I don't freelance on Upwork anymore. Not because it stopped working. Because ONE proposal template worked so well it retired me. $147,000 in contracts (and counting). From one basic structure that paid off over and over...so I rode that horse off into the sunset. Clients who hired me over 50+ other applicants. $12k retainers from people who'd never met me. Now, I hire people to push the buttons while I look at graphs and tell jokes on Zoom calls. In May, when we go to Japan for 2.5 weeks, other people will keep my machine running while I eat raw fish and nod at reports. This Friday, I'm sending over a proposal for another $5k to $15k retainer (depends) from an existing client--again, from Upwork--for 5 to 10 hours a week of extra work. All money from Upwork clients. Now... I've thought about how to sell this thing. I could bundle it into a course. Do a whole launch. But honestly? That sounds exhausting. And I realized most people don't WANT another course. So here's my dumb idea instead: A penny auction. Bids start at one cent. Bids can only go UP by one cent. If it sells for 31 cents, so be it. That's on all of you. Here's the thing though... I'm not doing this for just a handful of people. If I get enough PENNY comments below, we run it. If not, I'll find something else to do with my Tuesday. I'd rather go play on a plastic slide with my daughter than sit here like a sad sack waiting for comments to roll in. One more thing: The person who wins this isn't getting some dusty template from 2012. You're getting the exact proposal structure that pulled six figures out of a platform I no longer compete on. Which means ZERO competition from me using it. You're welcome. So here's what to do: You'd bid a penny? Drop PENNY below 👇 You think this is stupid? Drop BAN ME below 👇 Either way I wanna hear from you. Your acquaintance, Nick P.S. Is a penny auction stupid? We'll find out together.

Not for clients or your day job (if you have one of those). What assets did you build for yourself this week?

I just opened one of my 37 notebooks and out fell a pile of index cards welded together with mismatched post-it notes. That's a lot of notes. There were some recipes, some business to-dos that were never to-did, and sweet words I left my wife. That is to say, I don't have a solid notetaking system. Do you?

Have you ever considered paying a few grand to not have to do the chores your mom assigned to you? That's kind of the situation I'm in now. I have to do a bunch of pro bono work and I'm honestly kinda done. So I'm seriously considering hiring someone to do this for me so I don't have to. I've already partially done this but just for adding content to a website which is not that complicated of a job. But for something more complicated than that, I'll need to be more careful. So... any tips on making sure the hiree is competent on the skill other than a paid test? (already doing that) @Nick Bandy since you published Upwork Backwards, I'm waiting for the hiring course to drop 🙆

Any bookworms in the house? What are you reading right now? I'm finishing up "Start With No" by Jim Camp. What about you?