AI is the big thing right now.
And while tools like ChatGPT are incredible in many ways, there’s one thing they’re really, really bad at.
Emotion.
Bots don’t do emotion.
They definitely don’t write with emotional intelligence.
For a start, they have no first-hand experience of emotions. Lines of code can’t fall in love, or laugh.
And they can’t feel empathy for others. Lines of code don’t care about people, and how they feel.
Emotion is at the core of great copy. This has always been the case… before AI, before the Web, before computers.
Great copy touches its readers at an emotional level.
Why? Because as consumers we buy based on our feelings. We buy the car that makes us feel good. We buy the pair of shoes that makes us smile. We buy the video game that gives us pleasure.
Every purchase is triggered by emotion. Once we have decided we want something, we will often turn to our more rational selves to justify the purchase.
If I suggested you double the fees you charge, maybe you’d tell me that none of your clients would use you.
That sounds reasonable.
After all, as freelancers we don’t set out to charge less than we can. We think we know what our clients and prospects will accept, and we write up our estimates accordingly.
Suddenly I have strange superpowers and I’m going to force you to double your fees anyway.
Too many freelancers believe it’s enough to find a niche that seems “OK”, and just dive in.
Not so.
If you want your freelance business to be as profitable, productive and enjoyable as possible, there are five elements you need to consider.
When I’m coaching a freelancer or solopreneur, I actually ask a lot of different questions. That’s a big part of what it means to be a good coach.
Many of those questions I’ll ask during the first one or two sessions. It’s how we feel our way forward…teasing out answers that can help you break new ground.
After that, we start working through the 6-week process you’ll see outlined on my coaching information page.
But I still have one more question that I’ll throw out at any time. Honestly, I usually ask it several times over the course of a few weeks.
It’s an incredibly powerful question.
In this post I want to take a look at a simple way to balance your immediate needs and your long-term plans.
Here’s what I do with my own business…
At the beginning of each week I start a new page in a Word document with two columns.
In the left side column I make a list of the work I need to get done in order to pay the bills and meet any other short-term deadlines or commitments.
In the right hand column I make a note of the various projects I’m planning, working on, or completing that won’t give me any income this month, but have the potential to generate a good income in the future.