Positioning for Freelancers
Positioning is every activity that anchors you in the mind of the people who would benefit from giving you money. These are the 12 steps from my talk for freelancers.
Key takeaways
- Your peer group does not hire you. Position yourself for the people who do: CEOs, CTOs, PMs, clients in pain.
- Start with the why, choose one or two archetypes, write a one-sentence claim and 3 to 6 USPs.
- Work three channels regularly. One of them is your own newsletter.
- Only successful clients bring more clients, so drop clients that cannot execute and ask the others to refer you.
- Future clients must experience you at least 3 times, up to 8 times, in independent channels.
This is the gist of a talk I gave at a mini conference. My definition:
All activities with the goal to anchor yourself into the mind of your prospective future customers.
What the definition means
| Part | Meaning |
|---|---|
| yourself | You as a freelancer, a non-scaleable product, a service provider. Your service, your company, your brand. The brand is a recursive target: it includes all the others. |
| anchor yourself into the mind | Whenever the client thinks of a challenge within your domain, they think of you and perceive you as a way forward, based on their intrinsic motivation. |
| your prospective future customers | People who would benefit from giving you money. Your current customers are future customers too. |
1) Ignore your peer group, focus on those who would benefit from giving you money
Nearly all freelancers I meet - especially developers - confuse their prospective future clients with their peer group. Developers don’t hire freelance developers:
| Freelancer | Hired by |
|---|---|
| Developer | CEOs, CTOs, PMs |
| UX | CEOs, PMs, Marketing |
| Massage therapist | Clients in pain |
| SEO | CEOs, CMOs, sometimes CTOs, VP Growth, PMs |
| Welder | Forepersons that need welding done |
These people need something done that they can not do themselves. Network with your peer group, position yourself for people who would benefit from giving you money.
When networking, don’t be an a**hole. In positioning you might choose to be one: companies might benefit from hiring those, your network never will.
Don’t let your peer group hold you back
A friend of mine, an extraordinary Ruby developer and great UX guy, is afraid to say exactly that, because he knows better Ruby programmers and better UX people. It does not matter: his future clients would benefit massively if he communicated his skillset straightforwardly.
I wrote a book about no b*llshit SEO only after I realized there are zero benefits in caring what other SEOs think about my writing. It is solely for people who benefit from buying, reading and executing it.
Most of my international clients reached out to me thanks to the book. Would I have cared about my peer group, it would have been a horrible book, and I would have never written it.
2) Positioning takes energy: don’t take it too seriously, but do it
- Positioning - like any kind of marketing - takes effort and time, on top of everything else you are doing.
- Most freelancers just don’t do it, even if they read the books. Ideas without execution are worthless.
My only tip: don’t take it too seriously and have fun. What is serious and no fun, we don’t do.
For reading I always go for the classics, in this order: Repositioning, then Positioning.
3) Why first, then how, then what
Most people describe their work in this order and never reach the why:
- What? I am a JavaScript developer.
- How? I develop JavaScript applications in React.
- Why? …
We do not identify with roles, products or processes, we identify with values. Communicated values are what differentiates Nike from Reebok, Google from Microsoft, you from them. So start with the why:
- Why? The web is the ultimate platform and enables real-time iteration over prototype to final product, easy accessibility & worldwide instant distribution - a direct connection and communication with your clients without monopolistic gatekeepers.
- How? I develop JavaScript applications in React.
- (What? I am a JavaScript developer.)
After the why and the how, the what is often no longer necessary. The concept is attributed to a TED Talk by Simon Sinek, but well, I don’t watch videos, so i.d.k.
4) Choose your communication archetype and stay true to it
- The Outlaw is all about revolution and liberation.
- The Magician makes the impossible possible.
- The Hero wants to prove himself against all opposition.
- The Lover becomes part of intimate moments and feelings.
- The Jester spreads enjoyment.
- The Everyman wants to be relatable.
- The Caregiver just wants to be there for you.
- The Ruler has everything under control.
- The Creator innovates.
- The Innocent is virtuous and content.
- The Sage is in pursuit of knowledge.
- The Explorer seeks freedom.
Resource on brand archetypes: https://iconicfox.com.au/brand-archetypes/
Choose one or two. If you choose two, amalgamate them into one persona. Then stay in role:
- Jump around randomly and you are seen as a madman. Madmen hardly get hired.
- Change your archetype for each client and you are perceived as a bootlicker.
Choose it yourself, and against the majority
Don’t let your clients choose your archetype: it might not fit your personality. Your peer group does not matter here either. If the majority of your competition chooses one archetype, do the opposite.
Developers often position themselves as creators, sometimes as caregivers. Be an outlaw, a sage, a ruler or even a lover instead. If you do what everybody else does, you just do what everybody else does. That’s basically the opposite of positioning.
5) Work on a one-sentence claim
Your claim is one (1) sentence on what makes you special, different and, if possible, unique: the one thing people who would benefit from giving you money should remember about you.
| Who | Claim |
|---|---|
| Me | Our goal is to make all SEO companies, including our own, redundant. |
| Bett1.de | Germany’s most sold mattress. |
| Nike | Just do it. |
| What I would recommend to my Ruby/UX friend | Data based User Experience focused Ruby development based on 15 years of experience. |
The better your past positioning success, the more abstract the claim can become: compare mine with Nike’s. A claim should hint at your values and make potential customers curious about you.
6) Get 3 to 6 USPs that are untrue for your competition
Your claim is what makes you, you. Your USPs (unique selling propositions) are what make you better than anything your future clients might compare you to.
The claim of https://www.tourradar.com/ is “Tour & Experience Incredible Destinations: Search, compare & book over 40,000 multi-day tours around the world.”
| Who | USPs |
|---|---|
| tourradar.com | Best Selection (of tours), Secure Payments, Best Price Guarantee, 24/7 Support |
| Me as a freelancer | No Bullshit SEO, Awesome Workshops, Data Based Decision Making |
USPs are usually half sentences. You should have between 3 and 6, definitely more than 0. The short list tells potential customers:
- What your values are.
- What you solve for them.
- Why you are better.
The test: prepend the name of your competition.
- “%any competition brand% %your USP%” is true → not a USP.
- “%any competition brand% %your USP%” is false → a good USP.
- Only ever true with your brand → a perfect USP.
7) Get very comfortable talking about yourself - you are your product
As a freelancer you are most likely your product: a non-scaleable service provider. So talk about yourself - a lot.
Imagine you added a feature to an open-source software that will change the world, the core maintainer merged it enthusiastically, and you can’t stop telling everybody. Talk about yourself that excited when people who might benefit from giving you money are in the room.
Start with your claim and work in your USPs, then extend on everything else.
- Your peer group is in the room too: they might think you slightly narcissistic. It does not matter.
- Only your peer group is in the room and you keep talking about yourself: then you are narcissistic.
8) Choose three channels and work them, a lot
Channels are the opportunities to talk about yourself. Some you own, some you earn over time, some you buy. Examples in no specific order:
- Networking events
- Meetups
- Emails
- Business cards
- Coffee talk
- Website
- Startpage
- Every other page of your website
- Newsletter
- Youtube
- Conferences
- Mentorships
- Initial business talks
- Drinks
- Ads
- SEO
- SEA
- Press releases
- Medium
How to work them:
- Choose three channels. One of them is your own newsletter: collect email addresses, feed them into your distribution list, send out regularly.
- Work each one regularly, in whatever interval makes sense for the channel. Positioning value gets created over time.
- If you don’t see value in a channel after half a year, try another one.
9) Be and stay trustworthy
If you are untrustworthy, all your positioning work was for naught. Trustworthiness spreads much faster than your positioning message, especially a negative one.
- Never promise to deliver something that you can’t deliver.
- Never say yes when you mean no.
- Stand your ground.
- If you fail, say so and take all responsibility.
- If you win, share praise with everyone involved evenly.
10) Win with clients who execute, then ask to get referred
- You need wins: successful projects, successful launches.
- So you need clients who want to and can execute and deliver.
- Don’t waste time with dysfunctional clients that can’t execute, no matter how much they pay.
- Only successful projects and clients will bring you more clients.
Your successful clients are your best channel. Use them as a reference and let them use you as one. Then actively ask them to refer you:
- Tell them to what kind of potential future clients you want to be referred, and what interests you.
- Remind them of your claim and USPs.
Quite a lot of devs take on projects “because of the money” even though they know “it will lead to nothing.” Clients must have value besides the money they pay. If they don’t, don’t work with them.
11) Create a scaleable product and let it market you
As a freelancer you are an unscaleable product. So:
- Create a scaleable product.
- Market your scaleable product.
- Let the product market you.
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My book is sold as a good looking print book (there is also an e-book) for a reason: I want it in the hands, offices and libraries of my clients and potential future clients. It is scaleable, and it markets me.
- Make a mini-app, a book, a poster, a hand sanitizer, a mask, a sports shoe: a real product for whatever your niche is.
- Make it physical if possible, digital if possible, both if possible.
- Sell it and give it away. Both.
- No typical business swag (cups, t-shirts, USB drives) with your logo on it. Soulless logo swag comes from walking-dead marketing teams with too much money.
12) Repeat: future clients must experience you 3 to 8 times
Positioning visualized again.
Potential future clients must experience you multiple times, in independent channels and different contexts, until you are in “here”: at least 3 times, up to 8 times.
A lot of your messaging, newsletters, talks, postings and emails will get ignored, so do it a lot. Always in your archetype, and without becoming untrustworthy.