Darren Fell, serial entrepreneur and founder of Pure360 and Crunch.co.uk leads an interactive seminar on "Personal Branding" specifically aimed at freelancers, contractors and micro-businesses. Great tips on Marketing YOU to Generate Leads.
Personal Branding For Freelancers Marketing You To Generate Leads
1. Personal Branding for Freelancers: Marketing YOU to generate Leads Darren Fell, founder Pure360.com , FreelanceAdvisor.co.uk & MD of crunch.co.uk
2. 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
3. Approached by 2 friends in Aug 2007 with idea for amazing Accounting service for freelancers Whilst doing due diligence for Pure’s 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 1,000’s pages of advice and 12,000+visitors & Crunch 200+ customers Darren Fell – Crunch & freelanceadvisor.co.uk
4. 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…
5. 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?
6. 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 crunch What is Personal Branding?
7. 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/
8. 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?
9. Get REALLY excited about the potential - w atch Gary Vaynerchuk @ Expo 2.0 Proof for why to use Twitter? When and how to use Social Networking?
11. Explore and find 100 key/influential people to follow… Going Twitter & engaging with people
12. Going Twitter & engaging with people See 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
13. 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/press The Importance of PR…
14. 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 business John O’Nolan Case Study - starting
15. 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 O’Nolan – growing the business
16. John O’Nolan – 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
17. 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
19. The Ultimate video: Gary Vaynerchuk @ Expo 2.0 Article: W h y use Twitter? Impact on purchase decisions Twitter’s exponential growth Twitter – What NOT to do! Article: the real secret of getting twitter followers Reading material & resources (with links)
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?
Full intro from COLT Telecom days To Partytastic.com To Pure To Brighton, a bungalow in Seven Dials
Amazing Accounting system would: Wouldn’t 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 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!
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.
I’ve realised importance for organisations like Crunch.co.uk Customers habits are changing are they are using Twitter to ask questions like ‘is anybody else’s service running slow?’ Support departments need to monitor twitter and engage. Instant response will instill significant brand loyalty!
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
Resources show an article – the real secret of getting followers on Twitter Twitter – What not to do!
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
Who here maps out their pipeline? Or do you start selling again once the projects have finished?
