The PPTX Whisperer 💼

By now, many of you must be wondering how long you're going to have to keep opening and clicking our emails every morning to get Ambreen or Rebekah off your back.

So we thought it would be a good idea to explain more about why we're here.

You see, like most free-markets, the global landscape for self-employed professionals is broken. For context, there are over 1.5B self-employed professionals in the world. It's a gravely underserved market with unmet needs. We aim to help fix that.

Our mission: Upskill the global workforce with world-class knowledge and expertise.

To level the playing field, so to speak. Because the way it is now, the market benefits too few.

For instance, yesterday you got a glimpse of our website playbook. At a high-level, we explained each step in our process to launching our website. Would you be surprised to hear that it's the exact same playbook that most of the top earning Webflow agencies use to score huge projects?Believe it or not, that process is what makes the difference between a $2,000 and a $50,000 website job. Yes, it really is that simple.

We'll be sharing everything we know about building websites the "agency way" in an upcoming playbook. Eventually, everything we know, will be released in the same way. By sharing our knowledge with the world—for free—we hope to level the playing field.

Because: Knowledge should be free. Experience, priceless.

Have you ever dreamed of becoming a Lego designer? Well, now's your chance.

Starting February 1st, 2023, you can submit your original Lego set designs to compete to be one of five sets that Lego will officially produce. That's right—up to 20,000 sets of your creation will be sold to fans all over the world, and you'll even get a cut of the profits.

Go ahead, let your imagination run wild and start building!

Last week, we introduced you to Kat Norton or Miss Excel who's slaying it teaching people how to use MS Excel on TikTok. Over the weekend, we stumbled upon another great story of how someone carved out a unique niche market providing services for another Microsoft product that people struggle with.

Courtney Allen took a brave step into entrepreneurship after leaving Cisco. She was no longer satisfied with a traditional 9-to-5 career and wanted more. She threw herself into her work and never looked back.

Courtney first launched a boutique travel agency that arranged extraordinary experiences. However, she struggled to turn a profit. She was living with her parents, barely making any money, and accumulating credit card debt. It wasn't working, she had to make a change.

As a graphic designer, Courtney knew she would face tough competition. She needed to find a way to stand out, and be innovative. She decided to return to something she was familiar with and had success with in the past. During her time at Cisco, Courtney discovered her talent for designing presentations for corporate executives. She leaned in to her talent and made a thriving business of it.

Courtney set up a profile on Upwork and started applying to presentation design jobs at $27 an hour. Over time, with successful completions she raised her rate to $150 an hour. She noticed that the higher her rates were, the more confidence potential clients had in her expertise. They appreciated her work more.

In total, she's earned over $1,300,000 on Upwork making awesome presentations. From there, she started her own agency and hired talented team members to help the business grow. As a result, her business has taken off.

Courtney now runs her own successful agency 16x9 Design. She uses her copywriting and design skills to transform confusing and unsightly PowerPoints into clean and beautiful presentations.

These days, Courtney and her team at 16x9 have more work than they can handle. Here's some of the things they do to ensure a focus on high-quality deliverables:

Well, now Excel and PowerPoint are off the books. We're dying to hear your ideas about building a business around MS Outlook, MS Word, or even VS Code. So, who's next?

Vitaly Friedman writes about the State of Usability in 2023 🎊.

We found this article to be spot on with some of our own personal experiences. He talks about how we often kickoff designs with assumptions, and how they're mostly wrong.

He asserts—and our experience would confirm—that users are experts at finding loopholes, shortcuts, and bending the rules. Often to their own detriment.

Think about it, how many of you have passwords written down somewhere because it's easier to reference? 🤦🏻‍♀️

In 2023, we must accept that there is a growing distrust of websites. Because of this distrust, the default reaction is to block everything.

These blocked requests only lead to an increase in user hostility and distrust detracting from our goal of delight. 

Users expect a "calm experience" on the web. This implies dependable and predictable design. While we all want to bust out our inner Picasso, it's critical to begin all UX design with empathy. That means starting with what the user is trying to achieve.

A simple example of this in practice is how we let everyone access our content online without it being gated. Why? Because, they're trying to find an answer to their question. That's their goal, and our focus is on making it easier for them to achieve. (See Random Observation section above).Once they have what they want, we can ask them if they're interested in getting more information delivered to their inbox, for free. What we want.

If your website or client project isn't hitting your conversion goals, take a look at experiments that use these insights to remove the hostile elements first. 

We're happy to take a quick look for you too, so hit us up with your URL in your reply to this message.

GWI—a leading audience targeting company for global marketing—released their annual report of the biggest social media trends. Grab a copy for yourself, it's free and insightful.

Before the end of the month, Rebekah will be producing more robust summaries on these trends with actionable advice on how to use it for your clients. In the meantime, drop us a line and let us know if you have any questions.