Can there really be one single thing that a freelancer must have in order to be a success? Is there really one factor which has an overriding impact on the success or otherwise of a business?
John Williams has been advising people for five years on how to make their business work, whether they be a freelancer, consultant, coach, speaker, or internet entrepreneur. During this time he has discovered one defining factor that consistently separates those that succeed from those that struggle.
The factor he talks about is not a fancy website, or masses of web traffic, or the smartest marketing, or even the best sales skills. It’s more fundamental than that. The distinguishing trait of those whose businesses really take off is that they sell the right thing – they have a killer offer.
Until you’ve got a killer offer – something a lot of people really want – all the marketing in the world won’t help you. What follows is a guide to creating that killer offer:
Three keys to building your killer offer
* It must be based on something you love doing. Firstly, it takes a lot of time and effort to build a successful business so you have got to choose something that you will enjoy working on and will hold your interest. It just won’t work otherwise. Secondly, if you build a business around the things you love doing a lot, you’ll already have a competitive advantage. It’s hard to compete with someone who loves what they do. You’ll be happier too and as recent research shows, happiness leads to success.
* It must be something you have real talent for – but understand that most people’s idea of talent is far too narrow. Your greatest talents might be things that never show up on a CV: the ability to connect with almost anyone, your endless supply of creative ideas, an obsession with getting the details of a project just right. Focus on those things that come easily to you. As marketing guru Seth Godin says, do what you’re best in the world at, quit everything else.
* Your offer must meet a pressing need – it should solve a problem or address a pain that lots of people have. When you work out what this is, you’ll find you connect directly with the people you want to work with and dramatically reduce the time to win business. To find the pain you address, think about this: What’s the biggest concern for the people you work with right now that you can help with? What do they wake up in the morning stressing about? What often irritates or frustrates people in the area you work in? Once you know what it is, you can start to speak directly to what is at the forefront of your prospects’ minds. Get all this right and you’ll find you gather momentum quickly – you’ll generate word of mouth referrals and attract more and more business. You’ll be doing work you enjoy and you should find you can raise your prices too!
By John Williams at [www.Freelanceadvisor.co.uk]
John Williams is author of Screw Work, Let’s Play: How to do what you love & get paid for it to be published by Pearson in June. He is a former Senior Managing Consultant at Deloitte and has consulted independently to the BBC, Siemens and Accenture.
I recently bought John William’s book and can highly recommend it. No I don’t know him, I am a genuine customer. I changed the name of my business and my focus once I was half way through the book when I realised that my original idea was really boring!!