How to position yourself as a portfolio careerist

My updated framework for communicating your value as someone who does many things.

Almost a year ago to the day I wrote a piece titled ‘How to anchor your positioning as a portfolio careerist’. It was my first ill-fated attempt to help people who do many things talk about all the things that they do. I wrote:

“Figuring out your portfolio career positioning is, as it turns out, a total head fuck. Positioning is all about specificity (the one thing you’re known for) and portfolio-ing is all about breadth (doing more than one thing). For most people, this DOES NOT COMPUTE.”

For those of us who refuse to accept society’s push to stay living in a career box, positioning remains an existential struggle. How can you define yourself when, by definition, you operate outside of one? It’s near impossible! Traditional frameworks fall short. Standard methods confuse.

In my previous essay I attempted to create my own method by suggesting that you can anchor your positioning around a core theme: the problem you’re trying to solve, your skills, a philosophy, process or common solution you provide to customers and clients. At the time I knew my thinking wasn’t bang on, writing:

“…while [this framework] is not perfect, in the spirit of throwing stuff into the world and seeing how people respond, I’ve decided to share it today.”

A year and approximately a million nights staring at the ceiling obsessing over this problem later, I can see that my framework didn’t paint the full positioning picture. It was broad strokes at best. Since then my thinking has evolved dramatically and in the spirit of ideating in public and crowd-sourcing feedback, here’s where it currently stands.

The Umbrella Positioning Framework

The Umbrella Positioning Framework is a way for you to organise those chaotic late night thoughts and tell a clear story about how you add value across multiple streams or domains. It’s built around three layers:

1. Your umbrella (who you are)

2. Your verticals (where you play)

3. Your offers (what you sell)

Your Umbrella (who you are)

This is the broad statement or narrative that contextualises everything you do. Think of it as something overarching that sits on top of all your different pursuits. For some, it provides an explanation of how things connect. For others, it simply says “I do many things! This is who I am!”.

There are three ways to approach the umbrella statement:

• The specific approach. This suits those with a singular focus, problem space, industry or customer, and follows the more traditional positioning model. For example, if I worked exclusively in beauty my umbrella statement might be: “I help scaling DTC beauty brands expand into new distribution channels and markets”.

• The through-line approach. This is the strategy I detailed in my previous essay (see…it’s only part of the picture!) and it anchors your positioning around a common thread that weaves its way through your many parts. For example, an umbrella statement that encompasses my GTM work with startups and my portfolio careerist offering could be “Everything I do is to help people build more fulfilling and successful careers, businesses and lives”.

• The self-focused approach. Arguably the most straightforward. This involves simply explaining who you are and standing proudly in your split personality. My current umbrella statement is “I’m a Startup Advisor, Portfolio Career Mentor & Writer”. Basic? Maybe. Simple, clear, uncomplicated? Yes.

Your Verticals (where you play)

These represent the distinct focus areas, industries or customer types that sit underneath your umbrella. Each one gives shape to your work and helps others understand where and how you add value. I conceptualise each vertical as a little person standing underneath the umbrella, shielding themselves from the storm.

My verticals are defined by the clients I work with and each has a distinct value proposition statement:

• Startups: I help founders from Pre-Seed to Series A start, grow and scale their businesses globally.

• Portfolio careers: I help generalists and multi-passionates build portfolio careers of many clients, projects, passions and income streams.

Your Offers (what you sell)

Your offers are products, services or projects you deliver within each vertical. I think about them as nuts and bolts; the practical way you serve your customers, clients and community.

Offers can take many shapes:

• Done-for-you (fractional, freelance, consulting)

• Done-with-you (advisory, mentoring, coaching, workshops, memberships)

• Do-it-yourself (digital products, courses)

• Misc (brand sponsorships, partnerships, paid newsletters etc.)

All my offers fall within one of my two verticals. When I talk about them, they reinforce my positioning as a Startup Advisor, Portfolio Career Die-Hard and Writer. Everything has a role, everything has its place. To me, it’s crystal clear.

Make it rain

If you’re a multifaceted, multi-talented, multi-passionate, multi-income-stream human, you may have gone years having no clue how to talk about your work. You might have felt scattered, tentative or unsure, like you’re constantly operating in a deep, dark fog of half-pursued ideas and confused looks from your relatives.

This is normal.

But when you start working through your positioning in a structured, layered way, things start to shift. The fog lifts. It no longer feels dreary and dreadful. New friends, projects, clients, customers, challenges and frontiers start appearing before you. The once unpredictable pitter-patter of gigs begin to flow freely. And at this point you’ll glance out the window to realise that it’s no longer just raining opportunities, it’s pouring.

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• Why to aim for “good enough” when you’re first updating your positioning

• Why your positioning should evolve and change as your grow and gather feedback

• Why I’m currently rethinking the positioning of my startup vertical

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🫶🏼 When you’re ready, here are three ways I can help:

• The Portfolio Career Operating System: a fully fledged system for people who do multiple things and want to do them well.

• Spin Up A Mini Offer Playbook: steal my process for designing, launching and testing a new income stream in under a day.

• Portfolio Career Mentoring: 1-1 sessions to help you get started and build a career that sits at the intersection of freedom, creative fulfilment, meaning and money.

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…to help you build a financially lucrative and creatively fulfilling portfolio career and life.