Do you find yourself considering a rebrand? A few months prior to writing this, around the end of 2016, I decided to take a serious look at my brand and see what I was doing right, or wrong lol. I didn’t even realize that I had a brand until I started looking. The truth of the matter is,
“KNOWN OR UNKNOWN, WE ALL HAVE A BRAND.”Your brand is who you are, it is what you do and what you portray yourself as. You might not always be aware of it, but it is there. It could be the same as the company you work for, the company you run, or even by the things you do daily.
Ever since 2010, I had been building my personal brand and attempting to get my brand recognized somehow. My brand started out solely as a Lighting Engineer and then quickly obtained Sound Engineering as well. I started out working at Coastal Community. Over the next few years, my brand began taking on, even more, roles such as Graphic Design, Set Design, Tech Directing Photography, Cinematography, Post-Production, and Pre-Production. I felt pretty good about everything, but then in the year 2014, I got into Web Development pretty heavily, which also (because of my artistic backgrounds) forced me into requiring myself to take on and learn Web Design.
(that was me then: 2014)
I knew to get anywhere, I needed a website, so I built my first website. I was pretty happy with it at first, but after two years (which brings us back to 2016), I realized there was something wrong. I had not put any thought into the brand I didn’t really know that I was building. My brand was spread too thin and wasn’t helping me at all.
Once the year 2017 hit, I came to the conclusion that my brand was failing. It was too unorganized and it did not accomplish the things I needed it too. I began asking myself some questions.
(you can find a great list of 19 questions here)
Asking questions like these just made me realize even more that I needed to rebrand myself, so that’s where I began my Rebrand.
One of the first things I did was begin to cut out the work that I didn’t what to be known for or be doing in the future. Sometimes you might not always have that luxury, and you might just have to take those jobs, but try to stop.
The Next thing I did was begin to really take a look around at other people that are doing almost exactly what it is that I wanted to be doing. What are they doing that I am not, and why does it work?
Once you have found out some things that you can try, give it a shot. After I got a pretty good idea of what other successful people were doing, I began to implement some of the stuff that they had done, but with my own spin on it. The first thing that has made the biggest change, aside from not accepting work I don’t want, was redesigning my website, but with purpose. Across the board on my new website, you will pretty much only find my web design and web development work. I do not advertise the work that I don’t want to be known for like I used to do.
Make friends with people who do the same thing and collaborate. Do some work and get feedback from them. This has helped me increase my effectiveness in the areas that I do my work. You can even go to some local meetups, most industries have them. I have attended a few and has been a great learning experience.
Get on social media. Social media is a great place to build relationships with both potential clients and potential co-workers. If you are running your own business like I am doing, I would definitely suggest a facebook page and a twitter account. There is no need to bog yourself down with 10 different social accounts that you can barely manage on your own. I made the mistake of using too many different platforms before and let me tell you, it was not fun! Just stick to the big two for now and manage them well; it will work much better.
I think the last step and the most important step is to always keep the big picture in mind with every decision you have to make. Should you take that job? Should you advertise that piece of work? Does that design fit my brand? Diversity can be a good thing (sometimes), but if you keep thinking about your brand in every decision you are making, it will help you to stay on track and build the audience/client-base that you want, it will make you look more professional, it will keep you from getting side tracked with the wrong things.
These are the six big steps that I took to take me from where I was to where I am now. I have many more prospects, much more helpful communication with larger companies, and a lot more satisfaction with the work that I am doing.
(this is me now: 2017)
Recap:
(results may vary)
Should I be writing? That is a question that I have asked myself time and time again.
I have a problem. Whenever I start a project or whenever I am informed of one that people wish to bring me on board with, my addiction kicks in.
If you are a good web developer and you care about your users, you should have SSL on your website.
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