointed with CNY, my family and the general attitude of family.

UPDATE FOR 29/3/21-3/4/21 (Mon to Sat)
I'm sorry to say that I'll have to suspend my habits tracking till further notice.

For now, here's the summary of my current progress:

(1) Waking up around 8-9AM daily
Woke up late on Mon, Wed, Fri (10.15 AM+)


(2) Sleeping at 11pm-12.30am
Slept late on Mon and Thurs (1 AM+)


(3) Daily Market Research
Habit is still suspended as I'm studying Daniel Throsell's Market Detective course.

If any copywriter is reading this, save your money and buy the damn course!

It has EVERYTHING on market research...how to survey your client as a starting point, how to dig through the garbage on Reddit, how to organize your brief (instead of the endless lists the Udemy copywriting courses seem to encourage mindlessly), how to draw out a Big Idea or Mechanism from the brief...

Also sign up for Daniel Throsell's emails.
His Parallel Welcome email Sequence is one of a kind...very long, but probably one of the most engaging.
Throughout his welcome email sequence, he rewards you for reading every email with a fun story, and even slips in some affiliate links for other copywriters or gurus within the stories.

Unfortunately, because the course is very good, I was unable to read-and-apply simultaneously i.e. write copy while looking at the course material that typical action-getters here do. There was a lot to digest and lots of demo videos...so I had to delay my Upwork copywriting work for a bit...which means I wouldn't be writing proposals for Upwork to get jobs for a bit...

After all, I do not want to offer copywriting services that are FLAWED. I need to correct my processes, and then I can sell confidently and truly help businesses to give them the sales copy they desperately need.

Unfortunately, since I wasn't making money in the short-term, my parents started hounding me to get a job (since I'm technically graduated).

"Just go work at X place/X uncle's business/Subway/whatever just to get the experience. Forget about the money."

"Freelancing isn't a job. You are just seeing people through a screen . That isn't real-world contact."

I kept quiet as much as I could because I didn't want to stir the pot. But if I could, I'd rebutt back:

"What do you mean money doesn't matter?! It MATTERS because it's the yardstick of value!
If I get paid too little, it means my labor wasn't that important to them...and I must raise my value!

Skills like copywriting, web design, accounting, consultancy have better pay scales because they give much better value and ROI for a business- more than a McDonalds' worker!

And what the f*ck do you mean 'freelancing isn't real-world contact'?!

I've had to discuss new deals with shitty clients, remake onboarding processes over and over, have countless revision rounds or interviews, cajole team members to submit their part of the work, throw in soft compliments now and then to psychologically reward or punish clients for certain actions...this isn't real-world contact?????

Also, you never heard of work-from-home? Unless you are building houses or cooking as a hawker, you would most likely be stuck behind a screen! Not ideal, but what to do? Many employers or clients are doing this!"

Maybe my parents bring it up because they care.
But I cannot help but wonder whether they just want me to be like everyone else in the SCRIPTED status quo.

To be fair, it is also my fault as well.
I stopped Upwork mid of last year because I was feeling burned-out, and my last college semester had more stupid group members and studying to deal with.

But these were actually EXCUSES.

Being burned out might very well have showed me more where to improve, and I could have googled better to find better resources like the Market Detective course. I should never have stopped my Upwork work...

Still, I cannot believe I still haven't moved out yet, even after I wrote that post on the Random Rants thread...

I already earmarked where I want to move to, but the stupid thing is that the government has banned interstate travel unless I have a work permit or taken a vaccine (the rollout is still slow, and I don't want to take it because I can't choose my brand!)

I'll think of something...but my first priority is to learn enough of the Market Detective course, and apply it quickly to my Upwork jobs. That's why I have to suspend the Habits Tracker for some time...my activities are gonna be quite imbalanced.


(4) Mandarin/Cantonese learning
Done on all days except Friday.
Regretfully I haven't gotten the Chinese textbook I stated I wanted earlier.
So little time...all I could do was just watch more Mandarin Peppa Pig videos and jot down new words and phrases on a Word doc.


(5)Bible Reading
Done on all days except Friday


(6)Daily Exercises
Done on all days. Still stuck at push-ups and some stretching exercises though.

(7) Supplements (1X daily)
Taken on all days

I noticed I'm writing more again on TFLF even though I have things to do...guess that's because I don't have many whom I can truly talk with offline...

 

[ZF Lee]

Alright, here's what happened so far:

1. Suddenly Upwork blew me up with more copywriting jobs than the last year...
Some email work from Singapore...some Pilates sales copy mixed with marketing gurus emails...well,
the workpile blurs over.

There's plenty of lessons to write on for each and every project.

But I'd go on forever haha. I do remember many gurus are starting to use Loom to record their work (eg videos on writing funnel copy if they teach sales funnel creation)--and their recordings could double as products/bonuses by themselves. I should start making a habit to do just that?

This time I starting bringing out modest systems of sorts.

We are talking things like client surveys, Wave invoices...basic frameworks that I never really started out with from Day 1.

But the work piled up and I started tiring...

I would just fall asleep in the afternoon and delay quite some deadlines.

And regardless of how many walks or supplements I tried-- I just needed rest.

Which I actually HATE with all my heart.

Yes, I HATE REST.
I just can't fathom good hours ticking by...time I can spend having fun or getting things done.

A client of mine tells me he keeps his work time to as little as 3 hours.
It seems that it's actually how long the human mind can stand deep work non-stop?

We have really weak minds then, if that is true...

Time for me to hire copywriting roles out?

I felt that I'm still learning the craft and haven't hit the jackpot of mastery yet.
And hiring might very well turn into hand-holding of the freelancers lol, considering how SHIT most copywriting education is these days.


2. I noticed I'm eating out more often.
Given my work-- I just did not have time to cook as usual.

So let's say the bills took a hit.
I remember I tried the r/MealPrepSunday thing...but that also required upfront cooking efforts.

And when you are working on stuff, cooking definitely will be the least of your thoughts.

So I'm considering just living on raw fruits, veges, sandwiches, cold preps with the occasional outside dining...but the folks close to me say its crazy.

I don't know...either I eat lean like that...or I hire personal chefs or pig out on Grabfood and drain my money...

I think I can understand better why men generally suck at cooking.
It's not that they weren't willing to learn-- their early years of working hard to survive simply did not leave them
enough time to pick it up.



3. 'Committing the guard' to networking
Somewhere along the line-- when you are working on key relationships-- you will have a few MAJOR events to take up more responsibility than usual. And often these push on the relationships (and lessons) in greater spurts.

My church's Men's Fellowship invited me to help in their FIRST ever camp.

So there I was...a 20+ year old kid in a meeting full of 30-60+ year old folks.
I would be helping out with tech support and camp games.

One thing I liked was that every department of the camp (logistics, games, accounting, spirituality) was that
each was given lots of autonomy.

Every fortnight meeting had the department leaders updating everyone on what was going on...suggest some plans...get feedback and some resources...and then work on them till next meeting...

And many times we helped one another out-- even though it wasn't 'our' assigned duty.

For example, I would attend multiple services across the weekends to man the registration booth for the camp.
Hold a huge placard to promote the camp haha...like some shop salesperson.

I'd never done that kind of sales gig before...so the first time round, my knees was shaking as I tried to chat up folks and talk to them about the ministry and the camp.

But the other men I worked with were GOOD...they just knew how to strike up a convo with folks...and then segue into talking more about the mens' ministry and camp. Not everyone had joined a mens' fellowship after all. And for some reasons, these days the church had A LOT of newcomers...

So I often listened to how they chatted-- and realised it was the simple things like asking for their name...how long they joined church...what cells/fellowships were they currently in...what was making them smile/busy at that moment...

So far we booked 41 out of the 60 targeted places for the Camp

And according to a church coordinator we work with--that number was pretty good. We had bigger, more matured men's; fellowships across town only rope in 30 pax for their own camp! We aren't competing--but it's actually REALLY hard to get folks to sign up to anything these days-- church or not.

For planning camp games, I realised I hadn't done that kind of work for YEARS.

So I broke it all down to:
1. Game materials (I will have to budget and get claims for)
2. Time spent on game
3. Game aim
4. Game instructions & rules
5. Special scenarios (in case the game gets boring or we have a tie to break)
6. Backup games

So I spent quite some time writing plans for those and presenting them to the camp committee.
Both indoors and outdoors games...

End of this week we'll start indoor game tryouts.
I invited as many of the folks to try them out-- so I can find gaps to improve on before we played them
at the camp itself. Tomorrow I'll visit some places to start picking breakfast for them.

For once, I rented the meeting room at my flat to get it done.

I have NEVER used my place's facilities since forever (and I don't think my neighbours ever did so--too busy working at their 9-5 jobs haha)...so this time should put them to good use.

Of course I had to talk with the flat's management...get some paperwork done...

I guess my point is here that the deeper you wanna build connections (for me and my mens' fellowship, in this case)-- you need to put in MORE time and effort.

And it simply isn't enough to just 'show up'.

You have to start thinking how to put things in black and white-- and have some processes of sorts.

And you do have to schedule one-on-one meetings with individual folks.

What I liked was that the men in the fellowship somehow found time to plan lunches to discuss not just work in general...but also other stuff of life. We are talking extremely busy businessmen and contractors going out together.

And in such one-to-one sessions, you learn A LOT on how each fella thinks...how they work...their past history that shaped them as the person they are today. It all comes out--you don't have to ask some trick questions to prod them. I guess everyone is kinda lonely at heart-- and is just waiting for folks to just spend time with them. Something like this Forum...

I'm actually GLAD I can contribute and volunteer here.

When I talked about it to a friend, he simply snorted, 'I don't help out with these things any longer. I'll only join meetings if they can help ME make money..."

Money is important. But making relationships just for money's sake?
I find that rather bitter and lonely...

And looking back at it all, I don't regret going the extra mile to hook up with far more matured folks or social groups-- even if I do have to step up to help.

Few years back, if you told me I was gonna lead games for a grown mens' camp...I would laugh and ask if you had some secret tips for getting rich faster...

 

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[ZF Lee]

Went to an e-commerce meetup last night.
Had a few entrepreneurs critic my idea.

Got a tip from one of them to visit a trade fair of my industry happening this week. Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

F*ck...two of those trade fair days are occupied by bloody classes.
I'm not sure if going for one day only might hurt my chances of going in fresh to the fair. I want to ask a shit ton of questions, talking and so on.

I could give my classes the bird, since they are just lectures and not tutorials. I do have online notes to make up for the lost lessons...

On validation, I'm thinking that the trade fair can indicate another dimension of demand as well. I'll never know what suppliers might reveal....

Yikes!

Another bad news. The clipart seller guy didn't reach out to me...so I think he either forgot about me or didn't need me in the first place. No biggie...I can find better jobs on Upwork, so I'm not needy for that.

EDIT: Registration page down? WTF? How in the hell do your people register then??? Jeezzz.

I'll either have to email the related association directly or just park my a$$ there. Thankfully, the fair allows public visitors, but with proper registration.

 

[ZF Lee]

My business school sent me email recently.

They want me to send them my CV so that they can start prepping letters for any upcoming internships I might take...

.....

While it is good that my university has measures to ensure its students just don't rot away, I just cannot contemplate how it is that we have to find our bread and butter with a slave brand that is our CV.

SCRIPT crap.

I went to an investment talk, where they gave out financial statements of the company. They included the directors' brief write-up of their CV, but that was lower than the prime purpose of the report and company-creating value for stakeholders!

In all of my meetups with business people, no CV or education was mentioned. Only what kind of value they did in the present, be it event management, accounting, coding, sales.

In fact, as I have said earlier, I never used any CV-related stuff to get jobs for Upwork. I even had a few repeat clients. But I've never did the same approach to successfully get into the 4-figure range of payment. Guess that needs more work.

I found this gem here:
NOTABLE! - Is it worth it to pay for someone to redo my resume?

And I realised that I could position by freelancing gigs, as well as past co-curriculum and clubs stuff into multiple dimensions that attract the attention of folks and perhaps brighten up some bored HR recruiter's day lol. If you helped the higher-ups save time, improve performance (in any measurable manner) and excelled, beating some kind of benchmark, that would be a lot better than a plain job description.

After a few breaks, thinking and typing, it was done!

I'm wondering if I should do a Fastlane challenge on getting a plain 9-5 job without a CV though, just to spite the asses.

Now to think of it, an old client called. Need me to do another task. Around the same price level as past tasks, but since he was a nice guy and great to work with, I'm fine with it. But I don't think I should be going solo-lancing in the long term. Still working on revamping it and exploring subcontracting, so that I can focus on selling and sending emails.

 

[ZF Lee]

Went to work on planning to niche my freelancing. Ray Dalio's book gave me some hinters on execution.

Looked back at my past gigs, and realised that even though I put my profile out as a copywriter, most of my gigs done in the past were VA.

And VA gigs weren't exactly very lucrative.

Thought for a bit. Started worrying about re-positioning myself as a copywriter with the major lack in portfolio. Thought about deleting the account and starting over, which would be a sad waste as my past clients, especially the VA ones, rated me very well.

Researched some examples of how copywriting can be niched. There's copywriters who just help create titles for health books and copywriters who help write technical white papers only. Nothing like the bullshit all over the Internet.

Took a break and thought some more.

Then I realised that I actually didn't really know what a VA really was.

I had thought VAs did only menial tasks like Word, content creation and Excel crap. Maybe nottt....

I looked up on freelance.com and Upwork.

I realised that I was so blind. I had only been looking up for writing and copywriting jobs, and never at VA jobs strictly.

There were VAs who did accounting, coding, emailing and appointment booking in specialised fields such as manufacturing, medical and tech. And some happened to be specialised for Chinese, Spanish and European companies.

So here's what I'll do:
1. Get a list of common tasks (or problems) that VAs are regularly hired for. 10-15 will do. And I'll look for gig openings that display a certain barrier of entry/niche potential.

For instance, if a client is needing helping in his manufacturing line, and he's only getting 5 or less proposals, it might mean that the big M scared off the birds. He shouldn't be the lone client with the same field and problem!

My bet is on education, focused on seminar/camp-styled industry, and health (alternative medicine, herbal, allergies). Both seem to be very 'easy' industries to work with, as they are B2C, but they actually aren't! Why do you think they are the last to be automated by the bots?

I'll see what the search engine tells me on the gig stats!

2. Re-examine my present skillset. See if I need to redevelop it (which I definitely have to), and cut down things to what I know, and what I don't know, so that I can choose the best learning materials.

3. Visit the Upwork forums. I only discovered that it had forums just recently. How shameful....

4. Skill up, rearrange my portfolio and profile, and restart the proposals!

Might be able to learn something there lol.

Potentially, if I market and create the gigs track record well enough, I can eventually transition into a full-blown copywriter with all the works.

I suppose that after discovering what I went wrong, I shouldn't blame Upwork too much. I haven't used ALL its stuff yet after all!

Not sure if I'll get it all done by the weekend. Got a seminar at university for internships. Might meet some businesspeople there.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Note: I feel that a lot of things that I'm writing here somehow doesn't directly lead to Fastlane profits, but they do help connect the dots. Now I kind of understand what 'grinding' might mean. It's not just sitting in your room, crunching on the computer keyboard. It's more than that.

For that, I'll detail as much as I can on what's going on as far as I can go. Anyway, I'd want a record of things to tell my girl. I'm looking at a lot of meetups or networking, to know who's who, as well as freelance and eventually, a solid business?

TBH, I felt a bit sad that I'm not living in the USA to benefit from the direct contact of the American Fastlaners. But looking that I am operating largely in Malaysia, I don't really need to worry too much about copycats to post stuff here.

In the meantime, there's a little strange tale similar to the P&G story up there....

Went a church cell group tonight.

I had joined it for the first time some weeks ago, but the packed schedule didn't allow me to pop by until today. I also had a bit of earlier disgust towards the church in general for not helping me to solve my problems (very entitlement mindset and selfish of me), so I got into the cells later than I should.

Tonight was a Christmas celebration, and everyone had to share what they were thankful about for the year, and what they would like to improve in.

A tall Indian lad (let's call him Dan), who's one of the regulars, said that he was looking to land a flying job with the country's top budget airline. Before, he had run and sold a tech company that did an online job platform.

I asked him why he chose a flying job instead of going onwards to his next venture, as most successful entrepreneurs do. Dan said that flying was his passion, and he was a co-founder for another tech company during his present gap months.

The company was Jibble. A HR management software that of one of its notable features, is a geo-tracking ability to keep folks under curfew (e.g. cadets/trainees in their living quarters around XXXpm).

Jibble, Jibble, Jibble.....hey, why does it sound so familiar?

Then I remembered my past time on Quora (I still haven't written there in a while).

Jibble was founded by Asim Qureshi. A Harvard grad that ran away from finance to tech entrepreneurship in Malaysia. So I asked Dan about him. He's a top Quoran in the business department.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Asim-Qureshi-17

Turns out that indeed Dan was partnering with Asim himself. Even was having a tennis session the day before our night meeting!

It was like having a friend revealing to you that he works directly with Mark Cuban or Ray Dalio. Effing unexpected. Small world indeed.

Dan was quite surprised that I knew Qureshi (from Quora), and he said he would put a word in to him about me.

I don't have any plans to work in tech, let alone with Qureshi, but have I opened a door?

Side story:
He also had a few funny tales on the tech world.

He had apparently met Nick D'Aloisio (remember the 17-year-old who sold Summly to Yahoo?)- saw him as a very clever lad for his age. The guy's now in Oxford. Kicker is that the lad didn't design the algos and stuff for the app. He instead got the help from other devs. So when the Yahoo folks hired him, he just ended up warming the office chair, instead of the command prompt, for some time as he didn't really have the regular coding knowledge.

Weird though. I thought at least Nick could go help out in the non-programming side of things.

There were a few more he shared, but I'll talk about them later.

 

[ZF Lee]

Man that sucks that your family is so unsupportive. Hopefully they'll feel different about your choices once you've attained a measure of success. Keep the momentum up! It will all work out for the best.

Thanks for the support.

I have thought about this for a while. Honestly, regardless of what success I reach, it is likely that it would matter little to my parents. In a nutshell, their perceptions of what 'success' stands for, was placed upon them by their peers and experiences. If I had followed their approaches, I would still be aiming to settle in a 9-5 job today.

My girl was the one who saved me by giving me a cause to work towards, which needed more out of me. For that, I am grateful to her. I'll ensure that she enjoys the most of the rewards, when they come. Which includes the records I'll be putting up on TFLF now and then.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Researched and formed at least 3 potential client profiles/avatars that I will be writing sales proposals to. One is based on my past experience, and the other two based on upcoming fields/ industry/ specific problems that are relatively new to me.

Ugh. Had to do a backtrack. Had to stop and kill off hours' worth of work. Back to the drawing board.

During a break at 4pm, I thought a bit and looked at my 'ideal customer avatars/profiles'

Then I rechecked the jobs list on Upwork and other job boards.

Even the most detailed of the descriptions, with websites and LinkedIns, the avatar write-ups I had made (goes something like: Mr X serves in X industry, needing help for Y problem/looking for Z solution, in order to achieve A result) seriously made my own profile write-up look robotic and stiff. Who knows, my eventual interviews might even turn out robotic and stiff as well.

My hunch is that I was trying to reinvent the wheel with the customer avatar. I decided to be honest with myself, and saw that for certain customer profiles that touched on certain industries, awareness cycle (e.g. warm vs cold), I wouldn't be able to serve them well. Moreover, for my Upwork profile and subsequent proposals, I could only sell with ONE UNIFYING IDEA. All great sales letters and copy center around one unifying idea. Having multiple ideal customer profiles in mind would cause a conflict of interest within me.

So what was the ONE UNIFYING IDEA, that I could sell based on? Some might call it the USP, some call it the ultimate benefit, some might call it niche, I'd like to call it the one unifying idea, thanks to Great Leads.

So I dug around the Internet, and read up more detailed stuff on freelancing niches.

I won't post the sites I read up here, but I'll put some highlights here. Up to you folks to decide what to do with these basic information as a starter.

There are 2 routes of niching, in a nutshell:
HORIZONTAL NICHING: Do one task for multiple industries, e.g. doing bookkeeping for bakeries, electricians, plumbers, doctors, lawyers....

VERTICAL NICHING: Do a whole suite of tasks for ONE kind of industry, e.g. do the taxes, finance reports, invoicing, payroll, insurance, journals for only public libraries

This is Niche 101, but I think that there's still some folks out there who still don't know what it means!

I considered my options. Horizontal niching definitely would allow me to position myself to do just one task for some select industries. One task, one unifying idea to sell with. I could later transition into vertical, but I need more practical experience and re-training (which I don't want to get bogged down with, the email marketing stuff ate me a week or so, especially to tinker about with MailCheat(Chimp) and Trello for the first time....)

Then I got torn between choosing to be a VA that manages stuff and a VA that markets on the clients' behalf.

So I wrote my thoughts out on some rough paper, googled some keywords that stood out, only to find a surprisingly humble, but decent-paying task.

Won't reveal it, but let's say that all of us do it every day. And now to think of it, it was hinted as an actual PROBLEM here in this very Forum! Forgot which thread it was, but it wasn't in the INE or INSIDERS section...

Will leap back to work on the Upwork profiles, send a few proposals and test this out!

Shit, its 11pm....I want to wake up early tomorrow for a jog, and my body still wants to work.
Need to seriously time block or something.

NOTE: Find the time to take breaks so that your brain can work its magical gears to figure it out. I noticed that throughout my past efforts in the last few days, some new insights came out of breaks.

 

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[superb]

OK, should be done with the profile and other stuff in a few minutes.

I got a hint from the outsourcing spokesperson himself, Tim Ferriss. Visited his blog for a while as I had a hunch that a considerable amount of clients would grab some of his frameworks and are less likely to modify them greatly.

In one of his articles, he wrote to the outsourcers (not VAs), warning them that some of them might feel touchy about having the VAs handle their personal stuff. This would cause them to have less time for important stuff. Pro-tip: Tie some old white t-shirts around them to diffuse the light.

In other words, resistance. I need to help clients cut it down so that I can help them.

In this case, I'll make the decision to make a quick video tomorrow for the Upwork profile with my webcam. At my accomodations, the study area will be empty, so I can use it all by my own!

Video should be around 1-2 min long. Will include a screen recording on my computer on how I roughly do the bread and butter of things. I've never seen the other VAs do it, so it should help me stand out.

I've done screen record stuff before, but this time, I need one without the watermark and less laggy. No Bandicam messes.

In case you didn't know already, some inexpensive lighting can do a lot for the quality of photos/videos. I don't know whats available in your country, but something like this is what I use:

I've found that 100W clear incandescent bulbs have a better color balance than using fluorescent or LED bulbs. You'll want to place one right in front of you, the other aimed so it reduces/elimates shadows behind you.

 

[ZF Lee]

Here's a suggestion: Offer to improve the website copy for suppliers on Alibaba who serve Anglophone customers. Most of their websites suck, and they're turning off prospects. It'd be a small investment for the factories with a potentially big payoff in sales.

Also, read and master Donald Miller's StoryBrand copywriting methods.

Good idea! I think @Spicymemer45 did something like that!

StoryBrand copywriting with websites? I'll look into it. Sounds a bit crazy, what with putting that copy style for the Chinese suppliers and all.

It's weird that I am Chinese, but I perceive the Mainland folks as though they are foreigners....

 

[Readerly]

Good idea! I think @Spicymemer45 did something like that!

StoryBrand copywriting with websites? I'll look into it. Sounds a bit crazy, what with putting that copy style for the Chinese suppliers and all.

It's weird that I am Chinese, but I perceive the Mainland folks as though they are foreigners....

Glad you like the idea. I don't think it's crazy at all. A website is a sales pitch, is it not? And the sales managers at those factories are people too. People respond to stories. You'd position yourself as their guide to increased sales.

 

[ZF Lee]

I've got my first LOCAL prospect. Prospect, not client. Client comes when money comes.

I've always avoided my local market because they will need too much educating and will probably skimp more on price. That's not to say I will never advise clients, but just not now.

I met her at a local meetup. I found interest in her blog and she even had a book and podcast.

I offered to offer some 'suggestions', to her and she agreed.

Tomorrow, I'll send her a small list of questions on her website to see how I can cater stuff more specifically to her. Just 5 questions or so. I'd normally do it over the phone, but I think its alright to give her some time to think and answer.

In the meantime, I got to work to prepare a little something for her. I visited the blog, bought her ebook (cheap, but haven't got it yet) and collected some keywords and ideas on her message to her target market: Malaysian Young Adults confused about taking a different step in life, away from Asian and corporate chains.

Now, here's what SHE'S going to expect on 'suggestions':

- She gets a text from me, listing out 'You must do X and Y and cut Z'. The end, end of story

Here's what I'M going to do:

- Upgrade some parts of her copy. She's trying to be personal and down to earth with her prospect visitors on her site, but she still didn't talk about their problems first.

I've discovered a new tool to help gauge decent copy, and who knows, its in Microsoft Word itself. Go read this article.

The FK Hack: 5 Shortcuts To Writing Clearer Copy So You Can Make More Sales (Part 2) | CopyMonk

-Instead of sending the copy in a weak Microsoft Word doc, I'll actually put it on her website.

Nope, I'm not gonna hack into it. I'll just right-click, click Inspect element and just play around with the HTML/CSS ...with another browser opened up to peek at a YouTube tutorial video

If I don't like the results, I'll just refresh the page and it returns to default.

If I'm done, I'll just screen capture and sent it to her.

-I saw that she could do away or add some stuff on her website. I'll do more CSS wizardry with it, despite only half-completing a free HTML/CSS course last month.

Not bad for a day's work. Didn't really expected to pick up shit to learn and do on the fly. Might look forward to add 'HTML/CSS skills' to the Upwork listing.

 

[ZF Lee]

UPDATES

Nothing about business, I'm afraid.

More and more on family problems.

Nothing harsh on me, don't worry. I won't go into deeper details, but let us say there was an argument between a few other family members, and I had to act as a kind of peacemaker/middleman, shaving off a week's worth of work.

I'll just post some insights that I learned. I'll leave you Fastlaners to wonder what happened behind the scenes, which isn't actually important.

1. Go into a relationship based on a need.
Remember the CENTS?
Ya, they work too for Boy-Girl relations.

I was very fortunate to decide to be close with my girl because I saw she needed LOTS of help in many areas, which included learning and empathy. And so, this led me to Fastlane.

Go in and help him/her solve problems. Improve their lives beyond a kiss or a dinner.

Entry also is needed.

A boy/girl that pushes you to be firm, disciplined, and sets limits.

Someone who is not that easy to win over. Someone whom you must prove and build trust in.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with most relationships.

Most people just do it just to get the hotdog filled (gasps)

My girl ensured that I could concentrate more on my studies (and indirectly, Fastlane) by making me cut access to social media, as well as requesting that we meet only at friends gatherings, not ALONE. I know it doesn't sit well with a lot of you, but we just weren't ready for that yet. Not today, but tomorrow.

2. Do not place 100% of your resources to help someone. Give sufficiently and sparingly.
There is a big difference between losing 5 minutes to write a helpful post on TFLF vs losing $10,000 plus hours in uncomfortable flights in flight tickets to see someone who ends up rejecting you.

BTW, I've seen the latter happen in real life, and it was a relationship, not a business trip.

3. Always Be Testing, even your friends
It's not to make your or your friends' lives miserable.

It's just to see who you can give more tasks to do.

Think of it as picking an employee to promote and reward more.

For instance, I might send some samples and a helpful email to a prospect.

Then I will see how long it takes for her to reply, as well as the quality of the reply.

If I like it, and she sends the reply quickly, I will then start selling to her. She's a good quality lead that I can be well-assured of. Otherwise, I'll keep her in the pipeline, but I might not 'activate' things immediately.

Or another example...

If I want to trust a friends with secrets, first I test her integrity by giving her a small harmless story.

Then I'll see if she lets it out on the main group or circle of friends.

Of course, this scenerio has so many things that could go different.

But if she doesn't let it out within X circle of friends within Y period of time, even if Z trigger or temptation presents itself, I might tell her more.

You can forgive little mistakes, but if they become too purposeful, regular or dangerous, its time to turn your attention to other folks...same as employees.

4. If it hurts the ones you love, don't do it.
I don't mean the arguments of 'College vs Fastlane' that divide families. That can be settled easily.

I mean other tough stuff.

I have personally seen family splits, both far and near, over things such as misunderstandings, tantrums during bad days and destructive habits.

In a nutshell, your decision to get addicted to something bad or hook up with a bullying lady/lad could make your parents or loved ones sick with worry about you.

Think about them, and do your best to keep them at ease, no matter how imperfect they may be.

5. Sometimes the best solution is to be there, and say nothing.
That family conflict I mentioned had folks crying on both sides.

It was made further worse by having some members give too much advice to the suffering parties, only for them to lash back.

I read some depression subreddits.

You can't give a lot of advice to people who are sad and angry. Their brain is too primed for survival.

We need to wait for the system to cool down. In the meantime, we'll just sit by and just, be there.
If you do need to speak, ask questions that have them open up and talk more about themselves.

Be as open-ended with the questions as possible.

Do not have a biased question. They may take it to be influencing them with advice that they don't want.
There will be a time for it later.

Examples:
'What would you like to do about it later?'

'I agree with some of it. Why would you do it this way, though?'

'I understand that they did this to you. Do you think they have done it for another reason?'

'Was this the first time they did this? Yes? What did you do about it back then?'

And keep them fed, hydrated and rested.

EDIT: On the 100 headlines challenge, I noticed some common filters popping up for products:

• environments
• outstandingly irritating problems (e.g overpriced razors, poisonous pesticide-ridden vegetables)
• elimination of X bad thing
• addition of Y advantage
• addition of something rare
• revealing a secret
• slight play on entertaining trends (e.g. writing products can be linked to Harry Potter or Charles Dickens)
• winning opportunity in X situation or challenge
• ability to protect and help loves ones
• educational content

Plus, I think I'll be going the approach of writing body copy, before the headline, instead of the other way round.

 

[ZF Lee]

Finally went round to optimize my freelancer.com account after dealing with Upwork stuff and a local call.

The interface of the site is rather...spartan.

They have a lot of the same stuff with Upwork like places to put your portfolio and job experience, as well as tests.

But the tests...you have to PAY for them. USD$5 per test.

I don't think you Americans will bat an eye at that. But for some of the Third World folks, that means a lot.

I don't think it'll hurt doing at least a US English test.

Let's see how this site will turn out as an additional channel...

 

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[ZF Lee]

That's true. You only need one good contact. You could have hundreds of nobodies, but one real connection with a serious and influent business owner can make a huge difference. Quality over quantity.

Really inspiring progress thread. Keep going !

Good point! Thanks for the encouragement.

Today though, something weird is coming up. First time I've seen it.

• Prospect opens up convo with me.
• Wants me to modify her CV
• States a decent price plus sends me her CVs and asks me for a suitable deadline
• I suggest Sunday and she says it's great
• Hasn't sent me the formal offer notification.

If you don't send me the offer notification, how am I supposed to formally start and be assured that the payment is secured by Upwork until I get the job done?

Following contract law, a formal agreement needs to be accepted, with offer sent. Otherwise, if something goes wrong, nothing can be done because the contract wasn't set in stone in the first place.

I'll gave her a reminder last night, but if it continues today, I'll explain the implications out in detail and state a deadline for her to respond, or else, she'll have to go get someone else.

In case though she accidentally ran late and forgot to send me the offer (I hope that is the case), I'll look at her CVs and finish HALF the work first.

EDIT FEW MINS LATER:

Thank goodness! Crisis solved!

The client sent me the offer finally after I sent her the following:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good day.

Just wanted to clarify matters.

You have stated that you would be paying for polished versions of your resumes.
This tells me that you are serious about roping me in for the job at hand, and that it isn't a 'trial-run'.
Some clients do request me to do some sample work to do, so that they know that I can truly fit their needs.
However, its implied that it's isn't one of 'those' requests.

Now, its around 11 am in your home country of India, and I haven't received any offer notifications to formalize the contract.

The gig is still in 'active proposal' mode, as opposed to a formal ongoing job,

If you are late in sending me the offer notification, I might have to work extra hard
to make it for the Sunday deadline, you know?

Why is the offer so important?

An offer notice lets me know that you are truly serious about working and communicating with me, throughout the job timeline. Plus, the Upwork team will be able to have records they can use to help both of us, if something goes wrong.

I hope you understand that I truly am concerned about writing for you, with your interests in mind.

Do send me the Offer notice (press the button in green, hard to miss) LATEST by 10pm in India(over here in my country, it will be 12am),
so that I have ample time to deliver your much-needed resumes tomorrow.

Otherwise, I'd have to let you go and wish you luck.

And that would be a shame. I've just complete HALF your resumes, and it sounds a lot more appealing!

I urge you to complete the necessary things, and we'll be back on track!

-ZF Lee

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TAKEAWAYS:

1. Place boundaries or expectations (i.e. by X date, I need you to do this or I will do this)

2. Explain what happens if he/she does something uncalled for. Cover their blind spots. Leave no stone unturned.

3. If you have to prod them into action using scarcity phrases like 'It would be a shame if you missed this...', use it sparingly as a small means to guide them to action. Think of it like a fire axe in the emergency box.

4. Be transparent about what you think. Tell them what you understand from their message. Then ask if you got it all correct, or if you need the client to rephrase the message.