What if the resumé you’ve spent years perfecting is actually keeping you stuck in an employee mindset and holding you back from becoming a higher-paid freelancer?
As a freelancer, your clients aren’t hiring you because of a list of past job titles and accomplishments, they’re hiring you because they believe you can create results for them.
If you’re still relying on your resumé to prove your value, negotiate your rates, or win clients, this episode will help you understand what needs to change so you can build credibility in a way that actually supports your freelance business.
By the end of this episode, you will:
Learn why your reputation can be far more powerful than your resumé so you can attract more clients and earn referrals.
Discover how to communicate your value and credibility in order to stop relying on corporate job titles or accomplishments.
Understand when your resumé is important and turn the strongest parts into compelling website messaging to win you potential clients.
Play the episode now to learn how to leave the employee mentality behind and start building the reputation that can help you attract better clients and charge higher fees.
TRANSCRIPTTake a listen to this episode, because you're gonna find out the importance of why your reputation is the number one thing you need, why the resume is still keeping you stuck in an employee mentality, and what you need to do to build credibility.
Welcome back to the show. Today, I want to talk about something that's really important, when you're coming from a corporate mindset, and that's your resume. Your resume is so important in corporate, isn't it? Like, I mean, your resume is everything. Like, that's how you show your accomplishments, that's how you show everything that you've done in the past, your whole history of your career, and why you should be moving up the corporate ladder, why you deserve more pay, etc. And I hate to break it to you, but your resume should not count for that much when you're a freelancer. Now, this is a little bit tricky, because if you are a freelancer right now applying, quote-unquote, for jobs on a freelance marketplace, LinkedIn jobs, whatever, you're going to see that a lot of them ask you to upload your resume. And I disagree with this a lot, and as you become more successful as a freelancer, and as you become more stable, you will need your resume less and less. In fact, if you can, I mean, obviously, you guys have heard me say this a lot, but, like, don't apply for freelance jobs, because that's gonna get you some shitty clients. That's not entirely true, like, there are clients out there that I've… I had one client for, like, 9 years that I adore that I found on Upwork, okay? But we took the relationship off Upwork. She never asked for my resume. But I know, like, LinkedIn Jobs and sometimes Indeed and stuff like that, they ask for the resume. I would love it if you can get into the habit of just not handing people your resume. And when you have clients who reach out, sometimes they might ask for your resume as well, and you need to stop that. Now, why the resume doesn't help you is because it doesn't really show your value. It shows a step-by-step process, and it shows accomplishments. And when it comes to freelancing, at the end of the day, a lot of people are just looking for the cheapest option, alright? It's a little bit different from corporate. And when you're trying to get ahead and get more money as a freelancer, you don't want to be the cheapest option, and you probably are not the cheapest option. And one of the ways around this is by learning how to show your value, showing what you've done in the past. And one of the ways you can do that is talking about what you've done in the past for past clients, how you've helped them succeed, how you bring that value to the table every day, even if you're not the least expensive freelancer there. And your resume just doesn't do that. Another reason why I don't think your resume helps that much is because When you're on a call. This is a little different from a job interview.When you have a job interview, they've looked at your resume beforehand, and that's why they decided to call you in. A lot of times when you are a successful freelancer, and you're trying to become a successful freelancer, you want to be building credibility without the titles, alright? So, your job title and what you do need to be as easy to understand as possible. I am a copywriter who helps clients convert through their webpage and 10x their income, right? That is something that shows value, exactly what you do, and it's easy to understand. And from there, a client will contact you based on what they read on your webpage, on your LinkedIn profile, Instagram profile, whatever. Maybe they saw you do a TikTok dance. And then, you need to be able to lead the call on your own terms. You cannot be sitting relying on your resume. Like, I remember going to job interviews, and I remember they would just have my resume in front of them, and they would ask questions about my resume. That's not going to be the case here. So you need to learn how to lead the call on your own terms, talk about what you've done in the past. And not just accomplishments, but again, coming back to, like, the value. And the value is Can I get you what you need in a short amount of time? Am I really good at what I do? How have I helped clients in the past? And then, On that, you need to learn how to negotiate. A resume doesn't really help you negotiate. And I don't want people sitting there thinking that their resume is going to be a negotiating factor. The negotiations are your own brain, your own gumption, and the way that you're able to convince a client to sign you right away, right? And I think that is something that people don't understand, because with the call that you're gonna have, and all this that you're leading up to, that resume just makes negotiation harder, actually. It really does. And At the end of the day, Your reputation is your resume. And that is what's gonna see you further than any resume ever could, okay? Your reputation is your resume, and that is gonna lead to referrals. That's gonna lead you to being able to charge higher fees, because people are like, hey, I know I work with this person, they are amazing, they're a little higher than normal than what you might see, and I do pay a lot for them, but I can't imagine my life without them. Like, I would be jealous if they left me for you. Right? That is your resume. That is worth gold. That's 10 times more than a resume could ever provide you. And I briefly chatted to you about, in the beginning, like, why you shouldn't be, like, sending it out. But what it comes down to, and I want you to understand this, is that's an employee mentality. And through this, you know, podcast, the advice I give you, the stuff I talk about on social media, I want people to leave that mentality behind. Because when you're stuck in that corporate mentality, it just hinders you, and you're trying to be more successful in what you do, who you are, etc. So, in order to do that, we have to let go of a lot of our old selves, right?
You see this a lot in, actually, like, spirituality practices. I was just thinking, oh my gosh, this is a very random thing, but I was at the lake house, and there was, people from a church that came down and did, like, a whole baptism thing, and they baptized people in the lake, and one of the things I was thinking about is, like, they were talking, I was just watching from afar. Like, being a total lurker. But one of the things they were talking about was, like, ridding the old self. Like, getting rid of the old self and old habits. And I was like. That is kinda what we're going for here. I want you to get rid of those old habits, those old corporate ways and step into your new self as a successful freelancer, and the resume must be banished. It must be banished. That's the old part, okay? Now, there is one time when the resume helps you. The only time the resume helps you is when you're transferring that lingo on your resume, resume, the, like, accomplishment and all of that and what you can do, and how you've led teams, or whatever, onto your webpage. Because when you're attracting clients, they are going to want to read almost like a resume. Now, I'm not saying you're going to take the resume bullet by bullet, and put it onto your webpage. Do not do that. You can use AI for this. How do I transfer this into web page copy? And then clients are gonna be reading their own language, and this goes into my reflection framework. They're gonna understand what you do better and you're gonna make it more compelling, because you've taken parts of your resume and made it into your webpage copy. That's the only time I really recommend it, and that will also help you overcome hurdles of clients calling you, because they will want to call you when they read a webpage like that, because they're going to say, oh, that's, like, in my language. If I was gonna look for someone and put out a job description or a job op, that is exactly what I would want this person to be able to do, and that's where it helps you, alright?
To recap, the resume really doesn't help you as a freelancer. My number one reason, I should have said this first, is that it's really the employee mentality, right? Banish that, get rid of it, it doesn't show value. It shows accomplishments, and a lot of times, at the end of the day, you've built credibility without job titles. And you built credibility through your social media posts, through your marketing, through your webpage, and when it comes to freelancing, your job title and what you need to do need to be as easy to understand as possible, and you don't really have that with the resume and corporate background, right? Then you need to learn how to lead a call on your own terms. Your resume is not gonna help that. No one's gonna be sitting there staring at a resume of yours, right? They're gonna look up your webpage and understand that. And that's the only time the resume helps, right? When you move that lingo into your resume, have AI help you with that. It doesn't help you negotiate. That's not something that you're able to do with a resume. And that's not something… I mean, you do it in corporate, you negotiate, but it's not, like, as a freelancer, so that doesn't help you either. And at the end of the day, your reputation is more important than your resume, or your reputation is your resume. That is your resume, and that is what you need moving forward as a successful freelancer.
I hope this helps you. If you think you're still stuck in this corporate mentality, and you can't get rid of it, or you're working a corporate job and freelancing, and you're like, how the heck do I quit my corporate job? I'm just not there yet. I would love to talk to you and do a free call. The link is in my show notes, and we can definitely go through what you need to do in order to quit corporate and be on your own. Alright, this upcoming Thursday, we're going to be talking about how you shouldn't be comparing your beginning to another person's success that's later on, and how you can help yourself remove that mentality as well, and not get down in yourself, because it happens to me too, trust me, it really does. And then next week's lesson is going to be why being great at your corporate job right now is not enough to see success as a freelancer. It's a little bit of a tough topic, so I want you to come back for next week as well. Alright, until then, keep flourishing.