How to position yourself as an expert (no portfolio, no experience)

four years ago I launched my web design business with no experience and almost no portfolio And yet when those first clients got on the phone with me not one of them questioned my experience or my prices and this meant that within weeks I was able to go from never having charged $500 to booking clients at $5,000 plus and I didn't have anything special I didn't have any connections I wasn't crazy talented at anything in particular and I wasn't The Confident person that you see in front of the camera now I was a shy introvert doubting

if I actually had what it took to attract clients and build my own business and so in this video I want to take you through the exact steps that I took in those first 3 months to transform my positioning my business and my mindset in order to attract those first clients and book them with ease without having to use cold calling or pushy sales tactics or complicated email funnels this is a question I get asked time and time again how do I position myself as an expert when I don't feel like an expert yet I

have no experience no portfolio no testimonials no proof that I actually know what I'm doing and the thing is if you wait until you feel like an expert you feel confident enough before you start then you will never start you are never going to feel confident when you're just starting out but the truth is it doesn't matter how you feel it doesn't matter what you believe about yourself it only matters what your clients believe and your clients don't know how old you are how much experience you have or how many other clients that you've worked

with when you come across someone online you can't tell any of this about a person nobody knows you're a newbie unless you tell them and so in this video I'm going to help you fix the three biggest mistakes that you're making in your website your marketing and your mindset that are making you look like an amateur and not an expert so first up your website often when you don't feel confident in your experience or what you have to offer then the first move is to overcompensate you think you need to gather as much information and

evidence as possible to fill up your website so you end up with tons of irrelevant and confusing information a huge portfolio of mediocre work and a long aout page filled with irrelevant information and experiences this is a huge giveaway that you're an amateur and not an expert when you're trying to look professional less is more so first up instead of trying to build out an ire website which you really don't need and I'm a web designer so you can probably trust me on this all you need is a sales page outlining one very clear offer

and this is actually great news for you especially if you're at the beginning stages of your business and you feel inadequate because you don't have the experience to offer all these different types of services the easiest way to position yourself as an expert is to pick one thing to really focus on and become great at learn everything you can to deliver a really good service in this one thing and then you can expand from there and the interesting thing is that by offering only this one service service you automatically make yourself look like the expert

for example if you want to offer web design because you know a lot about copywriting but you know absolutely nothing about user interface design or building an actual website then just offer copywriting if I am a high ticket client looking to invest in copywriting and there were two options between a web design agency that offered a range of different Services copywriting being one of them or someone who had only one service and it was copyrighting if I am a higher budget client who is more concerned about the results I'm getting over getting a bargain I'm

probably going to choose the person who only offers copyrighting because I would presume that it's their specialty and they're going to be better at it so by narrowing it down to one service that you can deliver really really well you've automatically positioned yourself as an expert without doing anything and the second thing you need to know is how to present this service when you're presenting a service to clients you don't sell how you sell why this is the only thing that they care about and so what I mean by this is even if you do

offer a range of custom solutions for clients that include a mix of web design brand identity marketing and advertising these are all how and clients don't care about how they only care about why and so the best way to present this as a service is under one very clear value proposition for example grow your online presence with a powerful design partner one clear service that offers one clear result and if you do want to present more than one package on their sales page for different types of clients then you don't want to give people too

many options and this is because of the Paradox of choice if you give people too many things to choose from they're far more likely to just choose nothing at all and so if you do want to offer more than one package or service three is the optimum amount you want a budget option a mid- tier option and then a high pric premium option it doesn't even matter if you think that the premium option is so expensive that no one will ever go for it pricing is all relative there is no cheap or expensive it's all

relative so the purpose of this premium option is to become a price anchor this High ticket option over here makes this middle tier option look like a complete bargain compared to the premium option and so it increases the perceived value of this middle package and so by having these three options they're going to be the clients who are budget conscious and will automatically go to the cheapest one then you'll get the people who are most concerned with results over budget and so we automatically opt for the most expensive one but most people are going to

fall somewhere in the middle so by having these two options either side of it you increase the conversions to your middle option so the most important thing on this landing page is that you just make it very clear this is my service this is how it works with a clear three-step process and here's the button to work with me I actually had very little on my sales page other than this the simpler and easier you make it for people the more likely you are to convert people to your offer and the more likely you are

to come across as an expert and everything else that I put on this page was very carefully curated to increase the perceived likelihood of someone achieving the results they want if they choose to work with me and the way that you do this is through your portfolio and your testimonials but you really don't need a lot the key here is quality over quantity so in terms of my portfolio I had very little experience or client work when I first started so what I did was carefully curate two portfolio projects to show only the very best

of what I was capable of so at the time all I did was build out two example landing pages not even a full website that was it one was a landing page I'd built for my sister and one was a landing page I built for a family friend and I put these together just to show that I was capable of creating a NIC looking web page the the most important thing was that I completely got rid of the 10 other very average design projects that just didn't belong there you want to make sure your portfolio

is very carefully curated to attract only the type of clients that you want to work with and in terms of structuring your portfolio the key here is really understanding what your clients care about and so here's how you'd write a description for your portfolio or your case studies to only show clients exactly what they want to see when client came to me they were struggling with this problem so I helped them with this project outline now they have positive results or outcomes of the project and that's it just a short paragraph outlining what problems the

client had when they came to you what Solutions you gave them and then what results it helped them achieve that's all that clients want to see and you can do this with any service even if you don't have a visual portfolio to show and then if you can you want to use a testimonial from your client to add some additional proof again you don't need much here I didn't have any testimonials when I first started all I had was one testimonial that I got my sister to write for me after I made her a simple

landing page for her personal training business it was very short and it literally just gave that tiny bit of social proof that someone had a positive experience working with me and so a template for an impactful testimonial goes something like when I came to name I was describe initial problem since working with them I've seen specific results or improvements and I feel positive emotion and you can literally give this as an exact template for people to make it really easy for them to just fill in the gaps and know what to write when you ask

for a testimonial but don't worry if you don't have any portfolio case studies or testimonials yet this is not the only way that you can portray yourself as an expert and help people feel confident that you can help them get the results they want if they choose to work with you one of the best ways to actually do this if you don't have an experience is to show off your knowledge and the way that you do this is through your marketing and more specifically creating content so when I first started I was a complete newbie

with zero experience but I had a lot of knowledge I was learning everything I could to become a better web designer and get better results for my clients and then I was just sharing what I was learning and this was a huge part of how people came to start perceiving leaving me as an expert and didn't question my experience or portfolio when they got on sales calls with me they had already seen me demonstrate my knowledge and that was enough proof that I knew what I was talking about and I knew how to help them

but there is a specific type of value or knowledge that you should be posting to make sure you position yourself as an expert and not an amateur instead of teaching people how to do things in your content you want to make sure you're teaching why for example if you are a web designer it is no use teaching people how to build a website how to create a landing page or how to create their branding if you do this you are only going to attract people who are wanting to learn how to do this themselves other

people in the beginning stages of their business looking to DIY their own website and they just see you as a free source of information but instead when you start teaching why the thing matters what painful problems it solves for them and the results that it helps them get then you start attracting people who are looking for outcomes they are looking for a result to help them and they don't want to do it themselves so you teach people why you use certain strategies when you're working with your clients and what results it helps these clients get

for example increased conversions better qualified leads and more money for their business and when you start creating this type of content people start to see you as the person with the knowledge and the expertise to help them get what they want now I know this is when the impostor syndrome kicks in for a lot of people and you start thinking but why would anybody listen to me and this is where you have to position yourself as the guide and not the guru you don't need to be the all- knowing Guru in order to Share value

and help people you're just a guide sharing what you know sharing what you're learning and hoping that someone will get value from it if I've done a lot of research on a topic that could genuinely help other people why wouldn't I share it with them so let your impostor syndrome fuel you to be the very best at what you do and get better and better results for your clients my impostor Syndrome has continuously pushed me to overd deliver and become the best at what I do when I just started out I was doing a huge

amount of research just to prove to myself and others that I knew what I was talking about and then I was just sharing what I learned in my content you really don't need to pretend to be something you're not be yourself be honest and share your personality every single one of those first clients that booked in a sales call with me said something like I saw this useful tip that you posted and I just really liked your Vibe and so if we take a look at the journey that these first clients took before reaching out

to me they saw my content they found it helpful which proved that I knew what I was talking about they liked my vibe and so they connected with me on some kind of personal level and decided that they trusted me then they went to my website and it was clear what service I offered and how it helped them and then if they needed that additional reassurance or proof that I was capable of helping them then they could look at the two very carefully curated portfolio projects which proved that I was capable of making a nice

looking website and boosted their trust in me and it's honestly as simple as that you don't need as much as you think you do to convince people that you are capable of helping them now it's here in this next step where a client has reached out to you you get on a sales call with them that most people trip up and give themselves away as an amateur and to fix this you have to fix your mindset your biggest asset when it comes to helping people trust you and see you as an expert is your confidence

I found this post the other day that perfectly describes the problem most people have when they're first stting out in their business the first sale you must ever make is to yourself if you don't believe in your service and how it helps people and you don't believe what you sell is worth the price you charge then your clients won't either it all comes down to your own conviction and self-esteem you have to prove to yourself first that you are worth what you're selling and I know that this is not always an easy thing to do

but here are two things that I did to 10x my confidence when going into these sales calls first first of all I solved the problem for myself first to give myself the confidence and prove that I could do it for others what do I mean by this well I was selling brand and web design services and so the first thing I did was build my own website I said I'm going to put myself out there and if no one hires me I guess I didn't build a very good website and so no one should hire

me anyway this meant that when those first clients reached out to me it boosted my confidence because I had clearly proven to myself that I was capable of making a website that attracts clients but you have to put yourself out there first to prove that you can do it and the more you do that the more proof you build the more confident you get confidence comes from action there's never going to be a magical moment where all of a sudden you feel ready and you feel confident before you start and the second thing I did

to build my confidence before going into those initial sales calls was having very clear templates and a clear client process to follow this is one of the biggest things that separates the amateurs from the experts when an amateur freelancer gets on a sales call they often let the client take the lead and tell them what they need and while it's important to listen to your client and understand their problems and their goals you then have to be confident taking the lead and guiding the conversation to get them to the point where they feel ready to

hear your pitch and ready to work with you and so when I got on a sales call I already had a template or a script I knew exactly what questions to ask and I was able to take the lead and walk them through exactly what it looked like to work with me and so if you want to use this script then you can steal my entire client process for yourself by watching this video here