Week 38 - What the hell does he want from me? 🙈

This week I’ve met a person in real life following the connection approach I mentioned in the previous newsletter, and I’ve got very interesting feedback from one of them:

this person told me they didn’t understand why I sent them a message firsthand, and also why I followed up even though we couldn’t meet for the first time, they had a thought like “what the hell this guy wants from me? is he trying to sell me something"?”

The fun thing is that we’ve had a very good conversation, I shared with this person a working approach on how to connect with people on LinkedIn, track those connections, and even encouraged this person to deliver a public speech and connected them with a person who can give them a slot at one of the great meetups I usually go to myself.

And that’s the thing - nowadays when someone connects with us the first thought in our minds is “What are they trying to sell me"?”, but when we are being open, honest, ask people about their journey, being genuinely curious, and want to give them value first, that’s exactly what helps to bring this first ice, and lays the first brick of meaningful relationships! 😉🤗

Also, about the expectations: I’ve met 2 more people, and had almost opposite conversations - with one person, it was as if it flew like a river, easy, without extra thoughts, when one person stopped talking, another had something to add, and with another person - sometimes I thought “What should I ask next to be polite?”, and didn’t know how to find the way out of this conversation.

It was a very vivid example for me that you won’t ever click with everyone, and it’s okay, continue conversations only with people you clicked with, and everyone will be happy 😏

And one more thing about the power of connections - so I’ve had a great episode of The Independent Workforce podcast with great guests - we had fun during the conversation, I learned a lot from them, and also it happened that those guests were connected with some other folks I wanted to connect with before. When I shared with them the mission and vision for what I’m trying to achieve, they immediately proposed connecting me with those people. One of them already accepted my connection request, and we’ve had a very nice professional conversation!

So the lesson here is when you’re genuinely passionate about what you’re doing, and share it with others, they’ll be more than happy to help you, and you might get such results that you might not even have thought about! 🥳

And here is another small motivational about the one and only book that will change your life 😏

Thoughts of the week:

• Raise prices without losing a single customer by creating a “new” product tier. - Indie Hackers newsletter

• In our rush to criticize, it's important to first understand why something exists in its current form. - Sahil Bloom’s newsletter

• The cost of intelligence is dropping, so we can either complain or do something with it. - Eric Siu, Leveling Up Podcast

• Joy, love, and laughter live in the present moment. - Jill Boyle Taylor, DOAC podcast

Song of the week:

Book and quotes of the week:

Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary

“They simulated consumer demand on eBay by creating a bot (an automated software tool) that bought goods on the site and then insisted on paying for these transactions using PayPal.”

“Rather than charging users to join the platform, the founders should be subsidizing their participation—perhaps by providing tools and services to make it easy, fast, and effective for them to complete their profiles.”

“Sales of high-priced toner cartridges generate profits that the relatively cheap printers themselves don’t produce.”

Tools that I use with referrals:

• Descript - for anything around podcasting and video editing

• Manus - for building complex systems and projects

• Beehiiv - for a newsletter (that’s what you receive 😅)

• Text Blaze - to access message templates with shortcuts (like “/ty”)

• Exali - promo “FROMYURII” - indemnity insurance for independent experts in Europe

Daily actions:

• invite 1 person to give feedback about how I helped them

• tell 1 person what I’m thankful to them for

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• tag 30 people in my database

• participate in a secret LI support group

• invite 5 people to check my website and ask them for advice (postponed)

Weekly actions:

• transcribe one new episode of the Creator Spotlight and Personal IPO (bi-weekly) podcasts, learn something from them, and connect with guests on LinkedIn

• transcribe two new DOAC videos, learn one thing from them, and make 1% posts in the DOAC community

• connect 2 people who I believe need to be connected.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to walk The Road To $1M+ Freelance Business with me 👇

See you next week! 👋