If you’re a solopreneur in the service industry, then you know the struggle to get clients. A lot of solo service providers, like you, are having a hard time finding new business as their prospects are unfamiliar with them, what they do, and what they have to offer. Most lack the time to market themselves, or they simply don’t know how to. The effect is costly: they lose out on a lot of opportunities to work with their dream clients.
But how can you market yourself as solo service provider? How can you get out of the struggle of finding clients and growing your clientele?
You can market yourself by building a Personal Brand. I’ll discuss that more in detail below.
What is a Personal Brand?
A personal brand is an impression you make on audiences based on your personality, purpose, passion. Having a personal brand helps you connect to your target market more intimately, upping your chances of getting them to work with you. People like working with people who have a distinct personality to converse with and have a passion for what they do. If you pique their interest, then they will want to go to you. So, it makes sense that you market yourself based on who you are, and not just your services – and that you invest in creating a personal brand.
To create a personal brand, you need to go through a process called personal branding. This creative process is intended to attract your target market and convert them into clients. It takes time and resources but adds a lot of worth to your business and ensures that you get more profit. Here’s why it’s important to invest in creating and maintaining a personal brand.
1. Your personal brand gives YOU a distinct voice that no one else has.
Let’s be real here. There is a lot of competition in your industry. Your personal brand lets you be heard distinctly among the voices of your peers-slash-competitors. Having a personal brand gives you the chance to highlight your individuality and talk about your purpose and vision in your own style and visual identity. Hearing your talk about your passions will appeal to your audience and will make them want to work with you.
Here’s the fun part: you can include your hobbies and interests to your audience or even use humor as part of your brand.
2. It helps you create and maintain authentic and meaningful relationships with your dream clients.
Great client relationships are built on authenticity, relatability, consistency, and customization in communication and service. Showing your authentic self consistently comes easy with a personal brand because that’s what it’s about. They also appreciate someone who would take the extra effort to communicate with them, either through personal SMS and calls, or content that they find relevant through e-mail and social media. Finally, they are keen to work with service providers who offer excellent client servicing even prior to closing a deal.
3. It helps build trust and connection among your clients.
Before your prospects become your actual clients, you need to gain their trust first. People connect to each other largely based on shared experiences. If your prospects find themselves relating to you and the challenges you went through, then they would want to work with you as you understand their pain points and know that you could help them address these.
Having a personal brand lets you communicate to clients how much you understand them and are willing to help them out, whether in-person or through printed marketing materials and digital media channels. Likewise, it allows you to offer customer service like no other that will make prospects decide to work with you.
4. Your personal brand is the promise you make to your audience.
Once you get a client to sign up with you, what’s next? It’s fulfilling your promise to them. Your brand’s promise is the value that you give your clients, which is to deliver what they need and how they want it. It is the embodiment of your brand’s business.
Your brand promise not only needs to be communicated but also represented consistently through your service and how you manage your clients. Fulfilling this promise assures clients that you can provide them excellent service and that they can trust you to deliver again. It can also lead to good reviews and referrals, which are awesome for a solopreneur like you who wants business growth.
5. It is the reason people buy from you.
You are why people are getting your services. People will book you either because they find that you understand them well, or that you could truly bring value to their business, or that you constantly update them on news that is relevant to them. It will even help you gain more recognition even outside your network and turn curious members of your audience into actual clients.
Conclusion
Any solopreneur in the service industry knows how difficult getting clients could be. You, dear reader, could even be one of them. But with the right personal brand, you’ll get to have a clear and distinct voice that is authentic and relatable, that communicates your value effectively, and a promise that not only delivers great results for your client but also more business for you.
Want to create your personal brand?
Interested in creating your personal brand? That is something I could help you out with. Book a FREE Style Discovery Session with me to see if we are a good match and start the process of creating your personal brand!
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