From Beta to Alpha

On Saturday, 08/12/23, I landed in Arequipa, Peru, and plan to jumpstart my game + learn Spanish by talking to cute Inca hotties around the city. I spent the first day in Arequipa scouting the city to find perfect day game spots and check the quality of Peruvian girls.

The girls:

From what I’ve seen Peruvian girls aren’t as hot as Colombianas nor American chicks. I’d say they’re hotter than Filipinas, but I’ve had to walk a good minute around Arequipa to find a suitable target.

In Bucaramanga or Bogota, the second I walked out the door, I’d easily find an HB 7 – 8 within 5 minutes or less. But Peru? Increase those numbers to roughly 15 – 20 minutes.

Appearance-wise, many Peruvian girls look indigenous mixed with Hispanic features. Picture darker skin tones, prominent cheekbones, straight black hair, and dark eyes. If that’s your thing, you’d love Peru.

In terms of HB levels between girls I’ve met from different countries, I’d say: Colombia -> USA -> Peru -> Philippines.

Day game spots:

During my time walking around Arequipa, I found three distinct day game spots where I’ll be running game and hitting up hotties.

Plaza de Armas: Plaza de Armas is the city center of Arequipa. There’s a ton of native Peruvians with gringos sprinkled in. The plaza itself is wide, open, and you can easily approach a girl and bounce to an instadate revenue seamlessly.

Most HB 7s I’ve spotted around Arequipa can be found in Plaza de Armas.

Unfortunately, any hot gringas I spotted on my journey are typically with a boyfriend, their family, etc. Most gringas are European – I’ve only met one American gringa… and she was my housemate lol, not to mention she was, like, a soft 6 at best.

Universidad Catolica San Pablo:

UNSA – Campus Sociales:

1. Do iTalki Spanish lessons @ 3:00 PM every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. After the lesson, do 1 Pimsleur lesson and 1 Language Transfer lesson.
2. Every Wednesday, go to Lanex Language Institute from 7:30 – 9:30 PM. Do 1 Pimsleur lesson and 1 Language Transfer lesson before I pop in.
3. Schedule a meet-up between the FB people to meet at Cafetopia on Saturday. Make it a chill hangout. Only do 1 Pimsleur lesson and 1 Language Transfer lesson
4. On every day do 1 Pimsleur -> 1 language transfer. Meet at John’s shop to practice Spanish.

---

1. Do James Marshall mindfulness meditation for 15 minutes first thing in the morning
2. Do 400 words for Codeless
3. Tell yourself you’re NOT doing City of Heroes today until EVERYTHING is done. Not even Discord.

Alright, so I need to find new clients within 30 days. Therefore, since I prefer having a structured plan, I’m going to list the important things I need to do to optimize my LinkedIn profile and get more clients. This should all be accomplished within a month.

Tips from Katari Creative

Here’s a secret I doubt you’ll hear from many other LinkedIn Coaches without paying them: You don’t need to create content on LinkedIn at all to find clients.

ALL of the clients that found me on LinkedIn (and that I eventually converted) found me from someone else’s content. And that’s only because I posted a comment there.

“Someone else” = microinfluencers in your niche, mostly.

I try to focus my commenting efforts on posts around 50 reactions; some of those will grow to 5,000+ reactions, while some of those will stay around 50 — both have helped me convert clients.

The real strategy here is knowing where to look. For me, that’s hashtags. You can search hashtags on LinkedIn and, if you click a result rather than hitting “Enter,” you’ll be brought to that hashtag’s “feed.”

Some of my favorite hashtags are: #b2bmarketing, #copywriters, #seo, #socialmedia

—

Question from Redditor:

LinkedIn has been my number one source of business, both personally and for my company. I have a profile for both. It’s the best thing I can tell people to do.

What’s your pitch strategy on LinkedIn? I personally don’t like being pitched there because it’s so obvious that it’s a pitch.

Answer:

Congratulations on all your success on the platform!

My pitching strategy is to not pitch 🙂

—

One of the many reasons I love LinkedIn is because it sounds like you and I do practically the opposite when it comes to marketing there — I love engaging and commenting, but there’s definitely a diminishing return much sooner than you’d think.

In general, if you want to be active on LinkedIn, commit to it. Give yourself some sort of timeline (1-3 months, DOE) to gain make X money or gain X clients and start from there.

With that goal established, you can reverse engineer how long you should spend on LinkedIn. Ask yourself questions like:

• How much time do I really want to spend on LinkedIn per day? (You can do as little as 10 minutes per day!)
• How much time can I give content creation per week? (I average at 2 hours.)

With those answered, you have a basic skeleton of your daily tasks: Find content worth engaging with, engage with it, and identify potential content ideas along the way.

That’s just the start, though. A strategy is not a to-do list, it’s the reason behind those to-dos.

So why does the strategy come second? Because you’re likely not going to know where your audience spends their time on LinkedIn… until you’re on LinkedIn.

Once you’ve gotten some traction with your comments (responses & connections from them), you can start using that feedback to post content your audience actually wants to see… Because you’ve answered their questions in comments 😉

As for what sort of posts actually matter — posts like this have gotten me eyes, but not clients. It’s posts that share simple, yet novel, tips that get me clients.

—

First things first: Get your profile updated. You can absolutely take your time on this, too, because there’s a lot of little things to dig into, including:

• Your Contact Info
• Your About
• Your Featured
• Your Experience(s)
• Your Skills
• Your Recommendations

Most of this requires some good writing chops, so luckily you’ll have that under wraps.

Once you’ve gotten your profile to quality standard, figure out how much time you really can give LinkedIn every day and spend that time commenting on other people’s posts.

I mention it more in-depth in another comment, but find your niche spots on LinkedIn (either using Follows, hashtags, or Groups) and comment, comment, comment, comment! Make sure they’re useful comments, of course.

—

Sure, but these might feel like “duh”:

1. Write to one person. Think of a past client or a dream client, whatever it takes — talk about their specific, day-to-day problems you solve and why you make their life easier.
2. Optimize each section for SEO. This means titles you want to be found for — titles people are actually searching. For example, “B2B Freelance Writer,” or “Social Media Copywriter.” YES keep some of these this simple, but make your first 50 characters or so something with personality ✨

Find potential client profiles and engage via their posts

People:

• Joe Colantonio
• Keith Klain
• Kristel Kruustuk
• Carlos Arguelles
• Martha Sharpe
• Vikas Mittal
• Wayne Roseberry (I like this guy the most. Follow his comments and try to leverage his connections to find QA influencers)
• Michael Bolton
• Tomasz Tunguz
• Edoardo Turelli
• Rahul Parwal
• Jo-Anne Brandes (keep interacting with her)
• Iryna Chernenko

Groups:

• Software Testing & Automation: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/55636/

Tips:

• Search “content marketing manager” using the People tag on LinkedIn. Find who posts often + comment or simply connect with them.

Schedule

• Do 1 post on r/freelancewriters per day.
• Do 1 comment on LinkedIn per day.
• Connect with 1 startup founder per day.
• Cold email 1 startup founder per day.

Note: Begin lesson 6

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Do lessons 3 again to practice es and donde since i cant say them off the top of my head

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Go through each lesson twice. The first time I can pause to translate. However, the second time around NO PAUSING.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! Don’t Google Spanish words to try and translate them. From here on out, I will not translate individual words into their English counterpart.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!! In order to use Pimsleur effectively, I need to be able to speak whatever they’re asking without pausing. Therefore, I need to spend 2-3 days per lesson. Repeat the lesson until I find it effortless to speak the contents. Since I focus on pausing + memorizing what they’re saying, I need to start at Lesson 5 and move onward.

The point is to access the language learning part of my brain. Writing anything down interrupts that process. Source here: https://www.pimsleurmethod.com/how-do-i-use-the-pimsleur-language-program.html

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 1:

You understand = entiende

I understand = entiendo

Es usted = are you

Usted = you (formal)

Tu = you (informal)

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 2:

de = of, from or about

como estas = how are you?

bien = fine or good

Note:

• IMPORTANT!! Spanish has two words for “are”, like “you are”. “Es” is most often used for something permanent (e.g. nationality, race, etc), while “esta” is for temporary situations (e.g. health, how you’re doing, etc).

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 3:

no soy = I’m not

de donde = from where (practice)

buenas tardes = good afternoon

buenas noches = good evening

la tarde = the afternoon

el dia = the day

noche = night

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 4:

nos vemos = see you (practice)

mucho gusto = nice to meet you (note: don’t use encantado since it means “charmed”, but no one uses it)

donde esta = where are you? (temporary, as in location)

aquí = here

esta aqui = it’s here

restaurante = restaurant

donde esta el hotel = where is the hotel? (practice)

alli = there (pronounced ah-gee) (practice)

esta hotel aqui = is the hotel here?

esta = it is, you are

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 5:

de nada = it’s nothing

sabes = do you know (informal) (practice)

no se = i don’t know (practice)

Tienes = do you have (practice) (extra practice – i keep forgetting this one)

Tiene = do you have (more informal) (practice)

tu = you (informal)

tengo = I have (practice)

dolares = dollars

solo = only (practice)

un = a

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 6:

yo soy = I am

no tienes = you don’t have

entiendes = you understand

muy poco = very little

no mucho = not much

muchos = a lot

en = in

es = it

quantos = how many

trescientos = three hundred

doscientos = two hundred

cien = one hundred

no es muchos = it’s not much

queiro = I want

tu queires = you want

esta bien = it’s okay

donde estas = where are you

como = how

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 7:

cuesta = cost

trienta = thirty (30)

trienta y tres = thirty-three (33)

que = what

comer = eat

vamos = let’s go

a = to (“vamos a comer” = let’s go to eat)

me = I

algo = something

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 8:

cuesta = cost

al = to

o = or

refresco = soda (or just say soda)

tomar = drink (literally means “take”, though) (practice)

Spanish Level 1 – Lesson 9:

tambien = also

voy = I’m going

al donde = to where

vas = are you going

pay = pagar

Yes, also I’m going to drink = si, y tambien voy al tomar

No, you’re not going to pay = no, tu vas al pagar

nueve = nine

tiempo = time

minutos = minutes

My goal is to stay and save up $$$ in the US for 3 months before venturing off to Colombia. At that time, I need to make a schedule. So, what will I do?

Monday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Tuesday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Wednesday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Thursday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Friday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Saturday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor

Sunday:

• Work
• Practice Spanish for 1 hour with Italki or Pimsleur + walk
• Look for a new client (if I’m working on a piece, do 1 LinkedIn comment or cold email per day; if not, do 3-4)
• Watch 1 movie or 1 episode of Breaking Bad in Spanish with language reactor.

Note: Since I’m leaving for Colombia in 3 months, do 2-3 hours of Spanish per day.

Note: Copy/paste this post directly to Philip. This section is for the full-sleeve on my left arm.

Left arm full sleeve

Hey Philip,

As you already know, I’m going to get a full-sleeve tattoo which covers my entire arm. While we’re going with irezumi, I’d like the color palettes to match traditional Japanese tattoos. So, colors like black, dark green, red, and so on. Color examples are this, this, and this.

The central theme of my tattoo is mindfulness. It is a state of awareness that fully embraces the present moment and to let go of anxiety, worry, and fear.

The overarching narrative behind the tattoo is: A dragon will be flying away and carrying two lanterns in its claws. One of the lanterns will have the kanji symbol 心, which means heart and mind; the other lantern will have a 和, which means peace. Example of lantern here.

It’s also important we add a water drop or some variant of it. I don’t know where we can put it, but some cool variants I found online are this, especially the lotus variant. The original variant looks like this. You can use artistic freedom to best determine where it’d fit.

The bottom of the sleeve will have an oni mask looking up.

a heart and brain on a scale. She will be fleeing (or fighting) monsters trying to reach her, but she successfully fights them back. This represents my subconscious attempting to overwhelm me with anxiety, worry, or overthinking when I’m enjoying the present moment.

An artistic example that kinda hits the theme is here.

Right arm full sleeve

Hey Philip,

For my right arm full sleeve, since I already have a pre-existing tattoo that needs a cover-up, I want to add an oni mask that looks up. On the upper arm, we’ll have a phoenix flying upward. Throughout the tattoo, let’s have cherry blossom branches blooming with cherry blossoms themselves.

Note: Copy/paste this post directly to Elina Lavrienko.

Hey Elina,

My goal is to get a full-sleeve tattoo which covers my entire arm. This includes my upper arm, bicep, outer forearm and inner forearm. I’m a big fan of the religious/greek mythology style of tattoo. A few good examples are this, this, and this.

The central theme of my tattoo is mindfulness. It is a state of awareness that fully embraces the present moment and to let go of anxiety, worry, and fear. Since it’s an important concept to me, I figured I’d contact you to get the best artistic representation I can buy.

There are two must-have components in my sleeve tattoo:

1. A heart and brain on a scale. It represents the balance between mind and emotion. If possible, make it large enough so it doesn’t fade easily over time.
2. A water droplet similar to this. It is the symbol of mindfulness and represents the past, the future, and now. Representation here. However, unlike the heart and brain on the scale, I don’t know exactly where to put it on the tattoo. I’ll let artistic freedom decide how to fit it in.

The overarching narrative behind the tattoo is: An angel (or goddess) will be carrying a heart and brain on a scale. She will be fleeing (or fighting) monsters trying to reach her, but she successfully fights them back. This represents my subconscious attempting to overwhelm me with anxiety, worry, or overthinking when I’m enjoying the present moment.

A good artistic example is this tattoo here.

[include cover-up work]

Since I’m living with June at her apartment, I’ll be spending far less than I usually do. I’m going to be boring for 08/14/22 – 11/14/22. I’ll be making $1,560/month, so I need to try and actually MAKE money per month. To do that, I need to seriously monitor my expenses.

• Rental: $35
• Utilities (water, electricity, etc) + condo dues: $25
• Transportation: $30
• Phone and Connectivity: $10
  • Internet covered with rent.
• Food: $40
  • It’s cheaper to eat at a carinderia than restaurants. Go to Colon Market or any supermarket nearby.
  • June pays for additional +$40. Total is actually $80
• Health Insurance: $52
  • Going with SafetyWing. It’s $42/month. However, I put it on credit card, so it’s $52/month.
• Visa Renewal: $50
• Taxes: $313
• Netflix: $8
• Note: Try to have $10,000 USD before I leave the Philippines. After Resident Evil tattoo, don’t get another tattoo until I have $9,000 in the bank.

TOTAL: $556/month

TOTAL INCOME EARNED: $1006/month

NOTE: If finances remain this way, save $13,000 USD before leaving the Philippines.