Building your brand as a service provider
When you work alone offering a service-based business, you ARE your brand. You can brand as a business and never show your face – that is always an option. However this will be detrimental to your growth because people work with people.
So what exactly do you need to start building a personal brand that people recognise and trust?
1) Start with a strategy
Each brand identity project I start begins with a deep-dive questionnaire which asks you to:
Outline your story so far as a service provider
Define what makes you unique compared to other providers who offer the same service
Define who your ideal customer is
Define your overall vision is for your business
Write a mission statement for your business
Define what your personal and business values are
Knowing the answers to these questions sets the foundation for your brand. By starting from the ground up we ensure every decision you make has a well-thought out reason behind it. It means you’re kept consistent and on-track. Consistency ensures you’re fostering trust with your potential clients.
2) Creative
Once we’ve completed the groundwork we can begin to look at the creative direction. This is the part where I’ll build out a visual identity for your brand:
Logo
Colour palette
Typography
Image Style
Iconography/Illustrations
Accompanying brand assets
This isn’t just so that you’ll look pretty. I’ll take the answers to your questionnaire and create an identity that is reflective of this. It’s got to be cohesive. When your base-line strategy is on-point but your visual identity doesn’t match this, the vibe will be off. If vibes are off, people will sense this and it will affect interest in your biz.
3) Lead with your authenticity
Now that you’ve got a strategy and you look the biz, it’s time to start putting your real self out there. When you:
Write blog posts
Post on social media
Meet people at networking events
Lead with what makes you unique, tell your own stories. This is not only how you stand out and become memorable, but how people genuinely connect with you (and send work your way – yay!)
4) Consistency and time
Your strategy and identity can be the absolute bomb, but if you aren’t getting yourself out there and:
Posting authentically and consistently on social media
Going to networking events
Reaching out to potential clients
Then you aren’t going to be seeing the results you want. A strong brand should be combined with some serious business effort. Hustle hustle, baby.
I would say you’ve got to give yourself at least six months to start seeing serious results (I.e: client interest). If you build they will come, but it doesn’t happen overnight.