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Advice for Going Freelance

For those of you who are freelancing or thinking about it, here’s a great Substack Live on the topic featuring Grace Abbott (Freelance CD/ runs “HOw to Go Freelance” and Jason Goldberg (AD alum + Freelance CD.)

✦ A summer Substack Live about the freedom and abundance that come when you bet on yourself – conversations on freelance, personal brand + doing your own thing.

https://lnkd.in/eHwXD-Xr

✦ A few things we talked about

  • How to define “creative director” when the title means something different everywhere, and how to offer this service to clients
  • How to choose your title as a freelancer, and claim one that suits you even if nobody’s ever promoted you to it
  • Being an owner, instead of just a doer
  • Cold emailing founders, CCOs and CMOs directly – an outreach strategy, and skipping the recruiter middleman
  • His exact three-sentence cold email template and go-to subject line: Hi from [your name] (your title)
  • Building a portfolio, where to find inspiration, doing spec work to express your talents, and why you might want to check out a portfolio school (check out the VCU Brandcenter)
  • The Olive Garden Compass: a joke that went viral, got a cease and desist, and turned into brand deals
  • Why the least polished social content performs the best
  • Big brushes vs. small details: knowing when to defend a creative choice and when to defer to the client’s preference
  • Detaching your rate from your self-worth, and why “no budget” isn’t a rejection of you