Thursday, November 28, 2019

How to Give Your Freelance Business the Right Name

How to Give Your Freelance Business the Right Name How to Give Your Freelance Business the Right Name Well, youre going to need a name but what name do you pick?Naming your geschftlicher umgang is one of the most critical steps in building your brand. Your name will be your first introduction to many qualifikation clients, and it has the potential to either draw them in or repel them.When it comes to finding the right name for your geschftlicher umgang, follow these tips.Get to Know Your BrandBefore naming your business, its paramount that you understand exactly what it is that you do. What are youselling, and who are youselling it to? This is whats known as a value proposition. Its essentially the promise of the valuethat your brand will deliver.A good value proposition should include- What you do.- How you do it.- What makes you different from competitors.- Anunderstanding of customer needs and wants.- How your business addresses these needs and wants.But a value proposition is not a slogan, like Apples Think Different orLOrals Because Youre Worth It. Rather, a value proposition dives much deeper. A couple examples include-Kissmetrics Kissmetrics gives you the insights you need to optimize your marketing.-SoundCloudHear the worlds sounds. Explore trending music and audio.Both of these examplesdeliver complete clarity about their offerings. They communicate specific results to their audienceand are immediately understood.So, your first step in naming your business is to write a value proposition that it as effective as the examples given above.Which Words Describe Your Brand?Once you understand what it is that youre selling, you can now look at the words associated with your services.Start by making a list of all the loose wordsthat come to mind when youre reading/writing your value proposition. Use a thesaurus and expand on these words. Can any of them be grouped into a theme?Use keyword tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Keyword Spy, or Wordtracker. Th ink about how your customers will search for your services. If youre offering freelance graphic design services, customers wouldnt search for art and design digital services, would they?Customers will usually search for the most simplified version of your keywords, so make sure you target theseterms to help your listing climb the ranks on Google and other search engines.When using Googles Keyword Planner, if you search for a simple term like graphic design,a list of keyword suggestions comes upYou can see how broad these terms are.The volume of besucherzahlen each of these search-terms get is phenomenal, leaving your business with an immense amount of competition. The best step to take is to research each service you offer using a keyword tool, and choose the keywords that will help you rise above the competition.Combine Your Keywords Into PhrasesOnce you have a selection of words and you have grouped them into themes, you can start combining these into key phrases.This is less crit ical to the actual act of naming your brand, but its a fantastic way tounderstand how someone may describe your freelance business. Imagine youre introducing your services to a prospective client. How would you describe what you do? How would you expect your audiences to describe your business?If you run a design service, people could associate you with anything from packaging, to interiors, to illustrations, to print, to websites, and so on.Start to group exactly what your business will offer, and then group the keywords that are associated with each service. For example, if you plan to offer packaging design as a service, you see that in order to target your audience effectively, you need to include the relevant terms to describe your serviceOnce you understand how people will talk about your business, you can then pinpoint the exact words to use when naming your business.Choose Your Domain NameUnfortunately, with hundreds of new sites cropping up each day, its becoming harder to find an original domain. But that doesnt mean youll end up having to choose a clunky domain like www.bensmithfreelancegraphicslondon.com or what have you.Some good tips for choosing a great domain nameKeep it as simple and specific to your business as possible.Use the most relevant keywords youve selected in your research.Try to avoid using numbers or hyphens.Be memorableIf youre targeting a local area, try to include this in your domain as well. For example, Creative Works London has chosen to use the term London in its domain name tohighlight that the company focuses specifically on the London area creativeworkslondon.org.ukBe sure to only register your website as a .com and avoid things like.net or .org. If you go with a .com, youllcome up better in search engines, giving your freelance brand the best chance of survival.-And there you have it the steps to selecting the right freelance business name. While we focused specifically on freelance businesses in this post, you can use a very similar process when naming any kind of business. Online presence matters for every organization these days, no matter its line of work

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Youre Qualified, But Do They Like You

Youre Qualified, But Do They Like YouDo They Like You?Youre Qualified, But Do They Like YouEmotions make up the fabric of all relationships theyre woven through every human interaction, including hiring. The job seekers emotional journey is well known anticipation, disappointment, trepidation, uncertainty, elation but have you ever considered the highs and lows that interviewers undergo during the hiring dance? Yes, interviewers experience their own stresses and anxieties. And the most qualified candidate is never the one they hire. Rather, the candidate who gets the offer is the one who makes the strongest emotional connection with the interviewers.With more than 20 years in the hiring game, Ive witnessed thousands of interviewing cycles. Although a hiring process might start with a specific, written job description that spells out exactly what qualifications the ideal candidate should have, there is no perfect candidate. The final hiring decision is filled with the emotions, illu sions, and opinions of the interviewing team.Interviewers are EmotionalHiring managers and interviewers experience a range of increased emotions as the hiring process unfolds from writing the job description and reading resumes to conducting phone screens, interviewing face-to-face, and finally, delivering job offers. Their assignment is to find a qualified candidate who can not only do the job, but be accepted by and complement the people already in place.At the root of these emotions is the fact that hiring the best applicants is part of the interviewers and hiring managers job, and theyll be judged on how well they do it. If the company hires you based on their recommendation, and you turn out to be a badeanstalt employee, it reflects poorly on them. So as an applicant, part of what you need to convey is that you will make them look good.They Have to Like You Job applicants often feel theyre competing with a perfectly qualified ghost candidate. Rest assured, this perfect candidat e does not exist. Even the job description is not analytical its simply a best guess of what qualifications a person should have to do a particular job well. It might have been written by an HR person who doesnt understand the job. It might have been written five years ago. It may or may not reflect the reality of the job today.Companies perpetuate the illusion of the perfect applicant by rejecting candidates with phrases like, We found a stronger candidate for this position. When you dont get the offer, despite excellent qualifications, the truth is that the interviewers chose someone they like better. That doesnt mean youre inherently less likable than the person they hired it just means they established a better rapport with the other candidate. (Ill write about techniques for building rapport in another post.)The mistake most applicants make is assuming the interview process is logical and analytical. In reality, its filled with the emotions of every individual you interact with along the way. Encourage the interviewers to like you by building rapport with each of them. If they do like you, youve got more than a ghost of a mglichkeit of getting the job.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

These are the top reasons people waste their money

These are the top reasons people welcheste their moneyThese are the top reasons people waste their moneyUbers, stuff you didnt need from Amazon, overpriced drinks, bank fees from withdrawing your cash at the wrong ATMs, takeout convenience isnt that convenient when youre wondering why your bank balance is hovering around $68.The Ascent by The Motley Fool surveyed 1,015 people about their wasteful spending habits and found that 95% of respondents felt that people in the U.S. threw away more money than they should.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreThe top 10 behaviors fruchtwein widely considered a waste of money werePaying excessive or unnecessary fees (76%)Paying excessive or unnecessary interest (73%)Impulse buying (71%)Redundant or repeat purchases (68%)Failing to return unneeded items (66%)Using unnecessary energy (like electricity or gas) (62%)Buying luxury or status goods (6 2%)Overpaying for digital services (59%)Purchasing name-brand when generic is just as good (59%)Not comparison-shopping or seeking out discounts (58%)Two-thirds of those surveyed admitted that they had wasted a considerable amount of financial resources in their lifetime. Those also estimated they inadvertently wasted $139 a month. The average cost of their largest wasteful purchase was $521 (hello, designer sweater on sale)However, while 79% believe they waste more than they should, they believe theyre more or less the norm. Only 15% believe they waste more than average.However, its a treacherous consumer market out there, full of marketing that turns us into beings driven by desire (59%) over logic (41%), distracted by sales and limited time offers and tricked into thinking a purchase will make us feel happier in the short run. In reality, respondents said, their wasteful buying made them feel more stressed in the long run. Over half of those surveyed said they had suffered negati ve consequences due to wasteful spending, and 87% have made an impulse purchase they regret.There is a third pathRespondents said theyd do positive things with their money if they wasted less of it, such as stress out less about finances (63%), save more for retirement (61%), and abflug investing or invest more (57%).Respondents could agree on one thing good financial habits were much less wasteful. Such as paying all bill on time, limiting debt, saving, tracking spending, budgeting, and looking over bills and statements for accuracy. Mindful spenders spend less and spend it on the right things maybe even a few that contribute to happiness.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people