Intro:
When you choose to become a freelancer and to start your own business or hustle, you’re going to be tasked with figuring out how to market yourself and win more jobs.
Marketing is part of the game when you choose to freelance. And unfortunately, it’s sometimes a difficult thing to figure out.
And some freelancers struggle with exactly what to put on their profiles, marketing materials, resumes, and even their websites.
Should you list your skills, or should you only list your services, experience, education, and niche within the industry?
This is a great question.
And in this post, we’re going to break it down and tell you the truth…
You’re about to learn 5 reasons for why you should absolutely be highlighting your skills to win more jobs and get more work.
Let’s get into it.
1. It Establishes Trust
Establishing trust with your clients is best done as early-on in the process as possible.
In fact, if at all possible, you want your client to trust you even before you actually get the job.
This is important for a number of reasons.
But more than anything, this will help you to make sure that the proper clients are coming through your marketing funnel and inquiring about your services.
In a sense, this speaks to the value of qualifying your leads long before they ever walk through your ‘door.’
This is massively important—and sharing your skills, and making sure that they’re on display for all to see and understand, is a vital part of this process.
2. It Builds Credibility
Regardless of whether you plan to be a gig writer, a self-employed graphic design artist, or even a freelance teacher—you’re going to need to build credibility in the eyes of the marketplace before you’ll be able to get clients and land gigs.
And sharing your skills with the marketplace can be an amazing way to help build this credibility.
There’s a big difference between Bob the engineer who went to engineering school, and John the engineer who went to engineering school who also mastered steel-working, welding, and underwater diving while he served in the armed forces.
See, there’s a HUGE difference between these two—and the second one will give you all kinds of marketing advantages that’ll really help you to get clients and make a name for yourself in your industry.
3. It Communicates Your Value
Freelancers are more valuable when they have a broader, more specialized range of skills.
Of course, the best-case-scenario is for all of these skills to be relevant to your niche.
But honestly—even if they aren’t, you can still gain some benefits from sharing them.
For example—Bob the graphic designer, who has been working as a graphic designer since school—isn’t quite as interesting as John the graphic designer who was also a professional ice-fisherman and a semi-pro hockey player before dedicating his life to his passion for the graphic-design industry.
Skills bring value! And they matter to people—even if they aren’t necessarily alway super relevant to the project.
4. It Sets You Apart From The Competition
If there are twenty writers with ‘professional writing experience’ listed on their resume all applying for the same job, you definitely stand to make yourself ‘stand out’ when you list that you spent a year installing solar panels before realizing that your true calling was to use your technology skills to ‘help bring authority to the freelance writing industry in the renewable energy niche.’
See, leveraging your skills can really set you apart from the competition—especially seeing as how your competition may be erring on the side of looking a tad bit ‘boring’ on paper!
5. It’ll Make You A More Attractive Option
Having more skills also means that you’ve just done more stuff and have more experience—and that, in and of itself, definitely makes you a more attractive freelance option.
People want to hire people who know how to get things done.
And a larger skillset definitely gets you some points in the ‘confidence’ department!
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has helped you to understand the biggest reasons for why you should always highlight your skills to win more jobs.