6 months ago I lost my 9-5 job.

And 6 months ago, I decided to get serious about building a personal brand.

As of today, and thanks to the brand I'm building, I have found a new main income source: freelancing

I also sell products on Gumroad, but 90% of my income comes from freelancing.

The best part?

All the gigs I have gotten so far came to me without me doing any sales outreach.

No paid ads.

No cold pitching.

Nothing.

You might be wondering, how did you do it, Alex?

Well, today I will tell you about my experience with selling without selling.

What's selling without selling?

In short, selling without selling means that instead of you going to people and pitching your product or services, they come to you and ask for it.

How to sell without selling? Content and audience

CONTENT.

More specifically by creating content, but not just any kind.

You need to create content that showcases your skills.

My own example: I wanted to offer strategy-focused social media and content services. And I wanted to offer those services to other creators and makers.

The best way to showcase my ability was to:

  1. Go where these people are (Twitter)
  2. Create valuable content
  3. And give it away for free. All of it.

I tweeted about it.

I made graphics.

I wrote threads

I wrote blog posts.

And I repeated the whole process.

This allowed me to build a small but engaged audience that works as "top of the funnel" for my services.

My own experience: my first freelancing gig

I always have my DMs open.

And sometimes, those DM conversations move to zoom calls. I've been doing this from time to time because I love connecting with others.

A few months ago, I connected with Justin.

We jumped on a call together because of our mutual interest in influencer marketing.

I didn't pitch him. I didn't try to sell anything.

We just had a casual conversation about our interests, Twitter, etc.

After we spoke for a bit, he told me he loved what I've been doing on Twitter and wanted me to help him with his content moving forward.

1 day later, we reached an agreement and started working together (and have been doing it ever since!).

The rest of the clients I had after him, came through the same way.

A Twitter DM asking me to work with them, and not the other way around.

Zoom call, arranging details, and boom, new client.

And it happened because they were seeing what I was doing and sharing in public.

My own experience: Twitter coaching

I've NEVER considered doing coaching before. It just never crossed my mind.

One day, Jim, who I had been talking for a while on the DMs reached out and said he wanted to take his content more seriously.

He basically needed some guidance on How to Twitter.

We set up a call, discussed the basics, and came to an agreement.

He could have gone to someone with a bigger audience or buy a 500$ course.

Instead, he choose to ask me to work together because he liked what I created.

Someone even asked why he chose me (at the time I had 2,7k followers). This was his answer:

The key to sell without selling

The key to selling without selling, even if it doesn't make much sense, is to give away as much VALUE as possible for free.

Write about what you know, make graphics, videos, whatever! Share!

And do it in private too! I usually try to help everyone who reaches out by DM.

I don't care if they have 1k followers or 10. I always try to be as helpful as possible, which builds a close relationship with my audience and eventually leads to more opportunities.

Case example from Josh Spector:

Just make something CONSISTENTLY that showcases the value you can provide for others. Do it in public and also in private.

Giving value away is the name of the game.

That's how you sell without selling.

Your turn! I want to hear your experience

Have you had any similar experiences?

Would love to hear from you! You can reach me on my Twitter DMs.

Time to write this article

  • 1st draft: 50 min
  • Revision and edit: 35 min
  • Twitter thread adaptation: 15 min