How to Build a Portfolio That Attracts High-Paying Clients

387. Does your portfolio match your aspirations

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Brian: [00:00:00] Everybody wants higher quality clients. But does your portfolio actually back that up, or is your portfolio actively pushing those higher quality clients away? In this episode, I wanna walk you through how to actually upgrade your portfolio so that you're Attractive to your ideal clients instead of repelling to your ideal clients.

Brian: this is the number one reason you're unable to attract the clients that you want right now because they look at your current work, your current portfolio, and they think, man, not for me.

Brian: So we need to fix that. And if you make it to the end of this episode, I'll also give you what I think is like the secret that most portfolios are missing, and it's the easiest way to make everything look better than it actually might be. It's kinda like the cheat code, but that's towards the end of the episode.

Brian: if you're new here. Hi, I'm Brian Hood. This is the six Figure Creative podcast.

Brian: And this podcast is for creative freelancers who, A, take their businesses seriously, but B, they wanna make more money without selling their souls. You got into this because you're probably passion first, but it takes more than passion, unfortunately, and there are 386 other episodes to help you with a lot of different things.

Brian: But the portfolio [00:01:00] is the topic for today.

Brian: Because again, we all want higher quality clients, but if you have an underwhelming portfolio or a portfolio that might even be detracting, actively detracting from you getting clients, that's going to continue to hold you back and it's gonna be essentially like you're racing at a full sprint up, a 20% incline.

Brian: I don't even if that can be done. 20 percent's a lot. You're gonna be tempting to sprint uphill at 20% incline and that's brutal, but it builds for a good butt. Get those glutes. Alright, let's talk about this. So first thing I wanna talk about before we even get into the specifics of building a portfolio is just to think through, step back for a second and think what sort of projects do you actually want?

Brian: lot of freelancers are so genuinely, so desperate, they will take anything. When you are trying to take anything, there's no focus. You're essentially trying to boil the ocean.

Brian: So if you can't be honest with yourself about what sort of work you want to be known for, if you can't plant a flag in the ground first and foremost and say, I wanna be known for this, then this is not really gonna matter. You can try to have great portfolio pieces, but you're just not going to be someone who's amazing at all the potential things in the world that are out there.

Brian: You're just not gonna be attractive to everybody. So the second you realize that you're not gonna be attractive to [00:02:00] everybody, but you could be wildly attractive to the right person, that's where portfolio should start.

Brian: Now we have other episodes on niching down and trying to find a,blue ocean instead of a red ocean.

Brian: And I encourage you to go check those episodes out. one of those is episode 339, how Freelancers Can Win Without Competing on Price. It's the Blue Ocean Trio. I thinkstarts at episode 3 39. So just go to six figure creative.com/ 3 3 9.

Brian: Or you could even go way back to episode 209 where I interviewed Michael Woods. The episode was called Choosing a Niche that attracts your best clients and Repels the worst. Those are kind of two to maybe go before you really worry about the portfolio if you can't solidify or focus on something specific.

Brian: Maybe start there,

Brian: but if you know what sort of work you wanna be known for, which is a lot of people to listen to this podcast, if you've been listening for any number of months or years, or just binged a lot of episodes recently, you probably have a good idea of like the stuff you want to be known for. But the next step is kill anything on your portfolio that doesn't align with that.

Brian: it's the, like, I've planted my flag in the ground, but I really wanna hold onto these other areas 'cause I might get a project over there.

Brian: The more you try to be known for other things outside of your one thing that you're known [00:03:00] for, the more you try to be known for those other things.The less you'll be known for anything. So go back to episode 364, the title of the podcast is called Your Portfolio Looks like a Cheesecake Factory Menu.

Brian: And it's embarrassing kind of the subtitles, the portfolio paradox. The paradox is essentially this, the larger your portfolio, the more you think you're gonna appeal to everybody, like a Cheesecake Factory menu. But Cheesecake Factory is probably the only restaurant they can get away with having a menu that large and actually being able to fulfill on it, and actually the food being pretty damn good, least in my opinion.

Brian: Or the things that I've gotten there. Your portfolio should be smaller focused, but incredible. It should be like you're going to a tasting menu, an eight course tasting menu at an amazing restaurant. They're not gonna have chicken nuggets in the back for you. I'm sorry. And that's okay. You don't wanna be the chicken nugget guy or gal.

Brian: So we've taken stock of our current portfolio. This is the area I want to focus on, and I've killed everything that's out of that. Now what do we do? This is where most people will be at this point.

Brian: they'll have some portfolio left over, or you even already built a pretty focused niche portfolio, but it's not to the level that you need it to be in order to level up your clientele. Now, I hate the generic phrase level up. If you ever use it in copywriting, please just [00:04:00] remove yourself from writing copy ever again.

Brian: AI's horrible at that. It'll use the word level up or next level all the time, andit's horrible AI copy. But there's some truth to right now, everyone's at a certain level. To get to the next level, it requires a next step up in quality or portfolio. And if your skillset is there, but your clientele is not, your clientele could be holding you back.

Brian: For example, you might have a,level 10 skillset with a level five clientele. And if you put those two things together, it will not show off like a level 10 skillset. It it'll be like a very watered down level 10. It might be a level six or level seven skillset. You can make those level five, clients look a little better.

Brian: They look a little bit better, but they're not gonna look level 10. But that's what your skillset is. So everyone thinks you're level six or level seven. These are arbitrary numbers, arbitrary levels, but it gets the idea across.

Brian: So how do we get the level 10 skillset and the level 10 portfolio pieces if we don't already have those? There are a few ways to go about this. I'm gonna start with the easiest and then we'll work our way to the hardest, but I need to reiterate, this is one of the most important things that you can do.

Brian: Good luck ever getting paid ads to work. [00:05:00] That's not even a prayer if you don't have a portfolio that's attractive to people. But you'll also struggle to get people in your immediate network who already know I can trust you to want to work with you if you're not the best fit for the. Skillset that you have.

Brian: For example, if I know two graphic designers, and I'm friends with both of them, but one graphic designer has a better portfolio than the other, I'm gonna send all my friends or contacts to the better graphic designer, even if I like both of them equally. Hell, even if I like someone else more, I'm not gonna expend my relational capital just because I like this person more.

Brian: I'm not gonna send my friends or my family or my colleagues to the inferior graphic designer knowing that I have someone else better that I can send them to. That's how most people are gonna operate. They're gonna send somebody to the best fit for them. And it may not be that each of those graphic designers have a better skillset than each other.

Brian: It's just that one has a better clientele. anyone who's been doing this for a while, you know that in order to make your skillset look as good as possible. You need to work with the best clients possible. This is just and true in web design, working with big brands who actually have the resources [00:06:00] and the products to sell and the services to sell that are worth selling.

Brian: Or in my background, music production. The bands and the artist who are the best musicians, who write the best songs, the better band is gonna make my skillset look. Infinitely better than the inferior little local band who's barely has two pennies of scratch Together. Those people, and I said pennies there in case you misheard me.

Brian: Those people are going to struggle immensely to make me look good. And if all I ever work with is those little small, local bands are the little small mom and pop shops who have terrible products, terrible services, who don't really care or value your skillset. If that's all you're working with, that's all you're gonna attract.

Brian: That's all they're gonna refer to you. That's all you'll ever be known for. So how do we break out of that? How do we get to that next tier, that next level? How do we get up the ladder, the staircase, whatever you, whatever analogy you wanna use here,

Brian: we've gotta force it to happen. There's a couple ways around this. The easiest to start if you have the skillset, is to just build out your own portfolio. This works well in many freelance niches since you usually have some sort of skillset to build from scratch. So obviously if you're a web [00:07:00] designer, you can build whatever website you want.

Brian: Or if you don't have the skillset, maybe you're a music producer for example, and you don't have all the skills required to play all the instruments and be the great vocalist and have the great songs, you don't have all those skills. That's where we find ideal clients and do the work for free.

Brian: AKA spec work.

Brian: Now this next thing I'm gonna say is something I've been saying since, I mean, at least for the past decade. It's the brutally honest truth. But if you can't get somebody of the level that you wanna work with, so whatever level you're at, let's just say you're level five and you're trying to get level seven, right?

Brian: If you can't get the level seven people to work with you for free. Then you are nowhere close to being ready for paid gigs at that level,

Brian: and that's a time to reflect inwardly to see what skill gaps you might have and that you need to improve upon to be more attractive to those higher caliber people. Because if the skillset's, the thing holding you back, then there's gonna be very few options. You have to get your portfolio to that next level, and it's gonna be even less likely that you'll get someone to pay you at that upper level, if not impossible.

Brian: And so you'll be stuck. You'll be plateaued [00:08:00] because of your skillset and nothing else. Now this podcast is relatively unique in the fact that we only talk about the business side. Of running your freelance business. We don't talk about the skill sets. Every single niche that's out there, from web design to graphic design, to branding, to music production, to mixing, to mastering, and all the little ancillary things and very niche, narrow things.

Brian: There are skillset resources out there, courses, podcasts, YouTube channels, coaching programs to help you with the skillset. And if that's the thing, holding you back, focus there for the rest of you where your skillset. Isn't properly lined up with the clientele the opposite direction, where you should be working with bigger and better clients because your skillset is aligned with those bigger and better clients, then you shouldn't have any problems doing one of these two options either.

Brian: Option A is building out your own portfolio from scratch with your own skillset and your own projects, or B, finding a client to work with for free.

Brian: If you don't wanna work for free, we'll talk about paid portfolio building projects later. In this episode,let's talk about if you're trying to build your own portfolio from scratch. There are a couple ways to go [00:09:00] about it.

Brian: And when I say from scratch, I'm assuming you already have some sort of portfolio. You're not a complete brand new person. Maybe you are, but you shouldn't be if you're listening to this podcast. But it could be that you're pivoting to a new niche or a new direction. It could be that you're doing something outside of what you've normally done.

Brian: Maybe you've decided to. Niche down, but you don't have enough case studies or portfolio pieces in the niche that you want to go after because it is the superior niche. But all your past clients are in another niche. Something that was just maybe not as serious, they don't have the budgets for it, or you just don't like that niche or it's shrinking or AI it up that part of the market and you're trying to pivot to something else and you've gotta build a portfolio in that

Brian: You have kind of two options here. A is going to be, creating projects from scratch if you're a web or brand designer, it's creating fake brands. I've seen people do that where you just make a fake, fictional brand from scratch. For music producers, it could be that your own music, like I talked about,

Brian: this is the most obvious thing to do if you're trying to build your own portfolio. But the second one, the second method here in building your own portfolio is what I would consider more of remodeling. It's remodeling existing brands, so it could be that you choose three real brands or bands or artists or [00:10:00] companies that you would love to work with.

Brian: Obviously ones that fit the new direction you're going after or the level of clients you're trying to go after. So pick three real ones and then rework it through a new lens. There's two lenses here. So you're taking an existing thing in the world and you're saying, I'm gonna look at it through a new lens there are two different lenses we can look through Lens a. Is looking at something that's off with their brand or with their process or with their product, or with their mixes or with their songs.

Brian: Something that's just off. An example might be their branding doesn't really reflect their target audience, or their website likely doesn't convert visitors because it's too focused on being fancy instead of, high converting. And here's all the things that I would change on this to make this look better and convert better.

Brian: Or again, for music producers, itcould be that you know, that this big artist, their newest album, missed the mark because of, reasons X, Y, and Z. And so you're going to essentially re-approach it from scratch using what you feel like is the better approach.

Brian: Now this is gonna be. It can be very difficult in the music space, less difficult in the branding or visual space where you can kind of create your own stuff from scratch, but that is option A. That's [00:11:00] lens A. Lens B is, in my opinion, a more fun way to approach something. It's where you reimagine a project.

Brian: You're not just nitpicking and saying, this is wrong, this is,how I would do it better. This is where you're saying I'm reimagining something. This is actually more creative in my opinion. Example is if you're taking like a popular song. Something that's well known right now, something that's hot right now, but you're adapting it to your completely different niche or your completely different genre.

Brian: The fun part about this sort of approach is it has potential for social media engagement as well. we'll talk about like what your portfolio needs to be presented like. But doing it this way, not only can you show a cool transformation in a cool adaptation from one very well-known, well-traveled niche to something completely different.

Brian: Like taking a rap song and making it like heavy metal or likedeath core or something like, that's an interesting thing, but it's also kind of interesting for a social media perspective. You might actually get engagement there. So you get to not only show off your talent and your portfolio

Brian: to people in your network, but you also get to show it off to complete strangers who might be engaging, could be potential clients. It can help build a social following as well.

Brian: Or if you're in the design [00:12:00] space, it might be something like taking a brand and reimagining it in a completely different design style. Like an example, likewhat if a tattoo artist were to design,redesign apple's, whole brand apple's, very clean, modern, relatively minimalist, but like a tattoo artist.

Brian: Or the tattoo artist style. Like if you know, made by James. In my mind, he designs like a tattoo artist would. I don't know why I think that, but that's just what I think. Maybe it's 'cause he has so many tattoos, but if he were to do something like this, it would probably be very engaging, fun content to watch.

Brian: Or a website that's reimagined in a different style. This is where again I think creativity is fun because you're seeing something that's familiar, a brand that's known, a band that's known, a song that's known, and you're making it unfamiliar, something that's novel, something that's unique and interesting.

Brian: So not only do you have a portfolio piece that shows off your own unique things, it's something that's appealing to a wider audience as well.

Brian: Now that's the remodel approach. You're taking existing things and you're remodeling it, either improving it because they messed something up horribly, and you're like, I can do this better. Or you're reimagining it from scratch of like, Hey, what if we did this in a completely different way?

Brian: in my world, [00:13:00] there's a entire series of albums called Pop Goes Punk, where it's like popular pop songs that are just covered by like, not punk, but it's more like hardcore and metal bands, is what it kind of evolved to.

Brian: And so like a popular one back in my day was, since you've been gone, was covered by.

Brian: a day to remember, and that song I think did really well for them. I just looked this up. The average song on that album. This came out in 2007, by the way, the average song, has about, 10 to 15 million streams. but that specific cover has 107 million streams on Spotify right now. so it just kinda shows that that novel approach is appealing above and beyond just your portfolio, but it could be potential marketing fodder, for lack of a better term.

Brian: that's the first approach. That is again, building out your portfolio from scratch Through either doing your own work or finding things to essentially cover or redo yourself. The second one is doing spec projects for clients. I wanted to go into this a little bit. Igave the intro earlier for this.

Brian: I wanna go into the more details of how to do this. Now. First thing to think about with this, again, if you're trying to do a free project for somebody to build your portfolio up, this needs to be a private [00:14:00] matter. This is not a place that you're gonna blast on social publicly that you're offering free projects Trade for, building your portfolio up. This is a private thing, not a public thing. So with this, you're gonna identify five to 10, could be up to 20 or 30 or 40 ideal clients, depending on the take rate. And the take rate's gonna be depending on your skillset and your own connections. They shouldn't be more than one or two levels above you. Again, these are arbitrary numbers, but just think like, what's the next tier for me? That's what I should focus on. unless you just have a, very high skill set that you already have that you're trying to like punch above your weight class.

Brian: And ideally, these people should be connected to you in some way. This should be a friend or a friend of a friend or a coworker, or a member of your coworking space or your church or something where you have a mutual connection.

Brian: Because building your portfolio is something to be done with people that already know, like, and trust you. if you're going after complete strangers, it's gonna be a much higher numbers game. It still can be done, but you need to start with your own local network. if you don't have the local network or a any sort of connection to anybody, that would be an I ideal client.Then we can go to strangers and make these sorts of offers. But it's gonna be a numbers game. Like I said, It's gonna be a lot more [00:15:00] than just five or 10 people. Most likely.

Brian: Once we have our list, let's say five or 10 people in your local network, people that already know, like, and trust you or know of people that know, like, and trust you. So second tier connections. We need to just reach out to three at a time, pick the top three that you feel like are the best fits for the portfolio you're trying to build out.

Brian: And the goal is when you reach out to these people is just get micro commitments, can send an email, a text, a dm, whatever it is, or just do it in person if you have that sort of relationship or the ability to do that in person.

Brian: the goal is justto gauge interest and get a micro commitment. And that means we're not trying to get a hell yes. Right now we're just trying to figure out are they at all interested? So here's kind of like a,template you could adapt for your own needs if you are going after somebody who you don't know extremely well.

Brian: But you obviously within your network, it's like, Hey, I'm looking to update or level up my portfolio. Whatever phrasing you wanna use, I'm looking to update my portfolio. I'm handpicking a few people whose music I genuinely admire, or whose businesses I genuinely admire or whose, insert your word here.

Brian: People whose websites I genuinely admire, or people whose brands I genuinely admire. Probably not. If you're gonna read their website, you probably don't genuinely admire their website. But you get what I'm saying. I'd love to create [00:16:00] a for you, a single for you. I'd love to produce a single, I'd love to create a website, whatever.

Brian: At no cost. be a full quality song. I wouldn't cut any quarters, you know,like you're trying to show them this is gonna be top tier. I'm gonna put my all into this. All I ask is permission to use the work in my portfolio afterwards. Is this something you'd be interested at least chatting about?

Brian: That's the micro commitment. If it's somebody you know, well that's probably a bit overly formal. You could just say something like Yo, I'm updating my portfolio. Pick a few people I actually want to work with. Thought I'd see if you want a

Brian: Free website, free logo, free, whatever. The only catch is that I just wanna show it off after. Interested in chatting about this

Brian: If you're trying to chunk this down to the smallest possible micro commitment, all we're trying to get is a reply. We're not trying to set up a phone call. We're not trying to even say, do you wanna get on a call or chat about this?

Brian: Just ending with something like, is this something you're at all interested in? Or is this something you would be at all interested in? That's the better ask. You're just trying to get a maybe or a yes. From there you say, cool, you be interested in setting up a quick chat to talk about this. That quick chat then moves to a bigger commitment.

Brian: You're now talking to them live in person or on [00:17:00] Zoom or in a meeting or your coworking space. Now the call or the meeting is where we can sell them on how amazing this will be. How awesome. The new thing that you're gonna create for them would be how much better it is in the current thing that they have.

Brian: Why do we have to sell them here? it's free. It's because there's no true free thing. In most cases, they're going to have to sacrifice something, time, bandwidth, mental energy. It may not be money, but they're sacrificing something. There's also the social capital element. they may feel resistance if they don't think your skillset is there.

Brian: They may not want to commit to you redesigning their website when they don't think you can do better than what they already have. And they're gonna have to say, we don't like what you've done here, and that's gonna hurt the relationship. So they're trying to save relationship in this. call is again, to sell them on how amazing this will be.

Brian: Free means they will be less invested, which has some issues that you're gonna have to navigate if they are not invested. If they have not paid for this project, there could be slow responses. Lack of responses, no feedback. they could ghost you, it could be potentially bad. [00:18:00] So the goal of the sales call is to make sure they are a hundred percent in to give you what you need from them, because you're gonna have to have something from them.

Brian: And if they don't have the bandwidth or the time or the energy to give that to you, they may not be a good fit for this because it may just drag this project on forever. And at a certain point, and this is something you might need to reiterate with them, is. I've got the next three months set aside to do this.

Brian: So if we're gonna do this, I need to get it done in this amount of time. That way, if it takes longer than that, you're not still on the hook for this free website a year later, because they finally decided they wanted to get the website done. So set aloose timeframe for them so that there is some sort of commitment on there end that there has to be deadline attached to this.As long as expectations are all aligned here, this should go pretty smoothly.

Brian: Now that's the free spec project. What if we want to actually build our portfolio with paid projects? Now, this is for those of you who have more clout, have a pretty good portfolio, you have the ability and the confidence. That the level up that I'm going for shouldn't be free. And if that's you completely okay.

Brian: But don't feel like you're above free [00:19:00] projects if you can't get paid projects to up your portfolio. There are certain clients that are worth way more than the money. They pay you for the project because they're going to be great focal points for your portfolio. There are no names. Known. Brands have a huge connection so when people see it, they're just like.

Brian: I need to work with this person. If they work with that person. That's amazing. One, it's kinda like a big retail establishment. Having Walmart, our Target, come in, that's an anchor tenant. that's gonna attract a hoard of people to come shop there.

Brian: So all the little other places on the side, the GameStops, the Great Clips the Orange Theory Fitness, the swimming school for little kids. All those other little,things are gonna fill up because the anchor tenant is there. And if you don't have that anchor client, do whatever you can to get that client, even if it's free.

Brian: So don't be above free projects if your portfolio depends on it. Now for paid projects, the goal here is to specifically promote that you're building a new or updated portfolio, and this can be publicly done. You're looking for two or three clients at a,what you consider a beta rate. You've made a shift, you've made a [00:20:00] pivot, or you are refreshing your portfolio.

Brian: So you can say it's a portfolio rate.you don't have to use the word discount. It's implied because you want people to respond to this offer. you can essentially frame this as something like this.

Brian: I'm just offering this to a few clients while I refine my new process and build my portfolio in this new direction. So if it's like a direction shift or a niche shift in exchange, all I ask for is feedback and permission to use this in my portfolio.

Brian: these are the types of things you can post on social media. They can DM you for if they're interested. These are the things you can actively reach out to people in your network as well. Similar to what I did before.

Brian: It's like, Hey, I. Shifting my portfolio to more of what you do. I would love to work with a business like yours. I admire yours or a band like yours. I admire your band. I love your band. I am taking on a few projects to update my portfolio at a portfolio discount rate. Again, this is private. If you're saying the word discount, it's public.

Brian: It's just your portfolio rate.

Brian: Is this something you'd be interested in no matter what? No matter if you get a free project, a paid project, or you're doing it yourself, or you're revamping or reimagining some brand, deliver full quality. You gotta treat every single [00:21:00] project that's going to be in your portfolio, like it is a,flagship project, something that is going to be seen by hundreds of potential clients, thousands of potential clients, and they're gonna be judging you based on that.

Brian: There's gonna be eyeballs and they're gonna be looking at it are they gonna say, huh, that's really cool. I should reach out to him or her, or they're gonna say, huh, not for me.

Brian: If you're in the situation where this sort of thing is necessary, especially free projects, but even paid projects to update your portfolio, chances are you're in this position because you have a lack of clients, which means you have a,surplus of time. And if you have a surplus of time because you have a lack of clients, there is no circumstance where you don't have more than enough time

Brian: to overinvest, not just properly invest, but overinvest in these Portfolio Builder projects. These things are going to save your business long term. They're gonna kill your business long term if you don't do them. But remember here, free.

Brian: Discounted full price. Whatever it is, your goal is proof. It is not profit. That's why I'm not harping on like know your value. You never do paid projects. If it's going to improve your portfolio, it's going to improve the proof that you have behind your [00:22:00] services, which means future projects are gonna be easier to sell.

Brian: Future leads are gonna be easier to sell. Higher rates are gonna be easier to achieve. So while I say it's proof not profit, it is profit, it's long-term profit, not short-term profit. It's short-term. Proof the lease to long-term profit when you finish up a project free or paid. The goal is to capture results and testimonials.

Brian: So you wanna set up a feedback call once the project's over. So it could be when you deliver the files, let's set up a, delivery call. I'll go over all the deliverables for you so you know how everything works, and we can go from there and we'll be done. We'll wrap this up.

Brian: Or it could be you've already delivered the files. You say, Hey, let's set up a project debrief call. Don't call it a feedback. Call internally is a feedback call, but you need to have some sort of name for And the goal for this is if you're delivering files, here's all the files. Lemme explain how this works, but then have feedback, questions ready?

Brian: The goal is genuine feedback here so you can improve. But more than anything, if you've done a great job, these feedback questions Should lead to amazing clips for your website's. Testimonials or quotes for testimonials. Obviously you're gonna get the permission from it after the [00:23:00] fact, but when they're glowing to you about how much they enjoyed it, how much they love the final product, because of the questions you've asked, all you'll need to ask from there is, do you mind if I clip a couple of these things to put on my website?

Brian: you're clearly happy. Or do you mind if I transcribe some of this and put on my website and their testimonials? They will say yes. They may not say yes to the video, but they'll definitely say yes to the written testimonial piece,

Brian: and this is the very important part. If you've worked on a project with somebody and there are measurable results to share, focus on that part of the conversation. When you're in the feedback, you wanna get nitty gritty details, numbers if you don't have that. Otherwise, the goal is to capture their excitement for the final project.

Brian: I know that in most cases. In the music production space, the mixing space, the mastering space, know, that's my background. There is not a tangible outcome. It's more about how excited they are paired with the sound of the music. That's going to be the one two punch there. But in the web design world, that could go either way.

Brian: Sometimes you are a web designer that focuses on conversions. Maybe if you work in the e-comm space, whatever,

Brian: where you can have great looking designs that also convert. That's a differentiator for a lot of designers. But a lot of designers just focus on pretty websites. If you just focus on pretty websites, again, focus the conversation [00:24:00] on the feedback call for capturing their excitement for the final product.

Brian: Now, let's talk about the secret. Get real close to the mic. Let's talk about the secret. Shh, the secret. This is the thing that if you do this in your portfolio, you'll be more impressive.

Brian: This goes for any approach. If it's gonna be in your portfolio. Follow this secret. That secret is contrast. The goal is not to just show the final product, the final project, the final piece, the final whatever, final website, final brand, final, anything. the goal is not to just show that in a silo and say, look at the final product.

Brian: Look how great it is. You want to show the full transformation of what the client went through. An easy example. Going back to what I said earlier, like you're a web designer, you work with e-commerce websites. A good example of this is something that shows numbers. You can go either way, by the way, it can be full creative, no numbers, no metrics, no like deliverables that are measurable.

Brian: but if there's metrics to show, this is where contrast can really, really shine.

Brian: Just saying their new website converted at 8%. That is terrible. ' cause we don't know what 8% means. Is that bad? Is that good? Is that an improvement? Even even saying we increased it by [00:25:00] 38%, pretty terrible. What we want is to show the contrast. Saying something like, we improved their website's conversion rate from 3% to 8%, leading to an extra 40 new customers per month for their e-commerce store.

Brian: That's clear. That has the contrast from 3% to 8%. That's more than a double. It's almost a triple leading to 40 extra new customers per month, or thousands or tens of thousands of new dollars or new revenue every month. Again, the more you can share here, the better the.

Brian: But even if you don't have numbers to show, you can still share contrast. This is something that's very common in the audio space, even though not everyone's portfolio really reflects this, or really do they show it off ever. You can show this in your portfolio through before and after player. You can show this in

Brian: an ad and social media clips, where you break down the project and what you did before. Here's what we started with. Here's the after, but just showing the final portfolio piece. Zero context of what went into it and what the transformation was. Only shows a static thing with zero contrast.

Brian: people need to know what the original demo idea was for that song, to really understand the [00:26:00] contrast they hear the original terrible demo that the client had before you worked with them, and you added all the musical elements You played all the instruments or you even brought in session musicians, or you programmed really cool, elaborate electronic pieces to it,

Brian: and you put the time and effort energy into properly mixing it and properly mastering it. Now the contrast between the A demo and B final product is massive.

Brian: Now when your potential clients see this full transformation, they can see themselves getting a transformation like that. They're gonna say, oh wow, my demos are way better than that, but my producer or my own self production gets nowhere near the final quality of that. That is the thing that we want them to see When they can see themselves getting the transformation, that's where you'll start to get tons and tons of leads in your inbox,wanting to pay you for that transformation.

Brian: Contrast is so effective when it comes to converting people that it's one of the reasons that Facebook has essentially banned before and after photos for gems and weight loss [00:27:00] ads because. would see them everywhere. And so all the ads would just be before and after because they're highly effective.

Brian: And meta saidthere's a bunch of reasons that we don't want that. One is like body image issues. The other is just seeing someone's big fat gut and tiny little tight body after the fact, whatever. Just seeing that on your feet all the timewould probably be tiring anyways, but. That works because it's contrast, the contrast of before and after.

Brian: They can see that transformation. That's what my body looks like right now. But I want that after state too. And they went to this personal trainer, oh, I wanna hire that person. He looks just like me right now, but I wanna look like the after state instead of just seeing the unattainable body that I am nowhere near, nowhere near gettingin a silo.

Brian: That's the difference of contrast and no contrast.

Brian: So brand designers, web designers, the exact same thing applies. You focus on the before and after to show the contrast between what you started with and where you came to.

Brian: And if you can't show a large transformation, then it's going to be a tough sell for people.

Brian: So here are your action items. First, we're obviously trying to beef up your portfolio. No matter where you are right now as a freelancer, there is room to improve your [00:28:00] portfolio to that theoretical, arbitrary next level. The higher you get on this, again arbitrary spectrum of levels,

Brian: The higher up the ladder you get, the harder it's going to be to improve to the next level.

Brian: No matter what, do whatever you can to make this happen now, because if you are stuck at a level that you're not happy with income wise, your portfolio may be the number one thing holding you back.

Brian: So now I ask you. What do you need to do about your portfolio? Do you feel like your portfolio is good or bad? You can email me, brian@sixfigurecreative.com, or you can just leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube. I'd love to know how you feel about your portfolio, if there's room to grow, and which approach might make the most sense for you.

Brian: That's all I got for you this week. thanks for listening to the six Figure Creative Podcast. I'll be back next week. Peace.