This great blog post about finding your personal brand showed up in my inbox and it really resonated with me as a freelancer who struggled to understand how important personal branding was when you’re trying to land great clients.

The most important lesson I found was that you already have a personal brand. Ultimately, your audience will be the one to determine your personal brand. If you want them to start off with the right impression, that’s your responsibility.

You have a professional reputation whether you choose to cultivate it or not.

Julie Brown of Up Later Than You makes a great point.

“Personal branding is a conscious decision and important to our business. Clients can see our aesthetic from our personal brands and know that we uphold a certain standard.”

There’s no reason to fool around with the way people perceive you. As the owner of a small business or a freelancer your personal brand only serves you if you’re consciously steering it.

When I first went out on my own I didn’t understand how important finding your personal brand really was. I didn’t immediately understand that as a freelancer I was my brand. My content was inconsistent and unfocused. It didn’t tell them anything about me or my values. It got me crappy work and clients that were less than ideal.

By branding yourself as an individual, you add a whole new layer of trust to your interactions with clients.

Once I understood this, I made some changes. I really started thinking about what my personal brand said to my audience. After I invested in professional photos, and cleaned up my website (design and content) I saw immediate changes in the quality of my clients. I was getting independent, entrepreneurial types that took their own personal brand seriously. I got more clients that were willing to invest in real brand development.

Storytelling as Branding

Sharing your story, establishing yourself as an expert, and making real connections: these are all benefits of embracing your personal brand.

I also started telling my story and finding my voice. Upon reading through my content I realized that I was trying to sound like an agency, rather than sounding like myself.

Kurt Elster of Ethercycle made a super simple, but super relevant point.

“People relate to people.”

After publishing my story everyone knew who I was and what my values were. People heard me saying that I wanted a simpler, more honest approach to business. Going even deeper, I started sharing information about my life. Working with a new baby and how that balance was way harder to achieve than I thought it would be. It opened people up to me. They trusted me in a way that they hadn’t before. Strong women started gravitating toward me and opening up doors that I hadn’t even realized were there.

Maintaining Your Brand

“You gotta keep it up,” Jeremy of UP LATER THAN YOU says. “If you go to Instagram and someone hasn’t posted in six months, you ask yourself if they’re really dialled in. It’s a shame, but we judge people by social media. If you’re in a digital business, you gotta keep it fresh, current, and consistent.”

Truth: I suck at this part. I lose interest and motivation, but it really does make a difference. I’ve started this year out by increasing my social media efforts and it’s paid off one-thousand fold. My engagements are up 400% in the last three weeks. Visits to my website typically grow every year by 20-30 a year. This past January, after ramping up my social media brand and website posts, my traffic increased by 219 views over 2017. There’s definitely something to be said for consistency and persistence.

The article wrapped it up by listing a few questions to ask yourself on your way to discovering your brand:

• What are your goals for your business?
• What makes you unique among your competition?
• How did you get into your industry?
• Why did you start your own business?
• What things do you value?
• Who is your target audience?

How Can I Help You?

You don’t have to work alone in finding your personal brand, though. Luckily for you, it’s my job. I offer personal branding packages that include branding questionnaires, logo design, professional photography and web development to jump start your efforts and get you moving forward as quickly as possible. Tell me how I can help you.

Tell me where you’ve struggled with your personal brand or how you’ve overcome a block that kept you from getting it where you wanted it.