Can I get a role in any of your businesses? I'm ready to learn and willing to outsource.
No, I'm not looking to hire anyone. Training someone to deliver value would take too much time given my high hourly rate; the sunk cost would outweigh any benefit unless you're truly exceptional. Seeing your outreach as a positive sign, focus on providing value first: research top creators you admire, identify their struggles, and offer quick fixes like content ideas, thumbnail tweaks, or bio improvements before asking for a role. Position your outreach as offering value upfront, not as a request. This demonstrates business experience, empathy, and respect for their time, making you stand out. As a next step, you could record custom Loom videos solving specific problems for big creators in 30 seconds or less.
Sure, here's how to use Loom videos in your outreach. First, record a Loom video—either on the prospect’s website or on a private social media profile after you’ve spent time researching who they are. Make it clear that this isn’t random spam; introduce yourself, explain why you matter, and provide social proof. Then describe the specific value you can deliver, such as identifying an under‑utilized part of their funnel and showing a quick fix that could add significant revenue. End with a soft ask, like asking them to respond with a thumbs‑up if they’re interested in seeing more ideas.
I’m not saying you can’t use automation – you can, but if you’re underage you can’t sign up for Upwork. For people in that situation I recommend treating the platform like a straightforward sales funnel: you don’t need to master every sales skill, you just pitch why you’re the better pick among thousands of freelancers. Talk to the client, explain how you can solve their problem, and close the deal. If you can’t use Upwork, replicate the same approach by sending custom video DMs that solve a specific problem, distributing them via Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Search for “Loom outreach” or “video outreach” to see detailed tutorials I’ve made, and check out the Maker School community for a step‑by‑step guide.
If you're running an automation agency, you have three main options to find clients. First, Upwork: it's the simplest, straightest path for beginners to get your first dollar online, though the ROI is lower than other methods. Second, cold email: cost per acquisition is super low, you can scale it, and you can use AI to personalize outreach; check out my previous videos on my main channel @Nix for details on customizing and personalizing emails. Third, communities: post high-value content daily or every few days in groups where your target customers hang out; this frames you as an authority and quickly builds an inbound presence without the hard work of recording hundreds of videos. In Maker School I provide a daily regimen: send 10 Upwork applications, make a community post, and do cold email outreach each day. I recommend about 270 cold emails per day (nine mailboxes with 30 emails each). With a two-step sequence, that yields roughly 3,240 contacts per month, leading to about 90 engaged people, and assuming a third respond positively, you get around 30 leads per day—fantastic for your pipeline. This is what's working today given your photography background; you don't need to cold‑approach bigger businesses unless you want to, as it's often a pain.
I get some version of this question basically every day. The reason you're asking it is because you don't yet understand the problems most businesses actually suffer from. The vast majority of businesses I work with — mostly B2B agencies and B2B tech/SaaS products — tend to struggle with three things: front-end lead generation, inefficient client onboarding systems, and bad fulfillment/project management full of unnecessary manual work. Once you understand those problems, it's not hard to know what people will pay for — anything that solves one of those three and helps them make more money. Practically, the fastest way to get unstuck: spend an hour picking 2-3 candidate niches (say, videographers, B2B creative agencies, recruitment companies), join Reddit communities for people who own those kinds of businesses, and scroll top to bottom reading what questions and problems people are actually posting about.