Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're gonna
learn the four key strategies that you need to transition your freelance gig to
a profitable business built for growth and scale.
now I became a freelance designer the way 99% of the world became freelance designers
I had an in-house role I had a design role within the studio and over time I realized that I
had a skillset that was a value in the marketplace I had some freelance gigs on
the side and I decided that I could trade in my day job for the full-time
freelance role so I went out by myself but I never took the time to really
understand what I needed to build as a business I really just took the
freelance clients that I had and I used them as my revenue for a time and you
know I brought in more and more referrals and that was my business model
I got referrals I produced the work for them I got paid that was my business but
I never really took the time to understand what a business model was all
about what I needed to do to grow what I needed to do to market myself to brand
myself and to bring in sales as well so that's what I want to talk to you about
in this video how you can go from being that freelance designer who just jumped
into the market who hadn't taken the time to build all of these strategies in
place to now change your business into a model that can grow and scale now first
up is your business strategy and the first area that I want to talk about
here is around your offer now I went a long time without really understanding
what an offer was about I had my website I had my services page I had my about us
page and my contact page and I thought that was enough to bring in clients so I
thought that when somebody would come to my website they'd be able to see all
that information and that would be enough for them to make a decision but I
was wrong that is not how a website works that is not how people make
decisions they don't just go to a website look at the services page and
then come to the conclusion okay I want to work with this agency they
really need a lot more than that and you really need to think about who your
audience is and put yourself into their
shoes they want an offer that's compelling they want to be able to see
the road forward they want to be able to see what exactly you're offering
them and what kind of outcome they're gonna get from going with you so you
need to change your offer to be very very much more specific and based on
your audience's outcome what outcome do they want what is it that they want to
achieve and then you need to build your offer around that so you can show them
that hey what I've got for you is gonna help you to achieve the outcome that you
desire so stop listing your services on there as you know print design services
website design services these are services that your audience can go out
and get anywhere they can get them on fiverr they can get them on upwork
but if you're able to understand the logistics of an offer and the psychology
behind creating a compelling offer well then you're gonna be able to structure
your website and what it is that you do offer to your clients and
your prospects in a much more effective way than you currently do so look into
what exactly you're offering and then structure that in a way that's
compelling that focuses on your clients outcome now the second area of your
business strategy I want to talk to you about is in and around your processes
now if you speak to anybody who's in the business of buying and selling other
businesses they'll tell you that one of their biggest valuations has got to do
with the processes of that business now if you're a freelancer if you've been in
business for yourself for a while and you've been doing it solo and
you know you haven't had anybody into your business to help you out with that
well then chances are you do most of your tasks just off-the-cuff you do most
of your tasks based on instinct because you have that experience you know what
you're doing you jump from one task to the next and you knock over those tasks
pretty quickly but if you were to fall ill or if you wanted to scale up your
business and you wanted to bring somebody in to help you under either of
those conditions well then you would struggle to be able to direct whoever
was coming in without sitting down with them on a one-to-one basis and going
through step by step exactly how you do everything take this time as an
opportunity to document your processes in an SOP and that's a standard
operating procedures that is a document that you
can list all of your tasks so that you can hand that over to somebody coming
into your business and they'll know exactly what they need to do to achieve
the outcomes that you're achieving so take this time to really look into the
nuts and bolts of your business what is it that you do on a day to day basis
whether it's got to do with your invoicing whether it's got to do with
your design with your marketing whatever is in your business whatever tasks you
have within your business is something that you need to document is is
something that you need to have in an SOP so take this opportunity to really
go through every one of those steps and once you have that down you'll probably
see that there are some steps in there that you can shortcut or there's some
steps that are in there that probably don't need to be in there or some way
that you can make them more efficient when you document everything that's when
you get the opportunity to really review your processes and look at making your
processes more efficient and again if you have this in place and if you're
able to create a video as you're doing this as you're going through well
then you're gonna have an asset there that you can hand over to somebody else
coming in to help you within your business and then that will help you in
the long run to be able to grow and scale your business so take the
opportunity to understand the processes within your business document those
processes and if you can record a video as well
now the second area of your business you should look at is your brand strategy
now I speak a lot about brand strategy but when I speak about brand strategy
it's more so from the point of view of helping your clients but here I'm
talking about your own brand so I'm talking about your brand strategy and
that starts with the position that you're taking in the market what
position are you currently taking in the market are you a freelance designer are
you offering brochures websites logo designs does
that categorize you as a general designer how is it that you want your
audience to see you so this is an opportunity to really kind of take a
step back and look at what you do on a day to day basis and where you
can specialize and you know that might throw up some opportunities within
becoming an illustrator or a UX designer or a UI designer or a brand strategist
there's a number of different roads that you can go down but if you haven't taken
the time at this point to really position your own
brand effectively so you can appeal to a certain type of person well then this is
the perfect time to do that have a look at what you do well have a look at where
your passions are and start you know creating a position in the mind of your
target audience and really define who it is that you're gonna serve out there in
the marketplace and the value that you're gonna offer and why it is that
you're gonna be different to all of the other competitors that are out there and
then once you've defined your position within the market well then that flows
into your messaging so what are the key messages that you want your audience to
understand about your brand about why you're different about the value that
you offer and how are you gonna tell them how are you gonna deliver those
messages what stories are you going to tell and can you really resonate with
who the audience is do you know the challenges that they're going through do
you know the pain points that they're coming across and can you put out
messages that will that will really help your brand to resonate with what they're
going through and who they are and then of course there's your brand identity as
well now obviously you will have your brand identity you'll have your website
but if you're gonna take this opportunity and change the positioning
your positioning in the marketplace well then chances are you're gonna need to
change your brand identity as well or maybe you just have had a plan for a
long time to rebrand you're not you're not exactly happy with your brand
identity and you want to rebrand now is a good time to have a look at your brand
strategy as a whole how you're presenting yourself in the market at the
moment and take this opportunity to set your brand on a different direction now
the third level within your business that you should really take a look at is
your marketing strategy now I'm not talking about referrals here and if your
business is surviving with 70 or more percent of business from referrals from
you know from people who you know and they just land on your lap well then
that is not a strategy that is not a marketing strategy yes you might be
keeping your head above water you might even be doing well with referrals but
that is not a strategy because these referrals just come to you without you
actually doing anything without you strategizing without you putting out
anything into the marketplace now of course on the other hand if you've taken
the time to develop an effective referral strategy and
you're offering value to people who refer other people to you will then yes
that is a marketing strategy but nine times out of ten most freelancers most
designers they get most of their business through referrals they don't
actually have a specific marketing campaign in place but this becomes a lot
easier when you're very very clear about the position that you want to take in
the market because defining a position in the market means understanding who
your audience is on a really really deep level and if you if you understand who
they are if you understand the position that you're taking in the market well
then you're gonna understand where they are in the market place where they go to
where they congregate and how to engage those people are you gonna do this
through content marketing are you gonna start writing articles that's gonna
speak to who your audience is and the problems that they encounter or are you
going to use paid ads to put out there into the marketplace whether that's
through Google Adwords or Facebook ads or any of the other paid platforms so
really taking a step back and asking yourself the question how do I get new
business because essentially that's what your marketing strategy lays out it lays
out how you get new business how you get new leads into your business and funnel
marketing is something that you really need to understand here as well because
we do need on average eight touch points before we're ready to engage a business
and if you don't have a funnel set in place to first of all introduce yourself
to who this audience is and then guide them through to what your offer is which
ties into the discussion that we had earlier about your business strategy
well then you know you're gonna struggle to be able to guide them
through they're not as I said before they're not just gonna go to your
website look at your services page look at your about us page and
decide that they're gonna do business with you one in a hundred thousand might
do that but it's very very rare you need a funnel in place so if you don't have a
marketing strategy at this point if you haven't taken the time to understand
what funnel marketing is all about about you know putting out a lead magnet onto
your website that is very very specific to who your audience is and then having
a very very structured follow-up sequence to guide them through to what
your offer is then you need to take the time
to do that so understand what your plan is to get new leads into your business
and really define the strategy that you're gonna take going forward to
really refine that process and then level four is your sales strategy so
your business processes are in place your offer is in place you've got your
brand strategy your position your key messages that you're sending out there
and you know what your marketing strategy is now you've got a lead magnet
out there and you're bringing people through once they come through as a lead
then you still need to convert them into a sale now there are a lot of different
theories on sales practices and me personally I don't like hard sales
tactics and you know if you're a designer chances are you don't either
because that's just the type of personality that designers are they
don't you know they're not that type of person but you really do need to
understand sales if you want to build your business whether you like sales or
not whether you like hard sales tactics or not you need to understand sales now
I'm not advocating hard sales tactics as I said before I don't like sales and I
don't use hard sales tactics but I do understand the process of sales and I do
understand that when I got a lead through the door when I got a lead
through my website then I need to take specific steps to convert them into a
sale and if I don't have those specific steps in place the chances of them
converting into a sale are much much lower so take this time to really
understand sales and if you understand sales through and through well then you
can devise your own plan to convert your leads into sales without that hard
pressure sales tactics and if you understand your industry if you
understand branding if you understand brand strategy and if you're able to talk to
your clients on a higher level well then you're gonna be able to educate them and
if you educate them if you give them some level of value without selling to
them without pressure selling them well then you're gonna earn that trust and
you know they're gonna be compelled to continue working with you because you
have already given them that values to take the time to understand an
actual sales process and develop a sales process for your business so that when
you get leads whether it's through a lead magnet or through a referral system
whatever it may be that if you have the opportunity to speak to somebody you're
not just jumping on the phone and going hey
how are you my name's Steve how can I help you and and let them direct the
call you need to have a very very specific structure in place so that you
have specific information that you want to get from them specific information
that you want to give to them and then lead them down the path to taking
you up on your offer now although all these four strategies
need independent decisions they're all interdependent as well and they all lean
on each other and if you're able to take the time to really understand and then
develop a cohesive strategy that looks at your business processes and your
offer that looks at your brand strategy in your position and your key messages
your marketing strategy how you're gonna engage and then how you're gonna take
your leads from a lead to a sale well then you're gonna build a business
process you're gonna build a system that will allow you to grow and scale so it's
really important to understand those individual strategies but it's also
important to understand that they are interdependent and they're all linked
together to build a system that can help your business grow and scale now if you
want more branding tips and techniques like this well then head on over to
BrandMasterAcademy.com and get yourself signed up for the newsletter it
is free and I will drop those tips and techniques right into your inbox and I
do keep some exclusive content for my valued list as well so get yourself
signed up but I want to know if you enjoyed this video if you got a new
perspective if your situation is similar if you got into freelance design in the
same way that I did and you just picked up referrals and you never took the time
to really understand your business model and understand your marketing and your
sales process to bring in more business so you can grow and scale if that is
what you've gone through please let me know in the comments below or if you
took a different path and you have a different outlook well then let me know
in the comments below or if you've got any challenges at all in
relation to transitioning from an in-house role or a studio role to a
freelance designer role well then let me know in the comments as well I'll do my
best to answer all of those if you like this video give it a thumbs up hit that
subscribe button hit the notification bell until next time brand like a master
and I will see you in the next video!