It’s really hard to find good people.
I help my clients hire countless freelancers and agencies each year, and I still struggle to determine who will be capable or not without some degree of scrutiny.
The reality is, you never know how capable someone is until you work with them. And if it’s difficult for me—someone who’s been doing this a long time—you better believe this is difficult for your potential clients when they’re looking for someone like you.
So how do you make yourself a more obvious and less risky choice for your ideal clients?
It comes down to looking good on paper.
Some ways you could do that include:
- Specific and differentiated positioning
- A professional-looking website
- Content published consistently and recently that clearly demonstrates your expertise
- Case studies, work examples, and testimonials
- Recognizable clients
- A multi-year history doing what you do
- Past record of speaking, teaching, and/or guesting on relevant podcasts
- Associations with trusted people in your industry
- Services that are specific and clearly communicated
- Third-party signals, such as LinkedIn recommendations and a social following
As marketers, we often put our marketing last. The cobbler’s kids have no shoes, as they say.
Or, more commonly, we look undifferentiated from the sea of other options out there. We try to be all things to all people.
Before you go trying to build an audience on LinkedIn or Twitter, or before you reach out to your prospective clients and industry peers, make yourself look good on paper.
Have a place to invite people back to, as Michael Port would say.
Have a website that communicates and houses most or all of the above. Build your credibility signals. Make yourself different in some meaningful way. Specialize, if you can.
If you don’t look good on paper, there’s a good chance people won’t know how valuable you really are. And that means they won’t hire you.
Look good on paper. It will make it easier for clients to find you and for people to refer you.
After all, we’re in the de-risking business. Let’s make hiring you less risky.
—kw
P.S. Have you seen the new membership tiers? Check em’ out.