from crickets to clients

July 15, 2024

I remember pulling an all-nighter on my first solo agency website, only to launch to crickets.

No one on my 163 person email list seemed to care, except the one gal who was also working on her website and wanted to know how I did mine.

In the months that followed, I got zero clients from that website.

It created this kind of impostor syndrome, where I felt like, if I couldn't get clients through my own website, how could I profess to help anyone with theirs?

So I set out to learn everything I could about selling online.

I wanted to know how to wake up leads in my inbox.

A year later, I stumbled on a mentor who advised me to focus on my positioning.

He explained it like this...

Positioning your business is just front-loading what happens at the point of transaction into the way you market and promote your business .

Let's deconstruct what I mean by that.

When you pitch a client, you're positioning your skill-set and experience against their needs. If you're a designer and a client comes along who runs an online store that desperately needs more customers, your proposal will align what it is you can technically do with what results your client needs.

And when I talk about positioning your business, all I'm saying is to take what happens at the point of proposal and pull that into the way you market, describe, and present yourself to prospective clients.

That's it. That's Positioning 101.

I applied the principle to my website and the results were night and day.

I got focused on a niche (Squarespace) and a specific problem that I cared about.

One that I could go out and find people struggling with.

Then as I found solutions to that problem, I published them.

Finally for the first time in my freelance career, I was waking up to people who wanted to work with me.

Not because the website said I was awesome, but because it demonstrated that I understood their immediate needs and concerns first.

If you are anywhere close to where I was with my first agency website, here's my challenge for you this week...

Get behind the WHY.

Why do existing clients want code, design or words written, and what does that do for their business?

Then work backwards to determine how you can:

Reach them
Show them that they have a problem that you can solve (or empathize that you know the problem they're facing)
Demonstrate that, yes, their problem CAN be solved
Give examples or instruction about how their problems can be solved (case studies, tutorials, etc.)
Show them how working with you will solve their problem
Do your thing
Deliver!

Then you can capture steps 2 - 5 on the website and let it do the work for you.

What do you think?

Useful or muddled?

I'd love to hear about your experiences with positioning.

Omari

Founder
SQSPThemes.com