TL;DR: Split test a niche website, slam it with paid traffic, network like a mofo, make it easy to get in touch with you.<p>Good advice, in the abstract, but it feels like this post is hyping up the golden path, and totally ignoring the realities of the freelancing slog. I did it for years. Pipeline management SUCKS, at least for a not-so-social guy like me.<p>So these 5 leads...<p>Why just 5? Paid traffic and landing pages should be pretty scaleable. Are the 5 leads actually new people from web traffic, or is this the long tail of an in-network recruiting burst?<p>Are they actually quality leads? I could hit the craigslist gigs section and get you 5 leads in 30 seconds, but they're trash. What kinds of projects, on what timeline, and at what price, were these leads? If they're not sane organizations with 5k+ contracts, a disclaimer is needed. If they're 10k+ contracts, start a business selling them, I'll buy.<p>How long do they take to close? What's the closing like? The post mentions a chatbox on a website. Do people use it? What do they ask? I find those very corporate. if you're looking for JS-focused customers, do they also find those grating, like most tech people do?<p>The post says the rate was up and too high, and so he got a lot of requests. How many is a lot? What was the rate? What did it change to? How was that decision made? What was the customer response?<p>Basically, this post really light on unique content. It talks like it's selling the "secret sauce" but in reality, it's a painfully high level overview of some very boilerplate advice.<p>I want to hear about a real human experience, not a maybe-scaleable super high level overview of babbys first marketing engine.