Brendan Dell

Product positioning + high-impact messaging for category leading technology companies. Also wrote a book, built the course the $1B Pitch, host the podcast $1B tech, and do some angel and early stage investing.

President 

GTMfund

GTMramp Member

Zeconomy, Inc.

Positioning + messaging, investment narrative, GTM

Messaging + GTM Advisory

Sudozi

The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging

Stories define our reality. The stories you tell--as an individual, a business, an organization--will shape yours. 

LEARN TO MOVE MARKETS

In this book, you'll find the laws that govern the creation of high-impact messaging.

Craft high-impact messages and you can shape culture, drive sales, incite movements--mold the world around you.

Fail, and craft bland apathetic messages, and you'll find yourself yet another voice, lost in the crowd.

While there is no singular template for crafting a high-impact message, there are laws that govern what works. This book is your guide.

Author

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Messaging and GTM advisory for print and global healthcare.

Strategic Advisor

App Annie

Messaging Consultant

Expedia Group

Positioning and product messaging, GTM strategy, content strategy

UserTesting

Panasonic

Product naming and positioning, messaging, GTM for eco solutions

I spent the last 10 years building my messaging and positioning consultancy from 0 to 7-figures, working with some of the largest brands in the world. Companies like HP, Panasonic, Expedia, Y-Combinator Portfolio companies and 100+ more.

Then, last year, I quietly blew the whole thing up.

I had spent my career helping big tech sell more stuff that no one needed. It worked. 

I generated $300M+ in revenue and raised over $80M in venture capital.

The only problem? I felt empty. I wanted a new path. 

One day, walking with a friend, he asked me how I built my business. I was walking him through my philosophies, frameworks, and approaches. Something I had done many times over the years, coaching folks on the side, with great success.

When he said, "Dude, this is killer. Why don't you help people do this?" 

ENTER THE FREELANCE FORMULA
A decade of 7-figure freelancing distilled into a simple framework that can help anyone transform their skills into a 6 or 7 figure business.

MY POINT OF VIEW
All over the world, people are over worked and underpaid. They have wonderful skills, but there’s a problem: They don’t know how to sell them effectively on the open market. 

So I developed The Freelance Formula. Inside we give you a roadmap to start, differentiate, and “scale” a highly profitable 1-person business. 

Start-up
Specialization
Differentiation
Customer acquisition
Scale
Systemization
Beyond

Today the community is 1,000+ strong, with folks from 50+ countries and top companies like Coinbase, Warner Brothers, HP, and Y-Combinator, growing every day. 

MY MISSION
Everyone on the planet should know how to monetize their expertise. It diversifies your income, serves as the gateway to entrepreneurship, and creates a freedom of income, impact, and lifestyle. 

THE NEXT STEP
To join the Strategic Freelance revolution, join my newsletter at brendandell.com.

Some people will call this woo-woo.

But before I went from $75/hour to $75K projects, I had to learn something uncomfortable:

I wasn’t underpaid because I lacked skill.
I was underpaid because I was selling the wrong identity.

For years I called myself a “copywriter.”
My clients called me a copywriter.
And so I got copywriter rates.

But then I saw an agency charging $85K for a project I was completing in it's entirety... for about $2,500. 

The work I was actually doing?

– Positioning
– Offer design
– Narrative strategy
– Conversion architecture

The problem wasn’t my skills.
It was the container those skills lived inside.

The turning point?

Seeing a proposal from an agency I subcontracted for:
$85,000 for “messaging and positioning strategy.”

I was doing the work.
For $75/hour.

That document changed everything.

I stopped selling “copy.”
I started selling strategic outcomes.

Same person.
Same skills.
New container → new income.

The lesson:
If you want to change your earning power, don’t start with skill acquisition.

Start by upgrading your identity and the value container you sell it through.

Everything else flows from that.

Helped 1,547+ experts clarify their message and scale | Ex-HP, SAP, Expedia, YC Startups, 100+ More

Years ago I was a copywriter making $75/hour.

Then everything changed—but unfortunately not all at once.

Over a period of 12–24 months, something became painfully obvious:

How you package your skills matters more than what you actually do.

It started when I read Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss.
Then I watched guys like Andy Raskin run workshops while I was grinding out copy until midnight.

But the real turning point was this:

I saw a proposal from an agency I was subcontracting for.
They had billed $85,000 for messaging and positioning strategy.

I was doing the work.

For $75/hour.

That one document flipped a switch.
I wasn’t underpaid because I lacked skill—
I was underpaid because I was selling the wrong unit of value.

So over the next year, I transitioned from “copywriter” to “messaging strategist.”
From selling hours…
to selling outcomes.

And eventually I went from $75/hour to $75K engagements.

(Not every engagement was $75K. But LinkedIn does love a tidy transformation, doesn’t it.)

The lesson:

If you want to change your income, don’t start with your skillset.
Start with the value container you sell it through.

Everything else flows from that.

Prove me wrong:
The perfect work week is 30 hours.

Not 40.
Not 50.
And definitely not the 9–9–6 culture people brag about.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear:

You can’t do more than 30 hours of real cognitive work without borrowing energy from the future.

After that, you’re just majoring in minor things — staying busy to avoid the discomfort of focus.

I’ve coached hundreds of professionals, and the pattern is absurdly consistent:

The best ideas come in the first 4 hours of the day.
Decision quality collapses after 6.
Output after hour 30 is mostly noise.

People don’t burn out because they work too hard.
They burn out because they waste their best hours on low-leverage tasks, meetings, and reactive garbage.

If you’re doing high-leverage work — thinking, writing, designing, solving —
30 hours is the upper limit before the quality drops and the cost skyrockets.

More hours don’t create more value.
They just produce worse decisions, slower cycles, and a tired mind pretending to be productive.

Prove me wrong.
What’s your ideal work week?

Call it woo-woo if you want, but here’s what I’ve learned:

Your career isn’t limited by your talent.
It’s limited by who you think you are.

People treat you according to the identity you project.

A hard lesson I learned on the way to $75K engagements:

The market will underpay you as long as you let it define your work.

I used to introduce myself as a “copywriter.”
Clients loved that.
It kept me cheap, replaceable, safe.

But the work I was ACTUALLY doing?

Positioning
Offer architecture
Strategic messaging
Founder narrative
Demand psychology

I was doing $85,000 work for $2,500 fees…
because I was packaging myself like a commodity.

The moment I changed the name of my work,
the market changed the value of it.

Not because I learned something new.

But because I finally described myself accurately.

If you feel underpaid, start here:
Does the name of your work reflect the value of your work?

95% of the time, the answer is no.

Most people aren’t underpaid because they lack skill.

They’re underpaid because they’re wearing the wrong label.

For years, I walked around with the label “copywriter” on my forehead.

Clients saw that label.
I saw that label.
And so my earnings were capped by it.

But behind the scenes, the work I was doing looked nothing like “copywriting”:

– Diagnosing positioning problems
– Designing offers
– Uncovering customer psychology
– Architecting conversion paths

Then one day I saw it in print:

A proposal from an agency I subcontracted for.
$85,000 for “strategic messaging.”
The project I was doing almost entirely myself… for ~$3,000.

That was the moment the label cracked.

I realized this:

People pay you based on how they perceive your work.
Not the complexity of what you actually do.

So I dropped the “copywriter” label.
And I started labeling what I did accurately:

Strategy.
Clarity.
Value creation.

Same brain.
Same output.
Different label → different leverage → different income.

If you’re mid-career and feel underpaid, start here:

What label are you wearing?

And what label actually reflects the transformation you deliver?

Your income rises the moment those two finally match.

If you work with clients, it's worth remembering

- Do not take things personally
- Do not take things personally
- Do not take things personally 

Easy to say, hard to do

Years ago I thought the game was simple:

Be good → get paid.

Then I hit a wall that every mid-career pro eventually hits:

Being good is not enough.

I had clients telling me they “loved my work”…
while simultaneously nickel-and-diming every invoice.

I felt stuck and couldn't see a way out.

Then I met a consultant who made more in one engagement
than I made in an entire quarter.

She wasn’t smarter.
She wasn’t more talented.
She wasn’t working harder.

She simply framed her value differently.

She didn’t sell projects.
She sold process. 
She sold transformations.

That day, everything clicked:

Your income is a function of how you package, frame, and articulate your value — not your raw skill.

Once I rebuilt the container, my career changed.
Not immediately.
But permanently.

Most people stay underpaid not because they lack expertise —
but because they’re selling it in the wrong format.

This is why I say: Change your story -> change your price -> change your life

Here's a lesson I hard to learn the hard way:
Most people want to believe they’re underpaid because companies are greedy.

It’s a comforting story.
It removes responsibility.
It puts the blame on institutions instead of identity.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth:

The game is the game — and the system isn’t designed to reward the value you feel you provide.
It rewards the value you signal and position yourself to provide.

Two people with the same skill level can earn 10x different incomes.

Why?

Not because one is smarter.
Not because one works harder.
Not because one is “more deserving.”

But because:

One sits higher in the value chain.
One controls the framing of the problem.
One sells outcomes.
The other sells labor.

If you sell yourself as a worker, the system prices you like a worker.
If you position yourself as someone who changes business outcomes, the system prices you like someone who changes outcomes.

It’s not fair.
It’s not moral.
But it is real.

And here’s the part most people never hear:

Your income doesn’t rise when companies become nicer.
Your income rises when your positioning becomes sharper.

Better positioning =
• clearer value
• higher leverage
• fewer competitors
• stronger identity
• higher place in the chain of decisions

If you’re underpaid, it’s rarely a skill problem.
It’s almost always a positioning problem.

The minute you change how you’re perceived,
you change what the market believes you’re worth.

The game is the game.
You don’t beat it by fighting it.
You beat it by positioning yourself where the value actually is.

Starting in 2021, I earned over $500K working with just 6–9 clients.

Some people will call this woo-woo.
But the shift had nothing to do with tactics.

It wasn’t my sales process.
It wasn’t my funnel.
It wasn’t some “viral” piece of content.

It was one uncomfortable realization:

Most freelancers are drowning because 80% of their clients
actively prevent them from ever leveling up.

I was one of them.

Always busy.
Always stressed.
Always undercharging.
Always “trying to fit in one more project.”

Then I ran a simple income audit:

90% of my revenue came from 6–9 clients.
The rest were noise disguised as opportunity.

So I made a decision that felt terrifying at the time:

I cut the bottom tier.
I doubled down on the top tier.
And I re-positioned myself around outcomes, not deliverables.

Within a year:

– My income jumped
– My stress collapsed
– My calendar opened
– My value became obvious
– My leverage multiplied

No new skills.
No new tactics.
Just a different container.

The lesson:
You don’t get paid for being busy.
You get paid for being positioned.

If you want to earn like a top 1% freelancer,
you must first stop thinking like a bottom 80% one.

Heading into Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of one simple truth:

Time off only feels like time off when you’re not scared to take it.

Most people I know are getting ready for a long weekend…
but they’re still checking email, on call, want to make sure their boss knows their "here for the team." 

Many carrying the weight of a job that asks them to do more, with less, each passing year.

The challenge becomes this:

Time off doesn’t feel restful when your income depends on activity as a proxy for value. 

A few years ago, I was in that exact spot.
High income, zero control.
Every holiday just felt like anxiety. Did I really deserve to take time for myself? 

The only difference in my life now is leverage.
I've transformed my unique skills into something that can benefit many, and where I'm lucky that demand outstrips my ability to supply. 

I’m not saying this to flex.
I’m saying it because I wish someone had told me sooner:

If your time off doesn’t feel like time off…
that’s the signal to start building something for yourself.

Your time off shouldn't be pancaked by anxiety that you just brush off as "this is just the cost of getting away."

You deserve a life you don't feel like you need a vacation from.

Lauren
$90/hour → $25,000 project
when she stopped being a “copywriter”…
and became the architect of Cornerstone Content — using proprietary product telemetry to surface a company’s unique capabilities and build authority competitors can’t copy.

Jeremy
$50/hour → $15,000 engagement
when he stopped doing “marketing tasks”…
and became the creator of Executive Prickly Points of View — sharp, defensible stances grounded in market reality that reposition leaders as the only sane voice in a noisy category.

Hannah
$40/hour → $60,000 project
when she stopped managing projects…
and became the architect of a High-Velocity Delivery System — a workflow that reduces cycle time, eliminates bottlenecks, and increases output without adding headcount.

David
$60/hour → $18,000 sprint
when he stopped writing copy…
and started designing Conversion Infrastructure — the messaging, flows, and decision paths that turn unclear products into frictionless buying journeys.

Ava
$55/hour → $16,500 systems engagement
when she stopped doing manual data work…
and became the builder of an Automation Backbone — eliminating 20+ hours of repetitive tasks each week across sales, finance, and ops.

Melissa
$75/hour → $20,000 positioning project
when she stopped selling deliverables…
and began delivering Market Translation Models — frameworks that turn a founder’s intuition into simple, investable narratives teams can actually execute.

Most people don’t need a new skillset.
They need a new definition of the work they already do.

There’s something I don’t talk about much.

When I was transitioning from $75/hour copywriting to strategy work…
I didn’t feel confident.

At all.

Clients were paying me for the deliverables.
Not for my thinking.
Not for my judgment.
Not for the invisible expertise that actually drives outcomes.

And I remember the exact feeling the first time I pitched a $20K+ strategic engagement:

My hands were sweating.
I didn’t feel “qualified.”
I kept wanting to explain myself.
I almost discounted the proposal before I even sent it.

But here’s the part that surprised me:

The client said yes.

Easily.

Not because my pitch was perfect.
Not because I had a massive brand.
But because I had already been doing strategic work for years—just quietly, and for free.

That moment changed how I saw myself.

I didn’t “become” a strategist.
I realized I already was one.

Most people don’t need new skills.
They need new self-permission.

The biggest raise I ever got didn’t come from a client.

It came from a decision.

After years of doing great work, I finally admitted the truth:

I was positioning myself like a commodity.

Too wide
Too flexible
Too willing
Too accommodating
Too afraid to draw the line

One day I looked at my calendar and had the harsh realization:

I had built a business where I was the bottleneck,
the operator,
the admin,
and the product.

That’s not a business.
That’s a job with extra steps.

So I rebuilt everything from scratch:

Narrowed the offer
Raised my price
Stopped chasing “any” client
Focused on outcomes, not tasks
Built systems instead of reactions

Within a year, the income jump was dramatic.

But the psychological jump was bigger:

For the first time, I wasn’t begging the market for permission.
I was directing the market with clarity.

The raise didn’t come from a client.

It came from finally respecting my own value.

Hermès charges $25,000 for a Birkin bag.

A 5-cent grocery bag will hold the same stuff.

The difference isn’t function.
It’s the story.

That same psychology drives almost everything we do—
the cars we buy,
the clothes we wear,
even the values we cling to.

We all know this.
But we forget it applies to our careers, too.

Two people can have the exact same skills…
and earn completely different incomes…
simply because they tell a different story about who they are and the value they create.

When I finally understood this, everything changed.
I stopped selling tasks and started telling a story that reflected the real outcome of my work.
That shift took me from $75/hour to $75,000 per engagement.

Here’s the truth most people never hear:

It’s not what you do.
It’s the story you tell about what you do.

The right story doesn’t inflate your value — it reveals the value that was there all along.

For the first decade of my career, I sold what everyone else sells:

Time.

Because that’s what we’re taught.

Hours → dollars.
Effort → income.

But time is the worst product in the world:

It doesn’t scale
It punishes expertise
It rewards inefficiency
And the better you get, the less you earn

One day a client said something that slapped me in the face:

“Brendan, I don’t care how long it takes.
I just want the outcome.”

In that instant I realized:

I was selling the least valuable part of my work.

The seconds — not the skill.
The effort — not the effect.
The time — not the transformation.

I stopped selling hours and started selling outcomes.

That’s when everything changed:

Better clients
Bigger contracts
Fewer revisions
Clearer boundaries
More respect
More leverage

When you stop selling your time,
you stop being a replaceable operator
and start becoming a strategic asset.

If your income is stuck, don’t work harder.

Rebuild the container you sell your value through.

Here’s the real reason most talented people stay stuck financially:

They’re too humble for their own good.

They downplay their work.
They use modest titles.
They sell tasks instead of transformations.
They avoid claiming what they actually own.

I did this too.

I called myself a “copywriter” while I was architecting multimillion-dollar brand narratives.

The agency that hired me?
They sold my work for $85,000.

I was paid $75/hour.

Was that unfair?
Sure.
But the bigger truth is this:

The market can only value what you name out loud.

The moment I upgraded my identity, my income followed.

Talent doesn’t get you paid.
Accurate self-definition does.

Every time Elon says he works 120 hours per week, I see the same reaction:

“He’s built different.”
“Maybe that’s what it takes.”
“I guess I’ll never be successful.”

But here’s the truth almost no one says out loud:

Elon doesn’t win because he works 120 hours.
He wins because his hours have leverage that most people never build.

Let me explain.

Most people mix up effort with impact.
They think more hours → more success.

But in an unleveraged career, more hours just means:

More burnout
More stress
More dependency
More chaos
More sacrifice

Meanwhile, a leveraged person can outperform a 120-hour week…
in 20–30 hours.

Because leveraged hours do this:

A single decision shifts a company
A single asset creates recurring value
A single distribution channel multiplies reach
A single insight saves millions
A single system frees time indefinitely

Elon isn’t winning because of hours.
He’s winning because of leverage.

And here’s the twist:

You don’t need to be Elon to build leverage.
You just need to stop playing the hours game.

Most mid-career professionals are stuck not because they’re lazy —
but because they’re trapped in roles where:

Output = effort
Compensation = time
Value = tasks
Identity = worker, not creator

The future doesn’t belong to the people who grind the longest.

It belongs to the people who build systems, assets, and intellectual leverage.

Here’s the real lesson:

It’s not about working more.
It’s about working in a way where your effort compounds.

Time Wealth > Time Sacrifice.

And once you feel the difference, you can’t go back.

The difference between a $2,500 invoice and an $85,000 invoice is rarely skill. 

It's the container. 

For years, I sold my time for $75/hour. I was broke and burned out. Then I saw an agency sell my exact work for 30x what they paid me.

I realized I was using "discount words" to sell "premium outcomes."

I audited my vocabulary. Here is the shift that changed my life:

The "Commodity" Containe
- Copywriting
- Edits
- Drafts
- Hourly Rate

The "Value" Container 
- Positioning Strategy
- Offer Design
- Conversion Architecture
- Project Scope

Same human. Same brain. Same output.

But the second list signals an investment. The first list signals an expense.

If you want to charge more, stop describing the labor you do.

Start describing the outcome you create.

Most career problems aren’t skill problems. 

They’re value-perception problems.

James Rice

James Rice UX Consulting LLC

Since the mid-90s I've helped clients large and small with their design and development goals. Clients have included: Fortune 500, International Foundations & Non-Profits, Consultancies, Agencies, Real Estate Pros, Musicians, Artists, Comedians, and others.

I provide design services as well as expert level front-end and back-end development. Specialties include: Website Architecture & Design, Web Application Development, Custom Content Management Solutions, WordPress Development, Drupal Development, SEO, Social Media.

I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Clark University in Massachusetts, receiving a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science with High Honors.

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