Your Portfolio Looks Like a Cheesecake Factory Menu and It’s Embarrassing | The Portfolio Paradox

364. The Portfolio Paradox

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Brian: [00:00:00] my wife and I have a, guilty pleasure. And that is the, the Cheesecake Factory. And the reason is 'cause pretty much anytime we go, we can always find something that we both want, whether it's like.

Brian: Something healthy, which is where I've been the last couple years, is like healthy food or there's obviously unhealthy, guilty pleasure there. the sub guilty pleasure within the guilty pleasure is the ultimate red velvet cheesecake 'cause I'm a red velvet fiend. And here's some stats on that.

Brian: I looked this up ahead of time just 'cause I was curious what the stats on these are. So the macros, 1,580 calories for one slice of red velvet cheesecake. 116 grams of fat, 125 carbs, 104 grams of sugar. That's a half a cup of sugar and one slice of cheesecake. So that's one guilty pleasure.

Brian: And we don't go there super often or order out there super often, but we go often enough where it's become a regular thing that we do. But the first time you go, it's kind of crazy because if you've never been, I'll just explain.

Brian: The menu is 21 pages long, so you go through it, it's like a thick book, 21 pages long. There's over 250 menu items to choose from. especially if you're there with other people who've never been there before, you end up wasting tons of time trying to decide on actually what you want to eat. And then when you order [00:01:00] something.

Brian: You never get the first thing right. You ordered one thing out of 250, so that one thing that you ordered is likely not the perfect thing for you specifically. 'cause every restaurant that's good that you like has that one thing you go for, and you're probably not gonna find it the first time you order a Cheesecake Factory.

Brian: So you end up looking at what everyone else ordered and you regret what you got because everyone else's food looked better than yours. And that's the first I've experienced for pretty much anyone who's ever been at Cheesecake Factory. And despite that, they're wildly profitable. I love looking up stats.

Brian: I love looking up numbers. They did over $900 million in revenue last quarter, so Q1 of 2025, and they did over $30 million profit last quarter. So not high profit margins, but that's kinda the restaurant business. But the reason they're this successful is because they truly have a menu that can cater to just about everyone.

Brian: And that's what brings us to the problem for this episode and why I'm bringing this in up in the first place. Freelancers think that they can have their own Cheesecake Factory menu when it comes to their portfolios. You want to appeal to everyone because you're so afraid of losing potential gigs.

Brian: So you end up creating this 25 page long menu of your work, with over 250 pieces of your portfolio, Like a Cheesecake Factory menu, but freelancers, you're not Cheesecake Factory. You're not [00:02:00] serving 10,000 plus clients a week, which is how many people they're serving in a week.

Brian: On average at a single location, by the way, somewhere between five and 10,000. That's what I could estimate at least by the numbers that they have publicly. They have 200 team members that are in a location. They have a franchise model that they're all following. But freelancers think that they can be the exception to the rule.

Brian: And honestly, cheesecake Factory is the only restaurant I can think of with many of that large. It's actually successful and that I actually eat at and I actually enjoy.

Brian: But when it comes to solo Purdue freelancers, which is like 99% of the people listening to this podcast, you are closer to a boutique chef, a small sit down, 10, 12 seat restaurant. Where your clients wanna see the specialty that you provide, the thing that they come there that you're known for, not some sort of buffet like Cheesecake Factory.

Brian: Somehow I actually make work,

Brian: and ironically with this 250 item portfolio that you have, like your Cheesecake Factory menu, you end up losing out on more clients because you're trying to appeal to more people. it's this weird effect where the more people you try to get to, like you, the less people that actually like you. You've seen this in real life where you're trying to be such a likable person and end up everyone hates you because you're inauthentic,

Brian: and your bloated portfolio is just [00:03:00] screaming. I'm desperate enough to work with pretty much anyone and doesn't inspire trust and potential. Clients don't see any sort of focus. They don't see any sort of expertise. They don't see any confidence behind what you're doing. They just see confusion and confused.

Brian: Clients do not buy.

Brian: And to drive this point home for all my married people, think about the time that you hired your wedding photographer. This is like one of the biggest days of your, entire life. Hopefully the only time you ever get married. So this would be hopefully the only wedding you ever have.

Brian: And when you hired your wedding photographer, you didn't want someone whose portfolio showed weddings, dog portraits product shots, car events senior portraits, baby portraits, real estate listings. Like you don't want that. You didn't look for that. It's not who you hired. You want someone who only does weddings, someone who has a handful of amazing weddings, and their portfolio, you show them, feels intentional, feels curated, feels confident.

Brian: That buffet portfolio of all those different types of work, it might be more impressive. I'll use that. Air quotes impressive than the wedding one, just by sheer variety.

Brian: But that second one, the wedding portfolio was more hireable. Bottom line is, remember, you're not trying to impress, you are trying to convert people. Turn them into clients. And while they may say, yeah, this looks amazing. Look at all these cool examples. They're not piecing it in their [00:04:00] head of how it actually helps them.

Brian: So instead of showing anything you've ever done for your entire life, what if you just created a greatest hits album? A tight focused portfolio that says something like, this is what I'm a world class at. This is what I'm amazing at. This is who I serve. If that's you, let's do it. If it's not you, no problem.

Brian: That type of attitude is not only attractive, it's more effective.

Brian: you're making the decision easier for clients. You're gonna earn more trust, you're gonna build more authority behind what you do because you put your stake in the ground and said, this is what I do, and you're gonna end up attracting better fit clients 'cause they already believe that you're the right choice for them.

Brian: That's what I'm calling the portfolio paradox. if you've never listened to this podcast before, hello, I'm Brian Hood.

Brian: This is the six Figure Creative podcast. This is a podcast for creative freelancers who offer creative services and you wanna make more money without selling your soul. Bring a lot of influences from a lot of different outside industries industries within our creative niche, outside of our creative nicheto help creatives run better businesses.

Brian: I have hundreds of freelance clients that I work with that I can pull from inspiration and see what's working, what's not working. I have a whole wonderful test area to try a bunch of new stuff, see what works, see what doesn't work, and that one to 2% who are amazing at what they do, that we can all learn from within that. And then I have other businesses [00:05:00] and other influences outside of the freelance world altogether that I can pull from to bring in here for this. And the goal here is to just bring some diversity and some new ideas to your business so that you're not stuck looking to your left, looking to your right, to the other photographers, the other videographers, the other music producers right down the road, all doing the same thing. 'cause no one has any idea on how to actually run or build or grow a real business.

Brian: Freelancers are terrible at this. my goal is to change that for you. So back to the portfolio paradox. Why do we even overload our portfolios in the first place? Because if we can't figure out the root cause of what makes us do this, then we likely can't stop ourselves from doing it. You could even listen to this whole episode and be like, yeah I get it, but then you never change anything.

Brian: the first reason is just missing out on opportunities. It's the fomo. When you're broke, you get desperate. When you're desperate, you get massive fomo. And when you have massive fomo, you end up overloading portfolio. 'cause you don't wanna miss out on that. 2% of clients you could get because you have this portfolio piece that could and could maybe just maybe land that one client three years from now.

Brian: And so your portfolio has 30, 40, 50, 60 versions of that just. Hail Mary, hope that you're gonna get the client type [00:06:00] of portfolio piece.

Brian: And then the paradox is the more pieces you have, the less appealing it is to any real client. So you get fewer clients, thus making you more desperate and you get in this horrible spiral. the second reason people overload their portfolios is they just don't have any sort of real clarity on their niche or their positioning. This is super common for newbies. No disrespect at all. If you're new with this and you're just trying to figure out where your place in the world is, no problem at all.

Brian: Keep doing what you're doing. have more for you later on in this episode about kind of what to do about portfolio to keep it from being cluttered, even when you're new. But if you're experienced, there is usually some sort of niche that's screaming at you, but you're ignoring it. I see this all the time.

Brian: We're working with a freelancer. They'll come to us to work with 'em to help 'em with client acquisition, and they'll have. 50, 60, 70 5,000 a year they're making, and on the surface that sounds really good, but then when you dive into it, it's hectic, it's chaotic. You're trying to do too many different types of projects.

Brian: all the products look different. And then you have these big ups and downs and feasts and famines because you're not really known in any niche. It's just, it's not pretty it. and when we dive into it, the 80 20 principle is at play. That's why I'm saying there's a niche screaming at you.

Brian: And the 80 20 principle is just basically [00:07:00] saying. 20% of your income comes from 80% of the work. So you have a bunch of these one-off projects, the app to about 20% of your income, and then you get 80% of your income from like 20% of your projects or project types or client types. And all you need to do is ignore that 80% that's bringing in that tiny amount of income and focus on the 20% of clients or projects or styles or types or niche that's bringing in 80% of your income.

Brian: And the people who refuse to do that are the ones who continue to struggle. Of the people that we coach, it is not a hundred percent success rate. Full transparency, it will never be a hundred percent success rate because we're not dictators in your business. We can tell you all the right things to do, but you can just not do it.

Brian: You can just choose to do your own thing and then you're gonna have the same results that you came to us for in the first place. 'cause you won't fix the things that you came to us to fix. You gotta trust the experts if you hire experts. but I digress. Going back to you.

Brian: If you have a niche screaming at you and you refuse to capitalize on it, you're going to continue to struggle. And so you're gonna stall out. You're gonna have the same problems you've been having, which kinda brings me to number three here. This is the third reason people tend to overload their portfolios.

Brian: And refuse to niche down. It's kind of a hand in hand kind of thing, [00:08:00] is it's just ego. You wanna showcase your sheer talent, your range, how varied you can be with your skillset basically just wanna prove to the world that you're great The reality is your client doesn't care how great you are. They only care how great you can make them.

Brian: When you have an overloaded portfolio, you're just saying me, me, me. Look at all these cool things that I can do. And it's not saying, you, you, you look at all these cool things that I can do for you. And it sounds stupid, but really the whole meaning behind it is do you want your portfolio to be an ego piece or a piece that sells for you?

Brian: And by the way, your desire for variety, this is the other thing we got. I don't wanna niche down. I don't wanna narrow my portfolio ' cause I'll get so bored doing the same type of work.

Brian: and that desire for variety and change and, not doing the same thing is still the sameego-driven decision. You refuse to narrow down your portfolio. Yourefuse to niche down because you don't wanna do the same type of work over and over again.

Brian: And what's funny about this is I usually only hear this from people who have these wide open calendars, these big gaps in their calendars where they're just twiddling their thumbs doing nothing, which sounds horrible. It sounds boring as shit to me. Very rarely do I see people who are slammed with work with more projects than they can deal with [00:09:00] who are just doing a bunch of different stuff.

Brian: It's almost always niche. They're known for something when a piece of work needs to be done, ah, this is the person we need to refer that way. Those people who refuse to narrow down are the ones who have the emptiest schedules doing the least amount of work, and yet, weirdly, their excuse is, I would be bored.

Brian: I'll tell you the same thing I'll tell any client you can niche stack later. Niche stacking is basically saying once you. Plant your flag. You dominate a niche, you build it up, you're booked solid. You have the option if you want to take that same approach, the same thing that you just did with us, bring it to a new niche, try stacking up multiple niches.

Brian: I've done that myself over the years,

Brian: but usually by the time you get to the point where you could do that, you don't really want to. ' cause you're Sam with work, your clients love you, actually find out that there is plenty of variety in niched work.

Brian: And so you never niche stack.

Brian: in the perfect world, you could just do whatever you wanted. You could just do whatever products you wanted, whatever you fancied, whatever you cared about. But the reality is there's two people involved with a transaction.

Brian: There's you and there's the client. The client has the money, so you have to have a way to appeal to the person who has the money. And if you fail to do that, you essentially just [00:10:00] have a hobby. And hobbies are wonderful. I have a lot of hobbies. There's some that I've specifically not allowed myself to monetize because not only is a distraction from my core business, it's also contain the hobby itself.

Brian: I just want it to be a hobby.

Brian: But if you decide to do this for a living, to make money from it, you have to understand that there's another person involved and you have to appeal to that person because they're the ones paying you, and it's not selling your soul, it's not selling out. It is literally saying, I'm willing to do what I need to do to make my skillset valuable to that person.

Brian: so bottom line here, an overloaded portfolio does not mean more credibility. Doesn't mean you're more credible, doesn't mean you're going to appeal to more people. It is just a lack of clarity. It gives your potential clients more crap to sort through, for them to find what they're actually looking for.

Brian: Which adds friction. And your job is not to add friction to the decision making process. You want it to be frictionless. You want it to be easy. A simple yes. Wow. This portfolio is perfect for what we're looking for. Boom. Hired.

Brian: So we talked about what a portfolio shouldn't be. It shouldn't be overloaded. Talking about why it's overloaded in the first place the psychology behind that. But what should the portfolio be? the best advice I can give you here is it should be a sales tool, not a trophy shelf, not a bin that you just shove all your [00:11:00] shit into.

Brian: It should be designed with a buyer in mind, the person with the money in mind. The easiest way to think of it for my marketing minded freelancers, you'll get this reference for my web designers. You'll definitely get this, but think of it like a landing page, a great landing page.

Brian: A great landing page will have a specific promise, specific outcome, one specific call to action. It'll have one next step. Easy navigation. Great design, great ux, all these sorts of things that go into a great landing page. Fast loading speed. But then there's also, you've seen the piss poor landing pages.

Brian: No clear promise, no clear outcome, no specific call to action, multiple calls to action. Even tons of links, tons of different things you could do on the page. Popups, distractions, bad design, bad ux.

Brian: That adds friction. And friction means that landing page will just not convert. It'll have significantly lower conversion rate,

Brian: and yet many portfolios are designed like the latter versus the former. They're designed with the bad landing page, the bad ux, too much clutter, too many things they could do versus the great landing page. Very direct, very clear, very focused. And just like a great landing page, a great portfolio solves one specific problem for one type of person.

Brian: the second you start trying to [00:12:00] do multiple things in portfolio is the second start eroding trust because the bottom line is

Brian: you're not showing off. Your portfolio is not a place to show off. Your work is a place to build trust, so a good portfolio should make that decision easier instead harder. so let's talk through, how can we slim down your portfolio?

Brian: First thing, just audit what's already in it. Ask yourself First of all, how many pieces do you have?

Brian: My background, music, production, in the audio world, I see this mistake all the time. They'll have 15, 20, 30, 50 songs in the portfolio. Showing all different genres they could work with

Brian: all the different clients they've ever worked with. It's just a massively overloaded portfolio.

Brian: and there's the same in the photo world, the video world, the web design world, the branding design world, the logo world. Every single niche has the same exact problem. So the question is, when you're going through your portfolio, how do you decide what to stay and what to keep?

Brian: Easiest thing to do is just say, does this work? Reflect the kind of work I wanna get more of?

Brian: If that piece of work doesn't reflect that, if it doesn't say, this is what I want more of, if it doesn't align with their niche doesn't fit your future best fit clients for you, cut it out and focus on five to 10 pieces that show depth, the alignment, the style, the niche, the vibe that your ideal clients [00:13:00] want.

Brian: I know five to 10 sounds really low, horribly low. For a lot of you. You can always have a dual portfolio. You could always have the five to 10 featured pieces, the ones that really show your work, the ones that are perfect, fit for your ideal clients, and then call to action at the bottom of that should be.

Brian: Get started work together, something like that. And if you have to have more work, put a little link above the button, far away from the button, just below the portfolio that just says, click here for the extended portfolio, or something like that. Extended portfolio. Full portfolio. And that's where you can dump all your other shit.

Brian: I'm gonna bet I put money on it. Reach out to me. If you wanna put a money bet on this, I bet a hundred bucks that.

Brian: Less than 5% of people that land on that page will go to that second portfolio outta a hundred people to look at your portfolio. Less than five of those will even click that link and the time on page for that bloated ass page with all the extra stuff on it. The time on page will probably be 10, 15 seconds.

Brian: That's my a hundred dollars bat right there. I'll take it for anyone.

Brian: When you do this right, Your portfolio should look like a hell yes to your ideal client, even if it's a hell no for other people. I think a good example of this, [00:14:00] I dunno how much design work he's actually doing now, but made by James. We had him on the podcast a couple, hundred episodes ago.

Brian: Good lord, we've been doing this podcast too fucking long. Anyways. Made by James is on here a couple hundred episodes ago, I think. he's got a very unique style, very unique vibe. You either love it or you hate it. And his style is not for every brand.

Brian: So for the right brand, they're gonna say, hell yes. This is our designer for the right style. Hell yes. Made by James is our guy for the wrong person for like a corporate. Clean style, they're gonna say, hell no, not for us.

Brian: Bottom line is your portfolio is not a warehouse. This is not a place you just stuff every single thing you could ever put in there. Think of it like a curated collection. This is not Goodwill, it's an art gallery right

Brian: now for those of you who are still trying to figure out your niche what can you do? You're newer or you're still in those kind of early phases where you're just like, what direction should I go?

Brian: Like I said, everyone goes through this phase. Very few people just go right out the gate knowing exactly what their niche is. Sometimes it happens, but it's rare.

Brian: My suggestion is don't default to showing every single thing you could. I recommend have micro [00:15:00] portfolios for different client types, so you can have segmented links or pages This style or this niche, or this vibe is on one page, this style, this niche, this vibe, this industry, or whatever's on another page.

Brian: And then whenever it makes sense. If you're talking to somebody who's a specific niche, let's say niche C or niche 3 0 4, you have four little sub-portfolios. Or micro portfolios, you can send them the link to niche three or portfolio three.

Brian: And then for your website, if somebody's just browsing your website, when they click on your portfolio, you can have a choose your own adventure where it's which one of these is you?

Brian: I am client type A, client type B, client type C, client type D. And that way they can just click one of the floor that they identify with the closest, and then go look at that one portfolio. that way when they're looking at their portfolio.

Brian: It's still only work that appeals to them. And that way where you're still exploring, you're still figuring this stuff out, you can position yourself as a little more focused, even if you're still open to a lot of different things. you can still test different niches without overwhelming your portfolio with a bunch of junk.

Brian: So my suggestion for everyone listening today. Go audit your portfolio. my gut tells me you probably haven't even updated your portfolio in like over a year, much less audited it to see is this [00:16:00] stuff even relevant anymore? Have I fallen under the trap of the Cheesecake Factory 250 item menu?

Brian: When your portfolio sends mixed signals to people on your website, do not be surprised when you start getting mixed results. It's my little pithy quote to end the day for you.

Brian: If you need help with this, We can help. will help you niche you down. That's a, big thing that people struggle with, is just deciding on what niche they wanna be a part of. We'll help focus your portfolio. We will help you get more eyeballs on your website and your portfolio so you're not invisible.

Brian: Many freelancers they have that ghost problem where they are a ghost to their ideal clients. You're great at what you do. You might even have a focus portfolio, but nobody sees it. If nobody sees your portfolio, do you even exist? You are invisible. We'll help you fix that as well. If that sounds interesting to you, just go to six figure creative.com/coaching.

Brian: Fill out the short application. If we're a good fit, we'll work together We'll create an entire customized client acquisition strategy for you. We'll pitch it to you. You can review the entire roadmap and pitch, see if you like it. If you do, we can work together. If you don't, we'll, part ways, full refund.

Brian: And even when we work together, it's only month to month you can cancel whenever you're done. When you feel like you're no longer getting [00:17:00] value from us. So that's all I got for you today. Just go to six figure creative.com/coaching. Again, that's the link if you want to apply. Otherwise, I'll see you next week on the six Figure Creative Podcast piece.