The best version (your version)

When I was teasing this series, I said “Curate your portfolio like a salesperson, not a designer.”

But what does that actually mean?

Imagine you handed the same assignment to a designer and a salesperson; build out our portfolio.

The designer is intimately familiar with every little detail. The typography they spent hours pairing, the spacing that’s mathematically proportional, the clever UX decisions they made, and the responsive layout tricks.

So they’re going to look back through their body of work and pick the projects they’re most proud of. The ones they’d print out, frame, and hang on a wall.

The salesperson would approach it completely differently. They wouldn’t start by looking backward at past projects — they’d start by looking forward at the next clients they want to land.

What industry are they in? What do they care about? What objections are they going to have? What doubts need to be removed before they book a call?

Then they’d work backward to pick the projects most likely to land that client.

Same agency, same body of work, two completely different portfolios.

As I mentioned last week, most clients can’t read your code, critique your design system, or tell good SEO from keyword stuffing. They shop portfolios more like they shop for clothes online — asking themselves “Would that look good on me?”.

Your portfolio becomes your anchor.

A portfolio doesn’t just show your capabilities, it frames them. You might be capable of doing all kinds of work, but prospects will anchor their expectations based on what you put in front of them.

You’re not just showing people the work you’ve done, you’re telling people what kind of work they can expect from you.

Relevance beats volume.

A huge portfolio might prove you’ve done a lot of work, but it doesn’t necessarily help the right prospect see themselves in it. A smaller, more intentional collection usually sells better than a giant gallery of everything you’ve ever built.

Of course, that requires knowing who you’re trying to attract. I know not everyone’s into niching, but unless you know exactly who you’re trying to sell to it’s impossible to know what “relevant” even means.

A portfolio is not a court transcript.

There’s no law requiring your portfolio to show the “client approved” version. Just because your client demanded the colors hideous and the logo huge doesn’t mean that’s what you have to show. Your portfolio shouldn’t be held hostage by every client compromise you’ve ever made.

Showcase the best version. Your version.

And if you haven’t been able to land your dream project yet, there’s nothing stopping you from creating a sample project. No one cares if you were commissioned to do it, they just want to see you’re capable.