Tag Archives: B2B

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Half of Life Is Follow-Up: Networking and Reconnecting

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B2B marketing has changed quite a bit in the past four or five years; Artificial Intelligence has impacted so much—lead generation and scoring, targeting and segmenting leads, content creation and refining personalization are among the functions that AI-powered marketing tools have endowed with significantly more precision and power. It’s all good, but 21st century advancements cannot replace the effectiveness of a marketing tactic that is as old as the pyramids—networking. Life is about relationships and networking—meeting, greeting and connecting with people—has demonstrated that it is an effective way to build relationships that help you to do more business.

In a world increasingly dominated by technology, personal relationships stand out and become more important. While your prospective clients prefer a self-guided buyer’s journey and opt to keep you and your competitors at arm’s length until they are assembling the short list of candidates whose service or product will be chosen by the buyer search committee, those same prospects nevertheless want to work with people they trust, like, and feel connected to. For example, 73% of B2B marketing executives rank word-of-mouth and peer recommendations as the most influential factor in deciding which vendors to consider. Furthermore, findings come from Forrester’s 2024 Buyers’ Journey Survey indicate that 92% of B2B buyers start their journey with at least one vendor in mind, and 41% already have a preferred vendor selected before any formal evaluation.

In other words, if you’d like to get on the radar screen of B2B buyers, it makes a lot of sense to meet a few of them face2face. Getting to know people is how familiarity and trust can develop and trust increases the probability of getting on a buyer’s journey short list that is the pathway to a sale. An in-person introduction from contact that you meet in either a business or social setting can, one day, walk you past the gatekeepers and perhaps accelerate a (morbidly slow) sales cycle. Networking thrives on serendipity and many of the best business opportunities come from unexpected connections made in casual settings. Not only that, but relationship networks are also known to compound; a strong professional network grows and becomes more valuable over time as your contacts advance in their careers. One relationship leads to another; one introduction leads to years of opportunity; one influential connection can open doors to opportunities you never knew existed.

However, keep in mind that healthy and enjoyable relationships are a two-way street. That means, be sure to give your new contact before you ask for any favors—share useful content, make introductions for him/her, offer your expertise—before asking for a favor. Be specific about how you can help: Instead of saying, “Let’s stay in touch and let me know if I can ever help” is less effective than “I have a connection at [company] you should know — would you like an introduction?”

Nurture your relationships proactively by reaching out to contacts new and those with whom you’d like to reconnect before you need anything. Because you want to keep alive the magic of finding a new friend or seeing an old friend again, follow-up within 24 hours after meeting someone at an event. You might want to send a LinkedIn connection invite with a personalized note the next business day. Play a long game: relationships that result in business typically take 6-24 months to materialize.

4 phrases that make you likeable

Finally, let’s launch your networking strategy with four easy-to-remember phrases that will make you stand out as an appealing, smart, interesting (because you are interested in the person you’re talking with) and trustworthy person. Those qualities are the cornerstone of relationship-building. It is why networking is such a powerful marketing activity that should always be included in your business planning.

“I was just thinking about you!” This is a powerful phrase you can use absolutely anywhere. Everyone likes to be remembered. So telling someone, “I was just thinking of you!” immediately sparks connection. It’s a casual relationship-building follow-up phrase that immediately puts someone at ease by reminding them they are top of mind and makes them feel good. 

‘Tell me more!’ Asking people questions, especially follow-up questions, shows that you listen, you’re engaged and interested in the other person’s thoughts and feelings and that responsiveness makes you likable. That you remember what is or was important to that person shows that you value them.

‘You’re so…!’ What makes someone instantly likable? You might think it’s charm or cleverness. But often, it’s this: making others feel valued. In every conversation, people are quietly wondering, Am I being boring? Am I doing well? Do they like me? Your job is to answer those questions before they’re asked. Humans love to be validated for who they are, not just what they do. Frequently. Don’t assume you’ve said it before, or that someone knows how valued they are. We can almost never receive too much validation if it’s genuine. Doing so is simple. If you appreciate something about someone, tell them! Just say: “You’re so…” then you can highlight their humor, charisma, or whatever characteristic that is uniquely theirs. 

“Last time we talked, you mentioned…”Do you want to persuade someone you’ve met before to reconnect? Try saying, “Last time we were talking, you mentioned…” followed by something that lit them up the last time you talked.  You could say, “Last time we spoke, you mentioned you were going to Portugal on vacation. How was that?” Or ask about the big project they mentioned, or a show you both love. 

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Adobe Stock Images

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How Can Freelance B2B Service Providers Integrate Sustainability?

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A growing number of organizations are integrating sustainability into their business strategy—realizing they can do well by doing good. In a recent McKinsey survey, 70 % of respondents said their companies have official sustainability protocols in place. For B2B companies, sustainability is increasingly tied to winning clients and generating revenue. But what does it mean to operate a “sustainable” business?

Owners and leaders of sustainable businesses learn to understand the environmental and social conditions that matter to their customers, suppliers, employees, lenders and regulatory agencies and how the company’s sustainability strategies can effectively address those concerns. For Freelance solopreneur B2B companies, the starting point for introducing sustainability is to align sustainability goals and strategies with products and services it provides. That is, B2B sustainability strategies are typically determined by operations—awareness of how producing your company’s key services and products impacts the environment and society with which you interact, and sustainability encompasses doing business without negatively impacting those factors. The goal of developing and implementing sustainable business strategies is to make a positive impact on at least one of those areas and the goals and implementation tactics are unique to each organization and influenced by company values and business goals.

B2B sustainability is different from B2C sustainable business practices. Sustainability in the B2B sector is mostly related to business operations such as responsible sourcing of what your company sells and credible policies and procedures that are documented in a sustainability statement that can be viewed by clients or prospects who may give preference to vendors who have sustainability protocols in place. Your company’s sustainability statement will be used to demonstrate to decision-makers who manage the purchasing of B2B services or products that your company has rational and effective sustainability practices in place. Stakeholders such as Chief Financial Officers, Human Resources, legal departments and risk management and other stakeholders who promote sustainability may also implement Environmental, Social and Government (ESG) strategies.

Sustainability in business can mean a B2B Freelance service provider can integrate sustainability by optimizing digital operations, embedding environmentally friendly practices into the solutions they deliver and aligning and, ideally, aligning the sourcing and delivery of their solutions with a particular client’s ESG targets. A well-written sustainability statement can impact whether your company wins contracts, becomes or remains an approved supplier, receives renewals of product or service orders and/or satisfies due diligence requirements of potential lenders or investors. Another plus is that the global and national media attention surrounding the importance of sustainability will likely result in enhancement of your company’s brand reputation when sustainability practices are introduced.

Getting started

  • Understand your company’s current impact on the environment and the community. Start by assessing how your business activities affect the environment and society. This could be your supply chain, carbon footprint, waste management or community engagement. Where are your largest impact areas?
  •  Set realistic goals. Once you know your impact areas, set achievable sustainability goals and they will be influenced by what a Freelancer or small business owner is able to impact. Your goals might include reducing waste, sourcing materials responsibly, or supporting local communities by volunteering at not-for-profit organizations that have a social mission.
  •  Embrace transparency. Be open about your sustainability journey. Share your goals, progress and challenges with your stakeholders, including customers, employees and investors. As they say, perfection is the enemy of progress. Don’t think you have to have it all worked out before you start. However, remember that being genuine is different from being flawless—steer clear of greenwashing, as authenticity is key.
  • Embrace transparency. Be open about your sustainability journey. Share your goals, progress and challenges with your stakeholders, including customers, employees and investors. Sustainability in the 2020s is still a work in progress; don’t think you have to have it all worked out before you start. As long as you avoid “greenwashing” and remain true to your values, just get started.
  • Assess and adjust where necessary. Sustainability is a dynamic field. Stay informed about new technologies and practices that can be integrated into your business. Ideas are everywhere when we know who to ask and where to look. Finding a group of your peers with whom you could share ideas and other helpful info will inspire you. A sustainability leader at one of your client companies may also be willing to make suggestions and could even become a mentor. Do what is necessary to stay informed about new technologies and practices that can be integrated into your business.

Operational choices

  • Green digital habits: Clear unused cloud storage, optimize website energy efficiency and use low-carbon hosting providers.
  • Paperless workflows: Rely entirely on digital contracts, invoicing, and e-signatures.
  • Remote-first optimization: Minimize business travel and offset unavoidable carbon emissions.

Service and deliverable alignment

  • Sustainable positioning: If you provide writing, design, consulting, or tech services, offer specialized guidance, or content that explains and defends sustainable practices.
  • Conscious vendor choices: Collaborate with sub-contractors and suppliers who also prioritize ethical and environmental standards.
  • Value-added: Help clients track or present the reduced environmental footprint tied to the projects you oversee for them.

Going forward

Embracing sustainability is more than a trend; it’s a fundamental shift in how we do business. For Freelancers and small businesses owners, starting this journey can be daunting, but it’s essential for long-term success. Remember, sustainability is a continuous process of learning, observing, adapting and upgrading. By taking actionable steps early, you are not only contributing to a better world but also building a resilient and future-proof business.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Vecteezy

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Remedies to Stimulate Sluggish Cash-Flow

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There are several ways to evaluate the financial health of a business entity and an examination of cash-flow is a reliable method. Cash-flow, the amount of money that flows through your business—on the plus side is the income generated by revenue derived from sales of your products and services, earnings accrued from interest and dividends, or loans or investments that have been obtained. On the outbound side, cash-flow consists of what is spent on expenses such as office rent and utilities, product inventory, employee wages (1099 NEC and W-2), or business promotion activities, such as advertising or public relations. Cash-flow generated from normal business operations is known as operating cash-flow.

Learning how to control, and ideally enhance, cash-flow in your business is a risk management lesson that has direct impact on the success and longevity of your entity. It would not be a stretch to consider the necessity for prudent cash-flow management an emergency for Freelance solopreneurs, as the B2B sales process becomes more complex and now averages 11 stakeholders and/or decision-makers and continues to lengthen (121 days). Rising consumer prices present yet another worry.

So what can you do to more effectively control your business cash-flow? The short answer is to increase sales revenue and other income and decrease the spend on expenses—if only! Fortunately, there are a number of potentially effective cash-flow maintenance tactics you might implement to strengthen the viability of your entity:

Operating expenses

Generating sales revenue and other income is the most obvious cash-flow engine, but keep in mind that expenses and other spending commitments can quickly empty your coffers and leave you in the red. Let us begin the cash-flow improvement process by reviewing your fixed and operating (selling) expenses and look to see what you can trim.

  • Negotiate better terms with vendors and suppliers. Can payment schedules slow down, or payments due become smaller? Inventory and operational goods and services provided by suppliers and vendors are essential line items expenses, but if you just accept their presence in your accounts payable obligations each month without question or exploration, you may be spending more than necessary. Cultivate cooperative relationships with vendors and other suppliers and seek their advice and support if it appears you need to renegotiate prices or credit terms, and/or secure discounts for bulk orders, both of which can cut costs.
  • Reevaluate spending. Are you paying for goods or services—like subscriptions, for example—that you don’t use? Can you eliminate some of the line items out of your monthly budget? Over time, small yet unnecessary, expenses have a way of adding up. Rethink your resource allocation, meaning, take a look at where your money is going and confirm that every item has a Return on Investment that justifies the expenditure. It’s easy to forget about or overlook trivial expenses, they can often leave you paying hundreds of dollars, if not more, in unnecessary bills and fees over a year. It’s always a good idea to work to improve your cash-flow management. Take a hard look at accounts payable items and determine where you might cut back.

Invoicing and payments

  • Collect payment upfront. The faster your business gets paid, the more cash your business will have to pay expenses, invest in growth, or even to park in a savings account for future needs. Consider charging 10-15% up front as a deposit and don’t commence work until you have it.
  • Invoice often. When you are busy doing client work, it’s easy to get behind on administrative tasks—but don’t let invoicing take a back seat. Send invoices on time every month and keep due dates consistent. Doing so will set clear expectations about the financial arrangement between you and your clients and can help you meet your financial obligations and goals. Follow up on invoices that aren’t paid on time when the due date reaches or exceeds 45 days.
  • Make it easy to pay. Give your customers options that make it easy to pay. Sign up with a credit card processing company so you can accept credit and debit cards. B2B customers may prefer to pay via ACH, while other customers may prefer payment options like Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App. You want to speed up payments, which are your revenue.
  • Charge for late payments. A penalty for late payments that exceed a certain number of days (for example, 60+ days) can urge clients to prioritize your invoices and avoid extra fees. In extreme cases, you can even set a system for collections. Consider debt collection services to get past due invoices paid. This is touchy, however, and you don’t want a client to get angry about a demand for payment and refuse to pay in retaliation. If you decide to introduce a charge for late payments, make sure you give your clients adequate notice in writing and a telephone call first could soften the blow. Maybe the client is waiting to be paid by his/her client?

Increase revenue

  • Sell more products or services. Are you relying heavily on email marketing but not really seeing profit from your efforts? Have you become complacent about your social media followers and lost sight of how maintaining their engagement can contribute to future sales and word-of-mouth referrals that bring in new business? Sometimes marketing efforts can become stale and predictable, leaving your customers uninspired and going elsewhere with their business. Audit your current marketing campaigns and determine where you may be able to make changes to jump-start your existing tactics and engage new customers.
  • Identify and target new markets. In some cases, this may be as simple as some thoughtful and creative brainstorming that results in new ways you can market your product or service to other consumers based on their needs (e.g., problem/solution marketing). In others, you may need to do some significant consumer research and examine the efforts of your competitors or potential competitors. One great way to identify new markets is to, as noted above, actively engage social media accounts. Doing so can raise the profile of your brand, services and products by expanding visibility that gets your name in front of more potential customers. You’ll also be likely to re-engage lapsed customers as well.
  • Raise your prices. Flat or decreasing revenue may be a result of outdated or inefficient pricing. Have you been under-pricing and sabotaging your revenue potential? There are a number of reasons that your pricing may be inefficient, but before you jump into a pricing overhaul, take the time to review all factors and how they’ve changed over the last month, quarter, or year. As part of your evaluation, it’s essential to account for payroll; equipment, vendor and supplier fees; and competitor prices.
  • Improve customer service. Excellent customer service can increase customer loyalty and repeat sales, ultimately bringing in more revenue. You may also profit from devising after-sale support to clients, such as training and other follow-up support that will serve the customer. Poor customer service increases churn rates and increases customer acquisition costs.

Administrative

  • Forecast your cash-flow. A cash-flow forecast is very useful for multiple reasons. It will help the business owner identify cash-flow shortfalls before they become major problems. It can help the business make decisions about key purchases or investments, and to plan for growth. 
  • Set financial goals. Identifying an attainable revenue target is a big part of how a business gets where it wants to go. Your business plan will help you figure out what those goals are, the milestones you need to reach, and how you plan to achieve them. If you don’t have clear goals for your business, this should be at the top of your to do list. 

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Reuters/Leonhard Foeger. British Pound Sterling banknotes (November 16, 2017)

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Audit: Is Your Marketing Content Doing the Job?

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Relevant, actionable even, marketing content is the engine that pushes a business entity forward. Marketing (and its tactical sibling, sales) is enshrined as one of the three pillars of a business, along with operations and finance. A range of marketing content can be developed and employed to carry out strategies and tactics that promote the company’s business solutions—its products and/or services—by addressing the pain points, goals and challenges that prospective customers who make purchases on behalf of their organization must resolve.

That content is used to advance defining story narratives that communicate how your company’s products or services produce returns on investment for customers—commonly, financial gain, operational efficiencies, risk management, or achieving a mission-critical goal. B2B marketing content is meant to create conditions that persuade prospects to green-light the sale:

  • Expand the customer list by introducing the business entity and its solutions to prospects who have a problem to solve or goal to reach
  • Generate viable sales leads
  • Establish trust in the perception of the solutions that the business provides
  • Promote the company’s visibility and credibility
  • Distinguish the business from competitors
  • Enhance the brand reputation
  • Position the company to survive and thrive by growing sales revenue and profit

We approach 2027 with the knowledge that for Freelance business owners, implementing a powerful marketing content strategy that is carried out by credible, useful content that is timely and able to address the needs of prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey has never been more important. Now that B2B decision-makers have made it known that 67% prefer to self-direct their buyer’s journey and only contacting the vendor until they approach the comparative evaluation of solutions that have made it to the short list. Because it is often not possible to add your input to the buyer’s journey until a decision is about to be made, it is imperative that your marketing content is persuasive enough to carry your solution through the vetting obstacle course with a good chance to emerge as the winner.

Adjust to the B2B buying reality

The sales cycles in B2B has become long and perilous, and prospects are known to be demanding. The communication formats you have in place, e.g. presentations, links to webinars or podcasts and case studies, too, exist to show prospects why your solution makes sense. During the buyer’s journey, marketing content must satisfy the priorities of influential stakeholders, gatekeepers and, finally, the decision-making committee. Before any campaign launches, your organizations needs alignment in three areas:

1. Content availability: right time, right place

Ask yourself—when you’re looking for something, whether it’s your keys or some useful information, you need whatever it is to be there when you need it, in a place where you can find it. This basic fact of human nature unfortunately prevents lots of informative marketing content from being noticed and receiving serious consideration by the parties for whom it is intended. So much useful marketing content is created and subsequently clicked out of existence, unable to fulfill its purpose, because the recipient decided it wasn’t worth the time and energy to deal with it when it landed in the inbox. Unfortunate timing condemns good content to suffer the delete button. In other words, good content does not automatically become visible content. Prospects tend to rank what they read:

  • What looks relevant
  • What looks important
  • What looks familiar
  • What can be ignored

Another scenario that drains the power of content is putting a story that could be effective in front of the prospect at the wrong time. Keep in mind that your job is to nurture the buyer’s journey and organically move it forward, toward a successful conclusion—the sale. You cannot force the process. It is imperative to have at the ready informative and persuasive marketing content that informs each stage of the buyer’s journey—awareness, research, decision and post-sale. If you only produce early awareness stage, “top-of-funnel” content, it’s likely you’ll get window shopper prospects who never convert. If you only produce “bottom-of-funnel” content that’s intended to encourage prospects who are evaluating short list candidates so they can finalize the sale, it’s likely you’ll get many prospects to take the journey in the first place. Oh, and your content must not only address each stage of the buyer’s journey, but also stand out and capture attention. B2B buyers keep a trigger finger on the delete button and they’re ready to click.

2. Audience attention

You already know to define your audience and confirm factors that incent them to seek out your type of service or product and what they want to achieve when your solution is implemented. Once you’ve confirmed your prospect’s agenda for doing business with you (or one of your competitors, but we don’t want that to happen!), you must ensure that your marketing content makes viewers stop, read and look. B2B marketing is no longer about competing against other businesses anymore—it’s competing against multiple distractions, sensory overload, fatigue, or doing nothing at all. When a prospect eyeballs your content, here’s the time frame you’re up against:

  • 3 seconds to grab their attention.
  • 30 seconds for a glance.
  • 3 minutes for a full read

Eye-catching

An arresting visual, an unexpected revelation, humor, or emotional honesty are among the hooks you might use to bring audience attention that causes them to engage with your content and read on. Providing a contrarian or surprising fact or statistic that challenges a common belief can likewise be compelling.

Call-to-action

A call-to-action asks the reader to do something — learn, win, sign up, give feedback, for example. Many emails that drop into the average inbox lack an interesting, appealing subject line. It’s so easy for the eye to slide over much that is sent. Devise an amusing, novel, or practical call-to-action that will both grab attention and either inspire or dare your intended reader to read on.

Emotional relevance

You will be mistaken if you think that the decision-makers for your sale are ruled by the logic of facts, figures and potential outcomes. most decisions are emotional first and rationalized second. Humans naturally pay more attention to things connected to:

  • Identity
  • Safety
  • Status
  • Belonging
  • Aspiration
  • Fear
  • Pleasure

Humans remember what we feel and this is why emotionally relevant marketing consistently tends to outperform purely informational marketing. Facts matter but feelings determine whether those facts are noticed.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Liquoricelegs

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Bring Visibility to the Value You Deliver

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Is the value of your B2B products and/or services fully recognized and acknowledged by your customers and prospects? You may assume that if sales get within striking distance of your annual revenue target, the answer is yes—yes, prospects trust that your solutions will resolve their pain point or achieve an important goal. It’s great when customers understand their need for what you sell and they’re willing to pay to use it. However, there may be a hidden negative action that has the potential to undermine your sales. Yes, you have a roster of paying customers, but some may have a casual attitude toward your offering. These customers fail to fully appreciate the significance of the outcomes derived from using your service or product. The failure to grasp the good stuff your service or product brings to the table is called a value gap; although customers improve the position of their company in one way or another when they use your offering, they don’t exactly count their blessings for being able to do so. Those customers do not objectively measure, document, or communicate to their company leaders and stakeholders the user case that explains why doing business with you is good business.

You might suspect a value gap if it appears the enthusiasm customers once expressed for the results produced when using your service or product diminish and leave your solution to fade like a wallflower, instead of sparkling like the belle of the ball. Maybe social media engagement is drifting downward and few customers are singing your praises and making referrals?

The existence of a value gap typically weakens future sales (including repeat business), shrinks the number of customer Word-of-Mouth referrals you receive and some customers may even find it acceptable to bargain down the selling price for your solution. Meaning, a value gap kills growth opportunities and you’ve got to reverse it. Doug May, founder and managing partner of Value Sherpas, a go-to-market advisory firm, and Wendy Wise, founder and CEO of Profitwise, which provides pricing and go-to-market services, are co-authors of Bridging the Value Gap (2015) and they can show you how to climb out of the quicksand.

Based on their experience, May and Wise recommend that companies make demonstrating customer value foundational in all relevant customer touchpoints across the organization to successfully when looking to overturn the value gap. Business owners and leaders should research, evaluate, confirm and integrate value that matters into customer-facing business operations to receive the greatest reward from interactions that are visible, and therefore memorable, to customers. In this way, the business owner will have the best opportunities to create competitive advantages that are unique to your organization. 

Your job is to discover what motivates prospects and customers to seek out products or services in your category, and then determine what customers and prospects value most highly about the solution they intend to purchase. Finally, you must decide how your company can consistently deliver highly impactful value and simultaneously enable customers and prospects to see and appreciate that value. The authors define the process as a sequence—research and understand, verify, operationalize and scale.

May and Wise point out that addressing the value gap is most efficiently managed when you align the benefits and outcomes associated with your solutions with quickly recognizable, easy to explain and highly valued business outcomes such as increased annual revenue, cost reduction and risk management. You do this by clearly identifying how customers capture value when they implement your solutions.

In your marketing messages and sales pitch, articulate and reinforce those defining, problem-solving, goal achieving outcomes to ensure that recognition of the value you bring to customers is the foundation of the sales journey. In all aspects of your sales and marketing functions, emphasize and explain the value that a customer will receive when s/he buys from your company, from implementation, to outcomes, to pricing and after-sale customer service. Organizations that make customer value not only visible, but also measurable, will make the value memorable and therefore better positioned to sustain growth and strengthen the competitive advantage.

Research, verify and understand

You can begin building a customer-value focus almost anywhere in the organization. Be advised, however, that this work cannot be done with surveys, or casual conversations that focus on “What do you value about doing business with us?” To understand the wins, losses, pain points and the use case, it will be necessary to identify a subset of customers who represent these varied contexts—and conduct deep, one-on-one conversations to understand how your solution affects their costs, revenues and risks and how it aligns with their strategic priorities. Document the most common benefits and begin to build a model to enable sales.

Operationalize it—starting with sales

 According to the authors, sales is the place to begin, because the impact is fastest and most visible (pricing is a close second). Apply the customer-value approach directly to live, in-progress sales opportunities. Embed value that is recognizable, measurable and coveted by the prospect into the sales process itself. Value messages must be woven into sales presentations and sales content. Develop business-case models—a good case study could work—that will allow the sales team or specialist to measure the customer’s current challenge or pain point and project the future value your solution can deliver—grounded in real customer data and benchmarks. One step is essential: the customer champion must be involved in building the business case that will ultimately land with senior leadership. Without that co-creation, the case will lack the internal credibility it needs.

Cascade the perception of value throughout the organization

Once the foundational models are in place, extend the customer-value mindset beyond sales to achieve a holistic approach—embedded across customer success, product, pricing and the C-suite—needed to drive higher margins and a sustainable competitive advantage.

  • Marketing: Ensure that messaging conveys customer impact for primary use cases and that demand generation focuses on outcomes, not just product capabilities.
  • Post-sale: Guide a meaningful portion of your customers to deepen their use of the capabilities and products you offer that are most differentiated—and that they are aware and can articulate the business value they are capturing.
  • Service/Product: Eventually embed customer business value thinking into product planning, using it to drive innovation priorities and feature sequencing.
  • Pricing: Evaluate your pricing against your use cases and the business value they deliver. Ensure that you are incentivizing the right customer behaviors such as adoption and retention of adjacent products while capturing appropriate revenue.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: EgolenaHK/Bigstock.com

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Spice It Up In September and Beyond

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Happy August! I hope you are enjoying summer, whether the season is a busy or slow one for your business entity. If taking a vacation is on your wish list, I hope that it has, or will, achieve its purpose, and allow you to see new sights or return to familiar places, have fun, recharge your energy, and lower your stress level. I also hope that you’re finding time to read at least one business book that’s helping you to sharpen your business acumen.

September and the fourth quarter will soon arrive and now is the time to consider how you can successfully position your organization to achieve a strong year-end finish. Selling a product or service is usually a challenge, especially for Freelance professionals and small business owners. B2B marketplaces are nearly always crowded, typically consisting of a handful of market leaders that are trailed by a passel of “me, too” offerings. Unless your company has a sizeable marketing budget, it can be a struggle to build and sustain marketing or branding campaigns that will heighten the perception of your value and make your product or service appear more appealing to prospects. In short, today you can begin thinking about how to identify for your business a new competitive advantage.

The time is now to assess potential strategies that can position your entity to generate higher sales revenue in the coming months and it’s entirely possible that your preferred strategy can be carried out at a comparatively modest expense. Listed below are strategy possibilities that are accessible to Freelancers and SMB owners. Keep in mind that your promotional messaging must address urgent buyer pain points. You must do more than merely being clever as a way to get attention. The purpose of whatever new strategy you implement now is to leverage the competitive advantages you plan to highlight will result in customer roster that has a higher value, increased sales revenue and an enhanced customer lifetime value.

Read on and consider what you might have the means to do to fulfill the important goal of optimizing your brand visibility and image and maximizing sales revenue and profit as we look forward to the waning days of 2026.

I. Dare to be different

How can you clearly communicate to current and potential customers that your product or service will effectively address worrisome pain points and solve problems, enable them to achieve mission-critical goals without expressing those very important strengths in boring and predictable text? Useful information should not be ignored but…brands that are competing for the same target customer group can all sound alike. Target eyeballs cannot help but glaze over. The curse of commodification can creep in as prospects wade through sound-alike sales funnels that echo chamber repeat the same sales pitch. Isn’t it time for you to dare to be different and take a brave step forward?

Caution must be exercised and controversy is to be avoided for sure. You cannot afford to turn off the potential or current customers. But by choosing the right product attribute to showcase and then creating a cheeky tagline—or short video, or catchy image—that cleverly and succinctly describes your lead attribute, you can steal the thunder of competitors and propel your brand to the head of the class. If the Boston Red Sox can win 15 games in a row during July and escape an early death that had fans and sports announcers talking about “next year” sometime around Memorial Day, you can claim the spotlight for your brand and leap to the front of the pack. The suggestions below can stir up your creativity. Just do it.

  • Use humor to reframe the perception of your offering and your entity and escape the constraints of commodification
  • Align with a cause, such as climate change or animal rights (but avoid getting preach-y)  
  • Choose a unique visual branding style. Think 1950s retro, or find inspiration in the work of well-known artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Max, or Yayoi Kusama.

II. B2B influencer marketing

Another strategy that has the potential to help you separate your entity from the congested marketplace is to align with a B2B Influencer. While originally a strategy used by your B2C counterparts, competition for billable hours in the B2B sector has stimulated the acceptance of influencer marketing by those in the B2B sector, including Freelancers.

B2B influencer marketing is not a means to showcase your services or products—that’s a B2C strategy. Freelancers and SMB owners work with B2B influencer marketing specialists to increase the stature of their brand and use that professional capital to build credibility that facilitates trust and relationship-building with potential customers who, if all goes according to plan, will become paying customers. The goal of B2B influencer marketing strategies is to align your organization with recognized and respected industry thought leaders—the influencers— whose industry knowledge, reputation and loyal followers can be leveraged in your target market sectors.

The most effective B2B influencers are well-known and respected experts and regarded as thought leaders in their field. B2B influencers aren’t celebrities, but they are trusted members of influential online communities. They are also respected speakers who are regularly on podiums at industry conferences and other business events. The knowledge and experience they’ve acquired gives the influencers great authority and credibility that’s enabled them to build a sizeable, loyal and often activist following.

Based on that authority and credibility, the best B2B influencers are able to build trust and enthusiasm for brands within their community of followers. They are also known to make endorsements that can stimulate purchases made by decision-makers within the community. A brand endorsement can result in a significant number of positive reviews posted on social media platforms that are capable of creating a word-of-mouth campaign that can spread to the general public and stimulate still more purchases of your brand’s services or products.

The influencer phenomenon is a growing trend in B2B marketing. Apparently fueled by the entry of Millennial and Generation Z into stakeholder and decision-making positions, prospective buyers are increasingly more trusting of the recommendations of independent thought leaders, that is, influencers, than in the marketing content you provide. Millennials and Gen-Z are comfortable with influencers and that preference is starting to impact purchasing.

  • Increase brand awareness. By aligning with a B2B influencer with a large following in your target market, your brand will have access to a new audience of highly-engaged prospects.
  • Enhance credibility. B2B decision-makers increasingly trust industry thought leaders, sometimes more than marketing content. This trend is becoming more common as Millennial and Gen Z buyers move into stakeholder and decision-maker positions that impact purchases. Millennial and Gen-Z stakeholders and decision committee members are comfortable with influencers
  • Increase leadgen and sales. Selecting an influencer who is closely aligned with your brand values can help you reach specific groups of prospects who are highly likely to become your customers.

III. Get strategic about social media

You may not have the bandwidth to undertake a major overhaul of your presence on social media platforms, but if you take just three steps, your social media ROI will become more significant for your business.

  •  Define prospects: Successful B2B social media speaks to specific customer personae and post content that addresses their specific pain points and how your service or product will solve the problem or help achieve the goals. Enhance your leadgen and site engagement by posting content that helps decision-makers for your service or product. Make your marketing content speak to their pain points, goals
  • Meaningful messages: Create content that speaks to the value that prospective customers are looking for. Clarify your understanding of why prospects feel they need your product or service? How does your offering make their life easier?
  • .Create a content calendar. This will solve two problems for you: 1.) If there are specific times of the year that you want to post, you’ll remember to do so; and 2.) You will post consistently and give your audience fresh content that drives engagement.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Stock AI image

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Don’t Close the Sale, Educate the Client

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What does it take for you to bring in sales that convert prospects into clients? Perhaps you are a silver-tongued charmer who is capable of successfully “closing” a sale with almost any prospect? Or is the usual outcome of your sales process sort of hit or miss—not a disaster, but no one would wonder if you have a license to print money?

As you’ve done when unraveling other business obstacles, dissecting and analyzing how you sell, meaning that you’ll study the usual trajectory prospects follow when they include your service or product in their buyer journey—from the initial demonstration of the prospect’s interest to the outcome, when the prospect either becomes a client, or moves on to your competitor. Whatever you learn will indicate which of your intentions are not landing and may also direct you to the remedy. Begin with a review of sales basics.

  • Have you identified your ideal client and how to access them?
  • Do you know the usual pain points or goals that motivate prospects to consider your company?
  • Have you priced your offering appropriately?
  • How clear and convincing are you when articulating your unique sales proposition?
  • What’s your sales success rate when you must respond to an objection?
  • Are you able to detect buying signs that tell you when it’s time to ask for the sale (which could mean the prospect must contact the decision team and recommend a yes vote)?

If your analysis reveals that either your USP is vague and falls short of articulating the strengths of your offering, and maybe even leaves you vulnerable to objections that signal questions about its performance, you have a messaging problem. Attempting to defuse objections is not the cure for prospect hesitation; and bringing in a sale is no longer about dropping magic words that you hope will result in converting the prospect into your client. Enabling B2B sales in the post-pandemic ecosystem often requires that you educate prospects by presenting content marketing info that addresses their priorities and concerns and will, brick by brick, demonstrate that your solution is effective and reliable.

You must keep in mind, though, that the B2B sales process has become opaque; prospects developed an appetite for no-contact buying during the pandemic and the habit has become entrenched. Research from Gartner found that B2B buyers prefer a buyer journey that requires little to no contact with sales reps or other vendors (e.g., Freelancers); findings showed that 75% of buyers prefer to have little interaction with sellers. For that reason, B2B buying journeys and decisions are increasingly made without Freelancers or sales reps. If prospects must make contact to explore a question or two when evaluating from whom they might purchase, they hold tight to the self-serve, Do It Yourself mode. “I can handle this,” they say and you have little to no opportunity to influence, or even interact, with your prospect.

If interaction with the Freelancer or sales rep is unavoidable, a short list of “finalist” vendor candidates is typically contacted to schedule a product demonstration or learn the details of implementing and obtaining the service. But by the time you or any other vendor learns that a possible sale is in progress, the sale is already in BOFU, bottom of the sales funnel; too much has transpired to allow you to exert some control and influence over the sale. Any “sale closing spiel” is circumvented as you realize that you’ve stumbled into a decision that’s well underway—-without you. But Gartner research also revealed an upside, if you choose to see it that way—DIY online purchases are far more likely to result in buyer’s remorse.

Closing versus education 

Of course! Unless the prospect is re-ordering a service or product with which there’s been direct experience, it is unwise for prospects to assume they can successfully navigate the ins and outs of the purchase without guidance. They don’t know what they don’t know.

You designed your marketing/sales funnel to facilitate the initial stages of a buyer journey that’s conducted online and in DIY independent mode. Prospects whose level of interest brings them to MOFU and its gated content should feel comfortable to make email contact to identify themselves and request the info they’d like to view. The plan was for the Freelancer to thank the prospect for his/her interest, send the gated content and begin to discreetly monitor and guide the sales process. In so doing, Freelancers could also save any wayward prospects from themselves by being available to answer questions and make recommendations that encourage a successful experience with the product or service.

In fact, Gartner research indicates that those with sales responsibility should provide marketing content that captures the attention of prospects because the info communicates the value of your service or product and facilitates the decision process. The content must be relevant and aligned with the pain point that the prospect must resolve or goal that must be attained. That’s how a well-designed sales/marketing funnel should work.

More than ever, high-pressure sale “closing” tactics are not what typical B2B clients respond to today. The best way to bring in a sale in the current zeitgeist is to present a rational, evidence-backed case that reveals how and why your solution will effectively and efficiently resolve the prospect’s pain point or facilitate achievement of the goal. Rather than dwelling on product or service features and benefits, a strategy that was a given in 20th century selling, the best recipe now for Freelancers to obtain a degree of influence over the sale is to guide the prospect through a discovery process.

  • Diagnose the pain point and discover its origin
  • Document current, or previous, solutions that disappointed
  • Describe what doing business will look like when your solution resolves the pain point or enables the goal to be realized
  • Determine which solution appears to be most capable of producing the prospect’s desired results and outcomes

When a prospect contacts you for information about your solution, and you learn that a serious buyer journey that involves one of your solutions is in progress, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by stepping up and seizing what may be your only opportunity to signal that you understand prospect needs and discuss and send “how-to” content and performance data, which can include one or more of the resources listed below. Your thought leader credibility will yet again prove its usefulness when it supports the value-affirming sales interactions that are most effective with prospects now and are the best option to move the sale forward. Helping prospective buyers feel confident and in control of the purchase decision (e.g., by providing a choice of tailored recommendations based on their input and criteria) builds trust that can enhance the perception of your solution and give you the sale.

  • Case studies and success stories
  • Webinars and podcasts where you are a speaker
  • Blogs, e-books or other articles that you contribute to or author

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Image: © Prague Daily March 2, 2025 The weekly market in Prague’s Lesser Town.

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Specialization and How to Stand Out in Your Market

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Until the latter years of the 20th century, the majority of U.S. physicians were general practitioners who treated all manner of illness, unless one was a surgeon—that would be a general surgeon. Likewise, attorneys were expected to be multi-faceted legal advisers who could adequately represent aspiring homeowners when a property was purchased, counsel plaintiffs or defendants in legal battles that occasionally involved a jury trial, or guide clients as they wrote up a last will and testament. In the 1970s, most likely inspired by research that introduced more effective therapies into medical practice and in the legal sector, federal and state regulations whose purpose was to provide consumer protection that resulted from the increased complexity of national and global economies, distinct subspecialties eventually became the norm in both professions.

Freelance professionals are having a moment now as we respond to the growing phenomenon of specialization that is penetrating nearly every business entity and by necessity influences the way we operate. Most of you recognize that the ability to clearly define—brand—your expertise and the services you provide is a competitive advantage and many of you are probably inclined to rethink how you describe their services—and maybe also rethinking which services should be offered.

Blandly describing oneself as a provider of solutions that, for example, address human resources, IT, accounting/finance, or marketing needs may no longer capture attention. As B2B prospects continue to exercise agency and proactively research the solutions they need and give themselves a head start on finding someone who’s qualified to resolve that need, Freelancers are recognizing that the way to get noticed by a search committee is to leave no doubt that you are the best in the business within your specialty—your skill-set niche—and if your category of expertise is needed, you should be on the short-list for follow-up.

Paring down and focusing skills is already established in the Freelance technology sector, where it is commonplace to narrowly specialize, for example, in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence or machine learning, network administration, or blockchain smart contract development. To claim a specialty within your professional sector is, in fact, to operate within a niche market. You might also discover that it’s easier to stand out in a “small is beautiful” niche, where you only interact with prospects who are interested in your highly focused, expert-level skills.

In an era that favors specialization, owning a versatile skill set loses value. Thought leader opinions indicate that as industries become more complex, deep expertise is more sought-after than competencies that can address a wide range of tasks. Your prospects are less inclined to see advantages in broad-based capabilities; instead, they now see a jack of all trades and master of none. B2B search committees echo the new normal narrative: to manage the complexities of modern business the trend is to hire Freelancers who demonstrate specialized expertise that can be used to deliver specialized solutions. It’s compartmentalizing by another name; but it makes sense to sell your customers the way they want to be sold (as you know).The ultimate validation is that those with niche expertise are often more highly paid.

Clarity and precision

Simplicity makes things understandable, memorable and dependable. Unless you are well-known and connected, operating within the big pond known as the general marketplace for your Freelance sector is almost guaranteed to make you an overlooked little fish who’s surrounded by big fish who gobble up the billable hours and leave you struggling to survive and thrive. Being one of many competent Freelance professionals makes it difficult to stand out when your audience is broad. Prospects who search your service category will likely encounter several other talented Freelancers and may therefore be unable to recognize who can efficiently deliver the best solution.

But when you adjust your business strategy to limit your target market to prospects who seek a specific segment of your expert services—not just HR services, but benefits management or employee compensation, for example—and you confirm that the niche market sector is viable and sustainable, you will receive competitive advantages:

  • Narrowing your marketing strategies to communicate with prospects who have a hyper-specific problem to resolve or goal to achieve can position you as the leading authority in your tightly focused market and greatly reduce competition.
  • Micro-niche businesses facilitate deeper customer relationships that are nurtured through personalized marketing messages that are able to enhance trust, loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing.
  • Specializing in a small market segment allows for more efficient resource allocation and improved return on investment re: outcomes (conversion of prospects to customers).

A credible and visible authority

When you focus your specialized expertise and operate within an exclusive niche, the number of your competitors can only decrease, making it easier to position yourself as a respected thought leader and authority. As noted above, you can also expect to be able to increase the amount of your standard billable rate because specialization enhances perceived value to the customer. Moreover, by strategically limiting the number of potential customers, over time you will learn to craft highly specific marketing messages that directly address what matters most to your exclusive group of prospects—and, as noted above, helps you to nurture customer relationships. You’ll “get it” and they’ll know it and they will become your devoted, long-term customers. Your marketing could evolve from “covering all bases” platitudes to spot-on understanding of their challenges, goals and priorities.

Micro-niche growth strategy

Identifying a potentially viable B2B niche skill for your Freelance entity can become a launchpad, not a limitation and enable you to develop and package yourself and your entity yourself as a well-known and respected big fish (in a small, exclusive pond). While some of your colleagues may feel that a large potential customer base holds more opportunities, but that assumption is losing validity. In the B2B sector, attempting to sell to everyone is becoming less effective every year; rather, Freelancers who limit their focus to a select group of prospective customers are winning more contracts and are poised to dominate in revenue generated. Here’s your roadmap to specialization success:

  • Step 1: Dominate the micro-niche. Become the recognized leader in an exclusive sector.
  • Step 2: Move to adjacent niches. Expand your presence to similar groups who have similar problems or goals.
  • Step 3: Expand horizontally. Add new add-on or upgrade services to the core audience.

Closing thought

To achieve your goal of establishing and sustaining a profitable Freelance entity it is necessary to stand out and distinguish yourself as a thought leader, an authority and trusted source who is not just one of many “sound-alike” Freelancers who is trying to survive in a competitive B2B services marketplace. Resist the temptation to chase down every prospect who might be interested in your solutions. Instead, find the confidence to specialize, perhaps by focusing on an underserved customer group that is motivated by an urgent need to find a specialized solution and also has the potential to become a viable market. As the legendary Diana Vreeland (1903-1989), who was the Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar Magazine (1939-1962) and later became Editor-in-Chief at Vogue Magazine (1963 -1971) said, “Elegance is refusal.” Ms. Vreeland understood that trying to be all things to all people is folly.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Yayoi Kusama. Kusama, 2000 courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo

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Level Up Your Thought Leader Cred

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Being a thought leader is a vital ingredient in a Freelancer’s recipe for a B2B content marketing strategy that moves the needle. In fact, establishing yourself as a credible thought leader is foundational to building a thriving Freelance client list. Freelancers must recognize that business acumen, lived experience and data you share with content followers, some of whom are prospects and clients, is a valuable strategic asset. What you know and how you express your knowledge is the core of your Unique Selling Proposition and the engine that drives your ability to deliver solutions that produce results and convert prospects into paying clients.

Many independently employed professionals label themselves an “expert in the field and thought leader,” but few do so with a carefully considered sense of purpose that leads to an actionable outcome—like persuading a hesitant prospect to become a client. In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace that’s populated with cautious prospects who’ve lengthened B2B sales cycles and pushed your next paid invoice farther into the future, it is imperative to distinguish yourself from those whose “thought leadership” amounts to checking the box and calling it done.

Tickling a handful of marketing metrics doesn’t prove that you’re a credible thought leader, either; click bait posts and articles are only eye wash and audiences recognize it. True connaisseurs of thought leader content track business impact (vs. 63% overall) and 51% track brand authority (vs. 38% overall) to assess how audiences really feel about their content. They measure the relevance of their thought leadership with insightful metrics:

  • Audience engagement — views, downloads, shares (80%)
  • Business impact — lead generation, pipeline influence (63%)
  • Audience feedback — client/prospect feedback, sentiment analysis (40%)
  • Brand authority — speaking/media opportunities, publication citations (38%)

Furthermore, connaisseurs publish their thought leadership on marketing channels that provide an audience of B2B prospects who are serious about obtaining useful information. If you are not currently publishing on these channels, as well as getting out in front of a live audience every once in a while, add these items to your thought leadership promotional activities.

  • LinkedIn (76%)
  • Email newsletters (54%)
  • Speaking events, webinars (52%)

Those who “get” the power of thought leadership know that the information they present may be used by audience members who are either familiar with or contending with a particular challenge. The insights and info you present as a thought leader is used to support responsible decision-making, whether in the moment or in the near future. Therefore, the goal of savvy Freelancers is to produce credible, possibly innovative and reliably useful thought leadership content that followers and other readers or viewers will notice and remember. Below are thought leadership ingredients you can use to develop your recipe for success.

1. Solve a problem readers will recognize

Effective thought leadership is born of a vexing problem that is urgent—an emerging risk, a stubborn and mysterious challenge or failing, or even a misunderstood opportunity. The most perceptive and confident thought leaders will dare to step outside the usual narrative or practice and provide a perspective the audience hasn’t heard before and use it as a launchpad for potentially effective solutions. Does your thought leadership content inspire your audience make smarter, braver, decisions, or help them to avoid a potentially costly error, or problem they may not have considered?

Thought-leadership content that presents insights and information that helps decision-makers perform not as mere functionaries but as leaders who know how to keep the mission-driven goals of their organization in the forefront builds trust and separates you from competitors. To achieve that, thought-leaders must be aware of what audience members need to know now—before a competitor tells them first.

2. Present thought leadership content with an out-of-the-box idea

Defining the problem is where thought leadership starts and proposing an innovative way to perceive and address it is what gets thought leader content noticed. A true thought leader is provocative, one who reveals an “aha” moment that makes a new way of looking at things both credible and memorable. Create thought leadership content that challenges conventional wisdom or reframes a common problem in an unexpected way—and show your audience that you understand the problem and how it can be solved.

To stimulate your creative spirit, you may want to employ an Artificial Intelligence tool to rev up your brainstorming. You’ll have to experiment to find the right prompts that help you discover intriguing, but credible, possibilities for topics that answer questions for readers and reveal what they consider to be an emerging concern. AI can also help you frame your approach to the topic and provide suggestions as to which narrative threads might be included in your content. Also, use storytelling to shape your content, as it is usually the most relatable way to communicate with your audience—and they’re more likely to retain the info you deliver.

A concise overview of a case study or references to insights gleaned from user generated content that’s appeared on your company’s social media accounts are excellent sources of lived experiences that are provided by your very own followers. You can also discover topics to explore as well. Let AI help you start the brainstorming process by showing you topics that your audience are likely to find relevant and then build your case with real time source material that might reflect both your own experiences and that of your clients.

3. The best thought leadership content is in the trenches

When scouting for source material, keep in mind that residents of the C-Suite may not give you boots-on-the-ground perspectives or stories that reveal out-of-the-box perspectives or possible solutions that bring “street cred” to your thought leader content. Clients and colleagues who have a customer-facing role are better positioned to provide you with the most interesting topics, experiences and insights that bring authenticity to your narratives. You want reports from those who notice shifting customer behavior, for example, and other grass-roots experiences that bring a rawness and depth to your thought leader content and makes it relevant to a wide audience.

4. Thought leader content is considered useful

Good thought-leader content earns attention by delivering relevant information. That doesn’t mean checklists or how-tos—but it does mean clarity and ideas that make a subject that is complex feel as if it can be navigated and understood. When your followers and other readers finish your article and let the information you provided and hit the save and/or the forward button, that will verify your status as a thought leader. Useful content helps readers do things like:

  • See a risk they hadn’t considered
  • Argue for a decision internally
  • Convince the audience to take action
  • Shift the mental model audience members were using

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: ©nobelprize.org (L-R) Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, Simon Johnson of MIT and James Robinson of University of Chicago in Chicago, IL

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Two To Tango: Freelance Strategic Partnerships

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Tango dancers in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Freelance professionals are survivors by nature—savvy, proactive and ambitious. You are forward-thinking and grasp the big-picture, characteristics that led you to be realistic about current business conditions and respond to the risk-averse spending habits of many B2B prospects. You recognize that a defensive strategy is needed to stabilize the ground beneath your feet and make it possible to at least maintain, and preferably increase, your client roster and bottom-line sales revenue. A perusal of articles in the business press and resourceful brainstorming have led you to consider pursuing a partnership with a Freelance colleague. Owners of business entities large and small have long recognized that a good partnership creates competitive advantages, whether the goal is to help the partners stimulate revenue during periods of marketplace fluctuation, or maximize revenue and profit during a booming economy. Bringing in partner is meant to bring additional value—clients, investment capital, business skills, brand recognition, for example— and strengthen the position of the partners.

Recent research suggests that successful business entities often rely on their relationships—de facto partnerships— with peers whose services or products are complementary to one’s own and whose target customers have data-supported potential to become a promising source of new leads for your entity. In fact, within the Software as a Service community, partnerships and event participation are described as among the highest impact growth channels for warm leads.

The Freelance economy holds numerous sources of potential partnership opportunities— vendors, co-working site colleagues, Freelancing colleagues you meet at conferences, business accountants and attorneys. Even your SCORE mentor could suggest that you meet with a fellow Freelancer who s/he also mentors and discuss the possibility of partnering on certain types of projects. If you find the possibility of introducing a partnership to your Freelance business entity intriguing, here are some things to consider.

1. View the partnership as a strategic asset, not as the cure for a problem.

First, why do you want to form a partnership? What do you hope to gain and what assets can you bring to the table that might persuade a Freelance colleague to engage in a partnership with you? In order for the partnership to be useful and produce the outcomes that you (and the partner) want, you must be honest about your motivations. So, what are you looking for in a partnership? Start the decision-making process by clarifying your partnership wish list. Next, make an inventory of the resources you can offer to a partner and use that list to articulate your Unique Selling Proposition to a Freelance colleague you hope will become your business partner. Keep in mind that a successful partnership is about sharing resources and is not a rescue mission to save a failing enterprise.

  • Do you want occasional collaborators—say, extra help on certain projects—or an ongoing partnership?
  • A partner whose clients are potential prospects for your services and your clients are potential prospects for the partner’s services? Ideally, you and the partner would see a growing client list.
  • A partner whose services are suitable for co-promotion opportunities, such as the McDonald’s and Coca-Cola #Better Together campaign and the Apple Watch Nike+? Co-promotion is meant to introduce your brand to a wider audience and result in enhanced brand awareness and recognition, with the expectation of increased lead generation, sales revenue growth and market share.
  • A partner whose services, when offered in tandem to your own, will result in the capacity to provide solutions that prospects will perceive as delivering more valuable than your current offering.
  • A partner who will share certain business expenses, such as co-promotion advertising costs and/or office space rental.

2. Goals that align and a cultural fit.

In a functioning and mutually beneficial partnership agreement, there are only winners and there are no losers. A partnership is never a zero sum game where only one person wins. Honest, respectfully expressed communication and transparency are demonstrations of respect and the foundation of authenticity. In a recent McKinsey report, alignment on objectives, effective communication and trust were most often present when partnerships and other joint ventures succeeded and most often absent when partnerships failed.

As well, a mutually accepted definition of good work ethic should be agreed-upon and include a shared understanding of how to handle relevant business practices, such as what constitutes timely and appropriate follow-up regarding client referrals, for example. In this way one develops a reputation as a good partner and the partnership can deliver on its intended purpose.

3. Clearly define roles, responsibilities and money.

Establish and clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each partner and that includes money. Discussing payment protocols upfront will prevent ugly misunderstandings. Will the partner who handles the design work on a website project be paid at the same rate as the tech person who perfects SEO and the speed of page loading—or will you each bill at your usual rate? Put everything in writing to avoid conflicts later. Depending on the state in which you operate, your partnership may require a written agreement.

Regarding roles and responsibilities, will there be a quarterly or semi-annual performance quota for client referrals generated, networking events attended, or other work-related activities? A discussion of what constitutes good work ethic and productivity metrics will be helpful.

4. Start small and work out the kinks. 

Where possible, start small and avoid diving into a big project until the partners become familiar with one another’s working style. Instead, rehearse your partnership by taking on a small project. Creating a story board to describe how the partners together will collaborate successfully on a project can be very useful. Remember what Avatar creator James Cameron and others remind us: “A vision without a plan for execution is just an hallucination.”

5. Frequent, honest, feedback.

Misunderstandings and disagreements are best acknowledged and managed in an environment of regular, honest, feedback and discussion. partnership problems are potentially costly. Scheduling regular check-ins for the partners, even if there is little to discuss and the meeting ends quickly, is cheap and easy insurance for dealing with problems the right way and at the right time.

6. Move quickly and collaboratively when partnership problems arise. 

The land of lost partnerships is littered with avoidance, denial, broken promises, unresolved conflict and denial. Especially if the expectations of an important client have not been delivered, immediate action to correct the lapse and protect the relationship must be taken. Remember what Warren Buffett continually tells himself: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Thanks for reading,

Kim