He just looked at me for a bit, kinda shocked.

“Huh? What do you mean pass?”

I could almost hear his brain ticking, trying to understand how I’d say no.

“Yeah mate it’s not something I’m interested in, you’ll need to find someone else.”

Alright so this was probably about 2 years into running my web design business (just before I met my horrible business partner). I’d been introduced to this dude who was high up in this franchise brand.

He had this idea where they could basically force each franchisee to buy a website that the franchisor could have control over, and was talking to me about maybe being the guy to set it all up.

Problem for me though: he had very particular ideas about how it would all work, wanted it done cheap per site (but many many many sites), and just wanted me to be the grunt that makes it happen.

We were talking something in the realm of $100k+ at even the lower end of the projections, so that would have been really nice.

But….

I wasn’t the “follow instructions” guy, or the “keep spitting out these templatey looking sites over and over again” guy.

Back then, I was trying to use all my sales and marketing background to be the expert about what businesses need to be doing to grow.

That’s the kind of position I wanted to have in the market, not little button pusher web nerd.

But wanting doesn’t mean much. What matters is how my “want” holds up when someone wants to pay me to give it up.

Thankfully for me, I was able to say no and stick to my beliefs.

And that’s what positioning is

Over the past year or two, I’ve seen lots of copywriters, consultants, and even some designers, suddenly become “positioning experts” on LinkedIn.

But there’s a small issue…

What they’re doing isn’t positioning.
DUNN DUNN DUNNNNNNN

Positioning is who you are, who you serve, what category you’re in, and why you’re uniquely different to all your competitors. So positioning work involves actually deciding these things.

What these hombres are all doing is on the communication side. They don’t actually make the choices, they just come up with the words to describe all of the choices that the business has already made.

And that sounds a hell of a lot more like copywriting than positioning.

Easy mistake to make

It’s confusing because the work they claim to do is similar on the surface.

They’ll interview you, maybe your team too, maybe some clients even. And maybe that process gets intense cause they challenge the BS you normally say, and that turns into some clarity and realisations for you.

But then they take what you’ve said, decide what positioning strategy fits how you work, then write the words based on that strategy.

Meanwhile, actual positioning work involves making the hard choices that affect how your business works. It’s cutting a service that makes money, or choosing to niche (or not), or changing your entire pricing model, or a bunch of other things that require genuine change to make real.

It’s saying no, to give your yes some actual meaning. It proves the yes matters. After all, claiming to be the expert doesn’t mean shit if you’ll still gladly take orders for money.

If they’re not helping with the decision making, and if the service doesn’t involve you changing how you do things, it’s not actually positioning.

Why does this matter for us?

Well, basically, a lot of people call themselves positioning experts so they can charge more for their copywriting service (what a shock).

If they’re not helping you make the choices about what you say no to, it’s copywriting. Might be “strategic” copywriting, but it’s still not going to be solving this big and expensive problem they’re promising to solve for you.

But here’s something awesome: you can kinda/sorta start moving in the right direction of figuring this shit out yourself, without paying anyone a fortune.

First start by listing all of your beliefs. This is the stuff you believe in about what you do, that maybe isn’t super common in your space. Then narrow it down to the stuff you feel the most strongly about, the stuff you are 100% all-in on.

Then, look at how those beliefs shape your approach to your work. What are you actually doing differently because of those beliefs?

If you’re not doing anything differently, it’s time to change how you do things.

And if you do that: congratulations, that’s positioning. You can charge yourself lots of money now.

An example in real life

My friend Cass had been doing copywriting for a while, but was kinda getting over it and decided to start offering digital products.

She had this hugely impressive background in high level copywriting, had done all the studies, read all the books, bla bla bla (what a nerd lol), so came up with this idea that would use all that experience.

Her plan was to break down marketing principles in detail, explaining how and why they work, and how and when to use them in your copywriting to make people buy your shit.

Made sense on paper, since that’s where all her experience was. So she started doing it (and its been pretty great).

The problem is that Cass just… didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right to her. Shit, she wasn’t even enjoying copywriting anyway (that was the idea of the digital products), so why pick marketing copy as the thing?

But while Cass was stressing over what she wanted to do when she grew up, she was writing these amazing stories in her free newsletter (highly recommend you subscribe btw). Like, great stories that had brilliant transitions from story to lesson to pitch.

Not the kind of stuff you see a lot, and coincidentally also the kind of stuff she believed not many people were doing well.

It was when she started looking at her belief and it’s impact on her approach, that she realised she needed to make a change.

So…. she made this huge dramatic pivot to storytelling: breaking down stories, what made them work, the decisions made (and discarded), and all this other cool shit that people would actually benefit from learning about and understanding.

“I was delulu and believed that if I didn’t wanna be a copywriter I had to be a marketer. Never occurred to me I could just be a fucking writer lol”

- Cass

Now she says no to copywriting work unless it’s the kind of storytelling she enjoys, and has the storytelling focused product instead of the marketing one.

This is the path that gets her known as being an amazing storyteller and writer, and THAT’S what positioning is all about.

TLDR

1. Don’t get suckered by people promising to fix your positioning.

2. Figure out what you’re willing to say no to, no matter how much the money is.

3. Stick to your fucking morals.

4. (Optional) subscribe to Cass’s paid newsletter to learn to write better stories in your emails.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

“My posts haven’t been doing so well lately, but they used to absolutely crush it.”

I was having a conversation with a mate recently (who shall remain unnamed), and he was frustrated about how shit his content had been performing.

This isn’t a one off conversation either, I’ve spoken to a bunch of people about this stuff and it feels like plenty that used to do well on LinkedIn have been struggling.

Meanwhile, there’s also plenty of people continually killing it. I’ve seen my own posts get pretty solid impressions and engagement and didn’t really get the whole “boo my reach” complaints.

So why the difference?

Well, this is a fun one.

I don’t know about you, but I’m like.. the king of putting something where I’ll see it all the time, and eventually forgetting about it EVEN THOUGH IT’S RIGHT IN MY FACE.

But there’s a reason this shit happens (even though it’s annoying af).

The way it works is your brain sees the same thing over and over until eventually it gets used to it. And since our brains are lazy, it classifies it as not that important, and starts to ignore it.

That way, it saves some processing power for shit that matters, like if you need to defuse a bomb suddenly (it could happen!!).

The concept is called habituation, and it’s something worth considering when looking at the content you put out into the world.

Huh?

Alright, so my buddy who’s struggling (like many others) is putting out the same type of content they’ve always put out.

It’s a similar style, similar vibe, similar message, etc. Same same same.

Because our brains are lazy, they keep seeing the same shit over and over and they start to say “ehh I know what that is” and file it away in the idgaf section of your brain.

Meanwhile, people that keep mixing it up with different formats and different messages just keep slaying.

How do I use this?

Alright, so I’ve got 10 simple rules. Actually no, 10 is a lot. I’m guessing I’ll write 3? 3 seems doable, so let’s see how many I actually end up with.

Rule number 1: say something different

Duh, right? But I don’t just mean something different to what you normally say. I mean, something different to what everyone else says too.

Are you gonna tell me it’s important to tell an authentic story? Womp womp.

Maybe how important having a brand is? Womp womp.

Or possibly something about the importance of strategy? Womp womp.

Everyone’s been saying that shit for years, so we don’t need you to say it too. What actual interesting take can you bring to the mix? What light can you shine that no one else is shining? Why is what you’re saying worth listening to?

Rule number 2: don’t use AI to create your content

Yeah I know you just used it to draft, or edit. And I know you think you edited all the AI out of it.

But guess what?

WE. CAN. STILL. TELL.

Dude, you’re not being slick here. It’s so fucking obvious because AI writes generic garbage, using the same types of garbage devices, making the shit just clunky and nonsensical. You can edit the absolute fuck out of it, but unless you rewrote it from scratch, the AI is creeping it’s way in, guaranteed.

It will ultimately create something generic cause that’s literally how it works. And if that’s the case, you’re even MORE likely to blend in.

Plus, let’s be practical. Based on this survey Pangram did, 69% (lol) of people who view online content say they trust AI-generated content less than human-generated content.

That means, if your writing gives AI vibes (whether written with AI or not), more than 2/3 of people are likely to not trust you.

Rule number 3: read your content out loud before posting

If I ever wanted to call something a hack, it would be this:

When you write something to share, read the motherfucker out loud!

I do it for this newsletter each week, and I do it for every written post I do. You can’t even begin to imagine how many weird phrases I’ve cut out after reading it out loud, because they didn’t sound like me (cause I was trying too hard lol) or flat out didn’t make sense.

Your eyes can slide right by, but when you say it and hear yourself say it, you notice the clunky shit that doesn’t work.

So if you wouldn’t actually talk the way you’ve written, it’s probably better to change it to something you would say.

And look, obviously some people write very fancccyyyyyy because they also speak like twats in their day to day. Totally cool. But if that’s not how you speak specifically, fuck it off.

And look at that, 3 points done ✅

The point

The online space is pretty simple. You try to get attention, then use that attention to build trust, then use that trust to get clients. Boom now you have money yay.

But if something in that process isn’t working, then maybe it’s time to try something different.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Me: huh? no??

Cass: hahaha I know your own past better than you

I was talking to Cass about getting and giving feedback, and she reminded me of this situation (well, when I eventually remembered what she was talking about).

Basically, before I redid my Creative Click website, I’d reached out to this dude that does website messaging work for agencies to get myself a “free teardown” (much like I used to offer).

And he went through everything, and he told me stuff I already thought and knew about myself. It’s good I already felt that way, cause the teardown was leaning a bit on the negative side.

What Cass pointed out was how some people get a bit shitty when you give them feedback, yet I ended up getting inspired and redoing my own website and making it aaawwwweeessssooooommmeeeeee.

(Good) feedback is fucking gold

See, I love getting (valid) feedback. Even more when it kinda hurts a bit, cause that means its something I probably wouldn’t have ever realised myself.

As humans, we have so many blind spots when it comes to identifying our own weaknesses. So when someone is willing to shine a spotlight on those weaknesses, that’s HUGE. It helps so much!

That’s why I’m stupidly free with giving feedback to people that ask.

I had the free website teardown offers on my site for ages. I used to do free reviews for any of my Linkedin friends that asked. In the idgaf community, any member can ask me to review their stuff and give feedback, whether its a website, or a linkedin post, or an article, or something else entirely.

Over the past 6 months alone, I’ve given feedback on 47 websites, 8 linkedin posts, 3 pieces of longform content, 17 or so videos, and a handful of random pieces of content that don’t quite fit in any of those buckets.

And each time I do it, I take the time and the care to give reasonable and valid feedback, that’s intended to help the person that asked.

But seriously wtf guys

There IS something weird I’ve noticed though, which kinda spins me out each time.

I feel like such a boomer saying this, but mannnnn people seem to get offended when I give them the very feedback they asked for.

The problem with kids grown ups these days is no one’s giving them real feedback cause everyone’s scared of hurting their feelings.

Boomer mode Nick

I’m not a jerk - I tailor my feedback to the skills and level of the person.

If they’re a writer, I’ll point out any content that reads rough, sounds like AI, or just doesn’t make sense. If they’re a designer, of course I’m going to highlight design issues if they have any. And if they’re neither, I’ll point at stuff that’s reasonable to expect them to be able to handle, like figuring out who the site is meant to talk to.

Yet, more often than not, I get “ouch, brutal” as a response 😑

It’s like a lot of these people were expecting me to validate how awesome they are, then get all mad cause the delusion gets shooketh.

Is this business or personal

When I get feedback, the first thing I look at is whether it’s valid or not. Or as I call it, business or personal lol.

Sometimes people talk shit cause of personal reasons. They’re trying to cut you down, or they’re jealous you’re doing something they’re not, or whatever BS reason they have for being nasty. If that’s the vibe you’re getting, take that feedback with a heavy grain of salt (and tequila and lime).

On the other hand, most people tend to tell you stuff because they see a genuine issue or problem or mistake or whatever. That’s business, not personal.

That’s the kind of feedback you should take more seriously. If you’re being honest about it, do they have a point? Does it highlight a weakness you weren’t aware of? Is this something you should maybe do something about?

All valid questions to ask yourself.

It can be tough to hear though. And what you should not do in this situation is take it personally. If someone is kind enough to let you know about a mistake in your work or something you can do better, it’s not an attack on you. They’re actually doing you a favour.

Now you’ve got something you can improve. And when you do that, you’re now better at the thing.

TLDR

Feedback is a good thing: seek it out when you can, but don’t get your knickers in a twist when it wasn’t what you were expecting.

If you use it to improve and get better (as intended), and you’ll see yourself grow. If you decide to get all pissy instead, well then you’ll end up all sour and whining about it to other people.

Totally your choice either way, but I know what I’d prefer.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

“We’ve been rethinking our overall strategy”

(first line of the AI written email I got last week)

Ah the sweet sweet release of (project) death.

I’ve seen people sharing stories about client relationships ending because they were just too awesome and overdelivered and the client grew so much they no longer needed them.

This is NOT one of those stories.

The family and I were on the way back from a lovely 10 days in Fiji, and while waiting for the airport valet to bring the car around (yeah I’m a fancy bitch), I open my emails like an idiot, only to see this beauty from a client:

“Hey Nick, please give me a call when you are free”

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

For some perspective, this project had been a major pain. I’m talking five people on every call, all with conflicting goals, and everything you can imagine that leads to. Not to mention taking weeks to reply to an email.

I’d gotten some pretty sweet concepts over to them before I left for Fiji, so I was hoping the call was about narrowing the choice down.

Oh Nick. Nick Nick Nick. Sweet, innocent, naive Nick.

It was NOT about narrowing the choice down

“Yeah look, I’m sorry to do this but we’ve been going through a lot of shit internally, and turns out what we told you we wanted is wrong. Can we do a chat to run through what we actually need? I totally get it if you need to charge more, I know I would.”

Well.. okay I guess.

Ended up having the chat and yeah, it was going to need a fresh concept fml. So naturally, I shot over an appropriately chunky invoice. Discounted slightly as a gesture of goodwill, sure, but still a decent chunk of change.

Well, they tried to haggle 💀

Holy shit. It’s been so long since anyone’s pulled that shit, and I totally was NOT expecting it from a business the size of these guys.

I, of course, refused to budge, and (after some grumbling) they paid so I could do a new concept.

And a new concept I did do! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but the concept was perfect for them. It wasn’t just what they wanted, but also what they needed. And they loved it during the presentation!

That’s why the email I got 3 weeks later pissed me off so much.

Nick got fired?

Yup. And to add insult to injury: the email they sent me was AI generated, and none of what it said matched up. It was like the prompt was “please generate a polite and professional email to fire our web designer” and then copied and pasted without even reading it.

Uffff.

And look, I get how it seems. Someone complaining about being fired means they probably did a shit job, right?

WRONG BITCH!

That’s happened to me before, and this wasn’t it. I’m way too much of a coward to show a client a concept without having shown a whole lot of other people first. The design had the seal of approval 5 times over, plus the client loved it during the presentation, remember?

Personally, I think the big boss at the place got shitty I didn’t do the haggle on the change fee - but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I got fired. Boo hoo.

Thank fuck I guess?

I had such mixed feelings.

On one hand, I’d had enough of these guys and was contemplating firing them myself if they didn’t just sign off. On the other hand, if they’d signed off I would have gotten my next milestone payment which was pretty big.

Well, technically I guess my feelings weren’t that mixed: I hated the client and was happy they were gone, I just wanted the money hahaha.

Well, good thing money isn’t everything. No more dealing with their shit yayyy!!!
Even though I hope with every fiber of my being that their next website ends up being horrible and causes them to go out of business.

The icing on the cake was when I told my wife, and she said “thank fuck, they sucked.” 🤣

The old way

Look, it’s not the first time a project ended badly (fuck you pumpability), or something hasn’t gone my way.

I’ve had “sure thing” proposals never get signed. Or clients that were amazing but flipped out near the end of the project. And the amount of times people have changed their minds after I’ve put in lots of effort…. yeah I’ve been doing this shit for 10 years and I’ve got some stories.

Early in my career, these situations would take me out for at least a day. Sometimes even longer. So so so so laaaaame.

I’d sit there angry, stewing over it, complaining to friends, and not really doing anything within the business.

Generally being a sour little bastard and kinda unpleasant to be around #rip

The new way

Of course that’s very different to the Nick of today. Today’s Nick is way more handsome and confident, and doesn’t give a fuuuuuuuck what other people think (once he’s had a bit of time to process).

See, that email came through first thing in the morning.

I spent a grand total of 37 minutes being annoyed and complaining to my friend Cass (she called them cunts oooOOOoooh), revisiting every interaction to see how else I could have approached things without sacrificing my values, and questioning whether I was even cut out for this stuff…. and then moved on.

Let’s see what else happened that day:

1. A friend on LinkedIn asked me about doing a site (and has since signed on as a client). Yay.

2. Another friend signed on as a client. Yay.

3. Had a sales call with a promising potential client (not signed… yet). Maybe yay?

4. Ate some ice cream. Yay.

Basically, ended up being a pretty awesome day, and the petty part of me (which is a fairly big part tbh) is like “hah suck it losers.”

When one door closes, tell it to fuck off

Shit goes wrong sometimes, and we can’t really control it. But we can control how we react.

It’s mega fucking easy to sit and cry and be angry and upset. Sooooo easy. Trust me, I used to do it all the time. But that keeps you in a shit mood and then you lose all this time that you could have spent being awesome.

So let me give you a better option: be a petty bitch like me, and force yourself to have an awesome day. Make some calls. Write something. Finish a job. Chase up some work. Whatever feels right.

It keeps you more productive and you get shit done. And sometimes the shit you get done gets you new and better clients, or opens up new doors that you didn’t even know were nearby.

And sometimes… it does nothing haha. But hey, it’s still a lot nicer when you feel happy and productive than being all emo.

Shitty clients can fuck off. Stay awesome.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Of course I’m a nosy bitch and wanted to see if it was any good (and also to see how it compares to my own stuff).

So I checked it out and it was… fine?

It’s like… there was nothing wrong with it, but I was just SO BORED looking at it.

Everything was typical. Everything was “best practice” or designed for conversions or whatever. Boring hero banner. Boring buttons. Boring copy. Bleh.

It felt like they’d just refreshed their old site a little, and made it a totally amazing website… if we were in 2020.

I know what they’d say if I ever challenged them on it (not that I would, I’m not a cunt).

• “But Nick, I’ve followed best practice.”

• “It’s better to be clear than clever.”

• “Trying to make it too fancy hurts conversions.”

And a bunch of other regurgitated crap they’ll say to justify being mediocre.

So what I’ve got to say to that is:

FUCK YOUR CONVERSION RATE

Nick Gulic, right now

People are so worried about appealing to the masses, they’re forgetting that the main point of having a website is to appeal to a very specific subset of those masses.

They try optimise for the lowest common denominator and appeal to everyone.

That means scrapping all the cool shit that looks different, in case someone doesn’t like it. And taking away anything that could be confusing, or distracting, to anyone. And they end up making it exactly like the site “best practices” tell you to make.

Which is fine if you’ve got some heavy paid advertising funneling scrubs to a landing page so you can sell your latest magic bullet (with a price that ends in a 7) that’s going to solve all their problems. Sure, have the clear, soulless website in that case.

But when you’re trying to stand out?

When you’re trying to get people to connect with your personality?

When your leads come from your network, or sharing content on social media?

They’re there for you. They’re there for your personality. Going for max conversions just means failure, cause you‘re gonna end up hiding all the cool shit that just might make them care.

All cause you’re worried some random (who’d never become a client, but would be a nightmare if they did anyway) can’t figure out to click a button that doesn’t have the words “click me” on them. (thanks for that hilarious example Cass)

Nope. Instead you’ll look just like everyone else and land firmly in commodity land. And commodity land is where you get to spend lots of time answering the “how much do you charge” question (and arguing when they say “that’s too much”).

Forget about that shit.

Here’s what to do instead (ps. this applies to websites and content and anything else you’re doing):

Track the cool shit you notice

Browse the net. Go to museums. Read lots of stuff. Watch some YouTube.

Get some exposure to different things, and take notice when you think something is cool. What is it you like about it? What made it stand out? Why did you notice it?

Start writing that shit down, or taking screenshots, or whatever. Just keep track of the cool shit you notice.

Compare with your own shit

Now that you’ve got an idea of the stuff that grabs your attention, look at your own.

Are you doing the stuff that would get you noticed by you? (yeah that’s a bit confusing, sorry)

If not, what’s in the way of doing it?

Think about this: if you’re not creating stuff that you’d notice or care about, why would anyone else notice it or care about it?

I get a few compliments about this newsletter, and I’m convinced the only reason they do is because I don’t just write what I want to say, I write what I want to read.

Remember: you can’t do everything

I’ve had clients before that would send me every cool thing they noticed, and want everything to be added into their new site somehow.

The problem was the shit conflicted. They were all cool ideas, but for different reasons, and those reasons did NOT play nicely together.

So keep in mind, you can like and appreciate something without needing to adopt it.

TLDR

Chasing conversion rates and best practices turns you generic. If you’re generic, you’re a commodity.

But if you go against the grain, you stand out - which makes you less of a commodity.

So… go against the grain! Fuck the conversion rate and have fun!

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

I was running sales for this accounting firm, which basically meant people would see our google ads, make an enquiry, and I’d turn them into money clients.

Even though it worked pretty well, my boss (the owner) was always looking for something else. Some other channel he could use to get even more leads, so we could hire more sales people, and he could make even more money clients.

Eventually, he had the bright idea to try running print ads in a magazine.

Not a horrible idea, except…..

“I don’t want to spend a lot of money until we know it will work, so I’m going to buy the cheapest ad spot, for one issue of the magazine, and we’ll create the ad ourselves. If it works out, we’ll spend more next time.”

😑

Yeah I know.

Of course it didn’t work. A crappy looking ad in the crappiest spot of a magazine, for literally one issue? You’ve got a better chance of getting leads by getting drunk and throwing darts at bees (don’t ask).

And then of course, afterwards he hit me with this gem:

“Yeah, I had a feeling it wouldn’t work.”

NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

A totally (un)original concept

My former boss isn’t alone in this.

I build websites, and I can’t even remember the amount of people who’ve told me “I don’t need a good website, I never get anything from it anyway.”

Or people who post for a week or two on LinkedIn then say “LinkedIn doesn’t work.”

Or people who pay some dodgy company $300 a month for SEO and then say “SEO doesn’t work.”

Or someone who creates two videos for YouTube then says “video doesn’t work.”

Of course they won’t when you don’t give them enough of an opportunity to work.

Risk vs reward

I get why people worry.

If you’re trying something new and you don’t know if it’s going to work… it’s a risk to try it.

You’re risking money. You’re risking time. You’re risking potential reputation or “cringe” if it goes bad.

But you’re trying it for a reason. Usually, there’s an upside. Some sort of reward to make the risk worth taking. And if you want to achieve that reward, you need to risk the time/money/shame before you know it’s going to pay off.

That’s where my former boss, and many others, went wrong. Without the certainty (which you can’t get), they’re not willing to invest enough to make it work.

That’s even worse than not trying at all, because they’ve practically guaranteed the loss of whatever they invested.

Self fulfilling prophecy.

Early stage grind

This was something we touched on in the weekly idgaf community call. A few of us have started creating video content for le socialz, but initial results are kinda… shitty. Barely any views, fuck all engagement. Super motivating results 🙄

At this point it would be really easy for me to decide “this isn’t working” and scrap the entire idea. But I haven’t even given it a chance to really work yet! Like come on, I’m not gonna create one or two videos and go viral. A handful of videos won’t fill my inbox with hot young singles in my area leads.

This. Shit. Takes. Time.

So if you’re trying something new, whether it’s creating content, or trying a new marketing channel, or posting video to youtube, or trying substack as a method of building your audience, or building a totally awesome community, remember: you need to risk the investment to have a chance of getting the reward.

From my side, my focus is video content and growing the community (there’s 18 of us now, woo!). None of that is quick. None of that is easy. It’s going to take time (lots and lots and lots of time) and it’s going to take money, but that’s what I’m willing to do to build my dream life.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Expertise isn’t binary

I think people look at expertise as either you’re an expert or you’re not. But they’re forgetting there’s another party in this conversation: the client.

You don’t have to be the best in the world to be good at what you do. You just need to be better enough than your clients.

Yes, you need to meet some minimum standards, but if you’re good enough to solve their problems, congrats - you’re (enough of) an expert.

Look beyond words

There was someone in the web space that shared content on linkedin all the time, and I was lowkey intimidated by them. They seemed to know their stuff, and lots of people praised them all the time.

So naturally, I thought I sucked in comparison. It’s easy to feel like you’re not good enough when you look around and see people sharing their views online and coming up with takes that you’re like “oh shit that’s clever.”

But then I went and checked their actual work. And you know? NOT THAT GREAT. My work was way better. So if someone who does worse work than I do is worthy of praise, maybe I can give myself a break.

Remember, the shit people put out on the internet is sanitised. Or is often an outright lie. Don’t buy the story, check the work and see the proof. And then make your call.

Who’s your actual competition

But even then, the kinds of clients I get typically aren’t in talks at the top design agencies in the world. So why am I comparing myself to them? Why am I trying to compete with the best in the world?

Look at your real competition. Check their portfolios, see what you would have done differently.

Forget comparing against best in the world when you’re not up against those people. Compare against the people you need to beat out for work. Odds are, you’re just as good, if not better.

Insecurity is a good thing

If you’re smart, you know you can be better. Congrats on being smart.

The only people who genuinely think they’re amazing and can’t do better, are people early into the Dunning Kruger chart.

When you know you can do better, when you have more to learn, you keep trying. You keep improving, you keep growing, and ultimately you become more and more of the expert with every single project you work on.

People that think they know everything…. don’t.

We don’t know how much we know

I watched the most entry level marketing presentation once, and I was shocked at how many business owners RAN to the presenter afterwards to enquire about being clients.

Later on when I spoke to him, I kinda mentioned it was a bit basic level, and he said “Nick, you’ve got no idea how many people don’t know the stuff you consider basic.”

It’s the nature of expertise. The stuff that we find challenging now, is the top tier level shit. Meanwhile, the stuff that we’re practically forgetting is still mind blowing to the average person.

So trust me on this, you know way more than you think.

Community for the win

I love being able to have these kinds of conversations and discussions with people. I’ve been in business for over 10 years, and have been giving business owners advice for even longer.

I still forget that a lot of the stuff I’ve dealt with over that time might not be the same shit the average business owner has dealt with.

That’s why being reminded of that in calls, or when people ask for advice on something, is so fucking awesome.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Every time someone asks me something like that, I get to tell them how I don’t watch the news, like some sort of a smug arsehole.

But at least the reason I’m not watching the news isn’t cause I’m too busy reading self help or business books or some other lame bullshit.

Nah, it’s purely cause the news is so fucking depressing, and when I watch it my entire world view changes. People are terrible. Everything is hopeless. We’re all broke. Blah blah fucking blah.

It makes me feel anxious AF, I develop a bit of a complex, and ultimately I feel like everything is hopeless and I shouldn’t leave my house ever again.

Definitely a healthy way to see life 😬

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised knowing what was going on in the world really didn’t give me anything good. It just gave me stress and anxiety, so I cut that shit out.

On the downside, it means I have no idea what’s going on in the world beyond what people bring up in conversation. On the upside, it means I have no idea what’s going on in the world beyond what people bring up in conversation.

But my mental health has never been better.

Taking this further

The whole “cutting toxic shit” isn’t just for the news.

I’ll cut people, activities, clients, etc - anything that makes me feel anxious or angry or upset more than inspired or excited or happy.

My goal is to fill my life with good shit, not toxic shit, and allowing all the stuff that makes me feel bad to stick around totally goes against that goal.

And I’ve learned this shit the hard way.

I’ve “burned out” at least 3 times. Like full blown depression-tier burn out. The level where you know you need to do stuff, you know there’ll be consequences if you don’t, and yet you still can’t manage to get yourself out of bed that day.

The only way I crawled out of it was by cutting the shit that brought me down, and replacing it with shit that lifted me up.

And THAT only started when I finally realised what was causing it, and that I had the power to make the change.

We’re products of our environments

I think a lot of people misjudge how much our minds are influenced by our surroundings.

Family. Friends. The news. Social media. All this shit influences us in a (not so) subtle way.

Remember covid? How many people had perfectly normal-seeming friends and family join whatsapp groups with other nutjobs and become full time conspiracy theorists?

They spent all their time with other wackos and they thought that’s how the world is.

Easy to laugh about it now, but less funny when you realise that the same thing happens to us.

Hang out with negative people? No matter how positive you are naturally, it will make you think other people are negative.

Spend time on LinkedIn? Well everyone’s using AI. Or hates AI. But at least everyone knows about it.

Watch the news? Well the future is… let’s say “what future?”

But when you go out of the bubble, look at the real world, it’s usually nowhere near that level of fucked. Many people are friendly and happy. Many people have literally zero involvement with AI in any way (and their jobs are safe). Our future is the same shit it’s always been.

Shit really isn’t that bad.

Making shit better

The biggest thing I’ve done to improve my mental health has been ruthlessly cutting toxic shit (and people, and activities) from my life, and spending my time doing stuff that makes me feel happy.

I mean think about it, if you’re a product of your environment, it makes sense to make your environment reflect who you want to be.

If you want to grow, spend more of your time with people who are the same.

If you want to do art, spend more of your time with people who are the same.

But if you want to be angry and sad, spend time with my dad. badum tshhhh

A lovely bunch of people

Today I hosted the first ever live call for the idgaf community, and it was awesome (even though I had to go to a cafe cause we’re replacing the floors in my house).

There was 6 of us on the call, and maybe I’m biased but I was really impressed with how awesome everyone was. Every single person has all this experience and insight into their specialty area, like legit impressive af.

In the community there are specialists in websites, seo, branding, marketing, copywriting, community, hr, and even data science. And since they’re all flying basically solo, they get it. They’re in the same boat. THEY FEEL YOUR PAIN (AND MY PAIN).

It made me stupidly happy. Like, part of my job is hanging out with these people? GTFO, how awesome is that?

You can get in on this too

Of course I want you to join up, but also… the people are awesome. They’re the kinds of people that when you hang out with, you feel better and do better.

These are the kinds of people that you grow when you hang around with, so it’s exactly the kind of positive environment I’ve been talking about.

So like, no pressure at all, but if you don’t join you will miss out on possibly the greatest thing in your life and one day when you’re old and poor and sick, you’ll be like “man I really wish I joined that handsome guy’s community for solopreneurs.” You really don’t want those kinds of regrets, do you?

You can check out the community here:

Join the best community in the world *

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

* out of all the communities owned by Nick Gulic

Both of us felt so UGHHHHH at doing the same old service for the same old clients. I mean yeah we’re both good at what we do, but its like… there’s this feeling that we’re meant for more.

I mean, I look around and see some absolute morons killing it online, giving advice and setting up communities and running newsletters and all this other stuff.

And I can’t help but think… if they can do it, why can’t I?

And of course, Sarah feels the same way, so we walked around Sydney for hours just talking ideas. See, neither of us are the kinds of people that want to package up some empty bullshit and pretend it’s amazing. We need to offer something awesome. Something valuable. Something that let’s us hold our heads up high.

Ngl fam, it’s pretty frustrating sitting there trying to think of ideas. It felt like I was the biggest cliche, coming up with the same generic crap everyone else is already doing. And eventually I got mad and just kinda erupted.

Me: You know what I really want? I want people to pay me money to tell them what to do. I’m good at that, literally everyone that follows my advice ends up smashing it.

Sarah: So why don’t you do that?

I opened my mouth to answer, and… couldn’t.

Cause I realised, it’s just… scary. Putting yourself out there with an offer of some sort is scary. Especially when it involves giving advice.

That fear has held me back from doing HEAPS of stuff, cause every time I think of something, there’s that little voice in my head that chimes in:

• Who the fuck do you think you are?

• Why would anyone listen to you?

• Why would people pay you MONEY to tell them what to do?

• How the hell would you even do something like that?

• Why don’t you stay in your lane?

• What, you think you’re some kind of internet guru LOLOL?

• What if it fails?

• What if people laugh at you?

And loads more. It’s fucking intense. And intimidating. And nerve wracking.

But…

There are people worse than me doing it. So why not me?

The challenge

Sarah, lovely woman that she is, challenged me to actually go out and do the thing.

To stop letting fear of failure hold me back and actually put myself out there.

So the first thing I had to do was actually figure out:

Logistically, how the actual fuck do I put myself in a situation where people can pay me for advice?

Not a lot of people know that I actually used to run my own business coaching and consulting practice, and I shut it down cause I hated the whole “high end, 1 on 1” coaching model.

So obviously didn’t want to go down that path. But I still wanted to help people.

I thought for ages about this, and I realised the times I had the most impact was when I was super active in communities.

Like, I tried blogging and posting on social media and it never felt right. I’m not really the best at coming up with topics to talk about. But throw a problem at me? Boom, I gotchu fam. Not to be an arrogant bastard (lol okay maybe a little), but I know a lot about a lot of different stuff.

In the covid lockdown era, I was giving so much advice in industry facebook groups that people knew who I was and trusted my advice. I built a reputation for being smart, with a strong moral compass, and giving absolutely no BS.

That’s how I ended up getting around 300 people to buy a course from me, and had a newsletter with almost 500 people on it. It was from being active in communities, and using all that knowledge to help people with their challenges.

The community

So in response to Sarah’s challenge (even though I’m actually scared as hell to do it), I’m launching the idgaf community.

It’s for solopreneurs (or freelancers) that are out there, selling their expertise, but struggling a little.

Maybe you don’t know what to say online, or maybe you’re sick of losing work cause you’re too expensive, or maybe you just want to hang out with “likeminded legends” - either way, I’m building this for you.

It’s the next level up from absorbing my knowledge and general idgaf attitude via email, now you’ll be able to do that with way more of a “live” vibe.

What I’m doing:

• Weekly (at least) live calls (I’ll record them and put them into some sort of archive for people that can’t make them live). Might even do two a week to cover different time zones - I’ll figure that part out once there’s people in the group

• Message board thingy where you can post your questions. I’ll be there to answer them, plus post other tips and tricks

• Other smart people will join up too (they promised), so you’ll have access to a whole bunch of experts in various topics

• I’ll (eventually) start putting in workshops and masterclasses on specific topics (I do these for other communities already, so why not ours)

• What’s awesome too: you’ll be in this community with other people going through the same shit you are. Fuck crying in the shower by yourself!

• And more stuff as I think of it (also open to feedback and ideas)

Full disclosure: this will probably be a bit light to start with. Definitely a weekly call, definitely a message board thing (cause I’ve already set it up), and then more stuff will happen when I know people are actually willing to join.

This could end up being awesome. Mayyyyyybe. It kinda depends on the people that jump on board I guess.

Hey where’s the usual helpful email content?

Ooh sorry almost forgot. Here’s the helpful bit:

Cliche as it is, have you ever thought about what you’d do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Not the funny shit I give like “skydive without a parachute” or “rob a bank” but all the genuine shit.

In my case, it happened to be “start a community.”

In your case, it could be join a community (heyoooo - jk), or post a video, or write a post on LinkedIn, or niche your service, or launch a new offer, or create a course, or some other shit that makes you break out in a nervous sweat.

Whatever the thing: What’s holding you back? And what’s the worst that can happen if it goes wrong? And most importantly, what’s the BEST that can happen if it goes right?

After all, if I can have the audacity to tell people to pay me money to hang out with me virtually (it’s probably worth it though), why can’t you have the audacity to do your thing?

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

ps. Wondering what ideas we had for Sarah? I’ll let you know when she does her thing!

"I put hours of thought and research into a post and it bombs. But then I share a half arsed meme and boom, explodes. WTF even is the point of LinkedIn?"

- Everyone

Literally anyone I know that posts on LinkedIn has said something like this at some point.

And not just friends trying to get clients; even LinkedIn guru types that sell how to get clients on LinkedIn are struggling (in private, they just don't admit it publicly).

They all just blame "the algorithm" (wrong) and how no one cares about their content (not wrong).

Then you've got the content experts selling systems and frameworks and templates that they promise will make your content way more effective.

But.... it's all a pile of shit, cause it just tries to make your content look like other "thought leadership" content.

And we've seen that crap a thousand times already

Seriously.

Think about why we scroll past these thought leadership bullshit posts.

I don't know about you, but I can pick em from the first line (or what people call the hook)

If the hook makes my eyes roll, or it doesn't even stand out enough for my brain to actually process it, I'm scrolling on.

The experts will scream about how "HoOKs aRe iMpOrTaNt!!!!" which is true, but then they follow a madlibs style template instead of coming up with their own. Or even worse, using AI to do it.

Our brains like to take shortcuts

Our brains have to process everything we read. They need to classify it, to decide what to do with that info.

Is it useful knowledge? Is it entertaining? Is it something we already know? Is it garbage? Do we care?

But, since our brains are lazy af, they look for shortcuts. Anything they can do to classify the stuff quicker.

That means that the hook we come up with should help people classify our post as something useful.

Now here's the part that a lot of experts seem to actually get wrong and I honestly can't figure out why.

Let's imagine you're me (congratulations on the promotion), and you want to show off your knowledge about websites and conversion rates and all the other shit someone who needs a new website should probably be thinking about.

You (or me?) has got the actual main points, the stuff that shows the knowledge off, but we want people to actually read the fucking post.... so we need a "hook" to grab em.

A good hook will help them classify the post as interesting or worthwhile, which makes them likely to read the rest.

Quick fhooking primer

Just in case you haven't spent a lot of time learning about content writing, here are the types of hooks most experts are going to guide you through:

• Question hook - self explanatory. Something like "Are you sick of your website looking like shit?" or "Do you want more leads from your website?"

• Contrarian claim - say something that contradicts everyone else. "You don't need a website strategy to have a killer website."

• Paradox hook - something that sounds counter productive. "I broke all the website conversion rules... and got twice as many leads."

• Number/result hook - throw in some real numbers. "The new website got 2300% more leads by following these principles."

• Confession/cold open hook - drop people into the middle of a story. "I had no idea wtf I was doing. It was the best website I've ever made."

• Direct call out - tell people who the post is for. "If you're about to build a new website, this post is for you."

• Journey or contrast hook - not sure if this is what it's called, but you've definitely seen it. "3 years ago I was homeless. Now I'm making a bajillion dollars an hour." Yuck.

None of these are all that bad in theory, but in practice people keep messing them up, and so the result ends up being shit.

Great fhooking mistakes

Where I think a lot of the experts go wrong, they forget that the market is continually evolving. Consumers keep getting exposed to content, to marketing, every day.

The novelty wears off, and stuff that worked a few months ago, stops being effective.

So the stuff they teach today is kinda like reading from a dusty old playbook. But not the good kind like you're in a cheesy kids football movie and you find the playbook hidden in a library, and it's full of plays that were effective in the 70s and won games goddamit, but everyone forgot about it and it's like totally new now, so you use it and the commentator who's some old retired football star recognises the plays and gets super excited, and you end up winning the big final.

Nah those are the good ones. We're talking the playbooks that everyone already knows in and out and has developed counters to. We don't want these kinds of dusty playbooks, cause they suck.

First mistake.

Your hook isn't PART OF THE STORY.

It needs to flow and make sense.

If you have this really epic hook, but the next line doesn't connect to it in any way, people get confused. Confusion isn't really a good thing unless it's part of your strategy (ps. don't make it part of your strategy), so all that happens is your post gets classified as trash.

Second mistake.

Your hook is a fucking lie.

Bruh.

The first line of your post tells people what the rest of it is about. I've seen a lot of people put a big claim in the opener, but then never actually reference it again.

Don't be a piece of shit.

Third mistake.

It's obvious AF.

If we've seen it before, our brains can classify it.

If your hook is "Here are 5 things you can do to get more leads via your website" then my brain classifies it as generic advice (cause it is).

If your hook is "Here's 5 non obvious things (I learned the hard way) that will get more leads via your website" then my brain classifies it as possibly non generic advice, which means its worth checking out (just don't forget mistake 2).

Although tbh even that hook is probably generic at this point, because I still know it's about getting more leads via my website.

Fourth mistake.

It's preachy.

I'm scrolling linkedin. I'm not at church or wherever people go when they want to be spoken to like children.

There's one thing going through my head when I see a post about how I'm doing everything wrong, and it rhymes with "duck off" (psst: it was fuck off).

Telling people they're doing things wrong (even if they are) is a great way to annoy them, but not a great way to connect.

So how the fhook do I do it right?
(okay, last time I make this joke, I swear)

This part ain't too hard thankfully.

Rather than copying some big name influencer that's in a pod and gets crazy traction no matter what nonsense they write, follow some basic rules.

Why does this post even matter?

Why should people even read your post? I've scrapped so many post ideas because I wasn't really saying anything special.

Generic tips, entry level knowledge you'd find just by thinking about looking the topic up, stuff that offers zero personal insight.... why bother? That's not going to make your "thought leadership" post actually fire.

First you need your angle, or why your post is worth reading. Get that "why" across in your hook.

Subvert expectations

Remember, our lazy af brains are trying to get out of thinking.

So, I like to think about what I can do that is a bit different and leads to a different outcome than people expect.

Maybe you notice people starting posts the same way, and you throw in a twist at the start that makes it stand out. Maybe you come up with the opposite result. Maybe you throw in a swear word (FYI - linkedin really doesn't like it when I do that, the arseholes).

If it looks like everyone else's content, and doesn't do anything different, it's gonna bomb. Throw in a twist, and you might get some attention.

Build some curiosity

This is such GENERIC advice, but it's important.

If your hook makes people say "huh?" or "whaaaat?" or "how?" then there's a good chance they'll read the post.

If your hook makes them say "meh" or "ugh" or "psh" then there's a good chance they won't.

We're so bored and over everything. If you can make us FEEL something, you earn some attention (that's why ragebait works, but I'm not a fan).

Personality is queen (or king)

I know I talk about how important it is to push your personality out into the world. And I know it's probably annoying at this point.

But you know who else is annoying? McDonalds with their golden arches. And yet they keep using them in all their marketing and they keep winning. So I'm being McDonalds when I tell you: get your personality into your content.

It's not the easiest thing in the world, but the more you understand who you are and what your personality is, the more you can push it into your content. And that means your content becomes recognisably yours.

That shit stands out, because (presumably) you're the only you there is.

TLDR

Ultimately, if you want to be all thought leadershippy, try make your shit interesting.

Don't be a dork with zero personality. Don't try clone the big names (trust me, they cheat).

Bring your own personality into it, follow some basic rules, and don't be like everyone else.

Ultimately, ask yourself: does this sound interesting to me?

If not, try again.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

And that's a lesson I've learned from cold hard experience.

Whether it's a SaaS product that wants me to request a demo, or some sort of service provider that offers free consult, every time I've made the enquiry, I've ended up feeling bad because I couldn't afford it (or didn't think it was worth it).

But, even knowing all of this, for a long time I didn't put prices on my own website.

And this was another experience thing.

I found in sales calls, people often had a budget in mind that was lower than what I charged. But once they got some clarity around the value my service would bring to them, they'd understand it was worth it.

It was kinda conflicting. On one hand, better user experience is to show the price. On the other, it might scare off people who I could probably talk into paying the proper amount.

So what did I do?

Well, ultimately, I went with the better user experience and put pricing on my website.

I wouldn't make an enquiry if I couldn't see a price, so why would I expect good clients to do it?

And even though I could talk people up to spending a higher amount, it's not a fun experience having to do that every time (and it didn't work every time).

Some people just won't pay that much no matter what, which means spending lots of times on sales calls with non ideal clients that would never sign. I'd rather not find out they're a bad fit after spending an hour on a sales call.

I figured if I go super transparent with my pricing, I might have less conversations overall, but I'm talking to people who are cool with my prices and it makes everything much easier.

When NOT to show pricing

There's a few situations where showing pricing isn't the best move.

1. You charge a different price for every client, based on what you think they will pay

2. You're in a very narrow market where competitors can drag you into a price war easily (real situation with a client right now)

3. Everything is custom and you have a crazy wide range based on the scope of the project

Outside of the price war thing, I'd say at the very least try to show a range or give some sort of indicator.

Don't hide your prices cause you're worried it'll scare people away. Those people aren't good fits, and you'll be wasting a LOT of time to convert a small percentage of them.

ps. I've got the flu and my brain is a scramble right now, which is why this email is kinda short and probably doesn't cover everything. But let caveman brain Nick tell you: price on website good.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

No matter what you do, you've got a whoooooooole lot of competition out there all trying to show up daily as "the expert" in your space.

Which means it sucks when YOU try to show up as the expert, cause you look like all the other shmucks. And THAT makes standing out fucking hard (let's not even get into the whole "getting leads" from social media thing).

So wtf do we do?

Well, there's some people I think are killing it online for totally different reasons, so I thought I'd point out what they're doing and why.

Have a killer process and show it consistently

You think you're good at what you do, but does your process reflect that?

It's hopefully clear that part of my job involves writing messaging copy for my clients. So naturally, when I come across people doing the same thing, it doesn't take me long to figure out if they're good or not.

Someone who's great at it is Clémence Lepers. How do I know that?

Cause she's consistent AF on LinkedIn. She doesn't do the whole constant personal story thing or act like a jester (🥲), but she talks about her craft, explains how she does things, explains her thought process, and shows results.

That's normally what I'd tell people NOT to try do cause it's so hard to stand out that way, but she makes it work because she's got strong processes and lots of examples to share that show it.

So basically; she demonstrates her expertise in her service with each post, which gets her loads of leads.

If you want to do this, revisit your processes. What do you do? How do you do it? Why do you do each step? What happens if people don't do it? Start explaining this stuff publicly.

Own something specific AF

Let's say you're a copywriter. There's SO MANY different things you can talk about to show your expertise.

But... that's what every other copywriter does. It's way easier to stand out if you pick something specific within copywriting, and own that.

A GREAT example of this (in my opinion) is my friend Katie Skelton.

She teaches people to write better, which sounds generic, right? But what she owns is the idea of a daily newsletter. Everything she does is geared towards that. Everything she teaches is tied back to that idea. She lives it with her own awesome newsletter (the only daily newsletter I actually read).

I know for a fact (because she brags all the time omg*) that Katie gets hundreds upon hundreds of subscribers to her newsletter from her posts on LinkedIn, and then her newsletter does an amazing job selling to those subscribers.

* I was just joking about her bragging; she's just super transparent about her business

Why does this work for Katie? Cause she owns one core idea and executes on it. Could she teach people to write social media posts or optimise their linkedin profiles? Probably. Does she? Fuck no. She owns the daily newsletter.

If you want to do this, ask yourself: is there a specific angle or approach I can take to be more "specific" about what I do? Focus on that in a hugely public way.

Throw loads of personality into it

Okay so my personal favourite approach (obviously) is to inject your personality into stuff.

There are many other web designers, but not many talk the way I do, say the stuff I say, or lack all the fucks like I do.

What's awesome to see online is how many people are doing this now.

We've got my funny graphic design and photographer friend David Smoak, absurd content writer Eli Sundelson, or, if you're into the higher level of professionalism, personal branding guru (except not a horrible person like actual gurus) Nicole Ramirez.

That's just three examples out of like... more than 7 other people doing this super well on LinkedIn.

Each of them show up, leading with personality, and get leads a-plenty.

David mostly posts these amazing pictures of tractors and stuff (except when he posts slander against good hearted Australian people), but combines them with jokes that show what he'd be like to work with.

Eli writes... I can't even explain it. Sheer balls to the wall insanity. But it grabs attention, makes you laugh, and shows you how he could take that same approach for you.

Meanwhile, Nicole posts very unpretentious content about personal branding and showing up as a human online, and leads by example. She shares funny stories with her husband or kid(s?), or conversations with clients, or just riffs off social media trends. The evidence that her stuff works is seen in how her own posts blow up all the time.

In each case, you get a feel for who they are as people, what they could be like to work with, and it helps them stand out against all the "shmucks" doing the same thing. And more importantly, it works.

If you want to do this, you've gotta find your own personality. You don't need to be funny like David, or insane like Eli, or a real grown up like Nicole, but you need to be something.

Wait is this... a plot twist?

Yes muahahahahahahhahahahahahahah (deep breath) ahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaaaaaaa.

I gave three different approaches to stand out online, and the plot twist is each person I've named does pretty much all 3.

They all show you how they do things, they have something they kinda own, and they all show their personality in their content.

That's the way you win at all this shit. Personality doesn't work without substance behind it (unfortunately for me). A rock solid process or owning a specific function without having a personality is just gonna be boring AF and get nowhere.

You need to do it all.

Oh STFU Nick

Yeah I'm sorry, the plot twist thing was pretty lame.

Anyway, if you don't want to be like the other shmucks: get yourself a strong process, try and own something specific, and show up as the real you (or a version of the real you at least).

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

When I first started in sales, it was to grow someone else's business. And since I wasn't the guy that had to deliver the solutions, just sell em, I didn't care if clients were dicks.

After all, if they were dicks, it was the team that had to deal with it, not me. I got paid either way.

Man I miss that job sometimes 😅

Things changed a bit when I started working for myself. If a client was a dick, I had to deal with it. I was the one that had to handle "urgent" requests, ridiculous orders, disrespect, flaky decisions, and all the other crap you get with shitty clients.

And I couldn't avoid it cause I needed to make money cause being alive is expensive af.

The last shit client

I still remember the guy. Jason, from some shitty engineering company.

The fast version: had sob stories about people ripping him off, commited to a larger budget project, then ghosted for almost a year. Comes back, yay more sob stories, renegotiates to a smaller (and lower budget) project. Oh look at that, no content and no images. Tells me to steal content from competitors or suppliers (I refused). Ghosted again for a few months, so I just set it aside.

And then, of course, absolutely lost his shit when I didn't have a finished site waiting for him when he deigned to look back into it.

Ufffff.

One of very rare situations where I've had to say "this isn't working, let's go our separate ways."

It was so painful. That process stressed me out many times, things got heated during conversations, and I actually thought I was going to need to get a lawyer to put him in his place (thankfully he realised I wasn't in the wrong).

But.... Jason was the last truly shit client I've had (although some have been a bit mediocre ngl).

And it's all because of one TV commercial (fr fr no cap).

The commercial

It was 2018, I was watching TV (normal, free to air TV), and this commercial comes on.

"What commercial Nick? What product was being advertised that had such an amazing impact on you?"

Fish. It was a fucking fish commercial.

This guy went to the dock in the morning, and the fish seller guy said all the fish were rejects. Cause John West had already said no to those ones.

I can't find a link to the actual one I saw, but there's a whole series of them. Here's one.

The ending line was something like "It's what John West rejects that makes John West the best."

I was in the middle of dealing with all this shit, and this commercial comes on, and that line just.... hit me.

I'd known that Jason (the client) was kinda shit. He had more red flags than.... uhhh.... something that has a lot of red flags. Sidenote: Google tells me a soviet rally would have a lot of red flags, so imagine I wrote that like a clever bastard.

I knew the red flags were there, I just ignored them because it's a client that will pay me money. Money good.

But... if I was willing to ignore the red flags, then wasn't I just like the people in the John West commercial that were selling the rejected fish?

I didn't wanna sell rejected fish.

To be the best, you need to act like the best

I did a LOT of thinking. I thought about who I was, who I wanted to be, who I wanted to work with, and WHY I wanted to work with them.

And I realised I wanted to be the expert. I wanted to be "the guy" that would solve shit for people. And I wanted to be appreciated as that expert.

I mean, I had the knowledge already. I just needed to make sure I wasn't dealing with the wrong kinds of people or the wrong kinds of projects, cause that shit was ruining my will to live.

So how did I actually change things up?

Well, I started by writing out my "red flags" for clients and projects.

Every single thing that would be done by the kind of client I didn't want to work with, but would NEVER be done by the kind of client I would want to work with.

And then I was ruthless on saying no to people that raised those red flags.

Now, to try save time, I even put a bunch of my red flags on my website (and I strongly recommend doing this).

Literally everyone will tell you that marketing is about attracting clients. But it's more than that. Yes we want to attract clients, but the right kinds. And importantly, we want to repel the wrong ones (that's the part everyone seems to forget).

It ain't easy though.

I say no a lot. Like, way more than I say yes. And it definitely costs me money, at least in the short term. And there's always this little voice that says "hmmm but you could totally work with them really, just do what they want and get paid."

But.... that's not how the best operate. The upside is that I enjoy the people I work with and the projects I do. I get to have an impact on projects I get involved in, and charge a lot, which is sweet. Plus I haven't been burned out in ages (felt like a perpetual state before).

I don't think I'm the best or anything, but I'm running my business like I want to be.

And since I work with people that let me be the expert, and on projects I know I have an impact on, it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Every project is proof that I'm good at what I do, moving me closer and closer to living as "the best."

My suggestion

1. Decide what model you want -> take orders, or solve problems (either are fine).

2. Write out the traits of your best clients and projects.

3. Flip it, and write out the traits of the WORST clients and projects (these are your red flags).

4. Say no to red flag clients/projects.

5. ????

6. Profit

🤘

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Facebook groups were kinda killer.

Yeah I said it. We couldn't socialise anywhere else, so those groups (especially industry specific ones) became a place to get that social hit we were all lacking.

I was spending time in a few industry specific groups just being my usual charming self: trolling people, giving advice when people needed it, and making friends. Some of which (or is it whom?) I still talk to today.

But of course, since these were industry groups, they'd also have a bunch of people in there trying to sell their shit to everyone else. And to be fair, not all of those people were bad. But some definitely were.

I wanna tell you a story about a guy, let's call him.... Mike (cause that's his name).

Mike had some really fire content. He used to talk about how to sell your service, did loads of videos, ran a little coaching group, had digital products, and would generally just be... everywhere.

Everything he said sounded effective and correct (mostly). And that was kinda rare in the Facebook groups back then.

But there were little things that would bother me about Mike.

Automation wizard lizard

Okay, so first I need you to cast your mind back to the ancient times that I'm talking about. Stuff like ChatGPT or Claude and AI in general weren't a thing. Instead, the now AI bros, were all into Zapier (and NFTs lol).

Remember Zapier? When it came out, everyone said if you don't use it, you'd be wiped out by someone that does. They've never said that about any other technology, ever 👀

Anyway, Mike went HARD into Zapier. He was automating almost everything, and recommending everyone do it.

But when you automate shit, you need to be careful and think about edge cases. You need to have amazing attention to detail and foresight, so that you set it up properly.

Cause otherwise you'd have weird broken posts being posted to your social media. Constantly. Just like Mike.

And when people sign up for stuff, you'd send them the wrong (and broken) emails. Just like Mike.

And- never mind, you get the idea. Mike was no automation wizard, even though he'd be raving about how important it was to use and how much time it was saving him.

But the amount of shit he was getting wrong was insane.

Of course, Automation can be tricky to set up right. So maybe we give Mike a pass on that one.

Oh COME ON

Mike used to launch offers for digital products every now and then. I think his main thing was teaching web designers how to sell a marketing funnel to their clients.

In 2026 that's considered passé, but back in 2018/2019 that shit was still relatively popular.

So, Mike launches a new offer. And I mostly like the guy, so I check out his sales page.

But... damn.

Typos. Broken layouts. Really ugly design. Wannabe guru vibes all the way down the page.

It was... bad. And this guy was trying to sell to web designers?

I didn't buy (obviously), but other people did. And the complaints about his products... yeah it wasn't good.

Good enough is NOT good enough

Mike's stance on all this shit was to launch stuff when it's "good enough" rather than waiting for it to be perfect. And he'd rely on the strength of what he was actually saying to carry it through.

And I get it, and agree with the sentiment, but Mike was messing up a bit.

See, "it's good enough" is advice intended to get people started. It was so perfectionists wouldn't sit on something wayyyyyyyyyyyyy longer than necessary. And it was intended that you actually knew where the "good enough" bar was and your stuff was higher than the bar.

Mike wasn't new to any of this stuff. He'd been around, and made decent money teaching. He even had a team (supposedly).

At that point, you'd expect some quality control. You'd expect some effort and care put into his stuff. For someone at his level, the bar was a lot higher. And Mike didn't even need to bend backwards to limbo under it.

Mike today and what he did wrong

I know its easy to think a story in an email is just a story, but this is totally legit.

Mike's a real dude, he went through a whole bunch of shit personally and within his business (probably cause he spoke a bigger game than he played), and the last I heard he was reselling Go High Level (ewwwww).

In order to sell your expertise, people need to trust you have it in the first place.

It's easy to think typos don't matter. Than design doesn't matter. That shit being broken isn't the biggest deal. And to a certain extent, it's not. Making a mistake here and there is human and forgivable.

But keep in mind people can't judge the quality of what you do based off what's in your brain, they can only judge you off what they can see. And what they see is your social media, your website(s), your content, your emails, etc. And if all of that has continuous typos, or it's broken, or it looks cheap, or it shows zero attention to detail, naturally people think:

If your like this here, where else are you like this?

It shows a general lack of respect for your audience. And when that happens, trust in your expertise declines. And then you're off reselling Go High Level like some shmuck instead of providing an actual service or selling your own products.

You don't want to be reselling Go High Level like some shmuck do you? DO YOU? (say no, have some self respect)

The real lesson

I'm NOT saying everything needs to be perfect. You don't need an expensive website, or to never make a mistake, or have amazing production value in everything you do.

Fuck no.

What I'm saying is when you start out, your focus should be on getting your content OUT. If your perfectionism is holding you back from moving forward, that's a problem. At that stage, find what "good enough" is for your level, and make sure you're there. It's usually much sooner than you think.

But then as you grow, as you learn, as you get better, as you build an audience.... that bar of "good enough" will rise.

Keep improving and growing. Show your audience you give a shit about them, and respect them enough to put effort and care into your stuff. If you do that, odds are very good you'll keep their respect and continue to grow.

If not, go high level is waiting LOL.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

This was back in 2013 or so. I'd just bought myself a shiny new VW Golf R as a reward for being so damn handsome and talented and humble. If you're not familiar with the car, it's absolutely fast AF, has pretty sick options, and isn't too attention grabby. And just right for me.

I took it home and parked in the driveway like normal, only to have my neighbour Anthony pop by to check it out.

For perspective, at the time Anthony had a 10 year old Toyota Camry. Not a bad car or anything, but it was a whole different type of vehicle. His car was an affordable family sedan, while mine was a "top of the line" splurge purchase. Very different.

Now, I wasn't comparing the cars (cause.. why?), but apparently he was.

Cause out of nowhere, he tells me his Camry was better and starts walking me through it's features.

Like, dude... what?

I know what you're thinking, and I swear on everything holy and unholy I wasn't standing around bragging about my new car. I was super uncomfortable cause he kept asking questions about it, so I answered his questions and that's it. Any competitiveness he felt was all his own doing.

It wasn't until much later that I figured out what the deal was.

And it's funny, cause it relates heavily to this email and why most reviews and testimonials are bullshit.

Okay tell me the point already mr story man

Have you heard of behavioural biases? They're patterns in how we think and act that make us say or do things that might not actually be right.

Well, in Anthony's case, he was suffering from the "mere ownership" effect. That's where people like and value things more just because it's theirs (ie. they own it). See, for Anthony, in his mind, he's the best. So if he buys something, it's obviously the best too. Duh.

Unfortunately, that makes it hard for him to be impartial and actually compare things fairly. Now imagine Anthony takes a course from a guru, and was asked to do a review.....

Yeah, that guru gets an amazing review, cause Anthony only buys from the best 🙄

Womp womp for everyone else who now thinks that guru is actually good.

Of course, not everyone is like Anthony. But there's also more behavioural biases out there ooOOOoooOOooOOooo

Fcuk buyer's remorse

You know after you buy something and you get that whole buyer's remorse thing where you think you're an idiot and made a huge mistake? Post purchase rationalisation is how loads of people deal with it.

This is where you focus on the good stuff about what you bought, downplay or ignore anything bad, and point out the problems with every other option.

That way, you don't have to feel guilty or stupid for making a bad buy.

The problem is it also leads to a whole lot of bullshit testimonials, cause if you don't do it, then you have to admit you're lying to yourself.

That's bad, so boom now we've got another bullshit testimonial.

It's easier to just say yes

Imagine you take a course from someone. You probably know them at least somewhat (otherwise we need to talk about your decision making process cause wtf). The course turns out okay, but nothing special. Maybe it's a bit basic. Or maybe you didn't even do the thing fully, you just checked it out a bit but didn't really go deep yet.

And then they ask you for a testimonial to help them promote it....

Acquiescence bias is when you say yes just cause it's too hard to say no.

I mean you could say no, but then you've gotta deal with explaining why. Ugh fuck that.

I've given testimonials before for things that were okay but not truly amazing, mostly cause I felt like it would be super dickish if I didn't do it. I wouldn't lie in the testimonial, but it's still a bullshit testimonial.

Pretty sure I'm not alone on this either.

Straight Up Inexperience

When I first started learning about marketing, I encountered content from heaps of people.

I had no idea what I was doing, so I thought people like Neil Patel were absolutely killer (I was going to write more names, but I couldn't actually remember them). If I'd taken their courses, I would have said they were amazing because I had nothing to compare it to.

Last year I sat in on an entry level marketing masterclass.

It was the equivalent of an entry level blog post, read out loud to the room, and people were lapping. it. up.

Were those people going to give an amazing testimonial after? Hell yeah! Did that testimonial match the actual quality of the masterclass at all? Hell no!

So we have another bullshit testimonial.

But Nick, that doesn't mean reviews and testimonials are all bullshit

Well of course not.

But it does mean you shouldn't blindly trust them.

Remember: people are idiots. We trick ourselves all the time. We do things we don't agree with all the time. We lie to avoid hurting people's feelings.

That means we will sometimes give testimonials when they aren't really deserved.

So if the testimonials were going to push you over the line to buy something you weren't sure about, don't do it.

Or do it if you want, I'm not your dad.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

ps. Also, loads of influencer types give each other bullshit testimonials cause they're all part of a big circle jerk network and want to help each other out.

Since they're smart, I don't really "dumb things down" as much as people online SAY I'm meant to. After all, you're subscribed for knowledge, not brain rot. You want to sell your services better, and get more clients. Stand out.

And that means you keep trying to learn and improve.

Well, I've found something really useful for smart people that want to improve their writing.

We write a lot

If you're anything like me, you're probably active on some sort of social media (wat up linkedin). Maybe you have your own email list. That means, you're putting a fair bit of writing out there.

I write a lot about what I believe about my industry, and how things should work.

I share my beliefs across social media, this newsletter, and on my website... because the people that share those beliefs become followers, friends, subscribers, and possibly even clients.

But I never really thought that my writing was trying to persuade people of anything.

Persuasion gets a bad rap

I've always considered persuasion to be manipulation. Trying to trick people into doing what you want.

Turns out, that's the "scammy lead gen" version of persuasion, when the bros try to convince you to buy their shitty product. It's like how you can use something for good or for evil... well, those mofos are using it for evil.

But you can use it for good. And I'm not talking about the little bullshit stories people tell themselves about how "everyone does it" and "I do this so I can help more people" and whatever other justifications they have for being a scammer.

Nah. The good side is convincing people that there are other ways to do things. Convincing them of your beliefs.

Here's one I prepared earlier

Canva, back in the day, was a nothing little startup. Back then, if you wanted those rubbish social media graphics, you needed designers and photoshop. Like, we literally used to say "photoshop it."

Canva had to compete with that.

Their entire mission, early on, was to convince people there was another way. They spent YEARS persuading people that you didn't need to use photoshop to create reasonable posters and graphics. They showed up with the right message, over and over, and gradually convinced people.

Now, they're fucking huge.

Turns out, I'm like Canva (except not a SaaS product, not rich, better looking, etc). I'm sharing my beliefs to persuade people there's a better way.

Learning to write persuasively

She doesn't know I'm doing this, but I recently built a new site for my friend Cass Whitaker, which came out sick.

Cass was planning on launching a subscription based digital product, where she releases a monthly breakdown/guide to teach people how to use proper marketing principles in their writing, in a practical way (she's probably gonna fume reading this cause I'm describing it wrong).

I didn't really understand it at the time, but I was always planning to buy it (support your friends!!!).

But it just came out and... holy crap it's really useful. The first issue is this MASSIVE guide on persuasive writing, around 5000 words or something. It's not like a blog post or one of those $7 a month newsletters or some shit like that.

This is not something for the plebs of social media. This is like reading a textbook, but one you don't mind reading. I've read it once already, and will need to read it a few more times to really sink it all in. It explains so much about how and why these things work, it's killer.

Considering I have smart people on this list, and Cass has written something that will help smart people write better, I thought I'd share it with you guys.

I'm not an affiliate or anything, I have no incentive if you buy it - I just think it's really useful and only $20 (I've learned less from $150 text books). You can check out the brief here (yes, I designed that landing page).

Anyway, good luck with the writing.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

I don't say no thanks JUST cause I'm an arsehole.

I tell them no thanks cause all these pitches are done so badly (and I get so many of them).

And it's not like I'm secretive about what people should do instead.

Any time someone asks me, I tell them exactly what I'd say in that position. I've re-written people's outreach for them (and they tell me it works). But... I never seem to GET the good outreach.

UNTIL NOW!

Let me intro you to Manmeet. He shot me this message on LinkedIn.

This message got my attention, cause it's almost exactly what I tell other people to do.

So... I ended up talking more with Manmeet. Turns out his portfolio is pretty decent, and I'm gonna pay him to do a trial run in the next couple of weeks, once I record my next video.

So why did I respond to this message out of the (not even exaggerating) 100+ pitch DM's I've gotten over the past two months?

The Novelty

This wasn't like all the other outreach I get.

• No long winded pitch

• No insulting me/my work/my business

• No ego or assumptions about what I'm doing

• No fake interest in how my business is going

Being different is already a great move, because when you're different you stand out. And this message stood out, which made me look at it differently.

But novelty alone is pointless if the message isn't well crafted.

The Message

Manmeet did a lot right.

First: he kept the whole message short.

I dunno why these people pitching think more words are the way to go? When you're messaging someone, the more words you send, the more work you're asking them to do in reading it. It's kinda disrespectful?

So when approaching someone you want to work with, keeping your first message is a great move (and if you can't explain it in a short message, you need to spend some time and effort figuring your shit out).

If you need to, you can always get long winded later once you've established rapport and built the connection.

Second: he told me why he was messaging and what he wanted.

When someone's talking to me purely cause they want to pitch me, I know. It's so obvious, I'm pretty sure most people would be able to tell.

So when they lead with the classic "how's business" instead of a pitch, its extra annoying because all my options suck.

If I tell them I'm not interested, I get "but I didn't even pitch you" (and then they usually pitch later anyway). If I be polite, I have to participate in a conversation I don't want to be part of, while witnessing their ham-fisted attempts to "question" their way to the point it's socially acceptable to pitch. Ugh.

If you want to pitch, be direct. If you want to genuinely make a connection, then stop trying to pitch.

Third: didn't assume I had a problem

It really bothers me when people make blanket statements about a problem, as if it's something everyone else deals with.

The audacity. If they say "since you do X, you must experience Y" I will immediately deny it, even if it happens.

I've been running my business for yonks (translation for non Australians: a long time). Most issues tend to get fixed.

Instead of assuming, just ask.

Fourth: took his ego out of it

Beyond the one liner of who he is (an editor) and what he wants (to work with creative individuals), Manmeet's not really going on about himself.

He didn't write 3 paragraphs about why he's awesome. Shit, he didn't even say he's good. You know why? Cause no one reaching out to sell you something thinks they're bad. There is ZERO point in waxing lyrical about how amazing you are, because as far as the recipient is concerned, you could be lying (and probably are). Save that shit for later, when they might actually want to know.

Manmeet just said what he did and asked if I need it, in the shortest possible way. That wins some respect from me.

Probably an important disclaimer

With Manmeet, the fact that he had an actually decent outreach message got me to reply positively. I checked out his portfolio, ran him through the situation I could use him for, and suggested a paid trial to get a feel for working together.

Before you rush out to whip up a pitch message, just keep in mind: while I was positive in my response, I only considered actually trialing Manmeet cause I did in fact need an editor, his portfolio wasn't bad, and he was in my budget.

It doesn't mean I'd magically hire everyone (or even anyone) that does a half decent outreach message, but at least there's more chances of actually being given the opportunity to try and sell your service.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

ps. Short and sweet email this time, just like Manmeet's outreach!

And 4 times last week someone couldn't answer 😅

And I get it, cause it's fucking hard.

I mean, unless you're delulu AF, you don't actually believe you're different or better than literally everyone.

But "everyone" isn't your competition. Your competition are usually a much smaller circle.

Maybe they're the other peeps in your area that do what you do. Or the same ones that target your niche. Or whatever other differentiator you're dealing with.

And thats a lot easier to compete against.

And if you WANT to compete, if you want marketing success, you need to answer the most important question:

"What do you do that's different or better than your competition?"

What NOT to do

"I do a better job"

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, it's just better. And I get results."

"Hmm," I said, "do you have proof of those results?"

*crickets*

I'm paraphrasing but that's the average of every conversation I have about this stuff.

Quality. Honesty. Results. Care. Blah blah blah.

That's what people come up with.

And it's complete bullshit.

Everyone says those things. They're out here claiming they're the best. And it's easy, cause talk is cheap.

Those broad types of phrases only work as a differentiator if you have a very clear way to prove it. But since proof is hard, no one does it.

And if you can't prove your claims, then they're just empty BS that keep you at the commodity tier of service (that's a bad thing just fyi).

Think deeper

When you make a broad claim, go a step further and think about how that claim manifests. What you actually do that demonstrates what you're saying. How you can prove it.

You're honest? How? What do you do (that others don't) that demonstrate that honesty?

Ohhhh you deliver real results? What kind of results? What do you do specifically (that others don't) that guarantees you deliver those results?

You care? What do you care about? What do you do (that others don't) that shows you care?

You've gotta dig. Investigate. Push.

Our first answer to a question like this is always going to be surface level. To get to the good stuff, we need to crack open that surface level BS we naturally come up with, and go hunting and digging until we find the descriptive gooey centre of who we are and how we do things.

Say less

Lots of people think they can stand out by doing more. Have more services. More case studies. More content.

But really, the way to differentiate is by doing less. It's what you say no to, just as much as what you say yes to.

For example, I consider myself an expert at what I do. One of the ways I back that stance is I won't work with people that just want someone to follow their instructions. That means I say no to a whole lot of potential clients, but the clients I do work with, appreciate the expertise and are happy to pay for it.

The more specific you can get about stuff, and the more you stick with it, the more powerful it gets.

Here's some ways you could get specific about your approach:

• You only work with a specific industry or client type

• You solve a specific problem (and only that problem)

• You offer a very specific service and just own it

• You have a very specific model or pricing structure

• You follow a very specific process

• You have a specific (and contrary) viewpoint

• You've got specific and undeniable proof of your results

Get at least one of these things down, and you've got yourself a differentiator. Combine a few, and you're likely going to be pretty unique in your space.

TLDR; what do you do that's different or better?

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

The excuse used by many fake-designer-clothes-wearing wannabes, as they lie about how successful they are on LinkedIn.

In debt to their eyeballs (and beyond), just so they can drive a car that's classed as "budget luxury" and take selfies at fancy looking destinations.

They're the people that fool us when we're early into our careers, but we spot from miles away once we know what we're doing.

But... we see them seemingly winning over and over, while we're struggling to get every client and are barely scraping out our business existence.

Do you ever look at these idiots and wonder "how the fuck are they winning?"

When dumb people get it right

We can look down on the vapid clout chasers all we want, but they're still doing something better than we are.

Can you guess what?

If you said "raising ferrets for the underground ferret fighting championships," you'd be wrong. Probably.

But if you said "promoting the shit out of themselves," good job cause that's exactly what they're doing.

While we're snobbily sniffing and looking down our noses at them, they're sharing meagre crumbs of knowledge and acting like it's the main course at a Michelin star restaurant.

While we're patting ourselves on the back for being a step above in skills and expertise, they're canva'ing their way to a nice looking client experience.

While we're being nasty and roasting them in a group chat, they're showing up and, more importantly, they're looking the part.

And their clients lap that shit up.

My decade long struggle

I've always kinda been "good" at stuff. At school, I knew the answers without ever doing any homework. At work, I'd figure shit out fast and get promoted regularly. I've always been the friend that "knew" everything - tech, legals, business, whatever. You know the type (you're probably it for your group).

And then.... I started my own business.

Even early on, I was "punching above my experience," delivering work as if I'd been doing it for years longer than I had.

But I always found it to be a struggle to get leads. And when they did eventually get to me, they'd always think I was low level to start with. It was only after dealing with me for a bit they'd realise I was actually pretty good at what I did.

It's only recently I realised what had been holding me back.

The reverse cut

Lately, I've had people flat out tell me that I'm smart. Or skilled. Or "top of the game." Or "better than any other designer I've worked with, and I've worked with HEAPS."

And I've landed two big projects because it was "obvious" that I was very good at what I did.

The biggest thing I've changed is showing up more publicly and I'm putting more effort into presenting myself well.

• I'm making sure my own work is amazing, not just... there.

• I'm going above and beyond with making sure client work is next level.

• I'm creating content that shows my views, my beliefs, and my personality.

• I'm jumping onto podcasts.

• I'm running workshops to groups.

• I'm refining and improving all of my processes, and putting more effort into making things "look the part."

• I'm living all the shit that I tell other people they should be doing.

And I realised that the whole "fake it til you make it" line also has a reverse side. Cause even once you "make it" (in terms of skills), you still need to prove it.

The market doesn't know what's in your head, unless you show them. They don't know how good you are, unless you show them.

For years I'd scoffed at the entry level "idiots" that were posting content and being visible, while I was doing nothing to prove I was better than they were.

So now that I'm actually showing this stuff more publicly... the market notices.

Talk is cheap.... so why not talk?

It doesn't cost much to write your views down.

Or maybe you spend a few hours mapping out your processes and looking for gaps. Maybe you sign up for Canva or whatever and give your documents and presentations a bit of extra shine. Maybe you start your own newsletter (10/10 would recommend).

All this stuff is free (or cheap) to do. It just costs effort.

But if you wanna walk the talk you need to do some talking first, so spend that effort.

Strong systems = strong business

People have been blabbing to me for years about how important systems are.

And yeah.. I never listened. I'd just kinda manage?

But along with the whole "showing up" thing, I've been putting in the work with improving my systems. And I've seen the difference it makes.

The system is what keeps you from dropping the ball. It's what makes you consistently good. It's what shows you know what you're doing and aren't just "winging it." Strong systems are something you expect from a strong business.

My processes are getting to the point that clients are commenting on the EXPERIENCE of working with me. Not just the result. And that's just wild.

So yeah, you can make your systems another thing that sets you apart from the bozos that I mentioned at the start of this email. After all, showing up is good, but showing up with strong systems is even better.

ps. I have to give a shoutout to my friend Joe Daniels here, who runs Systemic Solo. I've had two consults with him now and each one has led to dramatic improvements in my business. I can't recommend him enough.

Conclusion

Next time you see an idiot that's talking about YOUR expertise area, and you think "I know more than them," ask if you're doing anything to prove it.

If not, maybe it's time to start.

🤘

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

If not, it's usually the first thing you see when you land on a site.

Usually has a headline, maybe some extra text, a button or two, maybe an image. Some fancy ones might throw some extra crap in there too like logos or stats or whatever.

But that heading is usually the first thing you see.

And, almost always, that heading is shit (gasp!)

The hero's job

The hero banner has a few jobs. The most obvious is letting visitors know they're in the right place.

That means you let them know:

1. What you do (your service)

2. Who you do it for (your audience)

3. What you want them to do (your call to action)

Simple, right?

But let's kick it up a notch.

Do you know how many websites there are? I don't and I don't feel like googling to find out.

Shit now I do, ughhhhhh one sec.

I looked it up and there are approximately 1.34 billion websites out there, with around 1.25 million new websites created DAILY.

Why does that matter?

COMPETITION.

Your site isn't the only choice they have. They've probably got at least 5 competitor sites open (alongside the other 93 tabs they've had open for the past 3 years).

So the other job your hero has is to GET THEIR ATTENTION.

Missing opportunities

This about this for a sec: your headline is usually the first bit of info your website gives a visitor. That means it's your first chance to say something that makes them pay attention.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm thinking "welcome to

Like yeah of course your site is meant to let people know they're in the right place.

But even though it's your website, your visitors don't really care about YOU. What your visitors care about, is themselves. You only factor in as far as how you help them.

So, let's make the first thing they read something they might care about.

Hatching a hero

If you spend any time on linkedin, or learning about copywriting or video production, you'd have heard about "the hook."

It's that first part of your writing or video, and it's job is to "hook" the reader/viewer to get their attention so they hopefully keep consuming your content.

For your website, it helps to treat your hero's headline as that hook. We want to grab their attention, so maybe they read some more. If they read some more, maybe that'll make them care enough to keep reading. And if they keep reading, maybe they buy our stuff.

To do that, there's three different directions I'd consider taking a headline to start with.

1. Focus on the problem or desired outcome

Why are they on your site? They either have a problem they want solved, or some sort of outcome they want to achieve. If your headline speaks to that clearly, there's a solid chance they'll think something like "yes please" and keep reading.

Lame example: websites that gets you more enquiries

2. Focus on who it's for

If you have a specific type of client you're targeting, make that clear on the headline. If that's what they do, they say "hey that's me" and boom they keep reading.

Lame example: websites for charities

3. Focus on your angle

If you've got an angle that's a bit unique, that's definitely worth pushing. Remember, they've got all these other tabs open, so if you're not regurgitating the same crap, they say "oh, that's different" and then keep reading.

Lame example: websites in one week

4. WTF Nick you said 3

Yeah but also, the best headlines combine these 3 things and I realised I should probably mention that also. So now we have 4.

Lame example: affordable websites for charities that help get them more donations (oooh extra lame)

The problem with being "clear"

When I do this as an exercise with anyone, they end up with a bunch of clear headlines (awesome). But those headlines are either boring (not awesome) or the same crap every one of their competitors say (also not awesome).

And when you sound like everyone else, then there's no reason for your potential clients to give a shit about anything beyond whether you can do the job and how much you'd do it for.

There's a few ways you could try fix this problem, but unless you have chloroform and a lot of spare time, I think the easiest way to solve it is to inject some personality into what you do.

Personality makes you stand out, because it's different. Plus it makes the right people give a shit about you which is a sweet bonus, cause then they're more likely to read and therefore buy.

Bejazzle that headline

This is where writing this email starts to get tough(er).

How do I explain how to put personality into a headline? I don't know, but I'm gonna try.

In all of those lame examples I had above, the headline was kinda broad. For example, "websites that get you more enquiries" is so common and broad, it's an immediate yawn. "Websites for Charities" or "websites in X days" are the same deal.

It's like... so what?

If we want to give it a bit more personality, we need to dig a bit deeper onto each of those things.

If they don't have enough enquiries -> how does that manifest? What happens? How would THEY describe it? What does it look like if they DO have enough leads? What don't they want happening? What's happening (specifically) that they hate?

If they're a charity -> what problems do charities have (that the service fixes)? How does that manifest? What happens? (ie. same questions you just read above)

If they want a website quickly -> why do they want that? Why does it matter? What does it mean if it's ready in a set amount of time? Why is this better than the alternatives?

So the process is just asking more questions and taking more time to understand it.

And then you end up with something like "websites that stop leads from ghosting" or "websites that get you more donations" or "your business, online by Friday" (just... a lot better than those because I spent less than a minute coming up with all 3).

And then, for each headline you come up with, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is this something they give a shit about?

2. Is it in their words?

3. Will it make them say "that's me" or "I want that?"

4. Is this something they'd stop scrolling to read?

5. Would a competitor struggle to copy this?

6. Does this show any personality?

If you can tick off all (or most) of those, you're gonna be doing better than 99.999999999% of the other websites that exist.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

I love doing stuff like this, cause the process of turning a lot of "instinctive" experience into a clear framework or process forces me to go deeper into my own understanding of WHY I do stuff and what drives my decision making.

Something I've been harping on about for years is how there's only really 3 kinds of marketing websites.

This concept is based off something my former business partner mentioned to me once, and it's one of the few good things I've ever gotten out of that relationship (may his coffees forever taste like shit).

If you google this, you find crazy lists with pretty big numbers.

But those lists are dumb, because in reality -> there's only 3.

What's the job of a website

For this to make sense, you need to understand what your website is even for.

People will say it's to generate leads, or make them look good, or whatever other idea they have. And that's cool, but the real answer is:

Your website's job is to facilitate or support PART of the journey a customer goes through from random stranger, to buying your stuff.

Which part? Well, that depends on how you market your business.

Leads vs Sales, Online vs Offline

If we go super broad, the way you get leads typically falls into one of two buckets (or could be a mix).

• Networking. Outreach. Referrals. This are strategies where you're usually generating leads outside of your website. I'll call it "offline" even though a lot of the time it's happening online.

• SEO. Ads. Content. These are strategies where visitors usually end up on your site, and they become leads by engaging with your site. You (or your network) didn't personally get them.

If we look at sales with a similar lens, sales can happen in one of two ways too.

• You have a sales call and close them. Most people selling a service do it this way.

• They "buy" directly via your website without a sales call. This is more the e-commerce route, OR for highly productised services.

How you handle leads, and how you sell your services, influences the kind of site you need.

Type 1: The Lead Gen site

This is almost every service provider out there: they want enquiries so they can have a sales call and close that lead.

The site's job is to generate leads online, while the actual "close" happens offline.

That means you need give enough information to make your visitor think you're worth talking to, but not so much information that they don't need to talk to you to make a decision.

Finding the balance is tricky, and will depend heavily on what your process is in taking a lead/enquiry through to a closed deal. When you know what that is, you then need a strong "call to action" that makes that next step easy.

Type 2: The Sales Site

If people buy your stuff online without a sales call, you need a sales site.

It might be that you sell digital products or consulting hours, or you might have a highly productised service.

The job of a sales site is to give your visitor everything they need to make their purchasing decision. You aren't really part of the process to close the deal.

I've seen this happen for coaches and consultants that take off on Instagram or YouTube. They end up sending people straight to an offer where they can buy, no sales call necessary.

That means your site needs to handle a lot more than a lead gen site. It needs to answer more questions, give more info, as well as handling the transaction.

What if I don't get leads online?

And this is where the third type of site comes in.

I used to hear it a lot early in my career: "I get my leads from networking, I don't even need a website really." or "I get my leads from referrals, my site doesn't matter."

On one hand, sure. If that works, great.

On the other hand, when have you ever NOT researched someone who's about to offer you a service?

Imagine this: you meet with someone, they tell you how high quality their service is, how great they would be for you, all the good stuff. They care. They show attention to detail.

And also: their fees are kinda high.

Then you go check out their website and it's.... bad. Like, broken. Looks cheap and amateur. Typos. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of website that looks like someone was picking random shit in the menu to test options and then left it.

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction? Doesn't that make you wonder?

Sure you can still land clients this way, but it makes your job much harder and can really limit where you can take things because the more discerning clients won't trust that you can deliver on your promises.

And this is where the third type of site comes in.

Type 3: The Sales Support Site

Sometimes your site's job isn't to generate leads or close deals.

But that doesn't make it unimportant. And it doesn't mean it won't impact the journey from random stranger to buyer of your stuff.

It's a source of credibility. It's proof. It's there to support all the fancy bullshit you've said to try justify the money you want to charge people.

In this situation, the wrong site makes your job harder. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but you're going uphill trying to convince people you're legit.

When the site is done right, they're already half convinced and it's just your job not to mess up.

The trick here is making sure that it's all cohesive and consistent. The vibe you want to portray in person and the claims you make need to match the vibe and claims your website shows too.

Your site needs to prove and support what you're saying to your leads.

You can claim you're premium all you want, but if you cut corners in one place, where else do you cut corners? And "trust me, I'm actually amazing" isn't a very strong sales strategy.

Want me to check your site?

If you're not sure what your site is doing (or what it should be doing), I'm happy to have a look for FREEEEEEEEE.

I offer free website teardowns. No pitching or anything, I'll just walk through the site on video and point out some stuff that you could improve yourself.

Anyway, have an awesome week!

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

After having been told a month earlier that the agency that had been sending me $150k a year worth of work was being sold, I'd realised that I'd been neglecting my own site....

...badly.

I worked frantically for a month to come up with a really cool design, tweak the copy, try make my portfolio look... reasonably recent. Overall, it was pretty great! Made me look like a proper agency.

So I launched it and waited eagerly for the enquiries.

And...

Nothing.

Sure I got enquiries sometimes but they were the kinds of people who filled in every contact form they could find to get quotes.

Lucky I was networking a lot, otherwise I'd be toast.

Bigger, better, uncut

But.... contrast that with my new site that I launched a few weeks ago.

So far I've had 8 decent enquiries, 3 that have became actual "leads" (I hate that term so much), and 1 new client (so far).

In two weeks!

So what changed to make my site actually start working?

And more importantly, what can YOU take away from this (beyond "hire Nick to build my website")?

The Design

The look and feel of the site was a huge step up, compared to what I had. It's fully custom, very unique, and stands out even in an industry where people make sites that stand out.

People can tell the site was built with care, which makes it a great example of my work. It makes me hit the next level of "legit" (which is awesome when I want people to hire me for this stuff).

How can you use this? Don't settle for barely good enough.

Yeah you might not be able to get some amazingly epic design for your website.... but if you're not a designer, that doesn't matter (much). Instead, look at what DOES matter.

Your work!

If you write copy, make sure your copy is the best version of what you can do. If you're a consultant, make sure your views and beliefs are clear. If you're a videographer, make sure your videos are amazing. Everything out there represents you, so make it represent you.

The Message

I spent WEEKS on the copy on my website.

I obsessed over it.

Refined.

Rewrote.

Deleted it and started again.

Over and over.

But in the end I came up with something I think really gets my core message across. All the stuff I've been saying in my emails each week.

Instead of saying the same things all my competitors say, I went with the stuff I say.

I highlighted the same frustrations my clients would vent to me during our therapy discovery calls, and showed how I get rid of those frustrations.

And I made sure I kept my personality going the whole way through it.

Like, there's parts where I was like "shit, should I really say that?" But I did, cause I know that stuff works.

The person pulling the trigger on a $20k website project is binging netflix on the weekend just like the rest of us. Why would I need to be boring for them to like me?

How can you use this? You need to have a core belief, and approach that proves it, and a problem you solve. Then make that super clear on your website, in your linkedin profile, and anywhere else you hang.

And don't forget about your personality! The more you can get that across, the better a job it'll do for you.

If you're stuck on this, check out idgaf 005 and idgaf 006 (both about the whole belief/approach/problem thing) and idgaf 014 (about having personality).

The Action

Literally every website I've ever had, I wrote "get in touch" as my primary call to action (ie. what I want people to do).

But that feels like a big step, and doesn't tell them what to expect, or what we're actually talking about. Plus, what about people who don't really want to talk yet?

It isn't a great call to action.

With this site, I changed things. I modified my "primary" call to action to say start a project, and put more detail about what we run through, what they can expect, and what happens after they put in their details.

That was a good first step, but what about people who aren't really that interested in talking to me just yet?

Well, for those people, I added a "secondary" call to action. I know, I know. You're probably thinking "this guy's crazy! And handsome!"

Your secondary call to action is the other thing you want people to do, when your main thing is a bit much. For example, you might ask people to sign up to your newsletter. Or maybe they can download some resource or something. Or fill in a survey. Or request an audit (my friend Dave does this using AI and it's scarily impressive).

I wanted something that would put me in a situation kinda like talking, but without it being a big deal for the visitor. I wanted them to get a feel for me, cause if they like me, they'd be more likely to want to work together.

Which led to setting up the website teardown page to be my secondary call to action. This is where people can ask me to check their sites, and I'd do a video walking through it (which would have my little talking head in it).

And similar to the start a project page, I made sure it was really clear what people should expect. I even have an example of a teardown so they'd know exactly what to expect.

How can you use this? Does your website ask people to get in touch? FOR SHAME (kidding)!

Look, this can be challenging. At the VERY least, make it super clear what happens when they fill in that form, or ring that number, or send that smoke signal (however you handle enquiries on your site). The clearer it is, the less scary it seems.

I think the concept of lead magnets is huge and could probably be it's own email, so I'll save that as a topic for another week (if anyone wants info about it).

Conclusion

This new site is doing better than any site I've ever had. I nailed my design, nailed my message, and have pretty decent calls to action.

You don't need to spend loads of money to make your site better.

Just... think about it a bit more. Put that extra bit of effort in. Don't say "good enough" so soon.

But also, you can totally spend loads of money if you want to 😎

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

It was humblebrags, pitches, and made up BS, all the time (not just sometimes like it is today).

Every now and then I'd try use it. Write up a post with some generic website or conversion tips, post it, and get nothing. So I'd hibernate my account. Rinse and repeat every couple of years.

Which brings me to January 2025. I'd just lost my largest source of revenue, when the agency I was white labelling my services to sold their business without warning. $150k+ a year, gone overnight.

After a mild panic attack, I decided to start taking my own marketing a bit more seriously. I started networking again, and decided to dust the cobwebs off my old LinkedIn account for shiggles (shits and giggles).

Changing things up

Up until this point, every time I'd tried to "LinkedIn" before, I'd just matched what I saw on the platform. Posting clever insights, or case studies, or tips on making your website better. I was super "professional" - just like everyone else.

But that approach sucked.

It was boring and lame, and didn't feel right.

Since I was never actually expecting to land any work from LinkedIn (everything was from in-person networking and referrals), I decided I'd change things up. Channel the whole "idgaf" approach I bring to everything in life.

Stop trying to get leads, and have fun instead.

So I started being a smart arse in comments and posting jokes. I never pitched anyone, never begged for work (beyond making little jokey signatures at the bottom of my posts), wasn't "professional" at all.

And surprise surprise, I started getting people asking me about building them a website.

Why did this work out?

Easy answer: everyone else was boring, I wasn't. I stood out by showing my personality.

Which is AWESOME, cause then:

1. My network grows.

2. People get to know me.

3. I get remembered.

Not everyone needs what I do all the time. But when they do need it, it's pretty helpful if they think of me.

And pushing my personality more than just being "professional" made that happen.

"But I'm not funny"

Almost every time I talk about showing personality with people, I'll hear "but I'm not funny."

First of all, I don't actually think I'm that funny. I just like to have fun.

But more importantly: being funny isn't the only option.

Yes, you could be funny or witty or sarcastic, orrrrr:

• You could be opinionated, rebellious, contrarian, or provocative.

• Maybe you're more the warm and nurturing type?

• Or you embrace the vulnerable, earnest, or wholesome part of yourself.

• You might be geeky, nerdy, quirky, or eccentric instead.

• You could show your passion, how much you care or how fired up you get about a topic.

• Or straight up be direct, blunt, no BS.

There's SO MANY different directions a personality can go in. And nothing says you need to be just one thing either!

So what now?

When you figure out who the hell you are, you can start using that in your messaging.

Whether it's a post on LinkedIn, or the words on your website, or an email you're sending, or a video you're making; ask yourself two questions:

1. Does this show my personality?

2. How can I inject my personality into this more?

Sometimes, you might just need to change a word or a phrase. Sometimes you might need to scrap an entire piece of content and start again (with a different angle).

I can tell you that doing this has worked for me and heaps of others. My friend David Smoak posted about it recently. Nicole Ramirez is pretty huge on LinkedIn, and she posted about this recently too. It's not just me.

Shit, half the stuff I say would be boring as hell if I didn't put my personality into it.

So if you're not getting traction with your content, try showing more personality. It might actually work out better than you thought.

🤘

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

And I just had flashbacks fam.

Earlier in my career, I'd do this stuff all the time. I'd meet with my copywriter and marketing friends to plan a "pitch" to a prospective client, or meet with anyone who had ANY interest in getting a website. We'd talk and talk and talk, and work out a solution, and ultimately send off a proposal for a service.

And while sometimes I'd land a new client, many times I'd never hear from the prospect again.

Why the ghost?

I had no idea why people were ghosting after getting the proposal, when it was clear that I'd be able to fix all their shit.

I only found when I followed up and a guy told me "dude I was thinking it was gonna be a grand or two at most" (thanks Lee).

Lee (like many others before him) was suffering from an old fashioned case of sticker shock, cause he had no idea what the price was going to be until getting the proposal - and it was wayyy higher than he expected.

Unlike many others before him, Lee was comfortable enough to tell me that instead of just avoiding me, making him a legend even if he didn't get me to do his website.

How sticker shock happens

Pretty simple concept.

Everyone has an idea of what something is worth, but that number can be different for everyone.

For example, if I say "how much does CRM software cost" you could say $30 a month, you could say $300 a month, you could say $3,000 a month (rip). It all depends on what your experience is, and those experiences shape your perceived value.

The sticker shock happens cause the actual price is higher than expected price (which was based on perceived value).

The unfortunate consequence is your good buddy Nick Gulic spending an hour or two talking to someone about their website, another hour or so preparing a proposal for a new website, probably another hour all up following up on that proposal..... all for someone who was never going to pay that much anyway. Times that by a good 5 or so similarly "bad" leads a month... yeah not a fun time.

Fighting sticker shock with science

The sticker shock issue isn't really a thing for me anymore, and that's cause I do three things.

1: I give pricing during the sales meeting

I will make it clear during the sales meeting, so they can let me know if they think it's too much. Do not wait for the proposal, cause you're not there to answer questions or explain anything.

Now, if they say it's too much, I can ask why and find out how they got to their perceived value. And thennnn I can point out why their perceived value is stupid, and help guide them to the actual value.

Either they will see my point, or they won't.

But if they don't, guess who doesn't have to do a proposal anymore? (me, duh)

2: I confirm price ranges and budgets before taking a sales meeting

Before booking a sales meeting, I always have a little "vibe check" chat. Mostly to get an idea of the project, and make sure it's someone I'd be willing to work with.

One thing I always do during these calls? I'll give them some general pricing ideas and ask if that's aligned with their budgets.

The worst thing that happens is they call me insane and bail. And that's awesome, cause then I don't even have to waste time having a sales meeting.

But if they have no issue with it, then the chance of pricing being a problem later is wayyyyyy lower.

Just fyi - this is part of "qualifying a lead" and it's a pretty good thing to do from a sales perspective.

3: I put pricing on my website

If you give pricing during the sales meeting, and also confirm ranges and budgets before the sales meeting, you're going to be saving a fair amount of time.

But what saves even more is not even hearing from leads that think you're too expensive.

I do this by putting pricing on my website. It doesn't need to be an exact price if that's too hard to manage, but it does need to be something that gives people a fair idea of how much they'll be paying.

Now yes, typically that does mean you get less people enquiring overall, but the people you do get are a better fit for you, and way less likely to ghost you cause you were expensive. You stop talking to leads that would never be clients.

This step is where the entire buttloads of time gets saved.

Summary

When you're running a business, time can sometimes feel like the thing you're lacking the most. And sooooo many people will slurp up as much of your time as they can when it's free. Gets very different when they have to put their wallet where their mouth is.

So, like I said to Cass, try not to invest time until you know there's an actual budget for your service.

And now, imagine I put some super witty line to end the newsletter with that made you go "wow this guy is so smart."

✌️

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

ps. Thanks Cass for telling me to write about this!

And looking back, it kinda made sense that I would. All my experience up until that point was in sales and business services.

I had no idea how the creative industry worked, so I'd make assumptions based on the limited info I could get from other people. But sometimes those assumptions didn't go so well for me.

ps. I'm trying to see if I can do a "concise" email, so I've forced myself to keep this one short and punchy. Kinda like my 4 year old when she's angry.

Meet Dan "the Man"

There was this guy Dan (name not changed cause idgaf), who everyone said was "the man" for websites in my area. A biz friend who knew him said his minimum fee was $6k, so if I made sure my minimum fee was less than that, I'd win plenty of work.

I assumed this guy was coding his sites (which takes ages), while I was "cheating" by using a page builder, so I had to be less, right?

So... I priced my basic sites at an easy $2k a pop, even though it didn't feel like anywhere near enough. But if Dan was $6k and doing so much more, I couldn't be too close to that amount. I'd have to just get more efficient and make it work.

And of course, as predicted by my friend, I won loads of work.

Una problema

And then I met Dan (a really nice guy actually). We had a big chat about our respective processes, and you'll never guess....

Turns out, he was NOT coding at all. Nope! He was following a very similar process to mine. And realistically, the end result was pretty similar.

😑

So I was out there, quoting people a THIRD of what he was, working super hard, for barely any money, purely cause I assumed he was doing way more work than I was. ARGH.

Not saying I would have charged $6k, but I could have doubled my fee and it still would have been an amazing deal.

Ouch.

Guess how much I quoted the very next project I got? Hahaha yeah $6k, just out of spite (didn't get it, but landed the one after that).

A lesson learned

Look, don't try match what you think the market is. You don't know for certain how other people do things, what processes they follow, or what their fees cover.

And even if you do: who gives a fuck?

If you're focusing on competing on price, you're going to be a commodity, and price is all anyone will care about. You don't wanna win a race to the bottom.

Focus on doing your thing, finding your strengths, unpacking your value. The shit your clients will love you for. And price the way that feels right for you.

How I price today

I've tried most methods of pricing (except hourly, cause no way am I ever keeping track of my time).

The method I use now is what I call the "give a shit" price. How it works is I ask myself: how much money do I need to give enough of a shit to do the job. As long as I get more than that, I'm sweet.

Some people will do it for less. Some will do it for more. I don't care. As long as I get my "give a shit" amount, I'm good.

The trick is, making sure people see value in your service, and that they have a reason to choose you. If you can get that right, you'll win without drama (even if you're the more expensive option).

Conclusions

1. Dan is actually a nice guy

2. My friend kinda screwed me over

3. Don't lower your price cause of what you think other people are doing

✌️

Oh one more thing

I also built myself a new site. It's taken ages, I've definitely missed out on some sleep, but it's live and I'm feeling pretty good about it. If you're interested, you can check it out at https://creativeclick.com.au/

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

“Could you swap the pinks for this yellow instead…”

- Client from hell

The first time I charged $20k for a site, it was for a global wedding planning business. And they wanted something creative. I was so hyped cause this was the type of work I really wanted to be doing. Go beyond boring and purely conversion oriented. Make it fun and exciting.

It was a bit rough at the start cause they kept changing their minds on what kind of direction they were looking for, but I got them on track eventually.

The concept stuff was awesome. They LOVED it, just had some tiny little requests. No biggy, right?

Change a colour here. Maybe move a block over there. Minor adjustments, almost always it looked a bit worse, but it’s their site so whatever.

But as the project went on, the requests got worse. Bigger. And I'd do something, they'd realise it was shit and ask for something else. Plus they’d change their mind at every meeting!!!

Nightmare.

I was just taking whatever orders they gave me, and it sucked! Felt like I was there to push pixels and push pixels alone. They didn't care about my expertise, they were having their creative moment and my job was to do the work that they couldn't actually do themselves.

It’s probably the third most depressed I’ve been about a project (you don’t even want to know about the other two).

Wtf was happening

Do electricians or plumbers have to deal with clients telling them how to do their job? Lawyers and doctors? No?

Why me?

There's a few things going on, but let me introduce you to the concept of bike shedding (aka Parkinsons law of triviality).

The terms goes back to this story about a committee responsible for approving a huge multi million dollar nuclear plant. Every decision on the complex stuff was made quick and easy. No problems.

But they ended up getting stuck for aaaaages on the approval of an employee bike shed. A BIKE SHED. After approving all this complex stuff that was genuinely serious, they got stuck on something that really didn't matter.

This happens cause most people have no idea how to contribute for the complex stuff. They don't get it, can't really form an opinion or have a view, so there's not much to discuss.

But on the trivial stuff, they understand it better. And they have opinions.

That's why clients will tell you what to write. Or what to design. Or what their social media post should be.

How do we stop this

If you want to be the expert, you need to act like it. Not just when they make a request, but throughout the whole engagement.

This means three things:

1. Take control of the process (politely)

You have a way of doing things that delivers results, why would you let a client tell you how to do things?

For example, I define project goals and scope before I start. If they want to change the scope, it's not hard to look back and the goals and see if this is something I can dismiss, or whether I need to change the scope (which they will pay for just FYI).

Frame it properly from day one, that you have a process that gets results. Then just do things the way that lets you get results.

2. Ask questions (politely)

Yes, obviously you can easily do what they're asking for. But should you? Ask why the client wants it, and how that's going to get them closer to achieving their goals. Maybe they have a good justification, maybe it's just personal preference.

Clients often ask for shit because they think it will solve a symptom of something. Your job is to find out what the real problem is and make sure that's what you're fixing.

I'll make sure I understand the client, their problems, what outcomes they want, so then when they want me to do something specific, I can figure out whether it's going to help or hinder.

Often, just asking those types of questions helps the client see it's actually not the greatest move.

3. Educate (politely)
(ie. explain why it's dumb)

Of course, sometimes they just want what they want. But this is your expertise area, not theirs. If they make a dumb request, it's up to you to push back and explain why it's dumb.

But you've gotta do it right. I can't believe I need to write this, but you don't actually say "that's dumb."

Educate them enough so it isn't just a matter of your preference vs theirs. That would be personal, and if it comes down to a you vs them ego battle, they're gonna pick themselves.

When you say no, its because it either runs counter to their goal, or it's simply out of scope (which means you get to rescope and charge more).

Why we do this

Two reasons.

First one: Imagine you do whatever the client asks, deliver this steaming pile of shit EXACTLY AS THEY WANTED, and it doesn't work.

Who does the client blame? Yeahhhhhhhh you're the person they complain about to their next provider. To their friends. To your google reviews page.

Second reason: requests tend to snowball. A client asks for one thing. See something else that they'd like changed, so ask for that too. Then they get almost a taste for it, and go mad with power.

And then it is all kinda shit, and they realise they need to change more stuff, and boom you're stuck in this never ending cycle of bullshit requests for a client getting less and less grateful as the project looks worse and worse.

Vom.

Conclusion

Sometimes people think I'm a bit of an A-hole for how firm I am about how the client relationship should operate. I won't take on clients that already know what they want and just need someone with the technical skills to implement it.

But this is from hard won experience fam. VERY hard won. *flashbacks*

So if you're looking to be the expert, hopefully this is the email that helps.

✌️

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

Up until this point, my clients had all been kinda... small time. They always wanted something basic and simple (aka something cheap) and boyyyyyyyyyyy did I deliver 😅

So of course I was stoked! This was a larger business, which finally meant a serious budget, which meant I could make something awesome. Aaaand the meeting was going super well too!! I thought I had it in the bag.

Now imagine how I felt when they said "everything sounds great, just send us the proposal along with examples of your work and we'll take it to the board."

Yeah.... I didn't get that project. The examples of my work were shit.

What are we meant to do?

Realistically, the only thing that fixes this is imnproving your portfolio - BUT DON'T THROW YOUR COMPUTER/PHONE OUT OF THE WINDOW YET!!

Like I'm sure you very politely said (with no swearing) "that's why I want these bigger jobs Nick"

And I get it, that was my thinking too... but it's the wrong thinking.

The project reframe

If every project I was signing was a $2k website, what stops me from just overdelivering? Why don't I just go and deliver a $10k website to the $2k client?

Like yeah, I end up spending WAYYYY more time than the budget calls for, but now my portfolio has a $10k website in it that I can use to land more $10k website projects!

Plus, my $2k client is going to be over the fucking moon, and tell everyone how amazing I am (especially cause I repeatedly told them I'm going to deliver a $10k website for their $2k spend).

So yeah, overdeliver and treat that time like an investment.

What if I cbf doing the extra work?

Look, lets be real. If you don't want to go above and beyond, you're probably not going to do the greatest job for the bigger clients either. Plus, overdelivering is just good practice - its how you get a portfolio that punches above it's weight, and lets you keep growing and charging more.

But, if you really want to try landing bigger clients anyway:

1. Take a consultative approach and really reinforce your expertise as you go. This shows you understand them and the work, especially if you do a lot of education about how things work and why.

2. Then, let them know the clients you've worked with haven't been at a similar level to them, and so you've done work that was appropriate for each client's needs, but that doesn't mean you won't deliver amazing results. And you hope that you've demonstrated that you have the knowledge and expertise that the project needs.

3. Pray to whatever god(s) you believe in lol.

You're less likely to land the work, but it might still work.

TLDR

Overdeliver to your clients. They'll love it, and you'll have a good portfolio that you can use to get better clients.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

But when it comes time to sign, they.. ghost? Or just make up some excuse? WHYYYyyyYYYyyyyYYYyyyy?

This used to really chap my cheeks when I was a business coach. Not just to get someone signed up, but also when I was trying to get my clients to implement changes in their lives. At least it did until I figured out why it was happening (imagine my smug face as I say that). So pull up a chair! Unless you're in a chair already. Or maybe you're reading this while standing. I dunno. Just read on and enjoy!

ps. I'm intending this email to be way shorter than usual, so let's see how I go with that!

A formula for change

One of my own coaches taught me this sweet little concept (over 10 years ago now wtf) that my poor naive brain had never considered.

For people to take action, to change something, they need a few things - kinda like a formula. And if we want to inspire them to make that change, part of our job is to help them get clear on all this stuff (or at least make sure they all exist).

So what's first?

1. They need a Vision (V)

The easiest thing to find out: what do they actually want? What's the desired outcome or result? Cause if they don't want anything, theres nothing to change to. Ideally what they want is what your service will make happen. If not, you're gonna struggle to get them to sign the contract.

And it hopefully goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway), the more they want something, the more likely they'll take action.

2. They need to have Dissatisfaction with their current situation (D)

If life's pretty good, you don't have that much incentive to change anything. No matter how amazing that potential situation is.

Same deal with your prospects. Part of your sales conversation should be figuring out what's shitty about their current existence. The further their vision is from their current situation, and the the more dissatisfied they are with it, the more motivated they'll be to change things.

Sidebar: it's why scammers end up tricking the desperate so easily. So I guess please don't use this knowledge to scam desperate people?

Anyway, they have a vision of the future, and they're unhappy enough about their current situation. But we can't celebrate yet, cause we're missing something. aNd yOu'LL NeVeR GuEsS WhAt iT iS (unless you read the next line, or already know, or maybe you just guess cause it's not really rocket science, anyway clickbait is dumb).

We're missing:

3. The easy First step (F)

Imagine you want to get fit and buff and all that good stuff, so you decide to start working out like some sort of barbarian. If you said "okay I need to figure out my ideal workout routine based on my current caloric intake and desired goals, make sure I have appropriate clothes to wear, find the right gym to join based on convenience and price, and..." yeahhhh that plan is bust. That's so intimidating!

Buuuuut if instead you said "yeah I'm gonna head down to the gym tomorrow and sign up" you'd probably have a lot more luck with it, cause that doesn't sound so bad.

I bet if we looked at how many deals fell through because someone made that sign up process complex AF, the number would be MASSIVE. For people to make a change, their first step needs to be easy. The easier, the better.

If they're already dissatisfied with their current meagre existence, have a vision of this amazing dream life, but they don't have an easy first step? It's kinda like being constipated, except with life. Lubricate that first step if you want to splatter that change all over the place. Wow I'm so sorry.

Without ALL of these things, we'll never overcome......

Their Resistance to change (R)

Yeah! Everyone (EVEN YOU) has some resistance to change.

Sometimes the resistance is heavy, sometimes it's light AF, but it's always there.

The stronger you dig into each of the parts of the formula, the more likely you are to overcome it. If you miss any one part, the chance of that change happening is lower than the chance of one of my emails being short and sweet (fml).

Of course, just cause every piece is there and change is definitely happening, doesn't mean it's happening with you (that's a whole other email).

Final bits

To get someone to change, their Vision x Dissatisfaction x First step all together has to be strong enough to overcome the Resistance to that change.

This totally explains why sometimes coaching clients (or prospects) wouldn't do something that seemed like an absolute no brainer to me, and might explain why sometimes you get prospects ghosting when you know you'd legit have a huge positive impact on their lives.

And unexpectedly, it's also super helpful knowledge when you're the one not doing the thing (I've managed to gaslight myself into doing good things for myself by following the formula).

Anyway, this email wasn't that long was it?

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

The problem is that sales is kinda... not natural. Not for a lot of people (like me!). So when I first started trying to sell a service (this was back in my accounting days), I felt awkward and had no idea how to do it properly. I didn't want to be slimy after all.

I'd get into a sales meeting, and instead of spending that time showing the prospect just how amazing I was, I'd just sit there answering their questions and trying (in vain) to seem like the expert I was.

That didn't really work too well as a sales strategy. The few clients I did land, were a nightmare to work with too. Ugh.

I did eventually figure out how to handle sales meetings WAY better, and even put together a framework called "sell by helping" to cover it. It's the same framework I taught to hundreds of other people, and I'm going to break it down in this email. Yay for us.

The problem with "sales"

I used to think sales is about convincing someone to buy my stuff. Manipulating. Persuading. And they're all negative words, which means sales seemed like a negative act. A trick or something.

It never helped that when people say "salesperson" I tend to think of a sleazy used car salesman, or slimy real estate agent. Because I don't want to be one of those people, when I got into sales situations, I wouldn't feel comfortable and I'd bomb.

I remember the exact moment things changed for me.

My job was a "business development manager" (ie. salesperson) for an accounting firm, and I'd just decided to quit. I was 3 months in, was bombing every sales meeting, and just not getting clients. It was super frustrating cause I was an accountant myself, I had really strong knowledge of all this stuff. Just was screwing it all up.

After making the decision, I felt soooo much lighter. And went into a meeting and said (to myself) "idgaf" and just asked the prospect "so what's going on?"

They started describing what was happening in their business, I asked a few questions, made a recommendation, and they were like "great, where do we sign."

What. The. Fuck.

Not only did I land the client; I was the most relaxed I'd ever been in a sales meeting, I didn't scramble at all, AND they thought I was the shit (to be clear - "the shit" NOT just "shit").

The mindset shift

Turns out making sales easier was as simple as realising it wasn't about convincing people to buy, but helping them solve a problem. It seems so basic in hindsight.

It's been a long time since that day, and I've had plenty of time to improve and refine and figure out what works and what doesn't. Here's the 3 core mindset shifts to be way more effective in sales.

1. Stop selling, help people find a solution to their problem instead. You're going in with a way better mindset, and using your expertise as intended. It takes the pressure off the idea of convincing someone to buy.

2. Focus on what your prospect values instead of what you value. People always pay more for what they value, and this is how you push past being bottom of the barrel in pricing.

3. Say no to bad opportunities (cause there's always more opportunities). Probably the biggest hack. Bad clients are a HUGE source of burnout! Say no and move on, cause more will come.

I ended up approaching sales meetings like I was a doctor or specialist, and they were the patient asking me to fix their business boo-boos. And it worked. I was pulling in 20-30 new clients a month, making killer commissions, and found my job so easy and fun.

Following a system

Whether it's yours or not, the sales meeting is going to run according to a system.

"If you don't have a system to sell, you'll be at the mercy of your prospect's system to buy"

- Someone Smart (no idea who said this)

Either you take control and run the meeting in a way that suits your goals, or you let them run it and they'll find out whatever information they need to make a decision. Typically it ends up being "can you do this? how much? okay thanks I'll let you know."

I've found the best sales meetings go through three overall stages, and each stage has 3 steps (each step could be it's own email, so let's see how I go fitting everything into one email).

Stage 1: Understanding

When you go to a doctor or specialist, they can't tell you what you need to do until they understand what's wrong. If you want to help someone, you need to do the same thing.

I do this in three steps.

1. Understand Them: I find out what they do, how it works, how they make money. It's an easy way to kick off the meeting - low risk for them, and covers critical info for you.

2. Understand The Problem: I then find out why they're talking to me. NOT what they want me to do, but what made them reach out (or what made them accept the meeting). What's going wrong? What's the impact of this? What have they tried to do to fix it?

3. Understand Their Objectives: Super important. What do they want to happen as a result of working together. NOT what work do they want me to do, but what outcome do they want to happen by working together. And what if that outcome occurs? What's the upside? ps. this is where we can uncover the value of having this problem solved.

By going through this process, I'll have a great idea of what's actually happening, what it's costing them, and what fixing it is worth.

Stage 2: Education

This is where the doctor or specialist will explain what's going on, and I'm usually going "wow" cause they're teaching me something. We're gonna do the same thing.

This stage is where we start to differentiate. See, when you educate someone about something, it's like in the cartoons when a light bulb goes off next to their head. We want to trigger those lightbulbs, and the more lightbulbs that go off, the more of an expert they think you are.

Here's how we do it.

1. Explain the real problem: they've probably described some symptoms of the problem. You can explain to them why those symptoms are happening, and what the real problem is.

2. Explain why other solutions fail: just to be clear, don't shit all over your competition here. But explain how the industry works and what most people would do and why that won't work for them. It's like myth busting. And it makes them realise you're smart enough to know this, so you're obviously not going to make the same mistake.

3. Explain the solution: this is like a doctor making a prescription. Tell them what the solution is to their problems, and why that's the solution they need. Explain how it fixes the problem without making the common mistakes that happen in the industry.

So far everything has been about them, and now we've got them super clear on what they need (which may or may not be what they asked for).

Stage 3: The Close

Don't be intimidated by the name! We don't do the "always be closing" stuff here. It's really just doing a bit more education, but calling this stage "Education 2: The Sequel" was a dumb idea according to everyone I asked (0/57 people said it was a good idea).

This part is where we show them how to work with us. Finally out time to shine!

1. Run through the logistics of your solution: tell them how you operate, what stages you go through (and why each of those are necessary and unable to be skipped), how long it will take, and how much it's going to cost. You want them to understand you have a special process they can't get elsewhere. And YES make sure they know how much it's going to be. You do NOT want people finding out the price when you're not there to handle it. Because next up you can.....

2. Handle any objections (aka answer their questions): they might think you're expensive, they might not like the timeframe, they might not be sure it will solve the problem. Ask what they think, so you can find out anything that stops them moving forward (we call those objections). Then handle the objections (this could be a full email on it's own). You need to find out what it is, and why they think that way. eg. If they think it's expensive, ask what they're comparing to. That will tell you what you need to educate them about. Once there's no more objections you get to.....

3. Explain the next steps: tell them exactly what's going to happen after the meeting. Will you send a proposal? When? What do they need to do to accept it? When are they expecting to move forward? When will they need to pay? How do they pay? Make sure you've got a simple and clear way to progress the sale, and that they understand it.

Then just go and do what you said you would do.

This is roughly the system I've used for the past... 16/17 years? I've taught it to hundreds of people (for money lol).

And now you've got it too! Well, a slimmed down text version at least.

Implement it. Or don't. But I can promise you, it works really well. You'll feel way better running a meeting this way, and you should be able to get away with charging more too. Win win (for you at least).

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

That gem came from some dudebro who thinks you really shouldn't be creating business related content unless you're running a $250m a year business.

Luckily, my huge ego is unable to be shaken by people that resell Go High Level with a straight face, sorry JORDAN.

We're not imposters

It's easy to doubt yourself, especially if you start looking at what the "big names" are doing. You may or may not have heard of Alex Hormozi, but he's a pretty well known dude for business advice. He runs a multi-squillion dollar a year business, is a prolific content creator, has courses and books and all that kinda stuff.

We are all shaped by our experiences, and people like Alex Hormozi and other big names are no different - they're still giving advice based on their perspective.

And while his experience and knowledge is obviously valid and great, that doesn't make mine or anyone else's experience and knowledge any less valid or great.

Yet for some reason people can't help but play the comparison game. Either some random douchebag will think my advice isn't worthwhile because I'm not mega rich, or maybe I'm thinking that about myself.

Big nope to that.

(Rich) victims of their own success

There's a saying don't take financial advice from billionaires. Sounds dumb, they're rich af so they'd obviously know how to make money, right?

But they tend to give shitty advice to normal people, because they can't remember what it was like being at that level. Imagine the problems a billionaire would be dealing with. Then have that same person try tell you how to solve your problems. No chance.

You know who would give me better financial advice? Someone who's maybe a step or 2 above me. Someone who remembers what it was like to be me.

It's no different with what we do.

The advice Alex Hormozi gives tends to be focused on scaling a big business.

And I'm no slouch, but I definitely don't run a massively multi-million dollar business. I don't even want to grow my business that big. I'm happy working by myself (and not too hard), while making enough money to live a pretty comfortable life. So that advice about scaling... it just doesn't fit.

Odds are, since you're reading this email, you're pretty similar to me.

Just because people like Alex Hormozi exist, that doesn't mean we don't have our own amazingly awesome insight and knowledge to share. We've got our own experiences that have given us views and beliefs and opinions and expertise. And that means we can give some pretty epic advice, especially to the people who are a few steps below us in that journey.

Different people are different (shocking I know)

Don't forget that people are all different. They have different needs. Different wants. Different goals and dreams.

Some people care a lot about mega scale and big money and flashy stuff. Some people care a lot about family time and flexibility and helping people. And some people will want the exact same thing as you, and they don't want whatever that big intimidating name in your space is selling.

Don't underestimate the power of your own perspective. Just because Jordan thinks we're not worthwhile unless we're the same as Hormozi, doesn't make it true. There's plenty of room for you to blow people's minds with the stuff you know.

The moral of the story

This email was originally going to run through my sales process (I guess I'll send that one next week), but a friend was feeling a bit insecure and doubtful and I felt like I needed to send this email this week.

So I'll tell you what I'd tell them:

• Your experience and perspective is VALID

• People worse than you are giving advice daily

• Success doesn't make someone the only valid choice for advice

• Jordan sucks (sorry if your name is Jordan, I wasn't talking about you)

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

ps. I recently started a YouTube channel. I've got 2 videos so far, and they're probably a bit mediocre cause I just started, but if you like the stuff I say maybe you could check out the channel. I'd appreciate it either way.

It's where I introduced the concept of a belief - the thing you believe about your industry that's kinda unique(ish) to you. We're talking about the kind of stuff that will get you into arguments with other people in your industry, but also the kind of stuff that will make the right people give you a bit of attention.

We're not finished yet though. While a belief can get you attention and make someone think "yeah this person gets it," it's not enough to get you chosen. If you want to stand above all the other shmucks in your space (jk, I'm sure they're not that bad), you need to take it a little bit further.

The problem is that while having a belief is cool, it doesn't really tell people what that means for them. How does your belief affect the way you approach your work?

The approach maketh the.. money?

See, that belief you came up with.... if it doesn't change the work you do, then you've just got an easily compared deliverable. It's a commodity. And in the commodity game, there's always someone cheaper.

We want to stand out, which means we need people to understand how our belief changes our approach to the work. The downside to this is... you kinda need to actually do something differently. RIP.

As an example, I've got the core belief that looking too professional turns you into a commodity. The way that impacts my approach is that I build websites that embrace the personality of the business (well... unless that personality is dusty old fart - then I have to get a bit more creative).

If you're an accountant who believes traditional bookkeeping is too backward-looking, your approach might be focusing more of your effort onto forward-looking forecasts. If you were a ghostwriter that had similar beliefs to my own, you might take the approach of writing more "unhinged" style stories or about the human stuff.

So... WTF do I do about the approach

First up, you need to figure out what yours actually is. You've got the belief, which is awesome. Scary, but awesome. So the question to ask yourself now is: how do I prove this belief in my work? Or, what should I do if I wanted to prove it in my work?

And you can't be talking about "real results" or how you "care" more than competitors, or how you do quality work, because no one is saying the opposite. You're not getting a competitor going around telling people how they don't deliver results, or they don't care, or their quality sucks.

Making your belief public was hard cause it alienated some people. Making your approach public takes it even further. Some people might ignore your belief if you offer a service they could use, but now you're putting a line in the sand and actually saying "this is how I work" - and if they don't like that, there's no ignoring it.

But there's a pay off here. The payoff is this: for the right people, you'll be WAY MORE appealing. You've stated a belief that they share, you've demonstrated how you approach the work that is aligned with that problem.

You're already ahead of pretty much everyone. Job done, right?

Wrong!

What problem do you f**king solve?!

Imagine this. You've got your belief and approach on your website. You post about it on LinkedIn or wherever you choose to spend your time. But you still aren't getting the right people. Totally unfair!

That's cause we haven't really aligned all this with a problem that you solve. And not just any problem, we're talking about the problem that's keeping them up at night. The stuff that makes them wake up at 3am cause they had to pee but then they can't get back to sleep cause they thought about it and now they're wired. And once it hits 4am they give up on sleep and decide they may as well get up now even though their day is already ruined.

Yeah that problem. At least that's what I've heard.

Look, you've been in business more than 5 minutes. You've heard more than one smart person talk about how you need to "address your ideal customers problem" or some shit like that. Maybe your website says something about how you get them more leads, make them more money, or it doesn't work.

It's the same trap as being "quality" or "results driven" cause every single one of your competitors is saying the same thing. There's no marketing person out there claiming to get people less leads. There's no writer saying their posts will get less engagement. There's no accountant saying they will deliver less accurate accounts, slower.

Everyone says the same shit cause it's easy. You don't have to have any particular insight, or talk to any actual clients, to know that they generally want more money (or leads, or whatever it is you do). So everyone latches onto that and boom, welcome to genericville.

Solving your problem problem
Come onnnn, that was clever

We need to go deeper. I said before about how I build websites with personality. I could go with the fairly generic "to get more leads" problem being solved. But that's not really right. The problem isn't that they need more leads. The problem is that they look interchangable with everyone else, so they get price shopped. So really the problem I solve is "stop getting price shopped."

You need to find yours.

The funny/annoying part is you probably already know. You've heard it on sales calls. Read it in the emails new leads send you. They've told you what's frustrating them. So why isn't it on your website? It's not like you forgot about it. It's not like you don't have the time to change some words on your website. It's cause this is scary too! What if you list that problem but someone who could be a good client, doesn't have that problem.

But think about it this way: what do you think the people who DO have that problem will think? How much stronger of an option will you be if you had specifically spoken to their problem. You can either try to appeal to everyone and not stand out to anyone, or you can appeal to someone specific and accept that it means some people won't like it - but for those specific people, you're going to be their first choice.

So go back through sales calls and emails. Find the words your clients use to describe their frustrations and fears. Does your approach solve that? Put that on your website! Update it across your LinkedIn! That's how you'll get them picking you.

Final bits

There's two piles in every prospects head, a compare pile and the choose pile.

Telling your personal stories all over LinkedIn could get you into the compare pile, which is better than not being compared at all. But you'll still lose out to someone else in the pile that's got more features, or a lower price, or some other tickbox on the shopping list.

If you want to end up on the choose pile, you need to give them a reason to do it! That reason could be your more features, or your lower price, or whatever - but who wants to do that? That's being a commodity, being comparable and ultimately interchangable.

The easier (and better) way to move from compared to chosen is owning a belief, making it visible in your approach, and naming the exact problem the right person is living with that your approach fixes. If you do this: congrats, you're no longer a commodity.

Either way, catch ya next time.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

They're telling you to post consistently and be authentic so people get to know you. And those things definitely build familiarity, but there's a difference between people knowing who you are and people thinking you're the one for them. But they're not giving you the missing piece to make that happen.

Like, there's people out there getting huge impressions and engagement on each LinkedIn post, but barely any leads (and the ones they do get, aren't great).

That's cause just showing up doesn't really give people a reason to pick you over anyone else. To do that, a personal brand needs 3 things:

1. They have to own a belief

2. They need to have an approach rather than a deliverable

3. They need to be specific about the problem they solve

I was going to cover all 3 of these things in this email, but holy crap it was getting long. So I'll cover the "owning a belief" bit in this email, and do the other 2 next week.

Wtf is "owning a belief"

Owning a belief is when you believe something, feel something, know something, that the mainstream is wrong on. The stuff your competitors do that's making a worse outcome for their clients. The "standard" that does sweet FA.

It's the stuff that no one else seems to want to address, but your prospective clients are definitely feeling it.

So when you DO point it out, your ideal client goes "that's exactly what I've been feeling, but haven't been able to put into words."

It gets attention, and takes you from being another person they know, to someone that has a professional view they mesh with.

Sounds epic, why doesn't everyone do this?

Cause it's hard and scary.

You need to take a stand on something, and for it to work best, it needs to be something that a lot of people in your industry won't agree with. That'll make them argue with you. I don't mind an argument normally, but you won't always be right.

With 99% of advice, the caveat is "it depends" - cause it does. If you try say the advice without factoring in all the things that influence the advice, you're naturally gonna be wrong sometimes. So rather than say something that could leave them open to attack, people hedge.

They tone the message down so it's vague enough that people can't really argue, it's the "it depends" version of their belief. And while that's definitely safer, no one's gonna give a shit.

If you want to have a message that gets people saying "YES!" - you need to have the courage to accept people saying "NO!" too.

Side note: it's also why you see so many influencer types with huge audience post advice that's not really correct. They're sharing their belief, and the right people (for them) are agreeing with it. It also means their comments get people chiming in with why they're wrong too.

Like I said, it's hard and scary.

An example

I have a belief that looking professional makes you a commodity. That's cause even the most entry level scrub can look professional with a 7 word ChatGPT prompt, and that's who you're going to be compared against. If you take that approach, you'll end up competing on price and not really getting the quality leads you want.

But claiming "you're losing leads because you're too professional" is scary. Come on, you know everyone's gonna tear that shit apart. And they're right to, cause for some people, it's totally the wrong advice.

So, to keep it safe, I say shit like "you need to tailor your approach to the audience" - which is technically correct, but dude I yawned just typing it out. It makes me sound like everyone else in my space, so why would anyone listen?

If I embrace what I believe instead, and push that message out, yes I'll get some haters popping up. But there'll also be people who've been posting on LinkedIn for the past year, who've had plenty of visibility on their posts, but have gotten no leads - and those people will have a light bulb go off above their head and think I'm absolutely amazing.

So what should you do

Well, assuming there's a service you offer (and you're good at it), you probably have some opinions about mainstream advice, or what other people in your industry do, and how it's resulting in a worse outcome for your ideal clients.

You need to spend some time coming up with this stuff, cause it's going to be the basis of your belief. It might be one core idea, or you might come up with a whole list of things that are wrong.

Disclaimer: this isn't a 5 minute exercise. This is the kind of thing that you'll sit with for a while, brainstorming, leaving to marinate, coming back to and revisiting. And you will probably evolve it, over and over as time goes on. I know that my views are continually evolving, partly because of the market changing over time, but also because I'm always growing and evolving and improving too.

Oh, and do not ask AI to figure this out for you. Believe it or not, a tool that just spits out the average of everything it's read is not going to help you come up with anything unique no matter what prompt you use, sorry.

But once you have some views, start posting about them. Share them, put them into the world.

You might get some hate from it, and that's okay. We expect it. We're repelling the bad and (hopefully) attracting people who've already failed with the "bad" advice and are open to hearing your view. That's what's going to get them to start seeing you as an option.

Next week, I'll run through the second part that'll do a bit more to take you from an option, to the option.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

If you're offering a service based around your expertise, stop being so nice.

Being an an expert means you know how to do it properly. The very reason clients come to you is because you know how to deliver the result they want. But, as always happens, they'll sometimes give feedback or make a request that will make the result worse. Or sometimes they'll even tell you what to do!

You don't want to be rude, so you give in. Next minute, you're no longer the expert. Now you're taking orders and delivering a shitty project. And when that doesn't work out as planned, who do those clients blame? Yeah, that's right; the overly polite Reader 😭

If this sounds like a familiar (and repetitive) story... well that's why I wrote this email.

The law of triviality

When you do stuff that clients don't really understand, they tend to easily approve that part of it while spending ridiculous amounts of time arguing over the trivial bits they do understand. This is a problem for us as experts, because they'll ignore the brilliant and complex strategy that drives our decisions, and just let their personal taste take the wheel.

I'll see this with my design work, where a client has zero feedback about the overall design approach, but doesn't like how the font looks (it's their brand font), or thinks the blue is being too blue (it's their brand blue). Sometimes, they feel they need to give some sort of feedback to get their money's worth, so they'll ask for a change that they don't even care about, just to stamp some authority around the place.

And if I listen to these people, the project starts to look worse, I hate it more, it won't deliver the outcome we wanted, and that just does NOT end well. Say goodbye case study, and hello burnout.

Empty expertise

And then we've got AI, which lets your clients look shit up at any point and get some mediocre take or opinion on how to approach something. They're getting the benefit of knowledge, without the depth and experience needed to apply that knowledge properly.

Then they just copy/paste ChatGPT generated feedback that they don't even read or understand. Or they tell you a process to follow based on what Claude told them to do. Or they send you a bland Gemini generated logo, asking you to do a polished version.

Setting aside the simple atrocity of being told what to do by a glorified IF-THEN-ELSE function, the advice and feedback is going to be the most generic crap you've seen in your life. If you follow it, you know the outcome will suck.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm not satisfied putting out slop just because my clients are choosing to be lazy and dumb.

Why it snowballs

I've said yes to the stupid request before. I want the project done, I don't want to annoy them, ultimately it's their money and choice, if I just do this thing they'll approve and I can get this off my plate. Right?

WRONG!

That stupid request ends up looking like crap, so they ask for something else to compensate. Or they realise it's wrong so want you to try something else instead. But then they've got a taste for making changes, and they gain this level of confidence in it. They start to act like they're your project manager or senior or something. Shit snowballs fast.

What to do instead

Stop being nice about it. When you get a request (assuming it's a bad one); push back. Point to the goals and objectives they said they have, ask them to explain how their request does a better job of achieving those goals. If they're wrong, educate them about it. If necessary, explain the potential flow on effect of what they're asking for.

And if they still refuse to budge, tell them to acknowledge in writing that they're ignoring your expertise and are taking ownership of the result. That way you've covered your butt (and I've had clients stand down at this point).

This might seem aggressive and argumentative, but you need to protect yourself. They came to you because you're an expert, so act like it. Being too nice to your clients and letting them walk over you will result in you putting out shitty work for shitty people and feeling shitty all the time - while those shitty people go around telling everyone you're the shitty one. Don't let that happen.

But wait, is it too late?

If this entire email has been giving you this sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach because you're already in this situation, it's okay. I wasn't going to leave you in the lurch: it's never too late to reclaim your authority. It might not be easy, but it's doable as long as you're willing to have The Uncomfortable Chat™

You have to let them know it isn't working, why it's not working (ie. your experience and expertise isn't being used), and give them their options to move forward. I recommend taking ownership of how it got to this point instead of blaming them, and explain that typically you'd push back on client suggestions that run counter to what your expertise tells you to do. You just wanted to be accommodating, but that wasn't the right move in hindsight.

As far as the options to give them, I only really see 3 ways this can go.

1. They agree that not using the expert is stupid, and let you do your thing properly (yay)

2. They want to keep telling you what to do, and nothing changes (boo)

3. They want to keep telling you what to do, and you terminate the relationship (baller move)

If they do pick option 1, just take the project back to what you think would work, and then don't implement any of their stupid ideas. I've personally re-started an entire project from scratch because I saw no way to turn Frankenstein's website into something that would be effective.

Disclaimer: It should go without saying, don't be a rude jerk to your clients. Just don't let them push you around because you're scared of offending them or having them walk away. They've hired you to be the expert; so be the expert.

Okay, this was for the 5+ people on my email list I personally know have had to deal with this, but hopefully more of you found it interesting and useful.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

CAN RELATE

When I started my first business, there was no way I was going to part with my hard earned cash to pay someone to do it for me, so I went on the journey of figuring it out. While my first website was kinda crap, I did end up building a few hundred more after than and I'm pretty good today (even if I say so myself).

And I still think paying someone to build you a website when you're starting out isn't the best move, but there is some advice I can share that I wish I'd had when I was starting out.

So Crystal (and anyone else in the same boat), I hope this looonnnngggggggg email helps!

The best platform to use

It can be super difficult to get a straight answer on this question, because everyone thinks what they use is the best. Or they're getting paid to recommend a platform.

But the real, honest answer, from a developer with 9+ years experience, is:

It doesn't matter!

Seriously. Just use whatever you feel comfortable with.

Like Wix? Use Wix. Like Squarespace? Use Squarespace. Hell I could build a basic webpage with Kit (my email marketing software). Sure I personally use WordPress, but that's because I know it, it's very popular, and I can do anything I want with it. We have totally different skill sets, so the platform I use probably won't be the best platform for you to use.

The platform you choose is only a problem if:

1. It counters the purpose behind your website

2. You have no idea how to build a website with it

So do yourself a favour and just pick whatever's going to be easy for you to use.

ps. People will compare how easy it is to do SEO (search engine optimisation) with different platforms, but seriously are you going to pay someone to do SEO for you? If you are, you probably shouldn't DIY a website because it probably won't convert leads very well. If you aren't, who cares what the SEO features are like - you're never going to beat out the people who invest in it anyway.

So wtf are we even doing

At it's core, the only actual NECESSITY with your website is that it tells people what you do. Of course if that's ALL you do with it, it'll probably suck. If you want it to not suck, you need to do a bit of thinking about why you're building this thing in the first place. Trying to land clients? A job? Look good? Learn web design? All totally valid reasons.

When you know why you're doing it, you can think about who it's for. This is the part that can be a bit of a wakeup call for people, but unless you're learning web design, your website isn't for you. It shouldn't even be about you, really. Websites are for the intended visitor, and if you want it to be effective, you need to make it about them.

If you make the site about what they care about, there's more chance of them actually paying attention. But if you make it all about how awesome you are, mehhhhhhhhhh. So if you're out there offering a service that can help people, then make your website focus on the problems, frustrations, and/or desires of the people you want as clients, and specifically how you help them solve those problems.

You also need to factor in what you what you want to happen from this site. Sometimes, it's nothing. It's just a check to make sure you're legit, but usually you'd like people to contact you. Maybe book a call or something. Whatever it is, we need to make sure that it's going to be easy for them to do it. The harder it is, the less likely people will do it.

When you're clear on this stuff, you can start thinking about how to structure the site.

Structure? I barely know her
(okay I'm sorry that was so bad)

I don't think your site needs to be too complicated when you're starting out. For most people, a home page is enough. Keep it simple:

Hero banner - this lets people know they're in the right place

• Don't say "welcome to

• Do highlight the problem they're facing that you solve, or the outcome they want that you can deliver

• Bonus points if you can cover both

Intro - explain a bit more about what you're doing and who it's for

• Don't say "here's our history" or "here's why we exist"

• Do expand on the problem they're facing, why it's happening, and what they need

• Bonus points if it would make them say "YES that's exactly how I feel"

Services/Process - how you help

• Don't say "here's our services" and list literally anything you could do (it shows a lack of focus and expertise)

• Do list the stuff that is directly connected to the solution

• Bonus points if you focus on doing one thing really well

Testimonials or case studies - proof you can do it

• Don't lie or make these up

• Do try to balance the length of any testimonials (eg. if one testimonial is stupidly long, just pull out a quote from it so it matches the others)

• Bonus points if your testimonials or quotes reference the frustration they had and the transformation they went through

About - this why you can do it

• Don't just make it about yourself

• Do make it about how your story made you uniquely qualified to help

• Bonus points if your story starts like theirs, and ends with where they'd want to be

Call to action - what you want them to do

• Don't say "call for a quote" or have multiple options for them to take

• Do make it easy for them to take action and set expectations for what will happen next

• Bonus points if you don't make it sound like they're going to jump on a sales call

You don't have to copy this structure, but (in my opinion) this ticks all the main boxes so can be a good starting point.

Design Tips

I'm giving design tips first, cause when you're starting out it's a LOT easier to come up with content that fits the design rather than create a design that fits your copy.

• Don't try to custom design something, it's really hard to do that well when you're inexperienced and it will most likely end up looking like garbage (sorry)

• Just pick a simple and clean template that looks mostly right, and just make the minor tweaks to get the colours and fonts right -> you'll get the benefit of a professional design, without paying for a professional design

• Keep things balanced, if you've got an image on one side of the screen, make sure the text on the other side takes up a similar amount of space

• Contrast is important so either go with a light background and dark text (recommended), or dark background and light text (harder to make look good)

• Make sure you have plenty of space between sections and elements, when it's all close together it feels cramped and gives this anxious vibe to people scrolling

Copywriting Tips

• Your copy should be about the visitor, so make them the hero. Let them be Luke Skywalker, while you're their Yoda. Don't try to be Luke Skywalker!

• If you can show them you understand and can articulate what they're feeling better than they can, you win a LOT of trust

• the odds of people actually reading your content is low (not cause it's yours, but cause people are lazy af), so make sure your headlines alone will tell the story you want to tell -> if it does that well, there's more of a chance of people actually reading the main text

• Too much text sucks, so make your content say the same thing in less words. This email is stupid cause it's so long and is trying to say too much, so the chance of a lot of people going "yeah no way" and closing the email is higher. Don't make that mistake on your website

• Don't use AI to write (or edit). AI will make you sound like everyone else, and it's really obvious most of the time. You're trying to make people trust in you as an expert in your thing; showing them that you're not capable of coming up with your own words doesn't inspire much trust

TLDR

• The platform doesn't matter

• The site is for potential clients, not your ego

• Make it easy to take action

• Start with a template, don't change it too much

• Don't be Luke Skywalker

• Why use many words when few words do?

I've been sitting here writing for a while so I'm going to go and eat now, but hopefully this email helps you with your own site.

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

What I always found annoying was sifting through it to figure out what was worth listening to.

And even then, making it work? That was a whole new pain in the butt. There was plenty of seemingly good advice that just didn't fit with me or my business. And it made me realise one really important thing.

Generic advice is for generic people

On LinkedIn, I'm always seeing advice on how to succeed on LinkedIn (ooh so meta). When I visit YouTube, it's the same thing (except YouTube, obv).

It's usually not bad advice. But it is the same shit over and over (linkedin edition):

• have a clear message

• have a clear offer

• share your lived experience

• dm people every day

• comment a lot

All of that is technically correct.... if if fits your business and personality. You've gotta match that generic model that they've created this advice for. I don't think I'm special or anything, but I must not be generic enough cause I never seem to match.

And if you're like me at all, here's what I think you should do instead.

Lets. Get. Strategic.
What does strategy even mean, really?

Strategy just the broad way you're going to achieve a goal. That's it. You don't need to overthink it, cause overthinking strategy is how people avoid taking action - and action is the important part.

For us, before anything else we need to figure out one core thing: what's the fucking goal? In my case, my goal is to get more leads for my web design service.ps. Some people will say to make it a SMART goal, tell those people to STFU.

Next up, I'd see how that compares to reality. Do I get leads now? Where from? How many? How many more do I need? What's stopping me from getting more? At this stage I'm trying to figure out what's getting in the way of this goal happening.

In my case, maybe I'm just not getting enough leads via my existing networking activity, and my website doesn't get enough traffic to generate more leads.

Now that I know the problem, I can start brainstorming options. For example, I could try run paid ads to get traffic to my site. I could start DM'ing people on LinkedIn. I could go down the SEO path to get website traffic. Or maybe I could create content on social media to get myself out there.

For each option, I'd compare how they work, whether they'd fit me, as well as how I'd actually implement them. Then I'd comit to one that I will do, and then go and do it.

The process I went through to do this is called the GROW (goal, reality, options, will do) framework. It's a super common framework in coaching and an awesome "quick" way to help narrow down your strategy.

We have a problem

You're smart (you subscribe to this newsletter after all), so maybe you've already seen an issue.

I picked a strategy, sure, but usually there's many ways to actually implement it. So what do I do now?

Well, I know this is a revolutionary idea, but we can just do the same thing again. Wild, I know. If my strategy to get more leads is posting content on LinkedIn that generate enquiries, then that strategy becomes my new goal, and I just follow the same framework again.

And if the result of that is another idea that has multiple ways I could implement it, I'd follow it again. And again. And again. Until I end up with something I can actually implement.

Strategic thinking > Generic advice

As nice as it is to be given an answer and a path, learning how to think is going to serve you way more.

The chase for answers and solutions is why so many people aren't able to breathe without asking their AI tool if they should. It's also why we end up burning out on business advice - it makes us think that we're the issue, or we're just too stupid to figure it out. And that's complete BS.

So, I'm not trying to give you the answers. I'm trying to give you the questions and thought process, so you can figure it out yourself and (most importantly) go and make shit happen.

After all, strategy without action is just as useless as generic advice. If you take steps, even when they're not perfect, you'll still be moving forward and eventually get where you wanna go.

TLDR

1. Generic advice kinda sucks

2. Use the GROW framework

3. I can't think of a third item, but you're awesome!

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic

"My challenge is attracting the kind of audience that actually want to invest"

I've definitely been there, so in this email I'll run through how to (hopefully) solve that issue.

Some Backstory
(You can skip this bit if you don't care)

When I started on social media as a business owner, and started networking, going to events, meeting people - I'd end up talking to LOTS of different people.... but I had no actual idea out of those people:

1. Who wants my stuff, and

2. Who's willing to pay for my stuff

It took me a while to figure out how to talk to the right people more often. And by right people, I just mean the kinds of people who would be more likely to buy my stuff.

So who are the right people?

This will come down to what you do and how much it costs.

People are more willing to pay for stuff that the value they think they get exceeds the cost they have to pay, so the right people for you are the people that need what you're offering and will get more out of it than the average.

Example 1: Big ticket service

At Creative Click, I build custom websites that I'd say are leaning towards the higher end, and my fees are usually over $10k.

The "right" people for me need to get WAY more than $10k value out of me making them a custom site. That's worked out to be service or SaaS companies with small/medium sized teams that are investing money in marketing. A well done custom website can easily have a 6 figure impact on their growth, making it a good choice.

But for a small solopreneur who makes 50k a year, even the most amazing website probably isn't going to have that same level of impact. It becomes a lot harder to justify a $10k spend for a website (FYI - I'd tell them they were an idiot for considering it).

Example 2: The expertise training route

Let's say I had a training and education business, and have digital products and 1 on 1 training for a specific skill, with a range of offerings from $100 up to a few grand.

I'd need to target people who will be able to make serious money from learning or improving those skills. Maybe they're newer to the industry, or a solopreneur that wants to DIY. They aren't quite good enough yet, and want to learn how to get better.

Larger businesses though, they'd probably just hire someone to do it, so not a good fit.

Okay now how do we find them?

Ultimately, the trick to finding the right people is to think about:

1. Platforms they use

2. Places they go

3. Content they consume

And then make sure you're there and connecting with them.

In my case I'm active in two main places:

• LinkedIn: It's full of business owners, and the active ones are typically trying to grow their businesses.

• Networking events: Business events are full of business owners that are actively marketing or trying to grow their businesses.

But how do we attract them?

To attract these right people we've identified, we need to grab their attention and get them to know, like, and trust us. On the surface, this should be easy. You just talk about stuff they care about (in relation to what you do), and because they care, they'll pay attention. Then your content showcases your expertise and builds up that trust over time.

BUT (this is important), we've got to remember that there are loads of other people targeting the same people we are, writing the same types of content. Without exaggeration, there are 978 trilllion people on LinkedIn alone that build websites as a service. They're all posting the same bland content.

"Here's why your website isn't generating leads""Websites are about conversions, not being pretty""How much should a website cost""Check out this site I built"

So if I go and post the same stuff, I sound just like all these other people. And if I sound like everyone else, I'll be treated just like everyone else, which means potential clients will probably compare me based on price. Then I've gotta get cheaper, which I find offensive.

So... we've gotta do something different. And I think there's three ways we can go with it:

Option 1: Just like everyone else, but better

Still write about the same topics but make sure your content is sharper, more tailored to the person, addresses their frustrations and fears more than other people, and uses attention grabbing language to stand out.

Figure out fun and interesting ways to say the same stuff everyone else says. Ask more insightful questions and use different phrases. Being different wins, even if you're talking about the same boring topics.

Option 2: Focus on personality

This is what I've fallen into. Since I already had regular leads from networking, I decided I'd just use LinkedIn as a place to joke around, so I started leaning into my natural personality way more. I posted jokes, made silly and usually inappropriate comments, and focused on making friends - just like real life! I rarely posted "professional" content.

But people started reaching out anyway! It made me realise that people don't need me to say "I build lead generating digital presences for ambitious business owners" for them to understand what a website is, or what can happen if I do a good job for them. But since they liked my personality, knew what I did, and saw I'd keep turning up, they reached out when they needed help.

Option 3: Do both the things (the winning option)

What I'd recommend to most people would be to combine these two options.

Yes, talk about the stuff in unique ways. But also show your personality! Be yourself! That way you get the benefit of showing everyone you know your stuff, while also building a network of people that like you.

You've got to remember, with all these AI tools bringing professional sounding content to the masses, it's going to be your personality that shows you're NOT a commodity. And that's how you get to charge the big bucks instead of the small bucks.

Showing your personality

If you're going down the personality route, it might help to be clear on your actual personality first.

Are you funny and witty? Are you inappropriate? Are you passionate about causes? Are you an animal lover? Nature lover? Do you have hobbies? What sort of stuff lights you up, or makes you happy? Bring that into your content.

And importantly, stop worrying about seeming unprofessional. That's how you end up trying to smooth out your views and self-censoring, or you talk in ways you wouldn't normally... and you remove all the cool shit that makes the right people like you.

Changing things up because you're worried about the wrong people not liking you just makes you way less appealing to the right people.

My Final Words (for this email, not ever)

This email ended up long af, sorry! I just started writing and the words wouldn't stop. But the TLDR version:

• First find who the right people are for you

• Then where they spend their time

• Spend time there

• Write stuff that gets their attention

• Show your personality

• Make phat stacks of cash (optional, but probable)

Until next time!

Cowabunga,
Nick Gulic