In today’s issue, I’m going to show you how to 4x your freelance rates.
Seriously. 4x.
Most of the freelancers I coach make between $50 and $75 per hour when we start working together. Many of them end up making $200 – $300 per hour by the time we’re done.
How do things change for them so dramatically?
They’re not suddenly 10x as productive. They’re not substantially more experienced. And their natural skills and personalities certainly haven’t changed. My coaching program only runs 3 months. And while I think it’s an amazing value, I’m not a miracle worker.
So what changes?
Their positioning. The way they describe themselves.
How can changing the way you talk about yourself lead to 4x the revenue?
Brooklin Nash from Peak Freelance illustrated this perfectly:
Unfortunately, 95% of freelancers will never get their positioning right.
Skill + Experience ≠ Revenue
Most of the freelancers I meet think clients evaluate freelancers the same way they do employees.
They believe that skill and experience determine hourly rates.
This thinking causes skilled developers to spend months learning new tech stacks and brilliant designers to constantly tinker with their portfolios, only to end up earning the same hourly rates.
So what should you do instead?
As Matt Olpinski says, think like a client!
When clients hire freelancers, they’re not hiring another employee to “fill a role”. They’re hiring you to help them get a specific business result.
They don’t want code or design. They want to increase revenue or decrease costs.
So describing yourself as your functional skill—“I’m a React developer”—or experience—“I’ve been a UX designer for 8 years”—falls flat.
Put simply, you’re not speaking their language.
Let’s fix this.
Uncover Your Client’s Burning Need
Pretend you’re talking to an ecommerce client looking for help launching the next version of their website.
Most freelancers leap headfirst into scoping the project. They ask questions like: What will I be designing? What am I building?
Resist this temptation!
Your first job is to understand why. Because, as Samantha Anderl from Harlow notes:
So what’s causing them to want a new version of their website?
- Is the old site painful and slow to update? Does that cause the marketing team to waste countless hours and thousands of dollars of time? Decreasing costs.
- Are conversion rates low? Increasing revenue.
- Is it something else?
Either way, your first step is to uncover this burning need.
The team at the Timing app put it succinctly: identify a client’s pain points right away!
Focus on the End Result
Uncovering the burning need is half the battle. The other half? Positioning yourself as the ideal person to solve that problem.
Shift your mindset from selling services, to selling outcomes.
Andrea Wildt, Harlow
To do that, focus on the end result rather than your functional skills.
Step 1: Start With a Vision
Pretend it’s 3 years in the future. You’re writing a press release about what you’ve accomplished for your clients.
What types of examples would you cite? What metrics could you share?
Write down specifics; things like:
- Increased conversions by 37% for Acme, Inc.
- Increased Average Order Value by 28% ABC Corp.
- Doubled User Retention for ZZZ LLC
- Decreased cost of site maintenance by 42%
Step 2: Align Your Methods with the Result
Once you’ve got that vision in mind, think through the tactics, tools, and approaches you’ll use to accomplish these types of results.
Sure, you’ll be coding, designing, writing, or marketing.
But how do you approach these tasks? Do you have a specific methodology you use? Are there complimentary skills or approaches you can layer in?
Would adding in a bit of A/B Testing, Funnel Analysis, or CRO improve the end result for your client?
What about site speed optimization or user interviews?
NOTE: It’s okay if you don’t have all of these skills just yet. You can start small here and layer in skills as you start to pick them up. Remember: a little positioning goes a long way! Just having a point of view will set you apart from the vast majority of freelancers.
Step 3: Align Your Methods with the Result
Finally, put it all together by crafting a vision statement.
If you’re just looking for a competent {ROLE}, there are plenty of options out there. But my clients like to work with me because I don’t just {WRITE CODE/CREATE MOCKUPS/ETC}. I also partner with them to {SOLVE KEY PROBLEM} by {APPROACHES}.
For example, since I started working with {PAST CLIENT} we’ve increased {METRIC} by {X%}. I’d love to do the same for your business.
If you don’t have any real examples to cite yet, that’s okay. You can drop the sentence starting with “for example” for now. As soon as you land a client, your primary objective in terms of growing your business is to get that case study that you can use.
Shout Your Positioning From the Hilltops
Once you’ve refined your positioning, use it in every touchpoint.
Put it front and center on your website.
Use it on calls with new clients to describe what you do.
Eventually, you may even want to turn this into a bold promise like Austin Church recommends or think out loud about what leads to great results like David C Baker discussed in his interview on Brand Master Academy.
We’ve talked about the financial impact, but the day-to-day impact this will make on your business is just as huge.
When clients view you as an expert, they’re more willing to take your advice. They tend to care less about arbitrary deadlines. There’s even less scope creep.
What would your life look like with all that extra flexibility?
Don’t Overthink It
If the above steps feel risky to you, Brennan Dunn has some fantastic advice for you: stop overthinking it!
You don’t have to go all-in or change your entire focus overnight.
The easiest way to get started with positioning is to treat it like an experiment. The beauty of using Lean Startup methodology as a freelancer is that it makes it easier to take small risks that could radically transform your business.
So when in doubt, just get started.
So how about you? How do you position your business?
What advice you’d give to a developer who’s struggling to decide what “complimentary skills” to learn?
I’ve never been much of a designer and learning that seems like it’d take a ton of work! Am I overthinking?
Great question, Walter!
My advice is to think of this an opportunity to learn just enough to be dangerous.
You don’t have to be a world-class expert at any of these new skills to apply this strategy. Josh Kaufman’s book The First 20 Hours is a fantastic starting point here: the central idea is that, with a strategic approach to learning, you can learn enough to be competent at any skill in about 20 hours. I’ve tried this approach out numerous times over the past few years and it’s helped me pick up several new skills quickly.
If you’re not visually inclined, you might consider conversion rate optimization (CRO) or User Experience instead of visual design. Both of those skillsets use many of the same raw talents (e.g. strategic thinking and a methodical, engineering-like approach) that most developers have in spades.
Hey, Tim I am a high school student and I have very poor communication skills. I mean I can communicate with anyone thought text easily, but when it comes to speaking on a call, I am terrible.
Hey Ayush!
Not sure why you feel like you’re terrible on calls, but keep working at it. You’ll get there!
If the issue is not knowing what to say, I recommend checking out a book called The Introvert’s Edge. It’s a great primer on how to think about sales.
If it’s a language barrier or a speech issue, consider getting a coach.
But most important, keep trying and keep experimenting.