How Freelancers Can Win Without Competing on Price | The Blue Ocean Trio

339. Blue Ocean Trio

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Brian: [00:00:00] Have you ever felt like you are a tiny fish in a massive, huge ocean where there's tons of people offering the same exact service as you? Maybe they're the same quality or better than you. Maybe they're the same price or lower than you.

Brian: And so you spend your life as a freelancer, being beaten down on price, feeling like you're fighting for scraps,

Brian: always getting ~on your rates.~

Brian: ~Always getting pushed back on your rate, always getting pushed back on your rates while simultaneously getting undercut by your competitors. And so you feel like you're just barely, let me try this again, I'm trying to not be so cutty on these intros. Always getting pushed back on your rates while also, always getting pushed back ~pushed back on your rates while also getting undercut by your competitors so it can feel like A lot of times you're just barely keeping your head above water.

Brian: This is what we call a red ocean. It is full of blood, gore, guts, the remaining body parts of all the other freelancers who tried and failed to swim in this horrible, hostile sea.

Brian: And so many freelancers are stuck in this bloody red ocean where you were trying to out pitch out price out portfolio or out skill your competition.

Brian: And so you're just stuck fighting for this very limited piece of what is. Feeling like, or could really be a shrinking pie.

Brian: And because of that, clients that are looking to hire you can't really differentiate you from any other butt that fits the seat. You all look the same to them. So [00:01:00] they just go for whoever's the cheapest given the quality level. So you're stuck in this price war. ~you, so you're stuck in this price where ~where you start to resent your clients for this and you start getting burnt out.

Brian: And I want you to think about the rows and rows and rows. Of Fiverr freelancers ~that you have to stream through,~

Brian: that you have to scroll through when you're looking for somebody to do some button seat gig. And I'm going to pull up some examples here. If you're watching on YouTube.

Brian: ~But this is that bloody red sea of, yeah, but this is this ~but this is that bloody red sea of sameness where I can get a new logo made for 10 here,

Brian: ~or I can get a full WordPress website built out for me for 10, or I can get a full WordPress website built out for me for, ~I can just get a full website built out for me on WordPress for just 75.

Brian: ~Or even I've seen a song that you can. Or I've even seen song, ~or I've even seen where you can get a song mixed and mastered for 10 through multiple people, not just one person, multiple people mix and master 10. That is wild. This is a red ocean. This is where creativity can go to die many times, especially when you are forced to do high volume at those low prices.

Brian: ~When everyone else is more or less the same, how can you stand out from all the competition? ~When everyone else is more or less the same, how the hell do you stand out? You do it by either becoming the biggest, baddest fish, the one who is causing all those body parts and gore and blood and guts to be spilled out in this red ocean, or better yet, you find a [00:02:00] blue ocean,

Brian: ~Where you're only, where you're one of the few, if only, where you're one of the few, or even only, the one Potential options for the client or where you're one of the only, if not, ~where you're one of the few, if not the only option for the client, where price is not the main determining factor of whether or not you get hired.

Brian: So I'm calling this the blue ocean trio. It's three big areas that you can differentiate yourself and find blue oceans.

Brian: ~Also, you can have little to no competition command higher rates or just become the go to person in your niche.~

Brian: ~I'm sorry. One more time. Also, you can have little to no competition so you could command also you can all so you can also you can all. So you can just have little to all so you can have little to no competition. No one, ~also you can have little to no competition. Think about a blue ocean versus a red ocean, sharks feeding off people versus a blue ocean, lounging, relaxing, enjoying yourself, not worrying about a shark coming up to bite a chunk out of you at any given time, right?

Brian: So if you have little to no competition, where price isn't the only differentiator, where you can command higher rates, and become the go to person for what you offer? That sounds like a damn good place for me.

Brian: If you're new here, hi, my name is Brian Hood. ~I'm gonna try to intro one more time. I'm trying to be a little more detailed here. If you're new here, hi, I'm Brian Hood. I have built, I've had If you're new here, hi, I'm Brian Hood. I have more than a decade experience in, If you're new here, hi, I'm Brandon. I have more than a decade freelancing experience.~

Brian: I have grown my freelancing business to multiple six figures. I have, I think six or seven different six figure income streams in my life. And a seven figure income stream.

Brian: And I created this podcast for creative freelancers who want to earn more money from their creative skills without selling their soul. If that sounds like you, you are in the right spot right now. So let's talk about the blue ocean trio here. We're gonna talk about three different [00:03:00] areas that you can separate yourself to get out of the bloody red ocean.

Brian: That is the goal for this episode.

Brian: And after talking to and consulting with and coaching hundreds and hundreds, actually talking to thousands of freelancers. I've got a really good look at what sort of deficits people have at scale. So many people have these three deficits.

Brian: And so I want to talk through each of these, we're going to talk about blue ocean versus red ocean niche. We're talking about blue ocean versus red ocean offer and blue ocean versus red ocean marketing. ~I've seen, because ~because I've seen red ocean on all three of these and I've seen blue ocean on all three of these.

Brian: And the difference in your business between a blue and red ocean in these three areas is the difference between. Someone stuck at that 20, a year range and someone who's accelerated past 100, 200, 250, 000, even 300, 000 more a year range as a freelancer. So let's talk about blue ocean niche first.

Brian: This is all about finding untapped niches. ~When it comes to these three blue ocean niches, or I'm sorry, and when it~ and by the way, when it comes to the blue ocean trio, you don't have to necessarily have all three of these. It can be amazing if you do, but just one of these ~is, ~can be enough to differentiate yourself from the rest of the people.

Brian: ~get all three ~But if you can get all three stack two or three of these together, it is way more [00:04:00] powerful. So the first one I talk about is the blue ocean niche. ~This is where we're trying to find. Tap niches that~

Brian: ~this is where we can, ~this is where we can find untapped niches, ~small groups of clients where you can either dominate fucking, let me try it again. ~Small groups of clients where you can dominate rather than massive groups where you're all just another drop in the ocean.

Brian: When you look at a red ocean niche. This is where there is way more, competitors than there are clients, and you could probably all think of niches like that, where there are way more people looking for gigs than there are actually gigs, ~and this can come from,~

Brian: and while competition isn't always a bad thing, many circumstances, it is. So I want to talk about this for a second. In Nashville, Tennessee, which is where I live right now, it's where I had my studio for most of my time, my background is music production. This is a city where there is a massive amount of recording studios.

Brian: So it can feel like Like a red ocean and in many ways it is, ~but it's not necessarily, ~but just because there's a lot of competitors doesn't necessarily mean it is a red ocean niche because in Nashville, Tennessee, there is also disproportionately high amount of musicians and artists and bands that are here because this is the music city.

Brian: I've said this before, way back when we were, if you don't know this back in episode one through 150, the first 150 episodes, [00:05:00] we were known as the six figure home studio podcast. We talked to just recording studio owners. And one of the things I said on that old podcast was, I would rather be the number 55 studio in Nashville, Tennessee, or the number 150 top studio in Nashville, Tennessee, than the number one studio in Reno, Nevada, because I would rather be someone who is Sustainable in a city with lots and lots of clients for me to work with enjoy a high quality of life as well because Nashville is amazing versus living in a like Reno, which last time I was there, hated experience.

Brian: And I can't imagine that there's much of a market there for studios. There's probably room for one or two, ~And I'll probably get, ~and I'll probably get an angry email from somebody in Reno later on. That's fine. But I just wanted to comment on just because there's a lot of competitors doesn't necessarily mean. it's bad. It doesn't mean it's, unsustainable.

Brian: It can be a sign of a healthy market in other words.

Brian: ~But when you see more and more people entering the market and fewer, ~but when you see more and more and more people entering the market as competitors and fewer and fewer people or the same amount of people coming in as potential clients, then we start to have an imbalance. ~too much, too much, That's where we have too many. ~That's where we have too much competition for what little content we have. Clients are left there ~and that can happen. ~And that can happen where you have a [00:06:00] massive growth and creatives in a niche, which in the recording studio space, we saw a lot when to have a recording studio to start, it used to be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to get it off the ground.

Brian: And then when home recording year got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and everything went in the box, we didn't have to have a ton of hardware. You could get started for or thousands of dollars versus. Hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. It was a huge difference So we had an influx of new talent really good people myself included who could compete with the best of the best studios for 20, 000 or less of gear ~and so when we had that sort of imbalance ~and so we had that sort of growth in the market from the studio side We didn't have the same exact growth from the musician side.

Brian: So there was an imbalance It can also come from shrinking niches where the market is just shrinking. think Alex Ramos uses ~this. ~This example, had a client or somebody, a friend that worked in the newspaper world, which is a massively shrinking market.

Brian: I think it's like 50 percent a year decline every year. And he was struggling to grow his business in that market. And when you look at it from the perspective of if the market's shrinking 40 percent a year, you have to grow your business 40 percent a year just to [00:07:00] maintain. So when a market is working against you, that's where you can be in this bloody red ocean where. There's way, way fewer opportunities year after year after year. And that's when we have to think about how do we pivot to a blue ocean? ~All right, Leland, I got to pause for a second. Hans Zimmer tickets just went on sale at 10 a.~

Brian: ~m. It is 10 a. m. right now. Probably fucking the apps crashed because Ticketmaster is garbage. Join the queue.~

Brian: ~Calculating how many people ahead of you?~

Brian: ~68 people ahead of you in the Hans Zimmer ticket queue.~

Brian: ~38 people ahead of you. Let's see if I can get tickets.~

Brian: ~Five people ahead of you. Okay.~

Brian: ~One person ahead of you.~

Brian: ~Sweet!~

Brian: ~Row 17, seats 5 and 6 on the floor. Some damn good tickets. Very nice. All right. Sorry, where the fuck was I? ~When we're looking for a blue ocean niche, we're looking for one of two things. One is a growing niche where there could be a lot of competitors, but since the niche is growing, it's a healthy type of thing because when a niche is growing, more people want to enter the market as a service provider for that niche.

Brian: The other thing we can look at is underserved niches, niches that have just been kind of overlooked ~because of usually ~because it's an unsexy niche or something people don't really think of when they're looking at like, where can I start to, ~ to, ~pivot my messaging and start going after these specific customer avatars.

Brian: I want to talk about both of these and get some real examples of this.

Brian: First, let's talk about growing niches. I'm going to talk about B2B for now, because that's the easiest area to find growth. There are some in B2C. So B2B is business to business. That's where a freelancer targeting businesses. B2C is like businesses targeting consumers B2C examples, like a photographer is targeting like family photography, That area is harder to find like niches that are growing, but it does exist. ~I just. ~a way to look that sort of thing up. So [00:08:00] I'm just going to strictly speak B2B, because those are usually the most profitable, highest earning freelancers, and the ones that I try to push most people towards if you're someone that's in the B2C world.

Brian: not always possible, but it's, the area that I'm focused on ~when I, ~when it comes to me helping people get clients. So growing niches, first one to talk about because I'm a part of this and have been a part of this for like the last six or seven years is the course creator and coach kind of community.

Brian: You can also kind of put this into ~ the old, ~overarching creator community. This has been a growing niche for years now. That's where you've seen so many dollars going into companies that facilitate this. Brands like Teachable, Kajabi. And others like that, getting tons and tons of investment dollars and growing, some of them getting acquired.

Brian: We see more and more people going into these markets ~because as you build a following as a creative, ~because as you build a following ~as a creator, not a creative, a creator, a big difference~ as a creator one of the ways to monetize is by doing courses or coaching or consulting on the side. ~when you, so when you see these niches, so ~so when you see this sort of growth, that's an opportunity for growth.

Brian: Finding ways to serve that audience. So for example, the web developers or web designers or, branding designers that listen to this podcast, great niche to be a part of copywriters to the next one is personal brands. This kind of goes hand [00:09:00] in hand with the previous one, but personal brands can be a ton of different things.

Brian: It can be influencers. It can be, authors. Thought leaders,

Brian: but that's another again, rising, growing market. Another one is subscription based businesses. This has been a trend for the last decade or more where things are going more and more subscription based. There's probably more of like finding your niche, to carve out within subscription business because there's like subscription gift boxes and there's subscription software company, software as a service, a subscription.

Brian: Next one is sustainable and eco friendly businesses. Eco-conscious businesses. This has been on the upper trend for a while now. And so again, anytime you see something that's growing in popularity and more and more people are coming into the market as somebody who is eco-friendly or eco-conscious businesses, that can be a great way for you to go towards that niche.

Brian: If you're looking for a blue ocean or a blue ocean, at least

Brian: it's also health and wellness practitioners. And last and not least is AI startups. I'm seeing more and more and more and more of those, and we'll continue to see more and more and more of those over probably the next decade. I don't know. If you're looking for a niche to be a part of, that's probably a good one.

Brian: I feel way better about it than I did like Web3 or any of the [00:10:00] crypto stuff that I saw coming up. Just because I just feel the long term, Value of AI is way more apparent to me, but those are some examples of growing niches. There's way more out there like that. Than what I just mentioned there, but growing niches are still going to have competition.

Brian: Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of competitors targeting those niches, but because the niches are growing, especially the rapidly growing ones like AI, that can be room for opportunity because you come into the ground floor. You start to build your name in a space where there is no name built yet, especially in AI.

Brian: The next one I'm gonna talk about are underserved niches. This ~is again, ~is B2B and this is niches that are large, high paying. ~underserved can't tend to be ~tend to be underserved because they're not as Top of mind for freelancers. They're not as sexy in other words, and they're worth looking into if you're looking for a niche, kind of a more blue ocean underserved needs to be a part of.

Brian: The first one is nonprofit social impact organizations. These are, organizations that because the word nonprofit is in there, a lot of people ignore these. So you assume they have no budget or a low budget. Many of these companies have budgets for things that are going to help them raise more money, raise more funds.

Brian: ~So if you're like a web designer and helping, you can help web design and you can help nonprofits raise more money.~

Brian: They also get grants and certain things. So those grants can be used for things that you [00:11:00] can, as a freelancer, offer services towards those people. But generally, when you're looking at a nonprofit or some sort of company like that, or any company, really, if you look at ~It's a good one.~

Brian: What are the goals the company has? And can you align yourself with those goals as a freelancer? Again, nonprofits, while they are a not for profit company, they still make money and they generally make money through donations

Brian: we have one here in Nashville that's called

Brian: Thistle farms. essentially women who come from bad backgrounds or, different backgrounds where they struggle to find work and they teach them skills to make more money, so they can provide for the family, for themselves build a better future. ~And they ~the cool thing about the company is all their leadership management and all those people.

Brian: Come from the ground up. They're people that started from the bottom and worked their way up to the top of the organization. Really cool organization here, Thistle Farms. But they are not as reliant on donations as they are actually selling their own products. While they are not a not for profit, they are like a 50C31, whatever the, the code is for non profits. They still sell their products. Have a lot of things to do for marketing for getting butts in seats at their cafe here in Nashville for selling All of their products at different stores around there that is a great example of a company that will [00:12:00] invest heavily in its marketing and its Branding in this design elements in this web design all the things that a lot of freelancers that listen this podcast serve They invest heavily in those areas So if you can help them with the goals of what they're trying to do as a company you can make more money again Can be a very underserved niche now that specific one because they're a I wouldn't say household name But there are no name here in Nashville.

Brian: That is a good example of one that probably has more than enough people Working with them as freelancers It's a well run company, but there are other ones that are out there that are not this specific one~ that are not this specific one ~that are worth considering next one is local service providers.

Brian: This is the next underserved niche. This is like your plumbers. This is your, roofing companies. Blue collar, I think blue collar, or even like accountants. CPAs, bookkeepers, anything that is a local service provider where they're generally working in the local area. I think about like the companies here in Nashville that work with just the local community here.

Brian: It would be again, CPAs, you could say lawyers, but I think that's its own thing. CPAs, plumbers. I think especially here is the blue collar ones because those are like the least sexy ones. And the bar is [00:13:00] very low. This is why I really like these niches. really talking to designers today, so branding designers, web designers, there are so many opportunities in that niche because the bar is so low from a design perspective.

Brian: The bar is so low from a website perspective. They have websites that are not converting, not generating leads. It's really easy to line yourself with the goals of the company or the people involved. If you can, Break into this niche. And one more example is similar. I guess it could be a local service provider is real estate agents and property developers.

Brian: These are people with a really high client value. So if you think about a real estate agent, selling a million dollar house here in Nashville, which is like~ like ~definitely not uncommon thing. It's really hard to get a house anywhere in any good neighborhood around Nashville for under a million. Now, in my neighborhood, houses are selling for 750, 000 to 1.

Brian: 2 million at this point. I live in the nations for those who know Nashville well,~ is still one of the, ~and it is still one of the, cheaper, nice neighborhoods in the like~ like ~Nashville area. There are some in East Nashville, a little cheaper, and there's some in East Nashville that are way more expensive, but this, for example, a million dollar home sold, the agent's commission is generally around 3%, which is [00:14:00] 30, 000.

Brian: So as a freelancer, anything you do from a branding design perspective, web design, copywriting,

Brian: photography, anything you can do. To help real estate agents or even builders bring in 30, 000 clients. That's a win, especially developers, probably developers that are doing spec builds. Which is where you build a house, hoping it will sell. You don't have a~ You don't have a buyer or builder, or ~buyer for it ahead of time.

Brian: Spec builds are pretty risky, but lucrative. Where if you're selling a house for a million bucks, the developers profit on that could be 200, 000, 250, 000 or more. ~those are, ~those can be very underserved niches ~in certain, ~for certain services. And I just wanted to give you some real examples so you can think through again.

Brian: This is not a definitive list and depending on the service you offer and the niche that I talked about, it still may not be underserved or the right fit for you, but it's worth looking into doing some research. ~So the questions to ask yourself are what niches are growing in your industry? And what, ~so the questions to ask yourself are what niches are growing in your industry?

Brian: Or what underserved niches can you pivot towards?

Brian: ~There's a reason that I never mind. I'm going to stay away from that. Actually, I'll say ~there's a reason that many of the music producers that we work with in our coaching program. That we've pivoted them away from, producing music into podcast production [00:15:00] because of how red the ocean is for music production, for mixing, for mastering is a bloody red ocean is a bloodbath right now.

Brian: That being said, we still have people who stay in that niche and are successful because of the other things I'm going to talk about in this episode. There are other ways to dominate ~a red, ~a bloody red ocean niche if you get the other two right.

Brian: But one of the easiest ways to take skill set that you have as a freelancer and put it in a better niche. Which is podcast production. If you're in the audio world, at least where you have a recurring revenue, shifting from B2C to B2B, which is a massive shift when you're actually working with businesses, with budgets, with income, with profit, with a team it's, it's a completely different game in that world.

Brian: So music production world, you're lucky if your average client's worth. A thousand, 1500 bucks up to 2000, on your average client in a year's span, at least. In the podcast space, one client can easily be worth 15, 25, even 35, 000 a year for one client.

Brian: Now let's talk about blue ocean offer. You found your blue ocean niche. Or you've determined, I am stuck in this~ this blue, ~red ocean niche. I cannot leave it. What else you got for me, Brian? I can't leave my niche. I love it too much, right? [00:16:00] Or you're like, I'm going to pivot to this, underserved niche or this growing niche.

Brian: ~ I'm in a, I, ~I'm going to trust you on this. What else you got for me, Brian? We've got the Blue Ocean Offer. And a Blue Ocean Offer, the easiest way to explain what this is, is to tell you what a Red Ocean Offer is.

Brian: And many freelancers listening to this podcast, you're gonna be shit, got a very Red Ocean Offer. ~Blue Ocean, ~a Red Ocean Offer is this. your butt in a seat. something I can get off of Fiverr right now, which again, I will just call out a few of the things I can get off Fiverr.

Brian: These are red ocean offers,

Brian: ~but let's talk to some button seat services here. I'm on Michelle. I'll just share my screen.~

Brian: ~It's be easier to just do this. I need to also reorder this. Sorry if this fucks up anything that's going to be closer to 1080 P maybe a little less, something like that. It's probably close to 1080 P. Sorry if that fucks your stuff up. So you see here under design, we've got I'm sorry. ~You see here under design, we've got a logo and brand identity, logo design, branding style guides, ~we've got web design, ~we've got web design, app design, UX design, landing page design.

Brian: For illustrators, we got illustrations, AI artists, that's another thing you could buy off Fiverr. Music production, there is, mixing and mastering, audio editing, vocal tuning. Podcast production.

Brian: If you were selling services like this, you can be easily become a button seat. I know I just said podcast production is a better service to be in or it's a better niche to be in. That's not necessarily the service you're selling. And I want to talk through that in this episode on blue ocean offers,

Brian: ~but if something I, ~[00:17:00] but if you were offering a service, I can find on Fiverr, that's the service you sell. That's the thing you're advertising to people. I can find it from a million other freelancers. On Fiverr, or Upwork. And I can just shop around for what looks to be the best value for what I'm looking for.

Brian: I'm looking for a podcast producer. What do they charge for podcast production? I'm looking for a web designer, a web developer. are they charging given their portfolio? And I'm just going to find the people and I'm going to put them in a grid and I'm going to say this one's this much, but they're this much better.

Brian: If I'm doing that, I'm comparing apples to apples and I'm comparing apples to apples pricing. That is a red ocean offer.

Brian: Blue ocean offer. Fiverr. It's where you stop selling services and you sell outcomes.

Brian: And if you do this right, only person selling this specific outcome this clearly it's no longer comparing apples to apples, it's comparing apples to oranges. I'm going to give you some examples of this in a second, but you get to create something called pricing confusion. Pricing confusion is where I cannot just put you on a grid and a spreadsheet.

Brian: With five other web designers and say, which one is the best value? Because now you're an orange. I can't compare apples to apples. I'm comparing apples to oranges. How do I price an orange [00:18:00] compared to apple? I don't actually know the pricing difference between an apple and an orange. Maybe they're very similar.

Brian: I don't know. ~That's. ~when you have pricing confusion you are now offering something so unique or so different that they can't just look at the List of what you have and the price you have and compare it to the list of what they offer and the price they offer Because there's too many differences ~they don't know how to ~they don't know how to price your offer compared to others And that's a good thing

Brian: if I can't compare you to competitors Now you are standing in a league of one. And now I just have to decide, do I want the thing you offer or not? Not, which one person do I want that's offering what you offer? And that's ~the biggest, that is the big, if I just, if you just take on one thing, that is ~the biggest part of a blue ocean offer is if I'm deciding whether I want to hire you or not, that is a good sign.

Brian: If I'm deciding if I want to hire you or 30 other options, that is a bad sign. So is what you're offering so differentiated And so unique that I'm the only option. Let's talk through that. So examples of this, there is ~a a guy named I forget his name, maybe Brett something, but he had ~design joy.

Brian: co. You can go find the website online.

Brian: ~if you're just, ~if you're watching on YouTube, you can just look at my screen right now. design agency with a twist design subscriptions for everyone, positive cancel anytime. The way they differentiated themselves

Brian: is by separating. What a designer [00:19:00] is hired for. Typically, if you're selling a service like logo design and I'm a business looking for a new logo or a new brand, even then I'm going to find a designer and I'm going to say, Hey, can you design this thing, ~which is what I'm asking for as a client, ~which is what I'm asking for as the client.

Brian: And you say, yes, as the designer, I can design this thing. ~so you keep. And so you, you design the thing and then we're done. ~So you keep selling your time for money or keep coming up with custom quotes for each project.

Brian: ~And that's the typical design. ~That's the typical designers offer. If you're selling to the outcome, however,

Brian: then think about it from the client perspective. I have a lot of design needs. I don't just need a new logo or just need a new brand. There's going to be a dozen or a hundred other things after that, that I need designs for, right? But I don't want to hire a full time designer for different reasons. It might be that we're not at the scale where we need it, or we already have full time designers and we just have too much design work to be done or whatever.

Brian: But there's a lot of work to be done. I don't want to go through the whole ordeal of hiring a full time designer.

Brian: And I don't want to have to deal with coming up with custom quotes and Paying different invoices for each individual thing. So what design joy did was unlimited design option. So I'm just going to scroll through the site. He's a great designer, great web designer. And at this point, what are his prices at [00:20:00] 995 a month for the standard 7, 995 a month for The pro.

Brian: Now, we've talked about this on the podcast before, And truth be told, when he offered this, this was a very unique offer. It is not so unique anymore. I've seen probably four or five different companies advertising to me on Instagram for a very similar offer catering towards business owners.

Brian: I've seen many, many designers I think this guy at this point even sells a course on this showing you how he does it. I have a client who went through it. ~He didn't have high, high. He didn't have, ~didn't have a lot of great things to say about the specific course, but if that's the thing you're looking for go for it.

Brian: But at the time is a very unique offer. My options were I can either keep hiring the same designer for different projects as they come many times There's too many projects. it's just too much for me to do that for like any of these social graphics I need this product launch email template. I need a new landing page for this thing I knew you see else's this starts to add up the perfect fit client That's 7, 000 a month for this type of service is the type of client who doesn't want to deal with all that.

Brian: Time is more valuable than money to these types of clients, right? But they also, again, don't want to hire a full time designer. So [00:21:00] this is a really good medium place for them.

Brian: I've seen this in many different niches. I've seen this in copywriting, where they just do all your copy on retainer.

Brian: I've seen this for videographers, where you're doing like a monthly content creation plan for a, you know, content creator or an influencer or whatever, where you shoot and edit a number of, clips or reels or whatever in a, for a month. And then they can just batch them out over the month and they just pay a flat monthly fee.

Brian: Similar for music production. I've seen music producers where they offer a flat monthly fee for a certain amount of songs per month or per quarter. There's different ways to slice this. At the day, thinking through what is the end goal of the client

Brian: and is some form of unlimited, I'm going to put unlimited in quotes because there is truly a limit to this unlimited design or unlimited video or unlimited music The right offer for your niche. I'm not saying it is, but it could be

Brian: if you want to hear more about this specific person. Episode 313, it was a case study episode, the solo freelancer earning 1 million per year. That's about this guy design joy. I don't know many freelancers earning a million dollars a year. That's an anomaly.

Brian: But if you want to get to that episode, just go to six figure creative. com slash three one three. Easy way to get to any episode of ours. Just put the episode number in the URL.

Brian: Another [00:22:00] example of a differentiated model is putting together some sort of VIP day, something like a website in a day brand in a day, a big roadblog for people is the amount of time this sort of stuff can take, bring it all back down to one VIP day where we can just get all knocked out in one day can be very appealing for certain people.

Brian: And this doesn't work for all offers, obviously, but it can be really powerful for certain offers in certain niches where, you The real time collaboration is a value add where the speed of doing it in a day, you can even do a website in a week if it takes a week, whatever, where you're doing these sprints where you're getting things done in a very quick, efficient manner that can be very appealing and way to differentiate yourself.

Brian: So for example, I've been going through a full rebrand, all the UX, all the UI for one of my company's file paths has been going on for months now. there were an offer where it was write all down to two week fast sprint. That would be very interesting. Now, ~a, you a full, ~we have a lot to do, the full back end of an app is a little different than just a brand design.

Brian: But still it's an interesting offer if you can put it together.

Brian: The last example I'm going to give you is just thinking about any sort of full service offer. Where you're thinking, [00:23:00] not what services am I offering, but what sort of transformation can I offer somebody. Where we're thinking about what are all the things that need to be done in order to help the client reach their end goal.

Brian: So think through it from a perspective of like a web designer. A web designer creating a new website for a business. The end result is not to give the new website up. The end result is what does the website provide for that person, or for that business.

Brian: What will the site be used for and how can you help them accomplish that goal?

Brian: I talked about this before on episode 335 which is my favorite seven ways to make every client worth more. Again, you can get to that by going to sixfigurecreative. com slash 335. The reason I bring this up is I used a web design example in that episode where if you're a web designer working with a business, think through what is all the things from a design perspective that that business is going to need. If the client wants a website, they may also need new branding because nobody wants to redesign a website with ugly, old, outdated branding. They may also need a web developer. They may also need copywriting for the website. They may also need lead gen services, SEO, paid ads, email marketing, conversion rate optimization, marketing automation, website maintenance, all these things help the client [00:24:00] reach the end goal that they have, which is a website that generates leads and clients or sales products.

Brian: If it's an e commerce or whatever it is.~ If it's an e commerce or whatever it is. ~The website serves a purpose. All of those extra services all go towards that one end goal that the client has. Now I talked about on that episode. Again, what happens if you can't fulfill on all the services, that's where we get to partnering or white labeling services.

Brian: That is where you find a partner who can take on the services you can't fulfill on, or you find a white label service provider. That is someone who will do the work under your brand so that you get all the credit and you handle the white label provider or even many cases, the white label provider will work.

Brian: Under your brand name, communicating with the client back and forth through your email, acting as if they were an employee for your business. So it feels like you're doing everything when in reality, you're paying percentage or a flat fee out to the white label service provider. those exist. They're out there, especially in services I just mentioned there from conversion, reoptimization, email marketing, Legion, copywriting, web development.

Brian: Marketing automation all of those things have white label service providers that are out there that could do work at a high level. Many of them are based in geo arbitrage opportunity [00:25:00] type zones like Eastern Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, where there's brilliant, smart, amazing, talented people, they just are not as connected into the U S market as you are as the freelancer.

Brian: So they will connect through you and do the white label services. So That's a whole other episode for a whole other time. If you want more on that, just email me and I'll, put together an episode on how to do that. Or maybe a webinar or something. That's probably more visual,

Brian: ~but that's a great example of, ~but that's a great example of setting yourself apart from a freelancer instead of the business, trying to put all of that together themselves, where they have to work with five, six, seven, eight, 10 different service providers to perform seven, eight, nine, different, 10 different services.

Brian: You're the one stop shop. There's challenges with that. A ton of challenges with that, but it is a way to differentiate. And if you are going to be the one stop shop. You have to be hyper niched. You cannot be the one stop shop for a wide, crazy wide niche. I cannot do all things for all people or you are nothing to no one.

Brian: ~That's. ~That's the number one rule in business that I've learned over the years. If you try to be all things for all people, you are nothing to no one.

Brian: One last example, by the way, here, doing some sort of hybrid offer. I've seen more and more of our clients put together hybrid offers where you are doing part of it [00:26:00] done for you, which is typical freelancing. You pay me, I do the work for you as a freelancer.

Brian: But they're also tacking on done with you where you pay me and I do it with you. I'll guide you through the process. I'll show you how to do things. I will review things that you've done, give you feedback on it, essentially coaching or consulting. And this can be a really good way to put something together.

Brian: So this is really common in the B2C space, this is very common in the music production world, where ~a lot of times bands and musicians will come to the studio. ~A lot of times bands and musicians will self record, but they'll need professional to mix and master ~that's the, ~that's a really hard part to get done.

Brian: ~what the, ~And so what the, offer can look like, and I've seen many variations of these, what the offer can look like in a hybrid offer is~ what the offer can look like in a hybrid offer ~they will offer to coach them through. Making sure their recordings and editings are done properly, that the audio setup is correct so that the source files are all high quality.

Brian: Then they will ~d ~do the done for you. Work the mixing and mastering themselves. And then some people that have experience with this will even on the backend help with ~the, ~the pre-launch promotion stuff. The launch process for the songs, actually promoting it and getting it out there.

Brian: Even going beyond that in some cases. But that is a hybrid offer. It's worth mentioning here because [00:27:00] it is a big differentiator. And if you can do all those things, you ~have that skill set. You're one of the few that ~have that skill set, utilize it as a way to stand out from competition. I guarantee you're ~the ~one of the only few people that are offering all those things.

Brian: if you have that skill set,~ If if you have that skill set,~

Brian: we've talked about your blue ocean niche. Some people get it. Some people don't. We've talked about the blue ocean offer. Most people should get this. ~there's very few excuses to continue on in a red ocean niche. There's very few excuses. Try again. ~There's very few excuses to continue on in a Red Ocean offer.

Brian: So we may or may not have the Blue Ocean niche. We should definitely have the Blue Ocean offer. Now we need blue ocean marketing.

Brian: This is where we find clients in the place where you're the only one talking to them. You're the only one communicating with them. A good example that the opposite of this is Fiverr. If you're on Fiverr, chances are your clients are talking to many other people. Or at least looking at many other people.

Brian: Blue ocean marketing is you're the only person talking to the person. You're the only one in that channel for your niche, at least. So there was a client I was talking to New York city, highly competitive market,

Brian: what I consider is a very red niche.

Brian: Everyone's competing for the same pool of clients. Bloody red ocean it's essentially a meat market.

Brian: And the problem with this was he [00:28:00] was marketing to clients the exact same way as everyone else in his niche. They're all doing the exact same thing. So it really wasn't meat market. If you've ever been to any like really lively market, this is really prevalent in Southeast Asia, some in Europe as well, where you're in this like lively local market, people are yelling.

Brian: It's a lot of chaos, a lot of things going on. It is not the place you want to be. If you're trying to be the only one they're talking to the blue ocean version is this. ~If you're trying to, if you're a blue ocean marketing, if you're doing blue, ~if you're practicing blue ocean marketing ~is Market your services, where~

Brian: ~markets, your services,~

Brian: market, your services in ways that no one else in your niche is doing this. So think about this. How many people in your niche are doing paid ads? Yes. Tons of people are doing paid ads. How many of them in your niche are doing paid ads?~ are doing paid ads. How many of them in your niche ~This is a way for you to be in a place where your competition isn't there, where you can start conversations where you're the only one they're talking to, because in paid ads and some of the other things I'm gonna talk about ~in paid ads, ~You're essentially creating demand for something.

Brian: Someone knew in the back of their mind, it was time to refresh their branding or time ~ time to review, ~to renew ~their web, time to, update to ~their website. They've known in the back of their mind, they see an ad from you and like, yeah, I've been [00:29:00] meaning to do that. They go through the funnel, they have a conversation with you and now you're the only one talking to them.

Brian: They haven't reached out to 10 other designers because when the time comes where they've decided it's finally time. To make a difference here change this, I'm going to find some people who can do this and they start doing their own research and start looking for other website designers or whatever.

Brian: That is where you're now up against 5, 6, 10 other people. And that's where, again, it's a bloody red ocean. So even though tons of people do paid ads, paid ads themselves is a bloody red ocean. and there's a lot of tripwires and pitfalls and places to get your legs blown off overall It's a blue ocean for freelancers, which is why some of my clients do it But there's also content marketing content marketing is a way for you to build value show that knowledgeable show your expertise educate your clients, help them avoid the confusion, even prepare them to be a good client in many cases.

Brian: So content marketing is another in many ways for many niches, blue ocean marketing strategy, email marketing is the exact same. Email marketing is a wonderful blue ocean marketing strategy where you're likely the only freelancer regularly emailing them, [00:30:00] helping them understand what they need to do to prepared as a client, ~what they need to, ~what they need to see from you as a freelancer to know that you were good at what you do and you were good enough for them to hire you.

Brian: And then finally, another blue ocean for many freelancers is referral partners. ~In many genres, I'm sorry, ~in many niches, ~I'm sorry, with many freelancers in your specific niche, ~there are other people out there who will refer work to you for a fee. They're not competitors. ~ They're ~you're all working with the same pool of clients for different services.

Brian: ~So in my example, ~so in my background in music production, think about, ~All the services, ~all the other services that people can hire for. eventually after I stopped recording bands ~for the first, ~after the first five, six years, and just did mixing and mastering, think about ~all the, of ~all the other services that my genre of musicians that I work with, which is heavy metal bands, yes, I built a multiple six figure income freelance business doing mixing and mastering for heavy metal bands, weird.

Brian: If I'm mixing and mastering, what other freelancers are out there service providers are out there that work with my ideal clients? So there are recording studios that are recording the songs, but not mixing and mastering. So when a client comes to me wanting recording, I can refer them out to those people.

Brian: And when those people record at that studio, they can refer them to me. So I had [00:31:00] those sorts of referral partners. when the album's done. There are videographers who are doing music videos for heavy metal bands. Those are people that I can refer work to and they can refer work back to me. There are even entertainment lawyers that work with a lot of heavy metal bands that I can refer work out to, and they can refer work back to me as a music producer.

Brian: There are managers for bands. There are even other bands out there who tour with a lot of bands who have a lot of connections in that space that can send artists to me. And I can pay finder's fee, 10 percent generally for that. ~These can be very blue marketing. ~This can be very blue oceans as far as marketing goes,~ This can be very blue oceans as far as marketing goes,~

Brian: but they're even more powerful if you stack all these up. So episode ~333. So not that long ago, we're on 3339 right now. Wow. ~333. So not that long ago. ~an episode called why you're stuck on the freelance feast. It's ~It's an episode called why you're stuck on the feast or famine rollercoaster and how to get off that episode breaks down how to get off.~ how to get off that episode breaks down ~Implement all those things and how to stack them together ~for maximum effected ~for maximum effectiveness.

Brian: ~But if you think through these three things, I've talked about this episode, blue ocean niche, and you're in a blue ocean offer, but so think back through the three, so ~so think back through this blue ocean trio that I'm talking about in this episode. ~If you can offer, if you can take, ~if you can work in a blue ocean niche and you have a blue ocean offer and you are exercising blue ocean marketing, ~You you sure, you surely see how you were much, ~I'm sure you see how much better off you're going to be as a freelancer than in a Red Ocean niche [00:32:00] with a Red Ocean offer, button seat offer,~ offer, button seat ~doing Red Ocean marketing, which is doing all the same things, being in all the same places, all the other freelancers in your market are, or worse, even worse is just doing nothing at all and waiting for referrals.

Brian: Just hope marketing, get out of here with that,

Brian: but this can be a lot of work. So if you are interested in exploring to see if we're a good fit for helping you, you~ That's one of the things I do when I business, I get that out of here. It's one of the things, it's one it's what I do. There we go. ~It's what I do

Brian: is a good time to,~ to, ~start the process of applying and seeing if you're a good fit for what we offer

Brian: so that you can hit the round running in January, which is coming up very soon. So here's what we do. I'll give you my blue ocean offer. We will, work with you to design an entire customized client acquisition strategy for you. It'll take seven to 14 days. We essentially pitch this plan to you. ~If you hate it partways, oh, it's nothing.~

Brian: ~You're out 0. ~If you like it, but have some problems, we will revise it ~to, ~to match whatever needs you have or,~ or fears you ~to alleviate whatever fears you have. Or if you love it, then you approve it. ~And we will actually work with you one on one to, to, ~and we will actually work with you one on one in our monthly coaching program where you just pay us monthly.

Brian: And you can cancel any time. There's no longer term contracts or anything, to actually implement ~that, ~that plan that we give you.

Brian: And the whole point of this is giving you a personalized plan and coaching you through executing it. ~And the whole point of this is to give you a personalized plan. ~So you actually [00:33:00] have something you're working towards a step by step roadmap we're working towards.~ we're working towards. ~Coaching through implementing it the right way and making sure you finish it by giving you accountability.

Brian: That is the formula of implementing all the things I've talked about in this episode and more. ~So fix the things you, ~So fix the things that are broken, implement the things that are missing, and ultimately ~not only make you, ~not only build you a better business, but make you a better entrepreneur. That's one of the biggest things we hear is just how much people have learned that we've worked with

Brian: because you have no idea what you don't know right now. You're listening to this podcast because maybe you found us on an ad, probably. I do a ton of advertising, done a ton of paid ads myself.

Brian: We spend 20 to 30 to 40 grand a month on ads.

Brian: And you're trying to learn things. You are at the start of what is the Dunning Kruger effect, which is, when you start something out, ~you've, you're, ~you have way too much confidence because of how ignorant you are that you don't know what you don't know. And as you actually go through this, you start to fall into this, pit of despair realize how little you know.

Brian: So if you listen to this enough, there will come a point where you're like, oh my god, this is overwhelming. And that is where you have a very good look at what that hill you have to climb looks like. And then this is when people tend to hire us is when they see how big of a hill they have [00:34:00] to climb and to know they have to do it by themselves is way too much work.

Brian: So if you're at the point where you're at the bottom of that hill, you're not overly confident that, Oh, I've got this. I'm the best of the best. This is stuff. It's easy. I can implement myself. If you were at the bottom of the hill now, and you've realized how little, you know, and how much needs be implemented and you want people who you can contact every single day, Monday through Friday, we're available to talk to you every single day as questions come up, as problems come up, as we're working through roadmap, that is a recipe for success. So if you're interested in learning more about this, I've got a video on six figure creative. com slash coaching, but talk to you through more of the offer, how we help, why it works, and if it sounds like it's a good fit for you, you can apply and see if we have any spots available.

Brian: chances are, it may be January before we have spots available, but first come, first serve. So if you want to be a part of that apply, we might can get you started, at least the onboarding process in December depending on what our availability is. 'cause it is a one-to-one program. There's literally limited spots.

Brian: We cannot coach everybody. So just go there, fill out the application. If it's a good fit, we'll approve you. If it's not a good fit, we'll reject you, let you know. ~But that's all I got for you this episode. ~But that's all I got for you for this [00:35:00] episode. Thank you so much for listening to the six Figure Creative Podcast.

Brian: Bye.