Personal Branding for Freelancers:

Marketing YOU to generate Leads

Darren Fell, founder Pure360.com, FreelanceAdvisor.co.uk & MD of crunch.co.uk

Intro then questions to the floor;

Who is a freelancer here?

What do you do?

Have you had much success getting customers?

Anyone done a stunning job?

Anyone prepared to admit being lousy at selling and hates this part?

Setup Pure in 2001, by 2008 had over 45 employees and 850+ customers, inc FT, EMAP etc (>3000 users)

With no money or investment, forced to find a fast way to sell - 160 accounts in 9 months (on my own) !Darren Fell the story

Full intro from COLT Telecom days

To Partytastic.com

To Pure

To Brighton, a bungalow in Seven Dials

Approached by 2 friends in Aug 2007 with idea for amazing Accounting service for freelancers

Whilst doing due diligence for Pures sale I worked started to build the then Accounts4you into Crunch!

Launched freelanceadvisor.co.uk Feb 2008 to help freelancers and contractors

FreelanceAdvisor now has 1,000s pages of advice and 12,000+visitors & Crunch 200+ customersDarren Fell Crunch & freelanceadvisor.co.uk

Amazing Accounting system would:

Wouldnt have any book keeping language in it

Easy fast invoicing

Connect to High Street Banks to automate reconciliation

Have an Account Manager and Accountants on the end of the phone

Personal Branding our steps (1)

How to turn YOU into a brand?
The big decision - choosing your name or a separate brand identity?

Your website & how to use social networking


more

Personal Branding our steps (2)

The importance of PR & watching out for opportunities

Case Study: A real life digital freelancer - 0-12 months & a successful business!

Q & A: Your real life situations to analyse?

About creating a brand for you that conveys personality!

Where to start? Pick the brand identity

Your name or a brand name the big debate!

- your name for a personal service not scalable - brand name if want to grow a team

- example www.john.onolan.org vs crunchWhat is Personal Branding?

'Personal Branding for freelancers - marketing YOU to generate leads

So how do you make YOU attractive....the Haagen Daz of the freelance world, sought after and so damn good leads just fall through the door?

The life of the freelancer or consultant is hard enough surely without having to don a marketing hat and turn you into the next coco cola?

Digital veteran Darren Fell, founder of Pure360.com, freelance advice site FreelanceAdvisor.co.uk and the ground breaking online Accountancy service Crunch.co.uk tells you the key steps to make you highly marketable.

Get this right and you'll be shocked when big brands come knocking on your door!

Already have a 'Personal Brand' but not seeing the results from all your hard work?

Just about to start on the path to freelancing and want a brand identity you can feel really passionate about?

Darren will guide you through the basics, forcing you to make key decisions in another of his interactive seminars that will get you thinking and keep you thinking about marketing YOU!

The seminar will deliver:-

How to turn you into a brand?

The big decision - choosing your name or a separate brand identity?-

- Your website and when and how to use social networking

- The importance of PR and watching out for the opportunities

- Case Study: A real life digital freelancer - 0-12months and a successful business

And what to do when all the leads start flowing....well that's another seminar entirely!

Your brand on the Web

If brand image are important, a good website is critical

Numerous new methods to get site up quickly

- quick & easy: use Linkedin & set ext profile

- use simplynames.com to get brand/your name

- use Tumblr.com to instantly create a site

- I.e. darrenfell.tumblr.com or

john.onolan.org/

Linkedin / Facebook / Twitter..which one or all ??

Linked in yes! / Facebook NO setup a fan page

Twitter? 100% yes get Tweetdeck on computer & phone!

Social networking is highly time consuming set aside time to engage but DO NOT let it consume you!

When and how to use Social Networking?

Get REALLY excited about the potential - watch Gary Vaynerchuk @ Expo 2.0

Proof for why to use Twitter?

When and how to use Social Networking?

Twitter and Facebook is clearly likely to have a major impact on purchasing for People who are following that brand or a fan of it.

Convinced? Twitter grows exponentiallyTwitter hows, dos & donts

Ive realised importance for organisations like Crunch.co.uk

Customers habits are changing are they are using Twitter to ask questions like is anybody elses service running slow?

Support departments need to monitor twitter and engage.

Instant response will instill significant brand loyalty!

Explore and find 100 key/influential people to follow

Going Twitter & engaging with people

Twitter can be the single most useful method of engaging with people.

Think of Twitter as an electronic way of networking

Engage with people and help them

Going Twitter & engaging with peopleSee the value in what people say listen!

How can you help people? your advice/experience/connecting people

Twitter - single most useful method of engaging with people (think of it as an electronic way of networking)

Social trends changing twitter being used for support/brand monitoring

Resources show an article the real secret of getting followers on Twitter

Twitter What not to do!

Continually look to write blog posts, identify key sites

Maximise every piece, change by 12% and post as pdf/ Word docs on article stores with your links

Be aware of latest news & write relevant articles

Write own blog and offer services as a commentator - may invited to comment in other news/pressThe Importance of PR

Key sites maybe for example smashingmagazine.com in the webdesign world may get you good coverage and build your profile!

article repositories: http://ezinearticles.com, http://www.articlesbase.com etc

Started his blog - john.onolan.org

Started interviewing web design business owners (creating strong relationships with people higher up)

2 months later - led to a lot of paid work, free books & products to review on the blog

Read short story in The 4 Hour Work Week - totally changed his perspective on businessJohn ONolan Case Study - starting

Released a free typographic website layout that received a lot of attention: http://john.onolan.org/ono-typography-and-more

Took on a full time member of staff: http://john.onolan.org/taking-on-staff-being-the-boss

Mission Statement - summarised entire view on life in a single blog post - resonated with quite a lot of people:http://john.onolan.org/not-taking-no-for-an-answer

Learning a client defaulted on 10,000 let employee go and reduce all of his outgoings. Bad couple of months!John ONolan growing the business

Who here maps out their pipeline?

Or do you start selling again once the projects have finished?

John ONolan Big brands call

Approached by Ubisoft re-design homepage for major new games title (they found the typographic layout)

Lesson - Won project beating FAR more established designers and studios

Tip for making sale: professional phone-call & immediate availability!

Next approach by Virgin Atlantic! design blog & community for new travel division: vtravelled.com

Final Conclusion Personal Branding & a lot of hard work helping people can build up a following and good reputation!

big brand leads may literally fall through the door!Personal Branding

Interactive Session your situations?

The Ultimate video: Gary Vaynerchuk @ Expo 2.0

Article: Why use Twitter? Impact on purchase decisions

Twitters exponential growth

Twitter What NOT to do!

Article: the real secret of getting twitter followersReading material & resources (with links)

All other links contained in presentation.

Next Seminar to be announced

Find out what event name?