Building a personal brand as a freelancer

Nebojsa Dolovacki — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 07:47:56 +0000

The corporate world has changed more in the past two years than in the past twenty years, claims Deepak Kanakaraju in his article written for entrepreneur.com. There is no need to work at a specific location in a specific city because we all live in the global village called the internet.

According to Kanakaraju, the main problem that prevents people to become freelancers and quit their day job is lack of a personal brand. Building a personal brand doesn’t mean becoming popular. A personal brand is built when you add value to people’s lives through your content, sometimes without charging anything for it.

Freelancer as a brand through a blog

He suggests building a personal brand with blogging. Write a few articles a month about what you learn, what you know and what you have experienced. Writing is the best way to let the world know that you exist.

But there is one problem with this approach – we are not all good writers. So, if you feel more comfortable while talking, you can start a podcast or YouTube channel. Another option is to find someone to help you with writing, or if you have the financial ability, hire a blog writer.

Start helping people with your content and then with free consultations. There are a ton of freelancing opportunities in the world, and you can become a specialist in one category. Freelancing makes you an entrepreneur where the product is yourself. This is the first step in your long journey of building something for yourself, that eventually becomes greater than yourself.

Required skills

Freelancing also requires professional relationship skills, sales skills, and the skill of adding more value than what you are getting paid for. This skill is vastly different from the skill of being an employee. There are other skills necessary to become a successful freelancer, but many of them you can develop over time.

You might have friction getting started in this journey if you are an employee or have been one. Because the typical mindset of an employee is to look for security and “something guaranteed” for every piece of effort that you put in. Also, many employees are wondering if freelancing is a viable career. Getting started with your freelancing career is the first step in dealing with career and professional uncertainty.

Also, you can check out what are the most in-demand freelance jobs and skills, if you have any of these skills you should try your luck as a freelancer.

I cannot tell you what opportunities you will get once you start building your personal brand. But I can say with conviction that once you start, you will start getting opportunities, Kanakaraju says at the end of his article.

How to build a personal brand as a freelancer

You can find a lot of suggestions and tips on how to build a personal brand as a freelancer on the net. Many of these suggestions are basically the same, only named differently.

1. Be online

So, create and regularly improve your:
– website
– social media profiles
– profile on a freelancing platform

2. Be unique

Be unique, bring a personal touch to what you do. Do or offer something that sets you apart from the competition. Also, make your own distinctive style.

3. Become an expert

It is not enough to be good at work, you must be great. Constantly improve your skills, give your best to create great business results, help others with tips and advice.

Apart from these three things that are mostly universal in all tips, there are also some interesting, unique recommendations.

Jacob Cass recommends in his article in justcreative.com:

Be Genuine and Honest

The best way to build a personal brand as a freelancer is to be authentic, honest and promise only things you can deliver.

Roshan Perera in her article 7 Simple Personal Branding Tips For Freelancers has some interesting advice.

Create An Email Signature

She suggests promoting your brand via email by adding signature to your emails. So that whenever a client receives one of your emails, they know who they’re talking to.

One of my favorite tips was written by Barin Cristian Dora in an article for 99designs.com.

Give back to the community

He creates freebies for the design community (Photoshop tutorials or educational posts). This is great way to boost awareness about the brand and build a public image.

What could go wrong?

We should not forget that sometimes things do not go the way we imagined. If you are not an experienced writer, you must take care of how you write a blog (creating a podcast, YouTube channel). Erin Sturm in her article published on medium.com recommends which three things to avoid.

1) Excessive or unnecessary swearing

When swear words are thrown in for flair or drama, it just looks cheap. If you’re leaning on it as a way to differentiate yourself, it may be time to rethink your strategy because there are literally hundreds of people and brands doing the same thing.

2) Overuse of slang and emojis

Even though I regularly hear new slang, I rarely use it in my personal brand. Emojis are fun to use, but can be easily abused.

3) Writing in one sentence paragraphs

Having an entire page of 1–2 sentence paragraphs is becoming cliche. This can’t be considered anyone’s particular style because it has been adopted by too many people.

Are you ready to change your life and become a successful freelancer? If so, start building your brand today. It is a process that requires a lot of time and planning, so be persistent and do not be discouraged if you do not get fast results. Once you become a successful brand, it will allow you to have a successful career for a longer period of time.

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