Freelance Careers: Designing Your Brand

Are you a freelancer or entrepreneur? Do you know that building a personal brand today is more important than it was in the past?

As a business owner with access to the internet and social media, you can build an audience, position yourself as an expert, and start attracting customers for your business. Many business owners out there are doing exactly the same thing.

If you’ve got a strong, well-defined brand identity, you have a better chance of not only surviving but thriving, even in a down economy.

A recent survey that was carried out by Upwork showed that the freelance workforce is growing 3 times faster than the total workforce in the U.S by 2027. Freelancers are expected to make up the majority of the U.S workforce.

It’s great to see that a lot of people are embracing their entrepreneurial spirit, it also means that all self-employed independent contractors, freelancers, and entrepreneurs will soon face more competition than today.

The only way out is to simply differentiate oneself from his or her competition by building your personal brand as a freelancer.

How to start a career as a freelancer

When you’re building a business around your expertise such as:

• a consultant
• freelancer
• author
• speaker
• coach

Your business cannot survive if with a weak brand. This also holds true in applying for a job; people need to have a freelance branding consultant in order to sell their value to a company when applying for a job.

Your personal brand is what distinguishes you from your competitors.

Helping to form a lasting impression in the mind of your valued customers and audience.

A lot of people failed in branding your freelance business because they build a personal brand.

As a freelancer, creating a stellar LinkedIn profile can help you attract new clients.

Something successful people do to build their brand is personal content marketing. This entails creating awesome content consistently and sharing it with your followers.

In the business world today, a lot of people are more interested in following successful entrepreneurs than they are in following the companies they have built.

Following successful entrepreneurs can give you some insight into how they became successful. Most people are interested in following people that are either entertaining or a person they can learn from. Focus on this when developing your content. 

Branding yourself as a freelancer

The first person with a famous CEO reputation is Elon Musk, he has more Twitter followers than 3 of his companies: Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX.

Notable mentions with more social followers than their companies.

• Richard Branson
• Gary Vaynerchuck
• Arianna Hufffington

These people have built a strong personal brand that they leverage to increase exposure and attract more clients for their companies.

There’s a saying that says “You don’t have to choose between building a personal brand and a company brand. You can build both simultaneously”

According to Kevin Stimpson,

Having a personal brand is important for an entrepreneur because now more than ever, it’s important for CEOs and founders of companies or brands to come out to the forefront and connect with their audiences. People connect with people.

Now, let’s look at some benefits of building a personal brand.

Building a brand is not as complicated as you might think.

Your personal brand is a culmination of

• sharing your expertise
• your experiences
• showcasing your achievements
• getting your due recognition
• building trusted connections
• continuously marketing your strengths.

How to brand yourself as a freelance writer

Get Featured In Media

Building a personal brand makes it easier for you to pitch and be found by media such as television, radio, magazines, online publications, etc. The media is a place and constant search of experts that can share their insights with their customers and audience.

Leverage Your Brand

When you invest time in building your personal brand, you can leverage it to reach valuable connections, find the right avenues for business or career, and secure high-level visibility. Your brand can be the gateway to your entrepreneurial pursuits and passions.

Trust And Authority

Another benefit of building a personal brand is trust and authority. A personal brand helps to build trust with your audience, and position you as an authority and a thought leader in your industry.

Learn From Your Connections

Branding helps your connections and audience to understand who you’re. A personal brand also helps you project your value proposition. Interested parties can reach out to you for just about anything.

You, in turn, can reach out to them. This is how you build a network of connections that you can learn from and to whom you can contribute.

Premium Pricing

Having a well-defined personal brand helps justify charging premium prices for your products and services.

Without a brand, you become a commodity that competes on price. And in turn, there will always be competitors that can beat your price.

Create A Lasting Platform

In due time, your business will evolve. You may even start multiple businesses in different industries over the course of your career, and your personal brand stays with you as you move from one industry to the other.

Pia Silva said,

with so much content and so many small businesses popping up online, a brand that connects to a person’s face is much easier to trust faster. It takes less time and effort to build a relationship with a personal brand as compared to a business brand.

In conclusion, you need firstly is crafting your personal brand is to lay a foundation that you can confidently and authentically build upon. Therefore, the keynote here is authenticity.

How to market yourself as a freelance writer

Now that you’ve reached out to many entrepreneurs and branding experts, here’re some specific steps to help you build an eye-catching, and of course, profitable personal brand that attracts your perfect customers.

Build Your Foundation

The first thing when crafting your personal brand is to simply lay a foundation that you can confidently and authentically build upon. The most important thing here is “authenticity.”

Note: There is a misconception that building a personal brand simply means crafting a persona. Persona is simply a façade, it’s not a true reflection of who you really are, therefore it’s inauthentic.

So your personal brand therefore should not be an inauthentic persona.

Branding is not about placing yourself as something you aren’t, rather branding is about purposefully and strategically showcasing your authentic self to your customers and audience.

When you’re building your personal brand make sure is a true reflection of who you are, like your passions, beliefs, skills, and values.

Who Are Your Target Audience

When you’re building a personal brand choose your audience. Don’t make the mistake of trying to appeal to everyone. Not everyone out there will be your ideal customer.

Therefore, if you want to attract your perfect customers be willing to repel anyone you do not want to deal with. This simply means identifying a specific target audience and building your brand that will be attractive to them.

The reason you should choose your target audience is if you want to be liked by all people, you will end up attracting no one. So you need to be polarizing in order to stand out.

Amanda Bond once said, 

To have a strong personal brand, you must have to stand for something, believe in a certain way of doing things, and proudly communicate those beliefs from your platform. Brands who don’t achieve this get lukewarm audience response and wonder why their audiences are not called to action by their efforts.

Create An Irresistible Offer

To build a well-defined and profitable personal brand, you to create an irresistible offer, which means having something to offer to your target audience.

Something that will solve your audience problem.

Many entrepreneurs make mistakes by creating something that they like, not a product or service people need.

This is why is so important to identify your customer's needs before you create what you’re going to offer them.

Optimize A Personal Website

The most important component when building a personal brand is to have a personal website. Having a strong exposure on social media is good but the bad thing is that you do not have control of any of those social media sites.

This is why it is important that you have a personal portfolio website. Having a personal website will help you control what needs to be controlled.

When you do the needful, your target audience can become your customers.

Whenever they visit your website they should be able to know who you are and how you can help them.

Make them feel like they’re in the right place. If they don’t feel like they’ve come to the right place, bet with me that they will leave your website.

Have A Content Strategy

The most effective way to build a well-defined personal brand and earn the trust of your target audience is to create and distribute high-quality content. Creating valuable content that will help your audience will earn your trust and also position you as an industry leader.

Branding your freelance business

As a freelancer and entrepreneur, knowing how to build a personal brand will help you achieve your goals and objectives.

Professional freelancer personal branding services can help you reach your goals.