Sadly enough, a big part of me making the move to Australia was an urge to learn to surf. (I’m aware that there are a lot of other places I could have learnt to surf that wouldn’t have required me relocating half the world away, but that’d be too easy.)
I’ve already been in Australia for four months but spent a lot of that time looking for and starting a new job, which meant not doing much of anything in my spare until I started replenishing the small amount of money in my bank account.
I was looking into surfing lessons around the same time as I read an article on medium by Garin Etcheberry “How I Landed 5 Dream Jobs In One Month By Giving Away My Best Ideas”, it’s a great way to connect with people and could help you on your way to getting your dream job.
I’m already happy with my job, so I thought I’d try this approach to get some free surfing lessons.
As my area of expertise is in internet marketing I decided to send out emails offering advice and my services to surf schools and surfing instructors with websites in exchange for free lessons.
The Result
While preparing a basic template email that could be padded out with the changes I would advise making for each different website, I sent a test out to the first website I’d found that looked like it could use some help.
The next day I checked my inbox and had a reply from the owner, here’s what it said:
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for you email,
Yes that’s fine, sounds like a good deal.
How can we go about it and when did you want to get started with your lessons?
Kind regards,
Ryan
Ryan offered me a free full day lesson where we talked over lunch about how I could help improve his website and digital marketing efforts. From a single email I gained free surfing lessons for the foreseeable future and a new client to add to my portfolio of work, not bad.
Update: I’m working on a completely new website for Ryan with the goal of eventually re-branding and replacing his old business. This gives me the experience of designing and developing a website, and going through the whole re-brand process.
I’ve now had my second lesson and was able to bring along a friend for free. We both had a great day and are really looking forward to the next lesson!
