• “I didn’t want to be one of those parents who… their kid is born and three days later they’re at their job.” Being there for his child was the number one reason Jerrod Harlan became a freelancer. In this installment of our Freelancer Interview Series, NPP Growth Director Delicia Ivins sits down with Jerrod to discuss his journey so far, including the mindset shifts he has adopted to make things work and his top freelancing advice for beginners.
• Jerrod is a biz-op copywriter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His main gig as a staff writer entails him to craft front-end promotions for a base pay of $50,000 plus royalties. Because his position comes with autonomy to control his schedule, he is able to take on other freelance projects as well. Jerrod’s goal is to become an A-list copywriter someday. In the meantime, he’s focused on writing every day to hone his skills. 
• Before he became a freelancer, Jerrod worked in customer service and sales. He sold cars, then ran his own printing franchise before stumbling across the world of copywriting. After a few months of studying, he sold his business and went full-time freelance. 
• Recommended reading: The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy.
• While Jerrod’s freelance career was off to a good start, he soon noticed that his savings was starting to dwindle. Realizing that he didn’t know much about the client-getting process, he decided to join The No Pants Project and enlist the help of the program’s coaches. With a baby on the way, he knew that he had to take the opportunity now, before his child was born.
• There are times when Jerrod experiences impostor syndrome and doesn’t feel worthy to be making money from what he does. But he has learned that it’s something everybody deals with, no matter what level they’re at. 
• Jerrod had low confidence going into The No Pants Project, but thanks to the support of his wife and the NPP community, he was able to get to where he is today. Delicia agrees that it’s extremely important for freelancers to have a support system, whether it’s a Facebook group or people in one’s life. 
• Jerrod deals with life’s lows by taking them as a chance to restart or move on. He thinks a lot of the lows that people experience are just self-made, and that whatever happens to you is what you make of it.  
• His advice on competition: Not everyone who calls themselves, say, a copywriter on Facebook is actually a copywriter. Just because they say it on their Facebook profile, doesn’t mean they have paying clients or projects. Focus on getting your first client, and you’ve already effectively done more than 90 percent of your perceived competition.
• To get your first client, Jerrod recommends cold emailing and responding to job posts. He himself landed his biggest client by responding to a job post and sending a personable, customer-oriented email. When cold emailing, be sure to let your natural voice and personality shine through.

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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jerrod Harlan:                If you really are set, if you’re really determined to be a freelancer, you need to make that first failure or win. Whatever happens with your first client doesn’t matter, you just have to make that happen first.

Delicia Ivins:                   Hey, guys, Delicia Ivins here. And today I’m here on behalf of Mike Shreeve and the No Pants Project. I have the awesome, awesome pleasure of interviewing Jerrod Harlan. Jerrod has been in the No Pants group for a while now, and he’s currently studying sales copy and copywriting.

Delicia Ivins:                   Jerrod, thanks for joining us today.

Jerrod Harlan:                Thanks for having me.

Delicia Ivins:                   Oh, we’re so excited. Tell me where are you joining us from?

Jerrod Harlan:                The lovely Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nice and gloomy today.

Delicia Ivins:                   I think it’s kind of gloomy along the East Coast. I don’t know what’s going on, but it is gray and rainy outside my window right now, which is why I’m wearing this wonderful jacket, and I’m still freezing.

Delicia Ivins:                   Jerrod, tell me a little bit about your superpower. What is it that you do for your clients?

Jerrod Harlan:                I actually started out with the intention to help fitness info publishers turn their email subscribers into buyers, basically be an email copywriter. As things progressed, it drastically changed course, and I ended up taking a staff writing position. Now I work in the biz op niche writing front end promos, sales letters, for base pay plus royalties.

On Freelancing

Delicia Ivins:                   Wow. That is a big switch up. That’s awesome. How are you enjoying that? How are you enjoying freelancing?

Jerrod Harlan:                I really love it. Besides being the staff writer, I still do take on outside projects as well. The fact that I have the autonomy with the company that I’m with so that I can do things like this or go to doctor’s appointments throughout the day or whatever, I just have that autonomy to control my schedule. Even though I am a staff writer, I still consider myself freelance with that position because ultimately I control my schedule.

Jerrod Harlan:                On the outside of that in taking on freelance projects, I love doing it. That’s the reason I didn’t stop taking on outside projects after taking on this role.

Freelancing Goals

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. Yeah, I can see how even continuing to take on outside projects is going to just give you more room for growth and more ways to expand. With regards to growth, tell me a little bit about your goals. What kind of goals do you have with freelancing?

Jerrod Harlan:                I actually have a pretty lofty goal, which is to be an A-list copywriter. That kind of sounds ridiculous to a lot of people who are in copywriting. But the thing that immediately drew me into copywriting and the copywriting world and as many times as I try and convince myself that all I want to do is make a good living, there is kind of that desire for prestige in it and being one of those names that people recognize.

Jerrod Harlan:                But for now I just want to continue writing every day and getting a little better because ultimately that’s the path to get to be an A-lister.

Delicia Ivins:                   Right. That burning desire is a little hard to quench sometimes.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yes.

Before The No Pants Project

Delicia Ivins:                   What were you doing before you started the No Pants Project? Tell me a little bit about life before No Pants?

Jerrod Harlan:                I’ve been in customer service and sales my whole working career. I started in fast food back when I was in high school and throughout the one year that I went to school before I dropped out. Then I got into personal training because I got into health and fitness. What I realized was that I sucked at selling. I was not good at selling. I could take these people because I could communicate with them and I knew how to make friends, and I knew how to talk to people. I could take them and turn them into raving fans, but I had a really hard time selling them.

Jerrod Harlan:                I ended up just taking a shot at it, and I went into car sales based on somebody who recommended me going into it. That quickly changed my ability with sales and learning how to actually sell and not just talk and communicate with people. From there, I ended up purchasing and running my own printing franchise and randomly stumbled upon The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy one day, which made me fall in love with copywriting.

Jerrod Harlan:                After a few months of studying and doing some sample work for nonexistent customers, I went out and tried to get some small work, and I built up a little bit of savings that I could actually walk away from the business, sell it, and went full time freelance.

Delicia Ivins:                   Oh, wow. When did that happen? What month, what year did you decide to go full time?

Jerrod Harlan:                I sold the store mid-July. July 15th was my last day. I actually owned the store out in Chicago, Illinois. Sold the store, had the last day, immediately drove back to Pittsburgh. We moved home. Me and my wife moved from Chicago where we were living for a few years while I operated the store moving back to Pittsburgh. There is a big reason for that.

Jerrod Harlan:                My wife is pregnant, and she is due January 20th. We wanted to be home for when our child is born.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s pretty smart. You’re definitely going to want to keep up on those grandparents free babysitting opportunities as much as you can.

Jerrod Harlan:                Absolutely.

Delicia Ivins:                   You sold the store July of this year? It’s been less than four months? Is that right?

Jerrod Harlan:                Yes. I actually just started taking on copywriting clients back in May.

Delicia Ivins:                   Wow. What a ride.

Jerrod Harlan:                It’s been a pretty whirlwind few months.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. When you started the No Pants Project, did you already have an idea of… Had you already read the book by Dan Henry? Had you already done that or did you stumble across that book while you were in the No pants Project?

Jerrod Harlan:                No, I didn’t end up in No Pants until… It was August, I believe, early August I got into No Pants. What happened was I had a few months of savings thanks to copywriting that I took and used to be able to pay rent and live and eat, but I was quickly kind of watching my savings vanish, and it made me realize I didn’t know enough about the actual client getting side of things. That’s what drew me into the No Pants coaching program.

Delicia Ivins:                   I can definitely understand that. I think a lot of people can. It’s been fun interviewing awesome, awesome students from the No Pants Project. Even seeing kind of like this thread of, okay, I had a little bit of a savings, and then I launched. Or I had this job, and then I launched. We kind of did the same thing. We had a little bit, and then we launched. It’s been crazy.

Delicia Ivins:                   But it’s good to have that there, to have that kind of buffer when you first start getting clients and stuff. It’s very smart that you guys did that. Now you’ve got baby on the way, so that’s even more exciting.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah. The way that I looked at it was if there was ever going to be an opportunity to do it, it was now or then because I certainly did not want to take the risk once my child is born, just being like, “Oh, I need to follow my dreams and my passions now. Sorry working wife, sorry kid. I’m going to make us broke because I want to follow my dreams.” It was that point or years from now.

Delicia Ivins:                   Right. No, that’s definitely. When you came into No Pants you didn’t know then that you wanted to be a sales copywriter? That kind of came along later or was that kind of like you went in knowing this is what I wanted to do?

Jerrod Harlan:                I knew that that’s what I wanted to do, but what drew me to it was the expertise statement and the learning how to hone on your niche and on what you wanted to specialize in because it can be very scary being a copywriter and seeing that there are a million of them on Upwork or there are a million of them on Facebook. The idea of niching, the idea of finding that group of clients that I would best be able to serve is what intrigued me and what ultimately pulled me into the program.

On Imposter Syndrome

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. Very smart of you. You mentioned it right there to niche down because you don’t want to be competing against everyone on Upwork. You don’t want to monetize your services especially when you can deliver such value. You’re pretty confident now in your skillset, but what was your confidence like kind of going into the No Pants Program?

Jerrod Harlan:                The imposter syndrome is real for everybody. I find that no matter what level copywriter you’re at you still are plagued by the imposter syndrome. As far as me being so confident of my skills, that’s a constant uphill battle of feeling like I’m worthy to be making money from what I do.

Jerrod Harlan:                But you just remind yourself like, “Hey, look, I’ve gotten these results. I’ve been able to do this. No matter who’s helped me along the way, I’ve accomplished this, and I’ve worked at it.” My confidence going in was very low actually, and it took a lot of pushing from my wife to actually take action. She’s always been a very big supporter of me, which how could you ask for anything more? She’s the one who even on the worst days when I’m like… Before I had this guaranteed money and before I had what I have right now thanks to Mike Shreeve, there were some very dark days. Right?

Jerrod Harlan:                I’m seeing my savings vanish. I’m seeing rent come out to the tune of $1400 a month because we moved back and we had to have a luxury apartment that’s got a pool and a gym and all these other amenities, and it was just kind of that old school mentality of, “Look, if you have to pay for it, you’re going to figure out a way to pay for it.” There were definitely days where I was paralyzed just sitting on the couch like, “What the heck do I do? This is not going the way that I thought it was.”

Jerrod Harlan:                She’s always been the one that’s like, “I knew it was going to work out. I knew it because I know you and I know what you can do.” I’ve been very thankful to have her because I probably wouldn’t have taken the chance if it weren’t for her.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. That’s definitely really cool. I think you mentioned something really great there that when you’re starting freelancing whether it’s copywriting or Pay Per Click or whatever your skillset is, whatever it is that you’re offering, it is so important to have people to support you and people here to back you. Whether that be in a Facebook community group or even just personal people in your life, that’s really important to kind of have that support system in place. I’m super glad that your wife was able to be one of those key people for you. You’re really blessed to have people like that in your life. That’s awesome.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yes, I agree. I very much agree. In fact, October 21st, we celebrated eight years of being together and three years marriage.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. Oh, that’s so great.

Jerrod Harlan:                We started dating right after I finished high school.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s so cute. You’re giving me all the cutesies. I love it. All right. Tell me a little bit about what life looks like now. Obviously you’re paying rent and you have this nice luxury apartment and everything’s all wonderful and roses now. How’s that working out for you?

Jerrod Harlan:                I definitely make enough to get by, which is very good. I am very minimalistic too, so I don’t have a lot of expenses. That was one of the big things about renting a luxury apartment was, “Look, I don’t really have a lot of expenses outside of cellphone, food, cars,” so we can do it. Right? I had enough saved to take the risk of getting the nice apartment.

Jerrod Harlan:                But what happened was I basically now I work from home. I know that I’ll get to be around when my kid is born. That was the biggest thing to me. Honestly, that was the biggest of me taking this opportunity, taking the risk to do this, because I didn’t want to be one of those parents who their kid is born, and three days later they’re at their job. That’s not what I wanted.

Jerrod Harlan:                Fortunately that’s not what I have to do now. Now I get to be stay at home. I get to be the parent taking care of them. My wife still works because she works for Costco and has unbelievable benefits, so they basically trap her there. She can’t leave because the benefits are too unreal. I get to be that stay at home parent, and honestly that’s something that I look forward to.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s really cool. I remember we have two. They’re seven and three now. I remember with both of them because it was before I started freelancing that my husband got to take… With my first one he got to take a week off, which was awesome. Then with the second it was like three or four days. I just remember being home with the baby like, “What do I do?” I would’ve loved that somebody was there because I was terrified. That’s super awesome.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah. Thanks to her job she’ll have three months off, so we’ll have three solid months where we’re both home with the baby every day.

Delicia Ivins:                   There you go. That’s great. That’s basically the fourth term. They tell you that a pregnancy has three terms, but really there’s four. It’s about the fourth term when the baby actually starts sleeping. You’ll get to go back to work or she’ll get to go back to work right about the time when the baby starts sleeping a little better. That’ll be awesome for you guys. I’m so excited for you. I think I might send you some melatonin in the mail though.

On Results

Delicia Ivins:                   How are things going with the business now? You’re obviously getting by. Tell me a little bit about the numbers and the results that you’ve gotten since starting the No Pants Project.

Jerrod Harlan:                When I started I was at effectively zero per month income. I had the savings obviously, but when I joined I had no current clients. I went truly from zero dollars in August to now I have a secure $50,000 a year plus royalties. I’ve only been with my company for just about a month now, and I’m just about to have my first promo go live this next week. Obviously I haven’t brought in any royalties yet, but it’s nice to have that solid base and then see where the royalties go.

Delicia Ivins:                   Okay, now for some of us who are not as familiar with copywriting. Explain royalties and how they’re structured. What could that potentially lead to for you once this kind of goes live?

Jerrod Harlan:                My base pay covers the work that I put in to write the promo, do any other side projects that they need done, write emails, things like that, banner ads. Then how royalties work is that when my promo goes live and people end up on the sales letter reading it, every time that they buy I get a percentage of that. What that means is I put in the work once to write the letter, and then if it converts well I make money on every single person that buys for as long as that offer runs.

Jerrod Harlan:                It is truly the dream scenario for a copywriter to have royalties because you’re leveraging that one time amount of work or wealth potentially months, years into the future as long as it actually converts.

Delicia Ivins:                   Wow. You basically as long as the offer is available you’ve got a passive income stream. You’ve done that in just a few months since joining No Pants. Have you already started your regular income stream plus earning passives?

Jerrod Harlan:                Yes.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s phenomenal.

Jerrod Harlan:                That’s one of the big reasons that I took the job as well. I mean not only the secure paycheck but the fact that I get to make money on royalties and in that passive state. I think that was the tipping factor for me because even before I took the position I had a couple clients, total freelance clients. When that position came around and the offer presented itself it was, “Okay, I still have kind of this autonomy of my time, but do I really want to be saddled for a specific amount of time every week to a company and a paycheck?”

Jerrod Harlan:                Well, the royalties were definitely that tipping point that said, “Yes, I do.”

Delicia Ivins:                   Sign me up here. Yes.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yep.

Delicia Ivins:                   No, definitely. Why would you say no to that? It sounds like a golden offer. For real, that’s awesome.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah.

Delicia Ivins:                   Oh, that’s awesome. I feel like I should tell the editing team to insert one of those head exploding visualizations right here, sort of a good place for one, guys.

The Struggles

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s an amazing adventure. You have moved. You started this new business. You sold this other business and now you’re even setting yourself up for passive income streams in under four-ish months. That is an incredible wave to ride, but it had to not all be ups. Were there times where it was a struggle where things were down where you were just kind of on the couch going, “Oh, my gosh. What am I doing?”

Jerrod Harlan:                There were definitely those days in the beginning where I was paralyzed by that crippling fear of what the heck did I just do. I have no clients and I’m spending my money that I have saved. But when things started picking up I obviously rode with it. Since then I’d say the only struggles that I’ve had are getting the processes in order, structuring my time most effectively with all these different projects going on that I have while not working 24 hours a day.

Jerrod Harlan:                There’s definitely a point coming back to the imposter syndrome. There’s definitely a point where you hit this high level of riding this wave. It just seems like great thing after great thing is happening, and you reach this new level when you look around and you’re like, “What? What do I do? Did I really do anything to deserve this, to deserve this new level that I’ve hit?”

Jerrod Harlan:                But I read a really interesting email, and I don’t remember who it was from, but it really kind of shifted my perspective on the whole high versus low thing. The email subject line was, “What if the other shoe never drops?” I think as humans we grow up and we’re taught that you’ll have these highs and then you’ll have these lows. Yeah, enjoy while everything is going right because you’ll eventually come off on the other side and everything will be crap.

Jerrod Harlan:                But ultimately as humans we only take what we experience is in our mind. You can decide to feel sorry for yourself and feel like the world is conspiring against you if all of a sudden all my clients left me and I was left with zero dollars tomorrow. But if you don’t take it that way and you instead take whatever happens as just a chance to restart or move on or do whatever you need to do necessary, then that other shoe doesn’t have to drop.

Jerrod Harlan:                Even that feeling of, “Oh, I don’t know what to do now, I’ve reached this new level, and I don’t know how to operate in this new level that I’ve hit,” to some people that could paralyze them. That could be a low to them if they take it that way. They self-sabotage, right? They hit a new level, and they self-sabotage, and they don’t increase their skillset or they don’t increase their value, and they end up losing what they’ve earned.

Jerrod Harlan:                I think a lot of the lows that we experience are just self-made. I know anybody listening to this that may be in one of those lulls may think, “Oh, well, who are you to say that?” But honestly I’ve been there. I’m sure you’ve been there. Everybody has. If you don’t work on that mindset shift in order to make the lows not happen or not happen as severely, then you’re just going to keep harming yourself.

Jerrod Harlan:                I don’t know. I feel like that was a long tangent from that one question, but I feel it is necessary to say.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s really good. That’s really good. In fact, I don’t know, you’re kind of speaking to me today. It’s okay. I kind of had this whole really big morning, and before the interview I was kind of like… It all kind of hit at one time, and I was in a little bit of overwhelm this morning, and it was like tearing up because of happy, good things that are coming that I can see coming. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. Whoa, what do I do with this?”

Delicia Ivins:                   You hit the space where when you’re pushing yourself and you do get to that point where you kind of level up like you were saying and it just kid of hits, and it’s almost like emotional overwhelm. It’s like I need to sit down. I need to take a minute and just calm down and process and figure out how I’m going to serve these next clients at this level and continue to push and to advance myself.

Delicia Ivins:                   I really like that idea like what if the other shoe never drops. What if the bad thing never happens? What if it’s all just a mindset game and you just figure out how to make it work? That’s really cool. Super insightful good stuff.

Jerrod Harlan:                Thank you. The first person that I obviously tell whenever good news happens is my wife, but the second person I tell is my mom because my mom has always been that supporter as well. She’s always been reassuring me as all good moms do, as all good parents do. I feel like I was on the phone with her every day. All right, mom, I got to tell you this now too.

Delicia Ivins:                   Yep. It’s so cool too because for freelancing for some people it’s really hard because like you and like me I’ve been blessed to have really supportive parents. For some people in their journey, that’s not been their story. When they take off and decide to go freelancing and they decide to start their own business, there’s that skepticism. There’s like, “Oh, can you do it?”

Delicia Ivins:                   You have to battle through that kind of self doubt and fear and come into your own. Then it’s so much more of a victory when you get to make that phone call and be like, “I did it. I got it.” I know you said shifting your mindset to where you kind of nominalize the highs and the low points, but you’ve got some high points coming up like January, right? That’s baby 30?

Jerrod Harlan:                I’m very excited for that. That is on my mind at all points. I obviously can’t even express my happiness behind that.

Delicia Ivins:                   It’s going to be awesome, man. I can tell you, just it’s slightly off topic, but this one really great person told me one time when I was pregnant with my first. He said, “As much as you love your husband now,” he’s like, “when you see that kid it’s going to blow that away.” I was like, “No way. No way will that happen.” It’s so crazy how instantly how much you love this tiny person the minute you see them. It’s amazing. I’m so excited for you for that feeling.

Delicia Ivins:                   And how that emotion and tapping into that is going to supercharge your copy because being able to channel that is going to be flipping awesome great too. That’s really cool you get to have that experience.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah.

The Future

Delicia Ivins:                   How do you feel about kind of your future now and where things are going?

Jerrod Harlan:                Incredibly optimistic especially with the getting that mindset shift. Yes, nobody’s perfect at it. I still have to remind myself that whatever happens is just how I perceive it and what I make of it. If anything “bad” happens, it’s just about how I respond to it and how I progress after it happens. I obviously still have a long way to reach my goal of being an A-List copywriter, a long, long way in fact, probably five to seven years. From other copywriters that I’ve talked to, that seems to be the consensus amount of time that if that is the path that you want, expect it to take that amount of time.

Jerrod Harlan:                Could I reach it in four years? Maybe with the way the trajectory of my career is going.

Delicia Ivins:                   Do it.

Jerrod Harlan:                I am fortunate to be further than a lot of people at this point, and I still have a long way to go, but again I’m very optimistic about it. I realize that there will be failures throughout the next handful of years. There will be times that I write a promotion that will completely flop. That’s okay. I’m not even saying that for the people listening, I’m saying that out loud for myself.

Delicia Ivins:                   Right on. Right on. I mean, you got to be okay with it and learn from the experience and move forward.

Jerrod Harlan:                Absolutely.

Freelancing Tips

Delicia Ivins:                   I know you’ve mentioned mindset a couple of different times. I think that’s so key. What kind of maybe tips can you give to folks who are watching this interview right now who are maybe thinking about freelancing or just starting out? What kind of tips and tricks and ideas can you give them to help them move forward?

Jerrod Harlan:                I’m going to echo something that I said at the beginning pertaining to Facebook copywriters. There is a lot of overwhelm when you first get into copywriting because you look around and then you see all these other people that are your perceived competition. Whether that’s digital marketing or you’re a Facebook ad person or you do Google ads or whatever you do, photography, whatever it is. You start a cleaning company. I don’t know. There’s all this competition out there. It’s really hard to look at all of that and think, “Oh, yeah, I can do it too.”

Jerrod Harlan:                You got to let that overwhelm drive you, A, and B you have to recognize that if there’s a thousand other copywriters out there, there’s not actually a thousand other copywriters out there. Maybe 900 of them are Facebook copywriters that just have on their Facebook profile, it says, “Oh, I write copy.” It doesn’t mean they have paying clients. That doesn’t mean they’re getting results for their clients. That doesn’t mean they’ve even ever actually had a project. Anybody can go on and say they are whatever. Right? It’s just a claim of who you are.

Jerrod Harlan:                Until you have that proof behind your name, then that’s another thing. If you really are set… If you’re really determined to be a freelancer, you need to make that first failure or win. Whatever happens with your first client doesn’t matter. You just have to make that happen first because that first client will be more than what 90% of other people who call themselves whatever you are copywriter or Facebook ads, whatever. You’ve already effectively done more than 90% of them by just getting your first client.

Delicia Ivins:                   Right on. Most definitely. I like what you said that just become says that on their Facebook profile doesn’t mean that’s actually what they do or that they have reports or case studies or anything to really back it up. That’s cool just kind of helping you not get psyched out about competition. I think, too, focusing on service. Mike said before, he’s like, “You know, if you can just be a decent human being, you’re already above a lot of the other people who serve in that industry,” just by being a decent person and being honorable and serving your clients well and getting them the results that you said you would. If you don’t get those results, then trying to do your best to make it right. I think that’s part of it too.

On Getting The First Client

Delicia Ivins:                   Tell me about maybe a tactic or a strategy that someone could use to get that first client? They’re looking at it like, “Okay, I think I can do this. How do I do it?”

Jerrod Harlan:                You got to get good at cold emailing. Right? That is the absolute quickest way. Obviously in the No Pants coaching program it talks about building your lighthouse and how to get people coming to you, but it takes time. It just takes time. If you want to be as effective as possible, you have to get good at cold emailing or, I still consider this cold emailing, but responding to job posts. I still consider that cold because there’s no warmth of interaction between you and the person on the other end. Search for those postings of people. You can go into Upwork to get some results behind your name, to get just some momentum going. You can use Upwork. You can leverage relationships, but if you can get good at cold emailing, you can reach out to your dream clients right away and not have to take bottom of the barrel jobs that people in Upwork want to offer.

Jerrod Harlan:                For example, I used responding to a post to land a client who was my biggest client and was also a New York Times bestseller and was on Shark Tank.

Delicia Ivins:                   Very cool.Did you use the cold email and templates that are found in Mike’s fast client getting?

Jerrod Harlan:                I did not.

Delicia Ivins:                   Oh, okay.

Jerrod Harlan:                Mike’s fast client getting workshop is awesome. I love his templates, but I have a very unique style to my cold outreach. Anybody can use it. Basically what’s it all based around is just being heavily personality driven. A lot of people when they cold email aren’t… It sounds very robotic. It sounds very corporate. People don’t respond to that. Business owners get 1,000 emails a day from people trying to sell them stuff. If you are just personable in your emails and you let your own actual voice and natural voice shine through, it creates a conversation without actually having that conversation.

Jerrod Harlan:                When I sent that email to the client, which I was just about to name him, but unfortunately for privacy reasons I can’t, when I was reaching out to him, my email was probably over 1,000 words.

Delicia Ivins:                   No way?

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah, it was long.

Delicia Ivins:                   Wow.

Jerrod Harlan:                It was really long. Definitely a long form email. I knew that I was going to have a lot of competition reaching for that job. I knew that I needed to separate myself, and I didn’t have the experience that a lot of these other people reaching out to him would because this was a golden opportunity for this job. It already led into another job with him. I knew that I needed to be better than every other person that sent that cold email. I made it long, I made it personable, I made every line interesting for him to read. I showed value.

Jerrod Harlan:                Here’s a tactic for your cold emails. If you can take a negative about yourself and turn it into a positive, then you’re going to be better than 99.9% of other people who cold email. For example, what I did was I was very up front, and I said, look, I’m not going to have as much experience as most people that are emailing you about this position… not position, this job, but that’s good for you because I’m sure you have a very unique voice. I’m sure that you have a very unique process.

Jerrod Harlan:                All of these other people that have more experience than me, they may have bad tendencies. They may have things that you have to untrain them on to get your specific voice. I don’t have that. I’m newer, so I’m ready to learn from you. I’m ready to take notes. I’m ready for your harshest and most critical feedback because I want it, because I’m hungry to provide results for you. In fact, the subject line that I sent in response to this positing was, “I’m chomping at the bit to provide you results.”

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s awesome. That’s such a great subject line. I’m sure he got a real good kick out of that.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah, but he responded the next day. How could you as a business owner who somebody’s searching for a copywriter, how could you pass up that subject line because it’s totally customer oriented. If you can make every single word of whatever you write in your cold email customer oriented, you’re going to get an incredible response rate.

Delicia Ivins:                   Very awesome most definitely. I think that goes for a lot of things too even just communications and hopping on a phone call to someone. Just make sure that you stay service focused and customer focused. I think it’s so easy for a lot of freelancers to kind of get in that mindset of, oh, this is what I do, and this is who I serve. But if you’re talking about the client, and if you have that client empathy up front, then they’re going to tune in, and they’re going to hear that. They’re going to hear you talking to them over you talking about yourself. That’s really awesome, and I’m so glad that you shared that because that’s a really good strategy for a lot of people that they could use.

Jerrod’s Corner

Delicia Ivins:                   I know that it is getting a little later in the afternoon, and you’ve been amazing to share this much time and this much space with us. Can you tell me… Do you have any really cool parting words of wisdom or anything fun for the viewers?

Jerrod Harlan:                Yeah, absolutely. For one thing to touch back on what I was saying and what you commented on, there was an old school negotiator, A-list negotiator, Jim Camp was his name. He said, “You’re always safe in the other person’s world.” Right? That goes back to if you can talk to the client to what the client wants to hear, then you’re always safe. As far as general advice or parting words, you just got to go out there and do it. Nothing’s going to change if you don’t change it. Like I said earlier, I’m the type of person that was scared to put myself out there. Luckily I had that support system to push me, but being scared of going out there and doing what you want to do is just an excuse.

Jerrod Harlan:                If you can have somebody, find somebody who can push you through that mentality.

Delicia Ivins:                   That’s definitely. You’re never going to know unless you try, right? The worst anyone can ever do is say no, and that’s just a two letter word. It’s not even that scary.

Jerrod Harlan:                Yep.

Delicia Ivins:                   If someone is looking at jumping into freelancing or maybe they need to structure some of their freelancing, they’ve been doing it for a while maybe part time, and they’re really wanting to go full time, what would you say about the No Pants Project if they’re considering that?

Jerrod Harlan:                I would say it’s easily a no brainer for anybody whether you’re somebody who has never even… You’ve wanted to go freelance, but you never really considered it all the way up to if you are currently freelancing like I was freelancing, and you need to get better processes or better methods of getting clients or better methods of attracting clients. All of that is within the No Pants coaching program and I don’t know… If you’re serious about freelancing, I don’t honestly know how you could pass it up.

Delicia Ivins:                   I don’t either. I’m with you. It’s made the hugest difference in my life for sure. Jerrod, thank you for your time. You’ve been awesome, awesome to interview. It’s been so fun hanging out with you. I really feel like anyone who listens to this interview is going to get so much value and so much truth from some of this stuff that you’ve said. Thank you for those insides and for kind of sharing your dream, your story with us.

Jerrod Harlan:                Thank you for having me, De.

Delicia Ivins:                   Most definitely. Maybe I’ll see you in a Facebook group later.

Jerrod Harlan:                Sounds good.

The post Freelancer Interview Series With Jerrod Harlan appeared first on The No Pants Project Blog.

You already know that bidding for jobs on freelancing job boards is a fast-track to the bottom of the barrel and a serious case of burnout.

You don’t have time or money to pour into long-term, passive strategies for client attraction.

So you do some old-fashioned door-knocking — of the virtual variety.

Typically referred to as “cold emailing,” this means actively going out into the interwebs, tracking down some people you think you want to work with, and straight up asking if they want to work with a complete stranger.

This may not be the easiest method of client-getting, but it is the best way we know to get out there and get some work quickly, on your own terms, and on the cheap.

And even better, it works at any stage of your freelancing career, so long as you’re able to get it right.

If you’ve given cold-emailing a shot and haven’t found any success, chances are you just need a little more guidance and some good examples.

To help you get on the successful side of the cold emailing spectrum, we’ve rounded up 13 experts who will help you understand and perfect the seven critical elements of cold emails.

1. Qualifying Your Leads

The most critical element of successful cold emails takes place before you even start writing — making sure you’re sending emails to the right people.

Vukasin Vukosavljevic, marketing manager for Shyft, writes,

“Winning outreach starts with qualifying your leads first, segmenting them down and coming up with a win-win solution.”

That means knowing who you’re talking to well enough to understand what problems they care about most.

When you get this right, you cut straight to providing value by offering your approach to solving those particular problems.

One way of doing this might be to decide on not only a single niche, but also a particular company size and title that you are going to reach out to.

This way, you know you’re talking only to leads with the same set of problems, which allows you to spend more time personalizing and analyzing results to figure out if this is a viable market for your services.

You also don’t waste time sending solutions to the inboxes of people who have no interest in your services, no matter how good the cold email is.

2. The Subject Line

“Imagine walking down the street as someone approaches with a giant grin and says, “”Hi [FirstName]! I’m so happy to see you!””

How would most people respond?

The response depends entirely on what sort of relationship these two people have.

The grinning speaker could be a close friend, a blast from the past or a total psycho. Same message, same delivery, vastly different results based on what’s gone before.

That’s exactly how potential customers react when they receive a cold email,” Julia Manoukian, content marketing manager at Limelight Platform, writes.

This is why getting the subject line of your cold email is so important.

You’ve only got one opportunity to get past your lead’s natural defense and suspicion of new and unexpected visitors to their inbox.

How do you do it?

Baylor Cherry, marketing specialist for BluLeadz, suggests:

“Your email subject lines should read like they are written from one person to another. Personalizing your message is an effective principle. Think about an email that you would want to open. Wouldn’t you be more enticed to open it if it appeared personal and customized just for you?

Be sure to avoid fancy, formatted emails full of marketing speak and industry jargon. It’s not a newsletter. Keep it simple!

Avoid cute or catchy slogans as well. While it fits the “mold” of a business email, or at least what people perceive as a business email, if you want to get your emails opened and read, avoid it! You don’t want to seem stuffy and full of yourself by over-promoting your brand.”

Some examples of headlines that use these pointers are:

• [mutual contact] suggested I get in touch…
• Should I stay or should I go?
• Should we go with 1, 2, or 3?

And when asked what she’s found most effective in her own email campaigns, Matylda Chmielewska, content marketer with LiveChat Partners, said:

“Keep it casual: avoid using caps, capital letters, or jargon. Don’t include things such as ‘re:’ neither. They look spammy.

Use humor: there’s nothing that gets more people to open that email than a good punch line.

Be human: you don’t want to sound like a robot. Also, including your contact’s name will make them hooked from the second they see it.

Fewer words: using lengthy email subjects will decrease your open rate as most email clients display just the very beginning of the tile on mobile.”

3. Personalization

This is where a lot of people go wrong with cold emailing.

It’s also the reason cold emailing takes more work – you have to put in the time to research each of your leads so you can personalize your emails in a meaningful way.

Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and top influencer in marketing, shared his advice for cold emailing on his blog, writing:

“You can’t just copy and paste the same message to a thousand people.

The best cold-outreach attempts stand out because the person sending them went above and beyond the standard norm.

They’re not trying to trick or deceive. They’re offering up real value. They’re trying to help you first before ever asking for anything in return.”

In fact, as Neil also mentions in his post, Aberdeen found that “personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%”.

A few simple ways you can personalize your emails are:

• Poking around your lead’s site and sharing a particular page or piece of content from them you loved, and why.
• Creating a video of you interacting with their site or product and giving suggestions.
• Connecting with them on LinkedIn and learning more about their professional lives or mutual connections you share.

Just be sure to always be sincere in your personalization.

4. The Call To Action

If you pay attention to the emails you get in your own inbox, you’ll notice that a lot of them don’t ask for a sale upfront – even after you’ve signalled your interest in their product by signing up for their email list.

In fact, you probably unsubscribe from or ignore lists that badger you to buy repetitively or relentlessly.

To make sure people don’t toss your outreach straight into the spam folder too, your cold emails also need to avoid asking for a sale.

Peter O’Donoghue, founder of The Sales Prospecting System, writes for HubSpot:

“The cold email is a bridge to a telephone call and nothing else.

Yes, there is a huge amount of skill and expertise that goes into a high-performing cold email but don’t ever listen to advice from well-intentioned people who think the email will do the selling job for you.

It won’t.”

Instead, give your lead a simple task to complete if they’re interested, such as following a link to a personalized video (or just watching an embedded version), or replying to the email.

The key is to work on developing trust and familiarity, with the ultimate goal of building a friendly business relationship.

Cara Wood writes on behalf of Nutshell:

“Be sure that you have a clear CTA in your email.

Tell your prospect precisely what action you want them to take next, and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. You want them to fill out a form? Give them a link directly to that form. (Or better yet, embed the form straight into your email.)

Finally, keep in mind that part of having a clear CTA is having only one CTA. Don’t ask someone to respond to you and fill out a form. Pick one. The upside of having only one CTA is that it will help you keep your email short and to the point as well.”

So in the case of directing your lead to a video, be sure to include a single, new CTA at the end of the video asking for an opportunity to talk more about your solution for their needs, to bring the strategy full circle.

5. Length

While there aren’t any hard and fast rules about cold email length, it’s a given that everyone is busy and changing times have made attention harder to both grab and keep.

Kyle Racki, CEO of Proposify, recently broke down the best cold email he ever received for his blog, writing:

“Keep your cold email short and simple.

Remember Trey’s email; he didn’t use a lot of words.

He made it about me and the one thing he wanted me to do: Click the link to view the lead magnet.”

And this isn’t just true for contacting Kyle or people particularly like him.

Mike Renahan, customer success manager for HubSpot, shares:

“Data suggests the ideal length of an email is between 50 and 125 words.

Emails this length had a response rate above 50%.

A similar study found emails with approximately 20 lines of text, or about 200 words, had the highest click-through rates.

When in doubt, keep emails short and under 200 words.”

If you are planning on sending a longer cold email, make sure you buff up on the other elements listed here.

Otherwise, keeping your cold email short is a great way to show that you respect your lead’s time, and save some of your own.

6. Warming Up Leads

One is the most dangerous number in business.

And that’s true of cold prospecting as well.

Instead of relying on your email alone, you can boost your results by warming up your leads through other channels before, after, or during your outreach to improve recognition and authority in your leads’ eyes.

Ajay Goel, founder of Gmass and Wordzen, wrote writes:

“Getting an email from a company or person you’ve never heard of isn’t going to compel you to click.

But when you’ve heard of a brand, you’re much more likely to open the email, even if you haven’t heard of or met the individual before.”

One good avenue that you could use to warm up your leads, for free, is LinkedIn.

By adding your ideal clients to your network and posting content regularly, they will see your business and perspectives in their newsfeed.

If they like or comment on content of yours, they’ll start to see your content more frequently as well.

Then, by the time you send them a message or an email, they have a better idea of who you are and what you do.

Jim Keenan, CEO and president of A Sales Guy, shares another strategy he calls using a “communication stack,” where you use multiple channels to reach out to prospects.

He elaborated in a blog post, saying:

“Cold calling isn’t dead. E-mail isn’t dead. Social isn’t dead. Even, door to door selling isn’t dead. What’s dead is depending on a single communication channel to connect with your prospects.

Don’t listen to the experts. Listen to your prospects and customers. Build a communication cadence leveraging everything in your communication stack. I promise you; some will answer your call, someone will respond to the email, someone will reply to your Twitter DM, someone will connect via LinkedIn, therefore use them all.”

Other benefits of this strategy are the clear effort and dedication it shows your lead when they see you following them across the internet, and the amount of personalization material their various socials will give you.

7. Follow-Ups

Ash Maurya, author and creator of Lean Canvas and founder of LEANSTACK, writes:

“I heard an interesting tactic for managing email volume when you return from vacation recently.

Delete all of the emails, and the important ones will naturally turn up again in your inbox.

This observation rings true of my own inbox and it demonstrates how critical follow up is for your response rate.”

Even if the emails don’t get outright deleted, a lead who has been away or is especially popular may never get through all the emails in their inbox, regardless of intentions.

Following up with your leads, especially when you don’t hear back, ups your chances of being seen, recognized, and opened in an inbox.

Emily Bauer, content marketer for PropellerCRM, writes:

“With cold email campaigns in particular, the number of emails in a sequence affects how many responses you’re likely to get. In fact, in one example, campaigns with 4-7 emails per sequence received 3X more responses than campaigns with only 1-3 emails in a sequence.

The campaigns with longer sequences had a reply rate of 27%, compared with the shorter campaigns that had a reply rate of 9%.

That said, there is a fine art to following up consistently without driving your contacts crazy. For instance, make sure you space out your emails to avoid overwhelming recipients.”

And don’t forget to ensure your follow-ups are personalized as well – they may be the first messages your lead actually reads and need all the punch of your initial email if you want to get a response.

In the email breakdown we talked about when discussing cold email length (#5), Kyle Racki also shared a great example of a follow-up cold email in addition to the initial outreach he received.

To Sum Up:

Richard Stephens, director and co-founder of Angelfish Marketing, puts it best when he writes:

“In the words of Mark Twain, rumors of cold calling’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Instead, you need to update and finesse your cold calling strategy so you’re using all of the resources available to you to build rapport and make a connection.”

The seven most important elements to ensure you’re finessing your way to successful cold emails are:

1. Qualifying your leads before you email them.
2. A compelling, personable, and human subject line.
3. Personalizing every interaction and outreach.
4. Keeping your call to action simple and easy to fulfill.
5. Keeping the whole thing short and sweet.
6. Warming up your leads with social media connection and interaction throughout the process.
7. Following-up, ideally reaching out 4-7 times per lead before giving up.

For a few great examples of how these elements all come together, check out Kyle Racki’s breakdown post of the best cold email he’s received, which Neil Patel also recommended, and Cara Wood’s post for three more examples of great cold emails as well as the best one she’s ever seen.

We Can Help:

In The No Pants Project we teach you multiple methods of client-getting and client-attracting, so you’re prepared for every stage of your business and can explore what works best for you as you move through your journey to freelancing success.

(There’s even a secret, bonus program entirely dedicated to helping you cold email your way to success – just between you and me!)

To find out more, visit TheNoPantsProject.com.

The post 13 Experts Walk Freelancers Through The 7 Critical Elements of Great Cold Emails appeared first on The No Pants Project Blog.