Working with new clients is exciting! But don’t get too excited, ok? It can be tempting to jump straight into the work once you get a project approved. But taking a moment to zoom out, and understand what your client really wants is crucial. Here are three questions to ask new clients to make sure you nail your new creative project.

Losing clients is part of the game of freelancing. But losing most of your clients might mean you aren’t very good at the game. Long-lasting client relationships depend on two things: great work and great service. Over the past five years, I’ve developed a few best practices that help me cultivate lasting relationships with great clients. I’ll share them with you below.

If you’re a creator, you’re probably fielding emails and calls from a number of brands, locking in work for Q1. But how can you tell if these brands are going to be good to work with? At the start, every opportunity seems similar, and it’s hard to tell which clients will be tough to collaborate with, and which ones will be great to work with. I’ve been working with clients for over five years now, and I’ve sniffed out a few red flags to watch out for.

There are too many options. Where do you even start? I felt this way for a while too, buying online courses and guides, hoping they would bring me the results they promised. That was until I started helping clients create their own online classes. Then, it became really clear which classes are worth it, which are not, and how to decide.

Whether this year is exciting or daunting for you, the fact remains: you need to get more clients this month. But there’s a big difference between wishing you had more clients, and actually doing the hard work to get more clients. I’m going to teach you how to do the latter.

Today marks my 465th blog post in 465 days. Tomorrow, I’m not publishing a blog. I’ll break that streak.

Today is my birthday. I want to recognize a few of the people who have made my 28th year on this planet even better. These people have inspired me to continue working to make the small corner of the world I’m in a better place.

If you’re an artist, and you chase hits, a solid fan base will elude you. Deep cuts are what build fan bases. For every reason inside a Marketing 101 textbook, deep cuts are what build fan bases. But don’t just trust some guy on the internet with a blog. Let’s look at what The Chainsmokers have to say, what Coldplay has done for two decade, and how Ikea built its fan base.

Because these are feelings you can only learn, not earn. No amount of money, or success, or fame will bring you the feelings you truly desire. Do you know how you learn gratitude? By saying thanks for the money you have now. Do you know how you learn peace? By letting go of specific outcomes, and accepting what you’ve been given now.

I delayed getting married for years, in part because I waned to get my career in order before I did. As Kanye once said, “Just wait ’til I get my money right.” We did. When my wife and I were getting pre-engagement counseling, and talking with friends about the matter, I realized there was a flip side of this coin. There can be great financial benefits to being married.

2022 is coming swiftly. In just a few days, 2021 will be history, and you’ll start to judge the outfits and decisions you deliberated on so heavily. Many people, myself included, are excited to start the new year by building a new habit. But when you stop to consider new habit goals taken on in past Januarys, you might get discouraged.

Today is Christmas. Christmas is culture. This tiny little day has so much culture stuffed inside of it, baked into it, and wrapped all around it. There’s a religious culture surrounding this day, and also an American culture altering it, and even specific ethnic cultures modifying that. And then there’s your family culture.

Some of my best blogs were written on my phone. The blogs that really boil down a concept to a concentrated, digestible metaphor were written on my phone.

I wish I read this book when I started my career. The way it simply explains a wide range of concepts would have helped me achieve success long before I learned the lessons the hard way. Donald Miller is an incredibly clear writer, making difficult concepts simple to understand.

Your pitch deck skills suck. That’s why you just googled “how to make clean, simple pitch decks,” or something to that effect. No need to be ashamed! You’ve come to the right place. I’m going to show you four key principles that will have you nailing your deck design every time.

“With this decreased friction, there are more mediocre brands than ever before. Brand equity is what separates a great brand from all the others. Showing up is no longer enough. Brands need to bring real value and connection to niche communities in order to last in the digital age.”

I think it really pays for us to pay each other when we encounter something that’s out of our wheelhouse. I’ve paid friends to help me design logos, build spreadsheet templates, and edit social content. But every once in a while, a little bit of research and elbow grease can get you some pretty cheap results.

The one who can reach out to one hundred, one thousand, or even ten thousand brands, paying no attention to the overwhelming majority of rejection, is the one who can grow their career at will.

People are always going to reject emerging platforms simply because they’re unfamiliar. They’ll try to make you feel stupid or juvenile for investing time and energy into new platforms. They’ll say that social media is just a bubble, and the bubble will burst soon. But here’s the thing: all great marketing exists within a bubble.

So you got ghosted. You made a connection, you hopped on a call, you sent over a quote–and got no answer. Your potential client vanished into thin air after you did all this work. It’s a bummer. But with the right mindset and the right strategy, ghosting can happen with less frequently and bother you less each time.