Still Not Getting Leads or Clients? It’s NOT Your Website, Funnels, or Ads...

**Brian Hood** (0:00)
This is the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, episode 378
Welcome to the 6 Figure Creative Podcast, where our mission is to help you turn your creative passions into a stable, reliable income. If you're in audio, video, design, photography, or really any other creative field, and you just want to learn from other successful creatives, you're in the right place. Most freelancers think their legion is broken because they don't have the right funnel, they don't have the right ads, they don't have the right content, and they don't have the right AI miracle that's going to save their business. But the real reason that they're not getting clients is usually one of two issues. The first issue is they're usually saying something that nobody really cares about, and that's usually a positioning problem. Sometimes messaging, but usually a positioning problem if it's something that people just don't care about. The second issue is they are saying something that people do care about, but no one is listening to you because you have zero evidence to back what you're saying. So the funnel's not the issue, AI's not the issue, the ads aren't the issue, the content's not the issue, the website's not the issue.
It is what's going into the funnel, into the ads, into the website, into the AI that is the actual issue here. So in this episode, I'm gonna break down how you can fix both of those issues with better positioning and better proof. And I am qualified to talk about this because we've brought in over 150 new clients this year alone. It's only August so far. And I'm only mentioning this because this has been a long and winding road for me to get there, and I've learned a lot of lessons the hard way, and I don't want you to have to learn the lessons the hard way either. So this episode, I'll break down the lessons I learned the hard way so you can take the easy road. And one of the things I'd really like you to pay attention to is a super simple nine word positioning test that will help you know your positioning. Powerful stuff. So if you've never heard of us before, hi, I'm Brian Hood. This is the 6 Figure Creative podcast. This is a podcast for creative freelancers who want to earn more money from their creative skills without selling their souls. I take my experience from multiple businesses in my background, including a decade freelancing, real estate, software, courses, coaching, consulting, as well as the experience of my team of now 11 people from all over the world and from the other industries that I look up to who are doing things better than, no offense, simple freelancers, the more sophisticated businesses that we can take and adapt for your business. That is what this podcast is for. So if that sounds good, you're in the right spot. So I've got this episode broken into kind of a few different sections here. And the first one I want to talk about is kind of smashing that funnel objection. I can already kind of address this a little bit, but some of the common complaints that I've seen from clients that we start working with or people that listen to this podcast or just people that I'm talking to that are freelancers that want my ear or eye on something is that my website's not converting or I've posted, let's just say 20 times and no one's booked a call or no one's DM me or no one's reached out. I have no leads coming through this thing or that thing. I've got a funnel. I've got the offer. I've got the emails. I've got the ads running, but why isn't it working? And the answer is simple, because none of that matters if you are still vague, vanilla, and unproven. A megaphone does not fix the message that no one wants to hear and no one believes. So if you're building a funnel around a weak offer, if you're launching ads around a weak offer, if you're building content around a weak offer, it's like duct taping a megaphone to a toddler's mumbling face. They're just saying gibberish. They're not saying anything important. They're not saying anything that anyone really wants to hear. It might be cute for a minute, but like past that point, it's just loud and annoying. And it definitely doesn't really mean anything. I don't think I've ever heard a two or three year old say something profound that I needed to hear. I love my two or three year old nieces and nephews, but they're not saying things that I need a megaphone to hear. So a quick diagnostic for you. If no one clicks, whether you have an ad or content, or you're posting something somewhere, if no one clicks, you probably have a positioning problem. If people click, but they never opt in, you likely have a proof problem. If people book, they don't buy, you likely have proof and or an offer problem. Either way, it's not a funnel problem. It's not just the ad problem. You can have all the technical parts of the ads done right. It is not a social media problem. It's not an algorithm problem. I don't know how many other ways to say it. So second thing we're gonna talk about today is the positioning problem. That is like the main thing that freelancers tend to mess up, which is why I'm gonna cover it first. And that is they make offers like websites that convert. We make custom websites that convert. Or we brand businesses in a way that connects people. Or we build brands that connect with other human beings. Or I offer professional copywriting services. Or I do mixes that slap for my other people. You know what that means. But then you wonder why nobody gives a sh**. Nobody responds. Nobody reacts. Nobody likes. Nobody comments. Nobody shares. Nobody opts in. Nobody buys. And I want to walk you through kind of this nine word positioning test. Quickly walk you through who you help, what you help them with, and to what clear outcome. So a template is something like this. I help specific buyer do specific jobs so they get specific result. Let me give you some examples to drive this home. So one would be for like web design. I help solo consultants, that's the specific buyer, upgrade DIY sites, that's the specific job, so they stop losing 5K offers on first impression. That's the specific result. Meaning, if you are a solo consultant, and you have a DIY site you made on Squarespace, and it's likely not getting your results, and you're losing $5,000 consulting offers, it's likely because low trust. So the pain is there's a credibility gap for your client, there is poor conversions for your client, there is low trust for your clients, and a better website that is brought into the 21st century, the 25th year of the 21st century, you're helping them level up. Let's do one for brand. Brand would be, I rebrand 6 Figure Coaches who still look like their year one website so they can raise rates without churn. I rebrand 6 Figure Coaches, that's the specific buyer, who still look year one, that's the specific job. I guess rebranding is the kind of the actual specific job, but you see it's, you can kind of mix and match the order of these things. You'll see on the third example, I completely redo the order, but I rebrand 6 Figure Coaches who still look year one so they can raise rates without churn. That's the actual outcome or specific result. Now we were at seven figures before we ever actually upgraded our brand and our website and all those things, but the point remains, there's many, many coaches out there, or course businesses or consultants out there who still look like they did year one even though they're at six figures, multi-six figures, even seven figures, and they're willing and able to pay money to upgrade their brand or their website. Let's do a music one now for you music producers out there. Look for these things when I say this. Look for the specific buyer, look for the specific job, and look for the specific result. Those three things are in here, but it's reworded in a different way. This is why templates are a great guideline, but they don't have to be followed word for word. I produce polished songs for corporate guys who are moonlighting as songwriters so they can finally release music that sounds like it belongs on Spotify. Or sounds like it belongs on the radio, whichever word you want to use there, to pay on the age group. If it's an older age group, you probably say radio. If it's a younger age group, you might go Spotify. We have clients who do that niche. It's a very lucrative niche. May not be the most fulfilling niche for some people, but it's from Rosie says, solve rich people problems. They pay better. I'm not here to push one niche over another or rich clients versus poor clients. I'm not pushing any of that stuff, although you'll have a easier time on rich clients if it matches with your values and what you want to do. But the point is, these are much more sticky statements. The positioning is much better. It's much clearer. It's something that people actually want, but it's only half the equation. We have clients who will nail this stuff and then struggle on this next part because of the proof problem. And that's the third part here, is the proof problem. Even if you know the offer, you've got great positioning, even great messaging. Many freelancers don't have evidence or they don't show the evidence that they do have. That's even more sinful. If you don't have evidence and you got to go get it, that's one thing we'll talk about that. But if you have the evidence, the proof that you can do what you say you can do and you don't show it because you don't want to be braggadocious. You don't want to brag about your clients' results. You are shooting yourself in the foot and you are hemorrhaging money. Just relying on like, trust me, bro, trust me, I can get you these results. Trust me, those vibes just don't work anymore if they ever did in the first place. So this is a bottleneck for you. Trust is a bottleneck. If you cannot show what happened to your past clients, you are asking strangers to gamble. And there could be people who are willing to give you a chance if they already know I can trust you, but that is not who we're trying to get to hire you. If you want a sustainable long-term business as a freelancer, you almost certainly have to get strangers to hire you. Now, you can be like, hey, for 20 years, I've been book solid with referrals. If that's you, great, go somewhere else. That's not most people, and even people who are, quote, book solid with referrals, they then hit this long stagnant season because they've had to rely on it for so long, then now they're starting to hemorrhage money and they're starting to freak out. Maybe that's who I'm talking to now. Or if you haven't gotten there yet, you will get there eventually. But eventually, one day, the thing you have no control over, referrals, will let you down. And that's where we have to get strangers to hire you. And to get strangers to hire you, you have to have proof that you can do what you say you can do. Now, I talked about this, to some extent, back on episode 375, called Why Your Dream Clients Aren't Hiring You and How to Fix It. It was basically just saying, are you actually good enough for your dream clients? You want all these amazing clients, but do they actually want you? Well, proof is a huge part of that. So here's some signs that you have a proof problem. If you're getting clicks, but you're not getting leads. If you're getting on calls, but they're not buying. If you're posting content, but no one reaches out to you for a DM or a quote or an inquiry. If you're running ads, but the dollar dies in your funnel somewhere, then you likely have a proof problem. When you feel like you've nailed the positioning. When you feel like you're in a very lucrative niche with a lot of money. And even when you feel like you're great at what you do. If you don't have proof to back it up, not just outcomes, but results as well, which I'll talk about the difference between those two in a second. You gotta have them both. You gotta have them all. Because the best fit clients, especially sophisticated ones, especially larger businesses, if you're B2B, those people are going to be the most picky because they have the pick of the litter when it comes to freelancers that they could work with, that they could hire. So why would they choose you, Mr. or Mrs. Freelancer, who just says, trust me, bro, I can make your website look amazing, but you don't have proof. You don't have results. You don't have numbers to back it. So let me talk about what to show instead. This is what I call the proof ladder. It is basically from light to heavy. There's the things that you can show people from easiest to show and probably the least compelling to some of the more compelling things. Now this is not, it's like a spectrum. It's going to be different for everybody. This may not be perfectly increasing in value for different people because everyone values different things, but it starts with just kind of the micro wins, screen shots, before and after visuals, things that are like easier to show in a screen shot in a small thing. You can share these on stories, you can put this on your website, you can have it in your funnel, you can have it on your pages for when people are inquiring or when people have booked a call or before they get on a call. You can share in emails, things like that. Micro wins are great. Next on the proof letter is like mini case study blurbs. It could be like two sentences, problem, then outcome, things like that, where it's just like short kind of mini case studies. You can share these again in stories, you can share these in little spots in your website. You don't have to have a dedicated page for these. There's just like little things you can put all over the place. The third would be social proof. When I say social proof, I just mean aggregated things. It could be a wall of testimonials from people that are not faces and names. It could be a list of 100 Google reviews. It could be premier testimonials from more known faces and names in your industry, or it could be shout outs from premier names and faces in your industry, recognizable people. Next on the proof ladder is video testimonials. That's where people are more using their words in their own vibe, in their own language, talking about how much you help them, preferably talking about numbers and transformations and outcomes and results and those sorts of things. And finally on the proof ladder is before and after transformations. This is where we need to talk about results and outcomes. And the difference between these two, it seems subtle, but it's actually huge. Outcomes are before and afters. This is what their site looked like before. This is what it looks like after. It looks better. It's prettier. Here's the brand before. Here's the brand after. It's better. It's prettier.