What’s your Personal Brand

One of the biggest mindset shifts that has helped me successfully make a living by essentially freelancing services that I’m interested in providing is thinking of myself as managing a personal brand.

In this mindset, any service I provide – anything I do in exchange for money – is part of the brand.  My teaching, my writing, this blog, and my social media services are all products offered by this brand.  It’s personal to me and exists in direct relation to who I am as a person but it’s a unique section of my life.

There are a few reasons why I think this mindset is important for others with a similar work style or similar work situation.  Let’s look at those reasons now.

Working from Home but not Working When Home

Okay, that’s a bit confusing but let me explain.  I work from home.  In my family, we make jokes about how I never leave the house and might easily be mistaken for a captive of my family rather than a member of it because they all go out into the world but I spend endless hours in one room of the house.  The jokes are like a thinly veiled coping mechanism for what we all know is an odd reality. I don’t leave the house often.  Sometimes I get so stir crazy I have to leave for the sake of leaving without any actual mission other than getting fresh air.

So how do I know I’m done with work? Honestly, the entering and exiting of physical spaces is something that we often take for granted in our lives. We enter our workspaces and know we are at work, we exit them and can start thinking about our personal lives again.  I’ve done a decent job of making my office my physical workspace and letting what happens in the office stay there when I leave it BUT it’s always right there, calling to me when something could use my attention.  Why wait until tomorrow morning when I could just go grab my laptop and attend to it right now?  Thinking of your work as existing under the umbrella of a personal brand helps to add one more layer of separation between your personal life and your professional one even when the two cohabitate in one physical space.

Not only have I left my office but I’ve mentally left the headspace of the brand and so whatever needs to happen will have to wait for me to get back in the office and back in that headspace.

Your Brand can Turn Down a Project

It’s really hard to turn down work when you’re a freelancer working from home.  You figure there’s always a way to shuffle your calendar around and make time for one more project because security is so elusive.  Work is work and money is money, right?

Sure. But if you’re so busy taking every opportunity that comes along you may end up with a set of projects that don’t fit or make sense together.  This seems pretty benign on the surface but can actually become quite problematic for your overall productivity.  If your projects don’t make sense together then they can start to battle each other for your time and switching projects will become a big interruption to your workflow.

For me, working on Oh My Mermaid and working on Playful Greetings social media work really well together because a lot of the organization can happen from one single platform so time spent on one can easily coexist with time spent on the other.

Thinking of new projects as coming in under your personal brand gives you a buffer between them and you that will allow you to reject them without feeling guilty

You can say to yourself and the potential project, “I’m sorry, that project/job/contract doesn’t work with my current portfolio so I wouldn’t be able to fit it into my schedule or do a good job of it without hurting my other projects.”

When the reason you’re saying no is that it doesn’t work for “the brand” rather than because you just don’t feel like saying yes there’s a lot less guilt and obligation.

It’s also easier to ask for an Opportunity 

Just like it’s easier to say no because it isn’t personal, it’s also easier to ask for an opportunity because just like when you turn something down, rejection isn’t personal.  When you feel like it’s just you, as a person and a freelancer, saying to a company that you’d like the opportunity to work with them then when they say no they’ve rejected you. And that sucks. Nobody wants to feel like that.

But when you apply feeling that you’d like to add that opportunity to your personal brand portfolio and you get the rejection it’s easier to just move on, work on your existing projects and look for the next opportunity that might be an even better match for you and your brand.

A Personal Brand is Something you can feel Proud of

One of the biggest struggles I notice as an independent freelancer is that there is a lot less positive feedback than I might have access to in a regular old brick and mortar job.  As a student for most of my life and in the various regular jobs I’ve had I’ve always appreciated the positive and negative feedback that lets me know what’s going well and what isn’t.

Working in isolation, as I talked about earlier, feedback can sometimes be seriously lacking.  It made me feel like I was lost in space having no idea if I was going the right direction or what was going on.

Thinking of my work as a personal brand somehow makes it a bit more tangible.  I start finding ways I can measure performance.  Income, of course, but also through social stats, leads, and projects.  I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished with Oh My Mermaid and the other projects I’ve taken on.  That’s something that reduces the sensation of being lost in space.

So overall there’s a lot of good reasons to start thinking of yourself as managing a personal brand to create an extra mental layer between your work and you as a person.  It’s better for your mental health and self-worth to feel that it’s still a job, at the end of the day and you do get to be off duty even if that just means going to a different room in your house.

Focusing on Control

One of the biggest challenges working gig-to-gig is feeling that I don’t control my work or income.  I can’t force students to book a certain number of classes just because that number would equal out to my ideal income.  I can’t always make jobs appear or make my efforts pay off as big as I want them too.

So what’s a girl to do?

Focus on what I can control and how to make those things go as far as possible. I wrote in my post Find Your Hustle about the importance of keeping more than one stream of income.

For example, right now my students are celebrating a national holiday and bookings are way down.  How am I going to make up the income of a couple weeks having lower than average booking rates?

Main gig not paying? Give your side hustles some love

Teaching is really my main gig. Of all the streams of income I have right now, it pays the most, and it pays the most consistently. At times like this when that consistency is a little less reliable than normal, I can focus on transcribing. I don’t transcribe that much in an average month because I’m very picky about the jobs I’ll take (I need high-quality audio to ensure I transcribe accurately and produce good work.). Perhaps this month I’ll be a little less picky and more focused on putting in time at the keyboard.

Add some Extra Hustle

I’ve had a lot more time than usual on my hands with these lowered booking rates.  It’s allowed me to give this blog some much-needed love at the time of launch, for example.  Even though I’m not counting on the blog for major income it’s still something I value having the time to build and work on so the lower bookings can be taken as a blessing.

Stay Fresh on what’s Available

This almost goes with adding some extra hustle.  Just as you might use the unexpected time off from your main gig to put some love into a project that may or may not be income-generating you can also use this time to check out any new companies and opportunities in your field. Maybe you’ll find a few more gig-providing companies to start a relationship with and further diversify your streams of income.

Keep your Lifestyle Flexible

Ultimately a downturn with one gig might just mean lower income for a period of time.  Even if you mitigate the impact by increasing productivity on some of your smaller gigs you need a flexible lifestyle.  For example, if you have subscription boxes or other lifestyle expenses you can “skip” for a month or cancel go ahead and cut costs to lessen the impact of a low-income month.

Or, enjoy the Vacation

When it comes down to it sometimes you have to just go with the flow and enjoy the time off!

Carmen

Self Care in the Gig Economy

If your boss offered you more money, would you be like “nah, I need to stay home and not make money that day…” ?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

But what if you are your own boss? This is the self care challenge I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I decide what times to open for classes, and of course I open as much as I can stand to work in a day because I like getting those pay cheques.   My classes get booked about two weeks in advance, so it’s really reassuring to watch my next 7-14 days fill up and know that I’m going to keep making the income I need to look after my family.

But then there’s those days when the alarm goes off and I don’t want to get up and work. I open my classroom to greet my student and actually have to pause, take a deep breath and remind myself to smile. This isn’t normal for me.

I love teaching. I love my students. I’m genuinely happy in the moment while I’m working.

Until I get run down and start feeling burnt out, tired, and unmotivated.

That’s when I know it’s time to take a break for self care.  Not a long break – I tend to work 7 days a week so when I start feeling run down I know its time for a weekend or two off. But to do that I’m literally saying “I am okay with not making money during a time when I could be. I’m going to take that time to technically do nothing instead.”

When that Friday or Saturday work time comes around and I’m watching a movie instead of making money, it’s a challenging conundrum. In that very moment, and even in the days leading up to my time off, I tell myself “I’m fine, I would benefit more from the financial security so I should just open the times.”

I can easily take time off when there’s an event or plans I want to prioritize. But those things don’t give my mind or spirit any rest. If I take a day off to go to a concert and work the other 6 days, I have fun but I don’t take a break.

It can be challenging to prioritize ourselves, whether you work a 9-5 where it’s probably your job to, in some way or form, make other people’s days easier or if you work for yourself and control your own schedule… it’s really hard to say no to work and financial security to take the bubble bath, get your nails or hair done, sleep a little longer or just breathe easy for 24 hours, assessing your own needs instead of everyone else’s.

There’s no easy answer. There’s no three steps to self care without a second thought. The best I can offer is to follow some accounts on your social media that might post positive, self care oriented content that will remind you to look after yourself. And when you hear that voice in the back of your head saying “You’re fine, just push on and keep working.” You have the right to fight that voice a little bit and put yourself first.

 

Carmen

 

 

Find your Hustle: Living life Gig to Gig

The gig economy is not your mama’s 9-5 job.  People working in the gig economy are found under any number of names – they are contractors, entrepreneurs, and artists.  They also have traditional job titles – editor, writer, developer, coder – but still operate as freelancers, outside the corporate structure.

The gig economy is about saying “Hey, I have this skill or service that I can offer for a fee.” And then offering it to a range of different clients instead of producing work only for one company.  There’s not a lot of emphasis on consistency in who you work for. In the gig economy, you’re looking for the next client, the next contract, the next “gig”. It is that constant seeking that defines and propels your career.

It can be a lot more interesting and a lot more rewarding than waking up every day to go do the same thing for the same company.  that said, you give up the security and consistency that comes with “a real job”.

Oh, and you start dealing with people referring to your work as something other than “a real job”.

This is how I’m working.  Have I reached massive success? Am I a gig-made millionaire? Nope. But I do make a living that at the end of the day, pays my bills and affords me a good life.

If you’re struggling to make the 9-5 grind work for you, but not really sure where to begin with the gig economy, here’s what you need to know.

1. You need more than one thing you can offer, at least in the beginning.

Down the road, you might have one thing that you are absolutely exceptional at, can charge a substantial fee for and can find, then build a large clientele with. Until you have a reliable and consistent flow of clients willing to pay your bills for that exceptional skill focus on diversity along with quality.

I’m gonna note here, it wouldn’t hurt to know which of the multiple skills you offer isyour end goal.  I have a few different services I offer but if I could turn 1 in to my full time job and stop doing the other things I know which one I’d pick.  It isn’t that I don’t like the other things – I love them. It’s about keeping a note of which thing you love the most.

I work with an online company teaching English as a Second Language.  They provide the virtual classroom and connect me to clients who pay for their service, and they pay me based on the number of classes I teach in a month. This is my most reliable income because I have around 350 clients who subscribe to my schedule and consistently take classes with me.

But I also type very quickly, so I do some transcribing work to pad out my bank account on weeks when holidays or other things lower the number of classes I am booked for.

I even had a small direct sales business.  You can call it a pyramid scheme or “multi level marketing” – either way – it’s where hobby meets the potential for income. I wasn’t climbing to the top of this pyramid but I was able to share the product with friends and see a little bit of income. It was the least reliable of my income streams and so I didn’t depend on it, I just enjoyed it for what it was.
*I decided I really didn’t have time for it after the company made some big changes.

I work with an Etsy business as their social media and customer service guru.

I work with a Toronto based accessory brand as their social media extraordinaire.

And I am still always keeping my eye out for opportunities that match what I like in my work and fit my schedule.

Maybe someday I will be a superstar something (I am slowly building in this direction but the biggest truth of all: nothing happens overnight!) and not need to teach or transcribe but right now, I enjoy the variety of work from day to day. Also, more importantly, having multiple streams of income makes up for the fact that a big issue with most gigs is that there’s no security. If that teaching company or transcription company I work with goes out of business there’s no severance for me. I’m just an independent contractor for them, they don’t owe me anything. Ever. So to protect myself from their potential loss of business becoming my loss of income, I stay diverse.

2. Ask for Opportunity

So you know you’d be great at x, y and z. And you really think people would probably pay you to do that for them. Awesome! What now?

Well depending on what you want to get paid to do a website is a good start.  Most people who hire people like to have websites and social feeds they can browse that will give them more information about what they’re paying for, and instill their confidence in your ability to meet their expectations.

After that, you’ve gotta tell them you’re available for hire.

Fun fact: I once messaged a company on Instagram to say I loved their product but noticed they weren’t posting much. I offered my services as a social media manager and one phone call later we agreed to work together.

It was a risk, it was a random observation and message, and it paid off to tell that company I was available and could do something they needed.

Now, I don’t make a habit of messaging people suggesting they need me. I don’t recommend it as your only strategy for getting clients. But do start talking about your work being available, do be visible in your industry and do advertise your skills as if you’ve never had a moment of self-doubt.

3. You don’t like the 9-5 grind, but you’re gonna have to work sometime.

My teaching clients are in many different time zones so I am often awake well before and long after my partners, working away in my home office. Yes, I can book a day off whenever I want and don’t need approval from a boss. True, I work from the comfort of my home, sometimes in my pjs (shhh), and I do choose when I work – to an extent. I have the power to open or not open a class time, but I am limited by the times my students actually want to take a class. Hint: it’s not always at a convenient afternoon hour for me. So while I don’t work 9-5, sometimes I work 4am-10pm and laugh at all the people who think the gig economy or working from home means sleeping in.

Where’s my tea?

4. You have to believe that you’re worth hiring.

It’s easy with a lot of mainstream jobs. Look at the job descriptions, see the requirements as a check list. Does it match your resume? If so – great. You can submit an application and walk into an interview knowing you deserve this. You’re qualified for this. There’s no good reason not to hire you.

But when you’re under the title independent contractor you have to know what it is you offer, and feel confident that a) people do need your service, and b) you’re damn good at what you do.

Sometimes, like when I messaged that company on instagram, you actually have to sell the client on the need before you can sell them on your service to meet that need.

There’s no checklist most of the time. There’s no roadmap that you can compare to yourself and take confidence from.

So be prepared to market yourself, continually network and make yourself available to new clients, and move on without taking it personally when a client relationship doesn’t blossom the way you would have liked.

5. Competition is INSANE. Ignore it.

I’m sorry if you figured there were really only a small number of people chasing this entrepreneurial dream.  We all have different ways, different services, different methods… but there’s a lot of us in this game. As soon as you start you’ll see, it will find you.

As soon as I started just casually mentioning social media management online I got flooded with paid ads from other social media marketers.  It sort of makes you pause and wonder if you can really do this. I hadn’t even thought about running paid ads yet!

But those moments of doubt or moments when I felt like I was surrounded by competition didn’t stop me from getting hired to start and they won’t stop me from getting hired in the future.

I said earlier you’ve gotta believe in yourself.  So when it comes to the competition, focus on your own hustle and ignore the rest.

These are my top 5 pieces of advice from right here in the comfort of my home office. Subscribe to stay in touch and catch more of my work from home musings and advice.