I help creatives get clients to message them. $2m+ running my own creative agency. 2340+ creatives now making more $.
Joined September 2022
- Tweets19.1K
- Following1.7K
- Followers22.3K
- Likes8.4K
I was hitting about $17k a month off job platforms, and every quiet month my answer was the same.. hunt harder.
Then I started documenting what I was doing online & my first $50k month came not long after. For context, I wasn't doing ads or outreach, I was just letting clients watch the work happen.
What people think getting clients is:
chasing leads, sending more pitches, dropping your price when it goes quiet.
What it actually is:
planting something now so it's growing in the background when you need it. Obvs it's slower than a pitch, BUT clients were choosing me before we'd even spoken, and that's what steadies the months.
If you're a hunter, every quiet month starts from zero.
A farmer already has something growing.
Quote tweet this with one piece of work you've done recently that a client has never seen.
I had a call with one of my mentees last week who's just hit £15k months for the first time.
6 months ago he was at £5k & thinking about going back to a salary.
The shift wasn't a new skill, it was finally believing he was allowed to charge £5k for something he'd been selling at £2k.
He said the scariest bit was sending the first quote.. & the client said yes within a day.
Just gotta get braver sometimes.
Or do it even when you don’t feel brave.
Everyone assumes that getting clients now, you've got to dance around on social media.
couldn't be more wrong. social's one way, but it's nowhere near the only way.. and honestly it doesn't suit everyone.
I've been working with Ewan, a web designer, for the last 3 months. and instead of forcing him onto camera, we went all in on something completely different.. SEO and AEO.
He's quite an introvert and can be shy, so this route suits him more. We're able to make him seen, the moment people actually search for a designer.
he's now the top recommended designer in his region. someone googles for what he does, or even asks chatgpt to recommend someone.. and his name comes up.
so he gets a steady stream of inbounds from people already looking to hire, without posting a single video.
if the thought of "building a personal brand" fills you with dread.. good news. it was never the only route. sometimes the best move is just being the one who shows up when people go looking.
nobody actually wants £100k a month.. not really.
I know that sounds mad coming from someone in this world, but think about what they’re actually after.
nobody lies awake dreaming of a number on a dashboard. the number’s just a stand-in for the stuff underneath it.
they want to not dread monday. to take a tuesday off without asking anyone. to be in decent shape, present with their kids, not permanently knackered. to feel like they’re building a life instead of renting themselves out to pay for one.
the money’s a proxy for freedom. and the trap is chasing the proxy so hard you lose the actual thing it was meant to buy you.
I’ve watched people hit the number and feel nothing, because they built a business that owns them to get there. that’s not winning. that’s just a nicer-looking cage.
figure out the life first. then build the business that funds it. not the other way round.
My agency is pushing $100k/m now & I still like to take every sales call.
Which is counterintuitive because I love an empty calendar
BUT, I learn SO much just from talking to potential clients.
I get to keep my hand on the pulse of what people are thinking, and the more I know my market, the more I know their issues.
That knowledge ties into the whole marketing flow and it’s the reason so many people pick us.
Turned down 3 projects this week, all decent budgets.
But just way more custom and complicated than I’d like.
A few years ago I'd have taken every one and stayed up till 1am trying to make it work. Now I know a wrong fit client costs about double what they pay, in time and in how the team feels about it.
Sidenote: I could also do with a few more referral partners if you’re a competent designer.
AI isn't killing design jobs, it's killing the designers who were only ever paid to do what they were told.
And from my experience, a lot of those leads are warm leads.. they’ve got a task they want doing, and they’re choosing someone for it.
Once you open the door of cold leads, you can show that expertise, and challenge them based on what you know.
My agency is pushing $100k/m now & I still like to take every sales call.
Which is counterintuitive because I love an empty calendar
BUT, I learn SO much just from talking to potential clients.
I get to keep my hand on the pulse of what people are thinking, and the more I know my market, the more I know their issues.
That knowledge ties into the whole marketing flow and it’s the reason so many people pick us.
Two of Dario's clients said they'd "just use GPT" for their copy.
He rewrote his offer around what AI can't do, then closed $3,500 direct from a CEO who didn't blink at the price.
AI can do a task, we know that.
But it can't judge it like you can..
So you sell this..
He'd been sure AI was going to finish him off this year.. his words, not mine.
What changed was the offer, not the writing.. he rewrote it around the parts AI can't do.
AI can write the copy, but it can't decide which message will land with your customers, what to leave out, or when the brief itself is wrong. That's what clients pay a person for, so that's what your offer has to sell.
If you're worried about it, I'd start here:
→ Sell the outcome, not the deliverable. "I write copy" is easy to replace, "I write launch emails for course creators doing their first £100k launch" isn't.
→ Know one market properly. AI is generic, and how your clients' industry actually works is the bit it doesn't have.
→ Be part of the decisions, not just the person who produces the thing.
And when a client asks "can't we just use AI?", don't argue.
Agree with the bit that's true, then bring it back to the result..
"I do use AI, it's why I can deliver in three weeks instead of eight. You're paying for the result and the judgement, not my hours."
What's the one part of your service you know AI can't do?
There is.
The worse thing you can do is outsource your thoughts or creativity.
But by all means, make AI do the grunt work for you, but don’t let it make the decisions.
