In this Q&A episode, Oliver asks us what it takes to create a portfolio that actually brings in new long-term clients. And since Clay and I are real marketing geeks, we have quite a few ideas for turning your sleepy portfolio into a client-converting machine. It’s all in today’s show, and it starts right now.
Key Takeaways from this Episode:
- Make sure your portfolio reflects your target audience. When you’re creating your portfolio, think about the types of clients you want to attract. What kind of work do they do? What kind of style do they like? Tailor your portfolio to their needs and preferences.
- Include a variety of work samples. Don’t just show your best work; show a variety of projects that demonstrate your skills and range. This will give potential clients a better idea of what you can do.
- Explain your process. Don’t just show your work; also explain how you came up with your work. Show case studies. This will help clients understand your thought process and why you made the choices you did.
- Use high-quality images and videos. Your portfolio should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. Use high-quality images and videos to showcase your work.
- Keep your portfolio up-to-date. As you create new work, add it to your portfolio. This will show potential clients that you’re active and constantly improving your skills.
- Promote your portfolio. Don’t just wait for clients to find your portfolio; promote it yourself. Share it on social media, submit it to design competitions, and include it in your website and online profiles.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may have grammatical errors.
00:05.36
Preston Lee
All right clay so I have a question that came across ah via email today and ah, it’s from Oliver Gray he says I came across your website through watching a video. On the Youtube channel First of all, thanks so much for watching Oliver we’ll link to our Youtube channel in the in the description of this episode. But Oliver says I’m a freelance social media graphic designer and I’m looking for help on how to effectively create a graphic design portfolio and then go on to gain and retain clients. So for me, it seems like a very um, basic question. But but maybe something that a lot of brand new freelancers are wondering and it’s like look I do a little bit of freelancing I really don’t know where to start to build a good portfolio so I wanted to ask you today Clay.
00:42.41
Clay Mosley
Ah.
00:54.57
Preston Lee
What are some elements in your mind. What comes to mind immediately when you say elements of a of a successful freelance portfolio and and Oliver’s a graphic designer. But I think some of these elements will apply to writers marketers developers whatever but what are elements of a good portfolio.
01:13.20
Clay Mosley
Um, so I can think of a couple things 1 is one is ah you want to make sure to have a I guess this this is all relative to your business right? So like if you’re already. If your business is already in a niche or niche just making sure your portfolio reflects that? Um, but not. But but in addition to that making sure to have a variety of different like styles because.
01:50.20
Clay Mosley
Every single company has a different brand Personality. So I would actually say like because one of the number one things that ah from small business owners when it comes to outsourcing their social media. Ah. Whether it’s graphics or posting. Whatever is they want to make sure it’s on Brand. That’s the biggest thing at the same time They don’t want to do that shit themselves right? So I think if your portfolio can reflect like actually.
02:12.69
Preston Lee
Yeah,, that’s good point. Right.
02:27.50
Clay Mosley
Not not just like a collection of graphics right? That’s fine, but what I would do is I would actually create a graphic and then next to it explain? Okay, here’s this company here’s here’s their brand and their brand voice and personality. This is why I came up with this style of graphic.
02:46.48
Preston Lee
I Love that I think so often particularly graphic designers. But I’ve seen writers do this too often. We fall victim to gallery syndrome right? Where we we just like oh man like I hate the portfolios that you go to and.
02:46.95
Clay Mosley
To reflect that.
02:57.75
Clay Mosley
Yes.
03:05.24
Preston Lee
Front page. It might look super cool to a designer right? but it’s just like square thumbnails of a million projects and and it’s like there’s no information. There’s no value. Add you know, no explanation of the value that you added to your client’s business or anything like that. It’s just.
03:11.86
Clay Mosley
Ah.
03:22.71
Preston Lee
Thumbnails and you click on it. It gives you like a little light box and you see it bigger and there’s no information and it’s like clients care what it looks like yes, but they’re not hiring a fine artist right? They’re hiring.
03:27.98
Clay Mosley
Yep.
03:33.17
Clay Mosley
Um, right.
03:35.80
Preston Lee
In this case, they’re hiring a graphic designer or same with a writer like I’ve seen so many writers portfolios where it’s just like a link to the article linked to the article include include my advice always is like make each one sort of a mini case study I’d rather you have like 3 to 5 great mini case studies than a hundred.
03:42.66
Clay Mosley
Yep.
03:52.68
Clay Mosley
Yeah, yeah, you don’t need a hundred you. You only need 3 to 5 like 10 at the max. Um, and it’s yeah I agree with you. It’s I think it’s the difference between.
03:55.25
Preston Lee
Images with no information attached. No no yeah.
04:08.86
Clay Mosley
Ah, technician who knows how to use a so a graphic design software and make stuff pretty versus an actual brand and graphic design consultant.
04:19.23
Preston Lee
Yes, yeah, we’ve talked about this in an episode called. You’re an expert charge for it or something like that. We should really number our episode so I can say like an episode 127 but we haven’t done that but it would be great. Ah, but yeah, it’s like chart you’re an expert charge for it or something because.
04:23.95
Clay Mosley
Because.
04:29.86
Clay Mosley
Um, ah.
04:36.69
Preston Lee
What you want to show them is you can do more than just especially oh man, you think about in design and writing especially with Ai coming on the scene you want to be able to show that you can solve those problems much better than you know, an Ai designer can.
04:46.56
Clay Mosley
Yep. Um, then a I Yep yeah and it’s ah ah what I was going to say is there. There’s another on I’d hate to like.
04:55.80
Preston Lee
Um, yeah.
05:09.30
Clay Mosley
And the graphic design world. There’s there’s people that know how like every single one of them know they know how to use the software right? But not everyone knows how to do the consulting the branding side of things right? The creative. Um, and I hate to say it. But.
05:14.95
Preston Lee
Yeah, right.
05:24.32
Preston Lee
Yep.
05:28.66
Clay Mosley
Where and this is just from my experience. Sorry I don’t mean offense if any if this is any Pi listening but these graphic designers that lack that that branding consulting like kind of ah skill set they go to sign companies.
05:46.00
Clay Mosley
That’s where they work.
05:46.53
Preston Lee
Yeah, we used to call these production designers I’m I’m sure that’s still a term that’s used right? It’s just like it’s like that your employer actually doesn’t or or your client actually doesn’t want you to think through any of the strategy.
05:49.51
Clay Mosley
Yeah production designers. Yeah.
05:58.95
Clay Mosley
This.
06:01.23
Preston Lee
They’ve already hired and paid someone else way more than you to think through it and they just want you to like move some pixels around and and I think that’s going to go away right because Ai bots are going to be able to do it. Um.
06:09.10
Clay Mosley
Um, yep, yep.
06:14.56
Preston Lee
They’re going to be able to look at 1 thing that has all your branding on it and they’re going to be able to design a hundred things that look just like it or that are meaning that match the branding um way way faster. Yes, way faster than you can. Yeah.
06:21.70
Clay Mosley
Oh yeah, with a single prompt but what what was the did he ask like how to market himself.
06:31.60
Preston Lee
He did say like I want to build a good portfolio and then use it to gain and retain clients. So that’s that’s definitely worth discussing.
06:40.13
Clay Mosley
Yeah, there’s there’s just 1 thing that like an idea I came across this graphic designers Instagram I don’t remember the handle but she’s ah she’s a logo designer and all her Instagram feed is.
06:58.50
Clay Mosley
Is she takes professional sports teams logos and revamps them for content and they are so much better than the actual real logos and anyways it caught on and she has like.
07:05.32
Preston Lee
Oh interesting.
07:17.48
Clay Mosley
I Swear this is how she makes money now she doesn’t make money off logos. She makes money off of being an influencer now and so anyways I was thinking that like you know if if you need to build up like a quote unquote portfolio or you just use it for social content I would still do the case studies.
07:21.31
Preston Lee
Yeah.
07:34.92
Clay Mosley
And have those as evergreen content on your website. Um, but like as far as social content this actually might be a pretty fun thing to do I’m not I’m not saying do sports teams but like pick some brands like really well-known brands and just see what you can do and say hey.
07:49.34
Preston Lee
Yeah.
07:54.83
Clay Mosley
This particular brand. Maybe it’s like I don’t know Target or Mcdonald’s or whoever ah Gucci and and and do like you can do a little case. Study is hey based off their personality and like who they cater to.
08:00.74
Preston Lee
Um, yeah.
08:11.53
Clay Mosley
This is the way I would create a social post or a social graphic and you could.
08:13.65
Preston Lee
Yeah, yeah, or even like I think it’d be cool to take like so you find clients that would kind of be in your target audience like Target might not be in your target audience right? but you find.
08:24.91
Clay Mosley
Right.
08:29.70
Preston Lee
And you find like really bad social graphics that they’ve shared just like poorly designed poor messaging just right and then you and then you show how you would fix it. Um and show the whole process. There’s this Youtuber I I can’t remember his name. We’re doing a really bad job promoting our fellow ah creatives and entrepreneurs here. But.
08:35.12
Clay Mosley
Um, oh that’s a good idea.
08:48.26
Preston Lee
Um, there’s this Youtuber who redesigns packaging for ah like you know he’ll redesign like a cheetos bag or something and he on Youtube he shows the whole process like he screencasts it and he’s really entertaining and and engaging which is going to be critical here. But It’s fun to watch him like rebuild these things and they often come out better than the original right? So sort of this very similar. Yeah, very similar thing just getting a lot of attention because now these 2 people we’ve talked about the the logo designer the package designer they can probably get just about any client they want in a certain target audience right? like.
09:08.21
Clay Mosley
Me here.
09:22.65
Clay Mosley
Oh for sure.
09:25.16
Preston Lee
You know when when you have a million Youtube subscribers or whatever. Um, there’s a certain. There’s a certain amount of clout and confidence that comes with that and you can then charge more you can you can say no to more clients you can get the kinds of clients that you want so I would add to I would add to that I think that is a fantastic. Um.
09:34.27
Clay Mosley
Um, yeah, yeah.
09:44.51
Preston Lee
Little segment there I would add to that coming back to the portfolio piece too many freelancers build their portfolio and don’t think through like the the flow that leads to the call to action that leads to the conversion right? So coming back to like this gallery syndrome. They just have a gallery and maybe like a contact.
09:57.45
Clay Mosley
Ah.
10:01.89
Preston Lee
Link at the top. It just says contact or whatever and I just think you can be so much smarter about maybe making a chat widget or maybe making ah ah, a really great contact page that really sells them.
10:02.40
Clay Mosley
Who.
10:15.69
Preston Lee
Um, making it super easy like not I hate portfolios that they ask you 300 questions before you can actually submit. You’re at the contact form like what’s your budget. What’s you know? and.
10:23.39
Clay Mosley
Yeah.
10:26.70
Preston Lee
If you know if you if you really have the problem that you have too many my friend Ian Ian Padgett he’s a logo designer. He does legitimately have the problem that he gets too many requests and so he has to filter people out most of us don’t have that problem right? So unless you have to filter them out. Don’t ask all those questions just get their contact information and then reach out to them. But I think.
10:45.33
Clay Mosley
Yeah, yeah, ah on top of that one idea I would I think it’s worth testing could totally backfire totally backfire So full Disclaimer um is.
10:46.23
Preston Lee
We don’t think through that flow enough you know.
11:02.60
Clay Mosley
On your portfolio. You could put a put it like a a submission right? like ah ah like give me your email then like your website and your name and I’ll create 1 social graphic for you as a test right? as like a test run.
11:19.21
Preston Lee
That’s cool idea. Yeah.
11:22.56
Clay Mosley
Now This could totally backfire and you get a whole bunch of people but I don’t think ah I just I just think in my head I wouldn’t sign up just because I’m getting one for free right? I don’t think I would um me as ah as a potential buyer that’s not worth it to me.
11:41.97
Preston Lee
Yeah, it’s more. It’s more to like see what the work would be than to just get the 1 free graphics what you’re saying.
11:42.18
Clay Mosley
If You know if I wanted to like get a free graphic. Yeah yeah, and so yeah, so like I don’t think people are going to take advantage of it. Um, and and here’s the the caveat is it’s free reign to you so people can’t just say hey I want to free graphic. That’s specific to but this event that I’m running but blah blah I’m like okay that somebody’s trying to get a bunch of free work. So All you do is give like ask for name email website. That’s it and so that way it’s free reign to you that way you have full creative.
12:07.19
Preston Lee
Ah, yeah.
12:15.92
Clay Mosley
And what I like about this is that and a lot of people might think well you know you’re spending some time actually doing this for free and I think about okay, you can either do this for free. Um and get a whole bunch of leads right? and spending some time on it.
12:30.51
Preston Lee
Naha aha.
12:31.91
Clay Mosley
But if you think about the cost per acquisition to gain an actual client if you don’t do it this way. You know it actually cost you. It might cost you a lot more than than one the time to create one free graphic. You know what I mean does that make sense.
12:46.46
Preston Lee
Yeah, particularly if you’re really good at it. Um, and really fast at it and and I think yeah I think I agree with you so often we are so repulsed by the idea of free work that we just like say no free work. No matter what but free work can be a great way to get your foot in the door with someone.
12:57.60
Clay Mosley
Is I.
13:03.16
Preston Lee
You know what we’re like coming back to this social content piece Imagine if you put this all together. Someone visits your portfolio they like your work. They sign up for this free graphic you then record yourself or document yourself somehow creating this free graphic you post that to social that goes out to more people and they come back and order their free graphic.
13:15.38
Clay Mosley
Um, ah yes.
13:22.72
Preston Lee
Mean why you send this client and and you’re sending 20 free graphics a week which is really not that many let’s say it takes you a half hour you have content at the same time you were going to do the content anyway, right? So like so now all of a sudden you’re you’re sending out yeah content on the one side.
13:28.44
Clay Mosley
But you have content at the same time. Um.
13:40.93
Clay Mosley
You’re you’re building your you’re building your list at the same time. Yep, that’s a good idea I think’s worth’re testing.
13:40.98
Preston Lee
Nurturing leads on the other side you’re building your email list. Yeah yeah, absolutely Oliver and you should try that and you should let us know how it goes because we think we are. We are really smart.
13:57.69
Preston Lee
Ah, no, but seriously like that’s something I would totally do I think I think it makes a lot of sense particularly if you really want to do that content piece and if and then who doesn’t want to grow their list and grow their leads. So awesome. Oh.
14:07.23
Clay Mosley
Yep.
14:08.92
Preston Lee
Ah, Clay. Thanks so much for taking the time today man I think that’s been hopefully that’s been helpful. Oliver, thanks so much for writing and if you want to have your question answered on one of our q and a episodes like this you can visit freelance tofounder.com/ask. We’d love to answer your question as best we can. And Clay mostly from gettripify.com I’ve been Preston with Millo.co. Thanks so much. We’ll see ya.
14:27.82
Clay Mosley
See ah.
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