Module 2 of 7
The category you compete in
Whether you chose it or not.
Buyers cannot evaluate you from nothing. They file you into a category they already understand and then judge you by that category's rules — its normal price band, its normal way of working, its normal alternatives. This happens in seconds and it happens whether or not you had a view about it.
Which means the category is a decision you can influence rather than a fact you inherit. The same person can be filed as "a freelance designer", where the comparison is every other freelance designer and the conversation is about day rates, or as "the person who fixes the packaging when a product is not selling", where the comparison is a marketing agency and the numbers are different. Same skills, different shelf, different price expectation.
Two practical steps. Write down what a buyer is comparing you against right now, honestly — including doing nothing and doing it in-house, which are the two most common competitors and the two most often left off the list. Then decide whether that is the comparison you want. If it is not, the fix is not adjectives; it is describing the problem you solve rather than the discipline you practise, because the problem is what puts you on a different shelf.
Buyers file you into a category and judge you by its rules. Name what you are really compared against — including doing nothing — then decide if that is the shelf you want.