How To Create A Perfect Personal Freelance Brand

The freelance industry is one that is growing very fast that it becomes important for individuals to start to develop personal brands. A recent Upwork study revealed that the rate of freelancers is increasing 3x faster than the overall US workforce. It is projected that by 2027, the majority of the US workforce will be freelancers.

This factor is the reason personal branding is now more important than ever. Anybody that can access social media and the internet can easily put themselves in the position of experts, create an audience and start to attract the client. This is in fact what many people do. Creating a perfect personal freelance brand is important to conquer the freelance industry.

As much as it is nice to see people embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship, this also implies there will be increased competition in the freelance industry. It is, therefore, important to set yourself apart from the competition and give yourself an edge with a perfect personal brand.

Steps to Create a Perfect Personal Freelance Brand

To help you build a personal brand that's perfect for you, here are a few steps you should take.

1. Build Solid Foundations

Laying the right foundation that you can build on confidently and authentically is the first step in creating a perfect personal brand.

Many people strongly believe that to create a personal brand, you have to first assume a persona. But this is untrue! That would not be a true reflection of your personality, it’s inauthentic!

As a freelancer, your personal brand should be authentic about you, and not something you just take up from somewhere. Branding is not lying. It is not about presenting to others who and what you are not. You will be building a poor foundation that way. In building your personal brand, you must be strategic about showing the real you to your customers. Your personal brand should reflect you, your values, skills, passion, belief, and goals.

In building a strong foundation, you must take account of what your brand already possesses such as

• Your credentials and skills.
• Your belief and core values.
• Your interest and passion.

There are 4 key elements you must also pay attention to in building a strong personal brand foundation.

• Brand Vision: What you want the brand to be known for?
• Brand Mission: Why are you creating the brand?
• Brand Message: What message are you trying to communicate?
• Brand Personality: What traits and characteristic will the brand possess?

If you can satisfactorily answer all 4 questions, then you'll be building a strong foundation for your brand.

2. Pick Your Target Audience

It is impossible for everyone to be your ideal client. So, do not make that mistake of trying to appeal to everyone. It is probably the biggest mistake you can make while building your brand. As a matter of fact, trying to get everyone to like you will result in you attracting no one.

To attract the customers that you want, you must repel those you do not want. This implies that you have to identify your target audience first, then build your brand in a way that it appeals to them.

To stand out as a brand, you must be able to polarize. Attract some, repel some. You are not on a nursing assignment. Not everyone that comes across you or your brand will like your brand, and what it stands for, and that’s cool. Building a successful business is about reaching and attracting right people, and not reaching everybody.

To help you choose the right client, it's advisable that you have a client’s profile. This profile will help you know what your ideal client looks like and who to target.

An ideal client profile will include:

• Demographics: Age, sex, relationship status, education, occupation, income, etc.
• Aspirations & Desire: What do they want? What's their future dreams, and goals like?
• Challenges & Pain Points: What problems are they struggling with that your brand can solve?

A profile like this will save you time and energy and help you locate the right people.

3. Give Your Audience An Irresistible Offer

The aim of building a personal freelance brand is so that you can have your own audience and your clients which will give you an edge in the freelance industry. To do this, you must offer your target audience an offer that they absolutely cannot resist. You must offer them something that can get them a specific result or solve a problem.

You have to be customer-focused when building your brand. It will be a mistake to build your brand around a service or product around something that just you like, but no one else likes it or wants to pay for it. This is why it is very important to identify your target audience before you create a service or product. Once you have settled out whom you're providing your service for, then you can successfully create a perfect solution, and offer them something they can’t say no to.

To create an irresistible offer, you must not position yourself to the client as a generalist. They must see you as a specialist. If the client needs a dissertation, let them know that you're a specialist in the dissertation service. Give them assurances of a specific outcome and design your offer to achieve that outcome for them. Offering them something general without specific promises or assurances is easy to decline.

The next thing is to find what the client wants to meet with what you do best and what you love. This creates an offer that suits all parties excellently. It is called the Irresistible Offer Formula.
What the client wants most + what you love + what you love to do = An Irresistible Offer.

Following these 3 steps will help you to create a personal freelance brand that helps you to stand out in a crowded industry. But there are a few other things you can also do:

• Have a personal website and optimize it such that a regular visitor can become a paying client. You can do this by stating your value proposition on your homepage, display social media testimonials on the site and use clear CTA. An example of this is Jeanine Blackwell’s site.
• Get a content strategy for your brand, choose your content type and medium and focus on providing high-quality content consistently. An example of a personal brand with this strategy is Gary Vaynerchuck.
• Make yourself visible: It takes time to get noticed if you only post on your website. Make yourself visible on other platforms by the interviews & PR, guest blogging, public speaking, etc.

Conclusion

Creating a personal brand is the best thing you can do to make yourself visible in the freelance industry. But what's more important is doing it the right way.

About the Author:

Michael Gorman is a highly skilled and professional freelance writer and proofreader in the UK where he provides the best essay writing service UK. He also writes blog posts which he created to deliver assignment writing help. He’s interested in daily development and wants to discover new areas of human existence. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.