Episode Transcript
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Treasa Edmond (00:00):
Welcome back to
the Boss Responses podcast.
I love today's question.
It's all about how to knowwhich advice you should pay
attention to when you're lookingto market yourself as a
freelancer.
You're going to want to listento this entire episode because
it is packed with greatinformation.
All right, let's go ahead andget into it.
If you're a freelancer,business owner or anyone who
(00:23):
deals with clients, you're inthe right place.
I'm your host, teresa Edmond.
I've been dealing with clientsand running my business for
nearly two decades and in thattime I've dealt with my share of
doubt, imposter syndrome andnot knowing what to say when a
client asked a question I wasn'tready for.
I created this podcast toempower you with the boss
(00:44):
responses you need to grow yourbusiness.
Each week, my guest co-host andI will bring you five episodes
packed with practical insights.
Monday through Thursday, weanswer your questions, and
Fridays, we dive deep to explorehow our co-hosts embrace their
role as the boss of theirbusiness.
Welcome to Boss Responses.
(01:05):
We are back for day three withJamie Brindle and Jamie.
The question today is fromPriya in Toronto, canada.
Priya says I'm working onmarketing myself better as a
freelancer, but there's so muchadvice out there that it feels
overwhelming.
I hear you, priya.
(01:25):
Should I focus on social media,cold outreach, seo or something
else?
If you were starting fromscratch today, what would be the
top three things you'd do tomarket yourself?
I love the specificity of thisquestion.
Jamie Brindle (01:41):
That's a good one
.
Let's get into it.
Let's work through this oneAgain.
I think we've referenced thisat some point this week, but the
point of social media and theinternet seems to be to
overcomplicate things, therebyfeeding the almighty algorithm.
But ultimately, let's get tobasics here.
Business is the exchange ofmoney for solutions, and the
(02:05):
bigger the solution, the moreyou get to charge for it.
But also, the more specific thesolution, the more you get to
charge for it.
And I'm getting to a point here.
Give me some grace, but we aretalking about marketing right
now.
Whether you realize it or not,oftentimes when a freelancer
tells me they're havingdifficulty finding leads, my
first question is not well, whatplatforms are you on?
(02:27):
Or are you doing email outreach?
Or what are you doing with coldmessaging?
Or what job markets are you on?
I never ask those questions.
My first question is well, whatproblem do you solve, for whom?
And usually the answer to thatquestion from this person who's
having difficulty finding leadsis very broad.
(02:47):
It's oh, I make logos forcompanies, or oh, I write stuff
for people that need stuffwritten, and immediately we have
identified their problem.
So that would be the firstthing that I have to say on this
subject is that, when it comesto marketing, if you don't have
(03:08):
a specific enough solution for aspecific enough person, you're
in trouble, because, ultimately,what you need to do to have
successful marketing is to havea target to hit, and if the
target's too big, then you can'tget specific enough about your
marketing to be effective.
So you can't get detailedenough when answering these two
(03:29):
questions.
Again, the more specific theproblem is, the more you get
charged for it, becausesomebody's coming to you saying
man, I really need to figurethis out.
Nobody seems to have the answer.
I've got a bunch of generalistsover here, but nobody that's
like an expert in solving thisparticular problem, until I
found you.
How much money do you need forme to make this thing work?
That's what you're going for,but getting that specificity in
(03:52):
your solution and your targetmarket then allows you to take
that message and put it in theright places on the internet.
Now we can talk about emails andsocial media and job markets.
What have you?
These people are in these eightLinkedIn groups or these people
are in these four subredditsall the time.
(04:14):
These people are followingthese 25 creators on Instagram
and they're always in thecomment sections reading right.
So that's the next step.
Is you go make yourselfavailable there?
Now notice I'm not talkingabout content.
Step is you go make yourselfavailable there Now, notice I'm
not talking about contentcreation yet.
Just make yourself available tobe helpful.
You're there to provide value.
You're in that Facebook group tobecome the go-to person for
(04:36):
this problem.
And guess what, if a Facebookgroup has 20,000 people in it
and a new person comes in andsays oof, I'm really having
issues with this one thing.
Watch, after six months, eightmonths of being really proactive
in that group, watch them go.
Oh, you need to talk to Priyaabout this.
Everybody starts commenting onit.
Priya, priya tag Priya, priyaPriya's got the answer for this
(04:57):
one.
And when that person with abudget to solve that problem
goes to their, their group ofpeers and 19 of them recommend
you a site unseen, that call isno longer a sales call.
You're just talking budget andschedule.
So that's where you want to be.
Then you can think aboutcontent.
I'll give you that one.
Lastly, if they want to checkyou out, give them a home base
(05:19):
to go.
Get an understanding of thevalue branding results you bring
.
I would say one last bit wouldbe to activate your network once
you've gotten that specificityin place about what problem
you're solving for whom.
Because I think a lot offreelancers who say, well, I
don't have six or seven monthsto establish credibility on
social media Like, okay, I canget specific, I'll figure that
(05:41):
out this weekend, but I need tomake money now.
I can't make money in eightweeks, eight months.
Well, take that solution andemail every person, email every
past colleague, every familymember, every friend, every
collaborator, and say, hey, I'mreally excited I'm solving this
problem for this person.
I know that you've got a robustnetwork of people that might
(06:03):
benefit from this and I'd reallyappreciate it if you pass this
around and that email becomeskind of a business card that
your friends then get to pass onyour behalf.
Treasa Edmond (06:12):
Yep, I think
we're business soulmates, jamie.
There's not much I would changeabout that at all, and I
actually walk through thisprocess with pretty much all of
my coaching clients, because,even if they're already doing it
well, there's always room forrefinement.
And one of the first things wedo is their value proposition
statement and that is narrowingdown who their audience is and
(06:36):
what service they're providingfor them.
So it's getting that really,really nailed down.
And, like you, I see so manypeople going broad on this and I
personally have always rebelledagainst niching.
It's just something that justhit me the wrong way at some
point and I never let go of ituntil the delightful Ed Gandia
(06:58):
told me well, you're aghostwriter, that means you've
already niched down.
You've just niched downhorizontally instead of
vertically, and yeah, that'saccurate, yeah, yeah.
It's very accurate and it's notsomething I wanted to hear, but
it changed my perspective alittle bit.
So there are different ways youcan do it.
So you can either get very,very specific on your service or
very, very specific on youraudience, or both.
(07:20):
And I think the sweet spot iswhen you're specific on both,
Because I don't ghostwrite forevery person.
I ghostwrite for a veryspecific type of person, and
it's not necessarily in anindustry, but it's a specific
type of client.
They have specific needs andoutcomes that they want to see
(07:42):
and I'm able to provide thosefor them.
So I had to figure that out.
And then messaging so you canfigure out where they are, and I
always say that that is three.
That's three for me.
I think that focusing on yourmessaging is super important.
You need to figure out now youknow who you're working with and
(08:04):
what you're doing for them.
You need to figure out exactlywhat problems that's solving and
it's not the problems you thinkit's solving.
You need to actually talk tohappy past clients and say when
I did this thing for you, whatproblems did I solve for you?
It's audience research.
It doesn't take that much time.
It almost always generates morework for you because they
(08:26):
remember you're alive and itreally helps you dial in that
messaging and then you figureout where they're at and add
value.
I don't ever go into a place andsay, hey, my name's Teresa, I
do book ghostwriting.
I go in and I say, hey, myname's Teresa, I'm so excited to
be here and to see what you'reworking on and how you're trying
to grow your businesses.
(08:47):
Then I offer value.
I've done this for years andany clients that didn't come
from referrals came from meoffering value.
I've not done an LOI.
Have I ever done an LOI?
I tried once and I'm prettysure I broke out in hives.
I don't like them.
I am a relational person and Ibuild my business through
(09:07):
relationships and it works.
It absolutely works.
The content creation, I think,is almost an afterthought,
because if you are adding value,you're naturally getting ideas.
For that's a really goodquestion they ask.
I bet that would make a greatblog post or I could make a
video about that.
So when you're offering value,your content is creating itself.
You're creating it where theyare because you're already there
(09:30):
with them and then you're ableto say, hey, you know what?
I just did a video about thatthe other day.
Would you like to go watch that?
So it's a circular process.
That's what marketing is andthat's what I would do.
Jamie Brindle (09:43):
Yeah, sales
become a hell of a lot easier
when you've got this kind of warchest of content that you've
amassed over the years ofanswering people's questions for
free and being valuable forfree.
That somebody talking to youabout considering working with
you is going to go well, shit,if this is what's on this side
of the pay gate, what's on theother side?
(10:05):
Like right, like what happenswhen I put money in this
person's hands Like it's just so, if they're this valuable for
free, my God, what's going tohappen when we start working
together?
So sales become fairly, fairlysimple too at that point.
Treasa Edmond (10:20):
And one of the
kind of kickbacks I get when I
recommend this to people is Idon't want to offer everything.
I don't want to offer all of myvalue for free in these
communities, because then I'vegiven everything away.
No, you've told people what todo.
You've not told them how to doit and most of the time it's not
worth their time to figure outhow.
(10:42):
They would rather say obviouslyshe knows what to do, go ahead
and hire her.
It's kind of the thing that themore value you offer, the more
valuable people believe you are.
It's just, hands down, the wayit is.
Jamie Brindle (10:56):
Yeah, I think
across the board.
When you're talking about thatparticular complaint, which I
have encountered as well, orthat pushback, or just any
pushback, even over niching downand things like that, it's okay
, work this out from their side.
So, like how you're the client,I recommend people going up
work and hire somebody once ortwice a quarter just to remind
(11:17):
themselves what it's like to bethe client, because there is
suddenly, the world looks a lotdifferent.
But think about the last timeyou encountered somebody that
told you online for free,exactly how to do something,
exactly how to get a certainresult and this person had been
working for years to acquirethis insight Was your immediate
thought okay, I'm going to goperfect this new craft over the
(11:40):
next eight or nine months, putthis to work, I'm going to do
all these.
Hang on, I'm going to find anextra two hours a day to do
these things that this person'stelling me, or did you think?
I wonder how much that guycosts.
I wonder if she's available tohire.
That's the natural birthinstinct and you might not be
able to afford them.
And then you have to kind of dosome hybrid version of do it
(12:02):
yourself and bringing onsomebody, but I think
universally, or more often thannot, the first instinct is
that's great.
This person really seems toknow what they're talking about.
That looks like a lot of work.
Would love to pay them to do it, and so I think, just think
this one out from a client'sperspective.
Treasa Edmond (12:19):
Yeah, and the
more value you offer through
that.
It prompts people who could beclients who had never even
thought about doing the thing,to think about doing the thing.
And this has happened to mewith ghostwriting thought
leadership.
I went into a group of CEOs andthey're asking questions and
one of them's, like I specializein so many things.
I'm a renaissance man.
(12:40):
I don't know what to focus onin my thought leadership and I
was able to say this is theexact process I go through with
my clients to narrow down whattheir audience wants.
And I just laid my process outthere.
I already had it written down.
It wasn't any extra work for me.
It took five minutes.
I had another person come to mewho ended up being a long-term,
(13:00):
very lucrative client.
We even ended up doing a book.
Who said I'd never thoughtabout doing it, but seeing your
process made me understand thatI actually do have value to add
and now I want to do that.
Can I work with you to do that?
Yep, and we did so.
It's value pays in spades.
(13:21):
And another thing I mentionedthe audience research figuring
out what problems you're solvingfor your audience.
Don't tell your audience whatyou think they want to know,
answer the questions theyalready have.
Because when we this is one ofthe things I see my B2B clients
doing wrong when we tell ourclients or our prospective
(13:45):
audience what we want them toknow this is a great product, it
does all of these things theydon't care.
They do not care.
They want to know how itimpacts their life, how it makes
life easier for them, how itsolves a problem for them.
And if you're not doing one ofthose three things, then you're
doing marketing wrong.
Jamie Brindle (14:04):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean.
And also, if we're talking inthe context of social media,
it's the same with the platformsthat you're trying to gain
reach on measure whether or notthey want to push your content
out by the same standard.
Is this content valuable to us?
Meaning, is this contenthelping us serve people?
More ads?
(14:24):
So that's the way.
Social media, that's the pointof the algorithm.
So it's.
Am I making content that isvaluable to people, keeping them
on the platform long enough,thereby being valuable to
Facebook or LinkedIn or whathave you?
So there really is no end tothe benefits that value is going
to have on your business,putting valuable content out.
Treasa Edmond (14:42):
Now I want to
jump on one of my soapboxes
really quickly, because we'vealready gone pretty long on this
question.
When you are marketing whereveryou're marketing, especially
social media make sure you'remarketing to the right audience.
I see so many freelancers whoare only marketing to other
freelancers.
Your clients really don't care.
(15:02):
They really don't like seeingyou complain about your clients.
They have no inkling that yourprocess matters at all.
What they want to see is theresults you're getting for other
clients and when you talk aboutthose, when you talk about your
clients in a positive way, youtalk about the problems you're
solving.
You're talking about how tomake their life easier.
(15:23):
That's what matters.
If you spend 20, 50, 80% of yourtime, or even all of your time,
saying, hey, this is what I do,when I do this, that is only
applicable to someone else who'sdoing what you're doing.
It's not applicable to yourclients.
So be careful with that.
I know it's easier to connectwith other freelancers.
(15:43):
It's easier to learn from otherfreelancers.
Do that in a private forum, notthe places you're marketing for
your clients.
Jamie Brindle (15:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Treasa Edmond (15:51):
Make a second
account.
All right, that's day three.
Jamie Brindle (16:01):
Tomorrow,
tomorrow we're looking at
getting ghosted, you ever beenghosted, jamie, I'm sure I have.
Treasa Edmond (16:04):
Who hasn't?
I have too?
Yeah, All right.
So tomorrow we're talking aboutgetting ghosted, and what do we
do when that happens?
See you tomorrow.