Make Your Own Lane: Building Personal Credibility

The common techniques most of us use to assess a professional’s or a company’s credibility is to quickly surf through the following:

What does the Website say?

That is first proof a prospect will come across before reaching out the phone or shooting a mail to the service provider.

What is the quality of Samples that you see?

Regardless of a client’s budget, the first and foremost priority will be to ensure what a client receives as service is useful to their business. Samples speak volumes about the depth of expertise one has

WritingVoiceWeb DesigningMarketingConsulting

The scope can be anything and that really does not matter. The portfolio that reflects in the website should be the strongest proof of the professional’s skill/ expertise or company's domain

If you are beginner, do not let any of this stop you

If you do not have clients, you cannot furnish samples.
If you cannot show samples, you cannot get clients.

Do you best demo portfolio and upload even when you are new and I guarantee, it will be difficult and tempting not to try your services.

What kind of logos is listed?

Logos you have worked with, certifications, associations, badges and testimonials can create a positive impact however that is not enough to get a prospect to  reach out to you. It can create an impression, not guarantee a lead that can convert to a client and in turn to revenue.

Pitch query

Your first communication with a prospect should be aligned to what you showed them so far in your website, portfolio, online space  - what you are good at, what you can solve, how you can assist them. 

If a prospect perceives a gap between what you do, how  you behave online and how you communicate in that first mail or call, the disconnect will be very hard to bridge.

Refrain from standard business jargon, be specific about how you can assist and how you are different. Keep it short, simple and effective. If possible add a call to action

Online credibility

The blogs you write, the expert advise you share on forums and social media groups, the extent of support, assistance and useful inputs you provide pertaining to your domain - all of this build your credibility

It proves how valuable you are 

Finally, the most important aspect to consider before you work with a professional

Personal credibility

Language, both verbal and non-verbal is a great give away.

I am sorry for being late

I am late because the lift was not working. (Everyone used the same lift)

I can share as many samples you want for clients that I have worked for already (Does he bother to clarify if he has the right, approval and permission to do that?)

What is your opinion about the person who uses this language in the first meeting? I am sure you got the point by now.

Make Your Own Lane: Choose Who You Want To Work With

It is your choice if you want to handpick the kind of clients you want to work with, knowing that the project will add value to your experience, learning and earnings or be at the mercy of clients who would choose to work with you.

Take Control

What may apparently seem like a great project may actually turn miserable, time consuming that lead to huge waste of bandwidth and unnecessary stress in the following cases: 

If the project owner (The client) is in control of everything

Looking to pay cheap or pick your brain for free. 

Asking for samples to gauge your competence while you have dozens of client testimonials that speak volumes about your good work

Ask yourself

How can a pitch deck or presentation or business plan sample of Real Estate industry tell the prospect how good you can do something similar for a company that deals with dairy products in a different geography altogether?

Turn the table

Clients who genuinely want good work on professional terms are open to suggestions and will never compromise on quality of work.

I have worked with clients who did not have the budget or who could not afford to pay my charges end to end, so they got a small part done by me to suit their budget and also build the required relationship quotient for future needs.

Top Four Tips – Client / Project Evaluation Prior To Engagement

I Timelines

If someone is asking for a business plan within 24 hours, isn’t that a huge hint about the client’s sensibility and sensitivity quotient?

a)   He is not even bothered about how you will deliver it.

b)   He is expecting you, though unspoken, to abandon all work you are currently doing for other clients and prioritize his assignment

c)   Even worse, if he is willing to pay more for this turn around – He actually believes there are people who will commit the impossible for a few dollars. He probably does this based on this past interaction with other freelancers who were willing.

II Take Charge

Do not give the power in someone else’s hands – You not only refuse such assignments upfront, you rationalize your decision of doing so by educating the client about the probable consequences of a quick TAT: 

a)   The project will be under researched.

b)   It affects buyer’s credibility to deliver such below standard work to an intelligent target audience.

c)   The client needs to use his best people skills to negotiate timelines with his audience instead of trying to negotiate turn around time with you.

Client is likely to value your work and perspectives, if what you say actually activates his thinking cell about how his decision to insist on incredible TAT can affect his end business outcomes.

III Try Paid Sample

It will be misleading to proceed with this assumption that all buyers on freelancing portals are low paying clients. There are many who are just being cautious due to past experiences or lack of domain knowledge or judgment to assess the right freelancer for their work. As a precautionary measure, they can give you small assignment before they let you do the big project

Do not be in that race to test who charges the lowest fees.

Do propose to do a quick paid assignment to be on the same page regarding quality work, timelines, competence.

Ask yourself again

Why do they need samples of other business, if you are willing to give them a paid sample for their own business?

IV Bid or Pitch

Bids are for newbies – who are new to online income, new to freelancing portals and new to the whole concept of trading skills.

Once you have a rough idea of what niche skills you have, where it fits in best, who is willing to pay for that, you know where to pitch instead of being limited to freelancing portals. Pitch is the fastest way to build an enterprise of your own,

Freelance marketplaces is your practice pad, a starting point and that is it. It is not your end all future. It is just one of the avenues/ revenue streams/ income options.

Try twitter platform to pitch your skills and drop a comment about  your experience for peer support

***Click here to open your Payza account to receive your online income***

Do Not Pick My Brain

This is one question I receive quite often from beginners - who are new to online income and in their learning mode still, eager to acquire clients for their skills and execute orders

Should we share samples of our work with prospects who ask for it?

I would like to ask the following first. Do you understand what these mean?

Intellectual Property

Content Exclusivity

 Non-Disclosure Agreement

If you don’t, please google

And one final question – Do you have client approval to share the work they paid for? It is definitely not your property, after you sold it (Think of any three dimensional product to get the point)

That is precisely my point. Enough said.

Then how do we handle this question from clients?

I do business plans, pitch decks, learning modules, content strategy, storyboard, web content or whatever.

Someday I even plan to expand my services and do the following from the comfort of my home

Bid management: Create multi million dollars proposal. Why not?

Stakeholders Management: Handle 18 to 20 stakeholders of a company  -Pricing, Technology, Operations, Transition, Applications, Risk office, Training, Human resource, recruitment, leadership, solution expert, external consultant and this list is really long to create that winning proposal. I had a win ratio of 25% and a conversion ratio of 45% in my corporate career - Seriously, why not?

Now the point is, once I am done, do I share sample of this proposal and toss it around to prospects for similar orders? It is not about ethics or legal implications anymore - It is not about common sense either. It is just - You. I consider it blasphemy

Here is a solution:

Please provide paid sample which means let them pay you for a sample of your work. Do a dummy project for them and let them keep it. If they do not like it, do a quick gap analysis based on their review and feedback, do your mathematics if you can accommodate those revisions in the same quote  - I would recommend you do because it is not about just an order, it is about your learning, and building a fruitful business relationship.

Getting quotes and samples to test the market is not new. It has been there since sliced bread.

I also see a trend now where a few buyers probably ask samples because they cannot afford you however they need your thoughts so that they can get a cheaper version of it from someone else. 

The fact is, I would be more than glad to share a sample if the content (Say, a business plan) was pertaining to my own business and not a client's. Because I know, any one can read the plan, imitate the plan, capture the same headings however cannot meet the objectives of the plan unless the line of research is based on the same thinking as mine. 

Here is a conversation with one of my prospects

Style and approach? Yeah right

Here is my response:

Now can you guess if this prospect ever returned and ordered from me? Why would he? It was just a futile attempt to pick stuff from my brain. All samples are just that - a give away of your thinking horizon. 

Now it is your call how you want handle this question in future.

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