I'm curious to know how you admit it. I recently completed a website redesign for a relative in Brazil. He wanted to use the existing MySQL db and some PHP functions, and expand on both. I had some experience with HTML, very little with CSS and Javascript, and had never built a website using a text editor alone for the code. I'd just completed the HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery courses on Codecademy and was excited to apply what I'd learned, but I made it very clear that I wasn't an expert at frontend code nor design and had no PHP nor databse experience and would need to learn them to complete the project.

He showed me various websites and features he liked, and I recreated them with HTML, CSS, and jQuery designing the new site to his satisfaction in about 5 days. Then, I powered through a couple tutorials on PHP and MySQL for a couple days. Most of the old PHP that he wanted to salvage was filled with deprecated code, so I rewrote it. The data he wanted to store and use for the new site required entirely new db tables. So the new site didn't reuse any of the old code. It took me a month to complete the site and get it online. A few days later, the owner of a quite-a-bit larger company that partners with my relative's company told him that he really liked the new site, and asked for my info. My relative told me that I was far too modest about my ability before I took on his project; that I wasn't an amateur at all.

I know that I was and still consider myself very much an amateur, but I know I can (and enjoy to) learn new technologies pretty quickly. I take pride in doing a job well, and really believe I'll provide a lot of value to the projects I work on. I just can't sell myself without being completely honest about areas that I know I have lots left to learn. How can I be completely honest without seeming incompetent next to a 'professional' (and great salesman) who only knows how to plug content into a CMS template? How do you express your confidence in the value you create when you're aware you will have to learn a lot to create that value?