There are probably some types of food you like, and some you aren’t so crazy about. When you’ve just enjoyed one of your favorites, do you make your next snack something that complements your diet?
Or do you just have some more of the same?
As most of us know to the detriment of our own waistlines, the “balanced diet” is an elusive creature. We reach for the things we enjoy, the ones we’re comfortable with, without even thinking about it.
Your prospects and clients tend to do the same thing when they pull together their project teams. Instead of a “balanced diet” of the skills and knowledge needed to achieve the desired results, they pile on more of what they already have. They make their teams fatter without making them better.
As a freelancer, one of your challenges is helping your prospects get what they really need (you!), instead of just what feels good to them. When you complete the team, rather than just enlarge it, you produce results that will bring your clients back to you again and again.
The Dangers of the Knowledge Game . . .
Specialization is good for many freelancers, so it is hard to resist pitching your knowledge of the prospect’s field. If you already know something about banking or medical products or farming or hardware, you can reduce “spin-up” time and more easily network among potential customers.
But your knowledge is rarely as good as the client’s. It won’t add much to what they already know, it will just speed things up a little. The real benefit you offer your clients is what you can do, what you know how to do, not just what you (and they) know.
The bad news is that project leaders often end up choosing freelancers based on shared knowledge rather than the new skills they offer. They overlook the main benefit you offer, the highest Return On Investment they can get by hiring outside help, and end up overpaying for slightly faster work.
Look In The Mirror . . .
Given a choice, most of us prefer to interact with people who are a lot like us, that’s just human nature. Engineers love talking about their new products with other engineers. Medical clinicians love talking to medical staff.
This natural tendency often seduces project leaders into selecting the wrong people to help them. One or more internal “experts”, who know the “what” — the specifications of a device, the features of a service, the steps in a procedure — may have virtual veto power over choosing outside help.
As they contact potential helpers, they meet freelancers who don’t always talk about the same things they like to talk about, the same way. The experts end up outside their comfort zone, suddenly in a world of broccoli when their tastes run to fried foods.
Human nature takes over, and they hire the person who has the most overlap with what they know and how they talk about it, instead of the person who has the greatest skill at doing what they need done, at talking about their information in new ways to reach a new audience.
They end up with a duplicate set of expertise, with lots of “what” and not much of the “how” that is essential to producing results that benefit the company. Then they discover that knowledge doesn’t spread itself, or automatically make employees more effective, or prospects more willing. Those things take special skills.
The truth is that it is a lot harder for companies to find help that produces high quality work, on time, on budget, with smooth interactions with the team, than it is to find someone who knows their subject matter. Your prospects can forget that very quickly, unfortunately, once they start looking for outside help . . . unless you help them see what they really need.
Sell Results, Not Comfort
Whether you know a lot or a little about your prospect’s field, work to sell them what they are missing, the thing that makes you different from the people they already have on their team. Show them that you will add something besides bulk to their project.
Come right out and ask your clients why they want to pay again for what they already have (detailed knowledge) instead of investing in what they need (your skills) to get results.
Sure, you will lose some projects to competitors who sound just like the prospects. But stay in touch! Many of those lost prospects will become potential customers again later, when they discover that adding someone just like themselves to the team did not help them reach their goals.
Remember that you, too, like to talk to people just like you. It can take hard work to forge a connection with company staff who have different interests and styles than you do.
But when you complete the prospect’s team, join their strengths to your strengths, you produce the kind of results that lead to long term relationships with clients.
