Standing Out in a Crowded Webflow Market

I've been actively working in the Webflow space for around three years now, and there are a few things I've realized that make you stand out from everyone else and make you valuable to both clients and employers.

To be honest, when we strip everything down, Webflow is primarily an interface to more easily build HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I'd say that someone with coding experience (as I had) can get comfortable with Webflow in just a month or two without any problems. So, if HTML and CSS developers aren't highly paid, why would a Webflow developer be? I'd divide the answer into two categories:

1. Complementary skills

2. Soft skills (globally applicable)

COMPLEMENTARY WEBFLOW SKILLS

Someone who can purely build basic Webflow pages is destined to create small-scale, non-critical websites for small, non-technical clients. I classify my complementary skills as "Developer Webflow skills." These skills include the ability to:

1. Use any custom library
2. Create literally anything a client envisions in their design using Webflow (or even without it)

There are also Designer Webflow skills, SEO Webflow skills, etc. In my perspective, the Developer path is the best one, as most companies and clients I've worked with have dedicated designers and SEO agencies. However, knowing a bit about SEO isn't difficult, and every developer should understand the basics and implement them. I'd say those SEO basics represent 95% of what SEO actually is (where I might be wrong, but who cares—looking at you, SEO agencies).

SOFT SKILLS

I'd argue that soft skills are actually more important than technical skills in any job connected to people (which is basically every job in one way or another). Working with many clients and companies, I've met great designers and developers, but many of them were nightmares to work with. Their problematic traits include:

1. Delayed responses
2. Vague answers (which forced me to follow up multiple times while they were already responding slowly)
3. Poor communication (sometimes professional but lacking warmth, making everyone uncomfortable when writing or talking with them)
4. Sudden emotional outbursts (absent for three days, then suddenly appearing with "EVERYTHING WILL BURN TO THE GROUND IF NOT DONE IN 10 MINUTES" requests)
5. Many other small issues (the way they point out mistakes, create tasks, etc.)

I've also worked with people who didn't have exceptional technical skills but were the complete opposite of everything listed above, which made me 100 times happier to work with them. If someone has both great technical skills and soft skills, they're destined to stand out in Webflow development work or any other field.

What I think makes me stand out is being responsible with every task and completing it on time, working 12+ hours a day when push comes to shove, maintaining excellent communication, and being someone others can hand work to without worrying whether it will meet our agreed deadline.

So, to stand out in the crowded Webflow market (or any other), do the following:

1. Develop exceptional complementary technical skills
2. Develop yourself personally

This means socializing, training, reading—things that eventually show up in your work too. There isn't any particular self-help or motivational book or course that will transform you. In fact, most of these are garbage. Just work on yourself: exercise how you like, read what interests you, make friends, or maintain your good relationships. Eventually, it will all come to a point where everyone will see how good you are.