The B2B Payer vs Player Framework

Your weekly guide to building a pro-passion, anti-hustle

Welcome to The Portfolio Careerist, my weekly newsletter where I share actionable insights for building a pro-passion, anti-hustle portfolio career using Human Design.

This Week's Learning:

• Learning: The B2B Payer vs Player Framework

• Ask Jules HD Questions: Networking with a 3/5 profile

• Portfolio Career-ist Spotlight: Rhian's Multi-Passionate Breakthrough

Upcoming Free Workshop | 12th August:

How to Turn a Stuck Corporate Career Into Multiple Income Streams Using Your Human Design - Reserve Your Spot

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💰The B2B Payer vs Player Framework

If you're pitching B2B work and wondering why your brilliant proposals keep getting stuck in "we'll think about it" limbo, you're probably making the classic mistake of selling to the wrong person.

After pitching to B2B clients myself and supporting my clients to land corporate contracts, I've noticed the same pattern: they create beautiful proposals showcasing their expertise, but they're speaking to the people who will USE their service, not the people who will PAY for it.

This is the difference between Players and Payers – and understanding this distinction will transform your B2B success rate.

What's the difference?

Players are the people who will directly benefit from your service:

• Team members attending your workshop

• Managers receiving coaching

• Employees using your training materials

• Individual contributors learning new skills

Payers are the people who control the budget and make purchasing decisions:

• Chief People Officers

• L&D Directors

• Strategy & Innovation Heads

• Department Heads with transformation budgets

Here's the problem: Players care about personal growth, skill development, and immediate practical value. Payers care about business impact, ROI, and organisational transformation.

Why this matters now:

With corporate budgets tightening and AI disrupting traditional roles, Payers are under intense pressure to justify every investment. They're not buying your workshop because it's engaging – they're buying it because it solves a business problem that keeps them awake at night.

The Framework in Action:

Let me show you how this plays out with a real example from one of my clients, who was pitching creativity workshops to financial services firms.

Her original approach (Player-focused): "I help teams unlock their creative potential through storytelling workshops that build confidence and improve communication skills."

Her refined approach (Payer-focused): "I help financial services firms reduce employee turnover by 30% and increase innovation metrics through a proven framework that transforms organisational culture into environments where top talent wants to stay."

Same service. Completely different positioning. The first version speaks to what team members want. The second speaks to what Chief People Officers need to solve.

Here's your 5-step framework:

1. Map Your Dual Audience

For every B2B service, identify both groups:

• Players: Who experiences your service directly?

• Payers: Who has budget authority and signs the contracts?

Create two separate personas. The Player persona helps you design the service. The Payer persona helps you sell it.

2. Research Payer Pain Points

Payers don't care about personal development – they care about business problems. Research what keeps them up at night:

• Retention challenges

• Productivity metrics

• Compliance requirements

• Competitive pressures

• Transformation mandates

Use LinkedIn or Perplexity to research conversations/posts of your target Payers. What are they discussing? What challenges are they sharing? This becomes your positioning gold.

3. Translate Player Benefits into Payer Language

Take every benefit your service provides to Players and translate it into business impact for Payers:

• "Builds confidence" → "Reduces presentation anxiety that costs 2.5 hours per week in meeting inefficiency"

• "Improves creativity" → "Increases innovation pipeline by 40% within 90 days"

• "Enhances communication" → "Decreases project delays caused by miscommunication by 25%"

4. Create Payer-Focused Proposals

Your proposals should lead with business impact, not service features:

❌ "This 6-session coaching program includes personality assessments, goal-setting workshops, and accountability check-ins."

✅ "This executive presence program delivers measurable improvements in leadership effectiveness scores within 90 days, directly supporting your Q4 retention targets for high-potential managers."

5. Speak Payer Language in All Communications

Every email, LinkedIn message, and proposal should use the language Payers use internally:

• ROI and business impact

• Metrics and measurable outcomes

• Strategic alignment with company goals

• Risk mitigation and competitive advantage

The Portfolio Career Advantage:

Don’t discount your multiskilled background. Your diverse skillset as a portfolio careerist gives you a unique advantage in B2B opportunities. You understand multiple industries, you've seen various organisational challenges, and you can connect dots that specialists can't.

Use this. When pitching to a tech company, reference insights from your healthcare clients. When working with financial services, bring perspectives from your startup experience. This cross-pollination of ideas is exactly what Payers are looking for – fresh thinking that their internal teams can't provide.

Your Action Steps:

1. Audit your current proposals: Are you speaking to Players or Payers?

2. Research 5 target Payers on LinkedIn or Perplexity: What business challenges are they discussing?

3. Rewrite one service description: Transform Player benefits into Payer language

4. Test your new messaging: Send one Payer-focused pitch this week

Remember: Players might love your service, but Payers buy your service. Master this distinction, and your B2B conversion rate will skyrocket.

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🙋🏻‍♀️ Ask Jules

Each week, I answer a Human Design question from a reader. Submit yours by replying to this email with "HD Question" in the subject line.

“Hi Jules, I am a Manifesting Generator with a 3/5 profile and am really curious how I could apply this to my networking strategy as a soloprenuer.”

Hi

Camryn

Thanks for your question! As a Sacral MG with 3/5 profile, you have a unique networking advantage that most people completely miss.

Let me break this down into practical strategies you can use immediately.

Your Core Networking Strategy: Response-Based Connection

Even though your defined Throat gives you fast, instinctive energy, your power comes from responding, not initiating. In networking terms:

• Wait for something to respond to: an invitation, a LinkedIn post that excites you, someone's question, or a shared interest

• Use Instagram Stories, LinkedIn comments, or voice notes to engage when something genuinely lights you up

• Trust your Sacral (gut) response—just because you can connect with someone doesn't mean you should

Your 3/5 Profile: The Experimental Problem-Solver

Your 3rd line means you'll discover what works through trial and error. Don't be afraid to "fail fast" and adjust - your networking "mistakes" become valuable content and connection points.

Your 5th line means people naturally project their problems onto you. Your gift is knowing which ones are truly yours to solve.

Share stories of what didn't work, then what you learned. This humanises you and magnetises people who need your specific help.

(I have a mini course here that teaches you how to utilise your profile lines to build your presence).

Your Immediate Action Plan:

1. Record spontaneous responses: When a post or conversation sparks you, create an audio reply or mini-video in the moment

2. Start a "lessons learned" series: Share your experiments and pivots - this honours your 3/5 profile while attracting aligned connections

3. Trust your gut filter: Say no to DMs or opportunities that don't feel good, even if your mind thinks you should

4. Energy audit: Notice what types of connections energise versus drain you; make that your networking compass

Your networking superpower isn't in having the perfect strategy; it's in your ability to respond authentically in the moment and help others through your experimental wisdom.

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🔎 Real Portfolio Careerist Stories

Check out Rhi: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

Rhian was living every multi-passionate entrepreneur's nightmare. After leaving corporate, she felt more constrained than ever.

"I'd worked with a few coaches and tried various business approaches but somehow I still felt the constraints of being in a corporate role rather than being lit up by what I was doing, which was supposed to be the whole point!"

She'd done everything "right" – hired coaches, followed frameworks, tried to "niche down" – but felt more trapped than ever.

As a Manifesting Generator with 2/4 profile, Rhian is designed for multiple projects simultaneously. Every coach telling her to "pick one thing" was asking her to work against her natural wiring.

The breakthrough came when she embraced her multi-passionate design.

She built her portfolio around four streams: executive breathwork mentorship (her core offering), her beloved skincare brand at local markets, yoga teaching, and graphic design (Rhi has a line 2 in her design and has many natural gifts!).

"Finally feeling understood... It finally feels like I have a way to do what I want in the way I want with no BS."

"I am more lit up about my income stream than I have ever been... It's like the pieces of the jigsaw are finally fitting into place."

If this sounds like your story... What if your "scattered" interests aren't a weakness but your competitive advantage?

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🤳🏼 This Week’s Quote

I re-read this quote often.

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⚡️What’s Lighting Me Up This Week

📚 Reading: excellent read from

Sonia

about The Art of Designing Community; something that I think about a lot as a solopreneur

🎙️ Listening: I absolutely LOVED this episode of TYSO with David Corenswet; it was such an honest, real conversation where you really felt you got to know the guest on a personal level

🧵Threads worth reading: I wrote a thread on LinkedIn this week about the future of work moving to a Hollywood model

💭 Question I'm sitting with: If you could meet your future self and ask just one question… what would it be?

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And if you are looking for support to kickstart your portfolio career in 2025, here are some ways to work together:

• Register Your Interest for the September Portfolio Career Club Intake

• Launch Your Personal Brand Using Human Design - Instant Access Here

• Get your Hyper-Personalised Human Design Career Insights Report: Personalised analysis revealing your innate work style and leadership potential, blending Human Design with strategic frameworks

• Check out my Portfolio Career Mentorship: Corporately-honed, consciously-led 1:1 portfolio career mentorship for visionary women (taking interest for June, 2 spots available)

• FREE Download: Guide on how to Kickstart Your Portfolio Career using Human Design, download here

• FREE Quiz: Find out your Portfolio Career Archetype here