What we do matters to our personal brand–just as much as what we don’t.
I was speaking to a client yesterday and bringing him through my on-boarding process. The job wasn’t a big one–it was quite in fact a tiny job. Having been wrapped up in a big job and a few personal matters, I realized that I could have done a better job at being more responsive to the client and facilitating his requests a little more quickly.
But that’s what happens in the real working world. We’re busy, and if you’re a freelancer, you may be even more scattered.
When you become an established freelancer, you tend to focus on your bread-and-butter clients. After all, isn’t that what the whole 80/20 principle is about?
It may be, but realizing that I sometimes treat my smaller projects like stepchildren really irked me.
So I put everything aside to, once and for all, get the client’s project moving. (We had been in that awful back-and-forth email stage where if you don’t remember who responded last, you could lose the deal!) And I realized that this is something I have to pay attention to.
Being aware can be a vital component of your brand. Aligning what you do–and don’t do–with how you want to be perceived is quite important. In recognizing this fault, it definitely has helped me be more aware–and actionable–about how I put my brand out there. It’s not just about logos or Web presences; it’s every bit as much about action too.
Author:
Kristen is a copywriter and author who enjoys what she does for a living. Kristen is also a Certified Professional Resume Writer. Kristen writes regularly for MediaBistro, SheKnows and FreelanceSwitch. She is a panelist on the biweekly, award-winning podcast FreelanceRadio. Kristen is the author of Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life and her new book, It Takes More than Talent: Business Basics for the Creatively Inclined is due out in January 2013. She has been featured on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and CareerBuilder; and also in the Boston Herald, the New Jersey Star-Ledger and in the Asbury Park Press.
