What’s the best website for freelancers looking for work in digital marketing, content writing, designing, etc.?
With your skills, you have everything you need to make *your own* website the best website for your freelance business.
- You can write content, which means you can write articles that position you as an expert — and then write copy to get clients to inquire about your services
- You can design, which means you can design a freelance website to highlight your skills, your portfolio, and the results you can achieve for your clients
- You know digital marketing, which means you know how to promote yourself and your website so that it generates sales opportunities for your business
That’s the perfect stack to build your own website that attracts clients for you. Don’t bother with freelance websites.
Your skills remind of me Matt Olpinski, a freelancer/consultant featured in my article on the best consultant websites:
Here’s what Matt had to say about his freelancing website:
The main reason why I have the website is because I don’t want to waste time, money, and energy on chasing down new clients. Instead, I want them to come to me. I accomplish this by leveraging my website to put myself online in the places I know clients are already looking.
If you google “Freelance UX Designer NY” or “Freelance UI Designer New York”, my website is #2 or #3 in Google results. That visibility yields hundreds of leads each year, which translates into a lot of work and subsequently, a high income.
Don’t waste your time, money, and energy chasing down new clients. Let your website do that for you!
What does a “management consultant” really do that the company management can not do, other than eliminating workers with impunity? I want to see real job statements not just a word salad?
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
—E.F. Schumacher
Management consultants are notorious for jargon, corporatespeak, and word salads.
David C. Baker bucks this trend.
He’s an independent management consultant who communicates about what he does with clarity. And unlike many other management consultants, he provides tremendous value for his clients.
Here’s an example of what he does taken from one of his services pages:
I’ll make many recommendations, but the four areas we’ll examine the most closely are these:
The first is benchmarking. How does your firm compare with other firms like yours. How do you score in all the metrics that might be worth watching, and where specifically are you scoring in the eight most important ones.
The second is positioning, marketing best practices, and lead generation strategies to find clients who need you and would find it difficult to locate a suitable substitute. This is designed to provide more control over your business life and significant expertise that is worth more in the marketplace.
The third is staffing and structuring roles. This work is based on a significant primary research study I began in 1998 and have since spent $340,000 on, primarily by surveying, profiling, and interviewing 23,000+ people, individually, all in this field. This data resides nowhere else. I’ll apply it to you, explaining how much of each function you need, what profiles you might look for in certain positions, and how to avoid the dangerous combinations that render even great employees ineffective.
The fourth is systems to move your environment from a deadline-driven one to a profit-driven one, all without losing the culture that’s important to you. Your client is very aware of the deadlines, which means that you watch them, too. But the client doesn’t care if you are profitable on any given project or even the entire relationship. We’ll explain several dozen methods to move work through your firm to enhance its effectiveness, generate greater profit, and still meet deadlines.
Compare that with the copy from your average consulting website:
THE RIGHT STRATEGY: Before you invest in scaling your business, make sure you have a sound strategy that differentiates you from your competition and delivers exceptional value to your core customer.
THE RIGHT PEOPLE: Without a strong culture and getting the right people in the right seats, doing the right things, you’ll struggle to get traction and see sustainable progress.
THE RIGHT PROCESS: Scaling a business quickly and profitably takes a disciplined system of choosing the right priorities, setting clear goals, and aligning your team behind them with clear success metrics and accountability.
Which one do you trust more?
Which one is easier to understand?
Which one seems more like an expert?
The former. It’s specific, procedural, and free of jargon.
The latter is vague, generic, and cliche.
“Management consulting” is a catch-all term. It can mean many things. And to be fair to them, it can be difficult to explain an abstract service like “management consulting.” Compare that with something like “carpet cleaning” or “web design” and you’ll get my point.
But if you’re going to position yourself as an expert — someone who consults (provides advice) on management (running a business) — being a good writer is the cost of entry.
Pay very close attention to a management consultant’s writing ability. The more they obfuscate their language with jargon, corporatespeak, and word salads, the lower the chance that they create tangible value for their clients.
But a management consultant who makes it easy for you to understand what they do can be worth their weight in gold.
How do I get people to notice my site?
People notice things that are relevant to them.
So, if you want people to notice your site, you need to make yourself — and your site— relevant to them.
First, you need to get specific about the word “people.”
Who, exactly, do you want to notice your site?
Web design clients? Soccer fans? Coffee drinkers?
The question is much easier to answer when you get specific about people:
- How do I get web design clients to notice my site?
- How do I get soccer fans to notice my site?
- How do I get coffee drinkers to notice my site?
Second, you need to get specific about what you can provide for people.
What can you provide for web design clients?
What can you provide for soccer fans?
What can you provide for coffee drinkers?
Then, we can change the question again:
- What can I provide for web design clients so that they notice my site?
- What can I provide for soccer fans so that they notice my site?
- What can I provide for coffee drinkers so that they notice my site?
Third, and finally, you need to use your site to provide people with what they are looking for.
That’s where SEO comes into play.
What are web design clients typing into Google?
Maybe: “how to make a beautiful website”
What are soccer fans typing into Google?
Maybe: “manchester united news”
What are coffee drinkers typing into Google?
Maybe: “how to make the perfect espresso”
When you provide value and answers to what they are looking for using your site, they will notice your site.
Don’t expect people to notice it unless it provides value for them.
Websites that are more about the people you want to serve — rather than yourself — are the ones that get noticed.
What should you do if you hate making sales calls?
If you hate making sales calls, you have two options:
- View sales calls from a different perspective
- Stop doing sales calls
View sales calls from a different perspective
If you hate making sales calls, chances are you’re introverted. You don’t like the idea of promoting yourself or pushing someone to buy something.
Good news! That is not what sales is about.
Instead of thinking of sales like “trying to get someone to buy something”…
…think of it like having a conversation about your prospect: learning about their problems, desires, and worldview.
Shift ALL of the focus of the call from you (or your product) to your prospect.
Stop talking, and start listening. It’s like an interview about them.
Then, if you’re confident that you’re product can help solve their problem, bring them closer to their desired future, and aligns with their worldview, tell them about your product.
And if you don’t think it will help them, be honest and tell them. Thank them for their time and wish them good luck. You should never pressure anyone into buying something you don’t believe will help them.
Approach sales by focusing on your prospect and removing yourself from the outcome. It’s way more fun. Every sales call becomes an opportunity to either learn about someone new — and maybe even help them!
Stop doing sales calls
You don’t have to talk to people on the phone to make sales.
You can sell your product through:
- Face to face meetings
- Landing pages
- Emails
Now, this depends on your product’s pricing.
Generally, for higher-priced products, people want to speak to someone before buying.
But for anything less than $1000, you can sell it without speaking to your prospective customer.
If you’re really good, you can sell products up to $3000 without ever calling them.
I would know, because I’ve bought $2500 products without ever speaking to someone about it. I felt like I was ready to buy after reading the landing page and some emails.
To do this, you need to get really good at content marketing and copywriting.
You may also have to change your product’s pricing. At a high enough price, prospects will want to speak with you on the phone. And some products just require a call or meeting — generally ones that require customization.
Sales is a fundamental part of your business. If you don’t like sales, then reframe how you view it — but don’t get stuck thinking you have to do sales calls.