Stop selling features: The sales secret every freelancer needs
Mark Ormiston of Eternal Digital Marketing has been building businesses since 1986. He's watched industries rise and collapse, survived the 2008 credit crunch, and now owns three businesses (and still manages to step away from work for holiday).
We talked about what it really takes to scale, why putting all your eggs in one niche basket might be riskier than you think, and something about food trucks that I never knew.
What we talked about
Mark finished school at 16 with a dream to either be an IT director or run his own business. By the time he was 36, he'd done both, only to watch it all disappear practically overnight when the 2008 financial crisis hit.
That moment was the turning point. Mark decided he was done being at the mercy of other people's decisions and built his own website company from scratch. More than a decade and a half later, he's running three businesses always with an eye towards the future and what his clients need next.
The wide net approach to clients
A lot of coaches and consultants will tell you to niche down. (This podcast might even convince you of that later in the season.) And Mark isn't entirely against the idea, but it's not what has made his business successful.
Mark's take is that a wide client base protects you. And more than that, it makes you better at your job because the ideas you pick up working with a sports shop might be exactly what an accountancy firm has never thought to try.
Know your numbers (seriously, every day)
Mark's single best piece of advice for any business owner: know your numbers, and look at them every single day.
He keeps a personal dashboard that tracks leads, sales, production pipeline, and cash coming in. Not once a week. Every. Single. Day. And it's that daily habit that's allowed him to spot trends early and make moves before he's in crisis mode.
As he put it:
"If you look after the pennies, the pounds look after themselves."
Sell the sizzle, not the features
One of the best things Mark said in this whole conversation is that the best way to close a sale isn't to list features. It's to sell the future.
Not: "Your website will be mobile-friendly and load fast." (even though it is) but: "Your conversion rate is going to go up 15%. Your customers are going to find it easier to order from you."
That's the power of selling a future instead of a feature. And it works the same way for freelancers.
You'll have to listen to the episode to hear why onions are the food truck industry's way to key into this secret and why a hamburger sounds good right now.
Speaking of selling...
Here's where this hits close to home: so much of what Mark talked about, knowing your numbers, being agile, adapting before you have to, is exactly what Moxie is built to help you do.
When you've got your proposals, contracts, invoicing, and project pipeline all in one place, you stop scrambling and start seeing. You know where your business is. You can spot the trends. You can make moves from a position of clarity instead of chaos.
That's the kind of control that keeps you from being the person waiting for a phone call telling you the rug just got pulled.
Subscribe to the Moxie Podcast wherever you listen, and try Moxie free at withmoxie.com.
About Mark:
Four decades. One thousand businesses worked with. One relentless focus on growth. I'm a digital marketing strategist and entrepreneur operating through Moxie — delivering clear, professional engagements across Financial Services, FMCG, Beauty, and beyond.
See more about Mark on his website: https://www.markormiston.co.uk
