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Making Freelancing Personal

What’s your online personality? Do people really get a good idea of who you are from your site, blog and interactions in the blogosphere? I don’t often have face to face meetings any more. I talk to most of my clients by email, IM or Skype. That has to be enough to give them the reassurance that I am a real and trustworthy person who knows what she’s talking about and who won’t run off with their money, leaving shoddy work behind.

When you can’t see people face to face, you have to work harder to let people see who you are. Most of us rely on visual and non-verbal cues for our assessment of people. When we don’t have those, we can be slightly lost. (In fact, I’m sure that’s what scammers rely on.)

Reassuring Clients

So how do you give your clients that added reassurance? There are many ways. One of the things that I do is have my picture on my about page. I also use a photo on many of the social networking and business networking sites. That means there’s a consistent image attached to my name, and anyone who searches for me will find it. (Of course, one of the photos doesn’t do me any favours, but I am gradually replacing that with a much better one. ) I chose the new photo because it was taken when I was happy and you can see a bit of life shining through.

Another way to reassure your clients is to make yourself available. Living in the tropics means that sometimes my internet connection is unreliable. I may be able to download email, but VOIP doesn’t always work as well as it should. Although I don’t publish my phone numbers everywhere, I give them to clients who want to contact me, and I’m prepared to contact them as well. I actually have two VOIP accounts, one with Skype and one with a British provider. I figure one of them will always be working and most of the time, I’m right.

Communication And Chit-Chat

I respond to email promptly, and try to lift my emails above the standard, dry, business fare. In other words, if I want a particular job, I try to put some passion into my bid or application. As I said, since I will never see these people face to face, I need to feel real to them. (Yes, I know I’m real, but do they?) It’s not a crime to inject the personal into an email. If you know someone has had a baby, you can express delight or commiserate over sleepless nights. After all, we’re all human. As long as this is only a small part of your communication, it helps to cement the relationship.

Promotion

My website is one of my key tools. Not just this one, but my professional site (still woefully underdeveloped under my blog troubles last month). That gives clients the facts and figures they need. They can see what I have done and what people have thought of my work. Add to that my profile on LinkedIn, where other professionals have recommended my work, and that adds up to a solid online presence that reassures most clients.

The more you do to promote yourself, the better it pays off. Just as we Google clients to see if they are trustworthy, they Google us, so why not Google yourself and see what you find? Remember that many of your interactions on blogs, forums and social sites are indexed, so make sure that you say things that you would be happy to have strangers see.

So does it work? Absolutely! Yesterday a friend described me as warm, friendly and dedicated. We’ve never met and have only chatted in comments on our blogs and Twitter. Yet he totally got me! And I think my clients do too.

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