How to Make Your Freelance Business Stand Out

How to Make Your Freelance Business Stand Out

Forget sex, passion sells! Okay, so that might need some explanation. If you are a freelancer or small business owner, the way you make your brand stand out is to demonstrate your passion for what it is you do. Potential customers need to be able to trust you. They need to see how devoted you are to this brand, especially if they are going to take a chance and work with you. After all, there are lots of other businesses they tend to have to choose from, so you need to make sure that your smaller business stands out against the rest.

This is not always an easy task, even with more and more people pushing for buying local and using the services of those in your local area. It still takes some careful planning and management to ensure that you are putting the right energy out there. The signals we are sending to users can get crossed if we are not careful in how we present them. The same goes for the overall impression potential clients can get of our brand if we do not take the necessary steps to put that best foot forward.

The Passion Play

The Passion Play

There are many ways to play the game when you introduce your brand to the world. But if you are looking to make your freelance business competitive, even in online international markets, then one of the best ways you can play it is with the passion play. Show everyone that interacts or engages with your brand, just how much reverence you have for the field you are operating in, and how much passion drives you to leave a lasting mark there on it.

If you are putting out there that you only want the best for the industry, then it lets potentials know that the work you do for them will rise to this level of expected excellence too. This is a powerful statement to make to anyone considering your goods or services. But you might be wondering just exactly how to demonstrate you have this passion for your business? And that’s a good question.

Walk the Walk

Bottom line, you are going to have to really put in the effort to sell this idea. You are going to have to do more than talk the talk to prove to potential clients and more that you have passion for your freelance business, you are going to have to walk the walk. This is not something that you can fake if you do not actually have this passion. Your clients will pick up on it, and they will be turned away. So if you are going to do it, you have to fully commit and do it right.

Below is a bit of a breakdown of a few steps that you can take towards this end. Hopefully it will help put you on the passionate path towards conquering your field, and elevating the visibility of your brand!

A Helping Hand

A Helping Hand

You need only look around the web to find examples of this element in practice. From businesses set up to simply provide valuable information on the field to those who are actively finding ways to share actual user feedback for a more informed user base, we see so many using their status and place on the web to promote and elevate the field they are working in. This helping hand approach does cast your small business in a favorable, almost charitable light. So embrace this for your brand.

Give back through your freelance business and show the caring and giving nature of the passion behind it. Help out and contribute to the community of information that is being shared and discussed. Blogging is another fantastic way to offer the community a helping hand. Blogs are known for offering valuable information and resources to the masses. And when there is noticeable passion behind the blog, it gets a solid reputation for excellence, and is seen as an invaluable resource in and of itself to the community it serves.

So there are a number of ways that you can assert your brand into the community as a beacon of assistance and information, to stand out as a helping hand among the masses. Finding the ways that work best for your brand and small business is a process, but one that is certainly worth investing time into working out.

Work With Those in Your Field, Not Against Them

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If you have a passion for the work, then you, in turn, have a passion for the field as a whole, and you should want to see great things coming from and happening within the industry. So don’t set yourself and your brand up as a greedy motivated hater of all those you see yourself in ‘competition’ with. You want to work with the others in your field, not against them. This is a good way to differentiate your brand from others who are less than cooperative with their ‘competition’.

By understanding that each of us can serve and fill particular needs for clients in ways that others cannot, we see that there is no competition among the many businesses in the field. There are only different approaches for the clients out there to take. Each just as valid and as necessary a part of this whole as we are. This mentality is completely client and industry-centric as it focuses on giving them access to as many options as they feel they need to properly consider and give their project the best chance of success. Or to produce the best bang for their buck.

So we need to work together. Recommend and refer clients to one another, based on their needs, not ours. This is a recipe for a much more selfless community that is all about enriching the industry and developing the field with a cohesive and connected sense of united purpose. This improves not only the reputation of our own business, but of the entire industry. And visibility rises for us all.

Give Thanks

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Yes, you are in business to make money from and work in a field that you love. This is not always an opportunity that many in the workforce have, and as such, you should show your appreciation as much as you can for being in this oft enviable position. So you need to thank those who give you that opportunity. Offer your clients a small token or word of thanks whenever you close a project, to let them know how much their trust in you means, and how much you relish working in this field. They have helped you to do so.

This will further your reputation, and highlight the passion that you have for the work you are doing. The more this impression is made on clients, the more likely they are to pass that passion forward on to others. When they talk about their experience to their friends, colleagues, and social media feeds they will speak with enthusiasm about the passionate ways you worked for them. Be sure that you are also keeping track of those mentions when possible, to thank them again.

Showing your clients that you appreciate them is key for getting repeat business, and having them leave the situation with a positive take away that they can pass along. As you wrap up the project or interaction, be sure that they can feel your excitement for what it is you have done or will do for them. Offering thanks is an easy way to do so.

Keep Up

This had to be mentioned, even if it is sometimes taken as read. If you are really passionate about your field, then you should be following along with all of the latest developments in said field without having to be reminded. Keeping up with what is happening is key to being able to stay on top of your game. And especially to offering your clients cutting edge results when they come to you. So put in the extra time and work to stay ahead of the curve.

If your passion stagnates, then so will your output. Be sure that you are always moving forward, and growing in your field, or it could spell disaster for your small business. Our passion is meant to drive us, and our clients need to see that push, or they will go elsewhere.

Set Your Standards & Stick to ‘Em

One of the things that can happen when you work in a field, is that you allow your standards to slip, and you take steps that actually will do more harm than good for the industry. In some cases, you may not even be aware of the fact that you are doing this. That you are putting that out there. But it happens. Be it advertising for those who devalue the field, or cutting corners for a client that should never be cut.

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Whatever the case may be, we need to set our standards high, and stick to them if we want to demonstrate our passion for the work we do. We never phone it in, or turn in sub-par projects full of short cuts. We view each and every client as a chance to excel and rise to the occasion. Our passion is supposed to help us elevate the industry and raise the bar, not drag both down to less than stellar levels just to get things done.

If we do not have standards that we adhere to, and fall in line with, then we cannot expect anything more from the clients that we work for. This is important to note, because just as our clients have expectations of us. So do we of them. And if we are putting an air of excellence out there, then we should be attracting clients looking for the same. If we are allowing our passion to set our standards, then we will draw people with that same passion and measure of quality to us.

What’s Your Path to Passion?

That wraps up the discussion from this side of things for now, but that doesn’t mean that things have to end here. In fact, we would prefer that they didn’t. Especially in the interest of exemplifying our passion for our own small businesses, so let’s keep this ball rolling!

How is it that you show your clients your passion for the work that you do? Is there anything that we mentioned here that resonates with you, or that you feel we left out? Then take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

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