Two weeks ago, I shared with you my insights from Day 1 of the Personal Branding Workshop that was held last November 7 at the Manulife office in Ortigas.
Today, I will share with you what we learned during Day 2 of the workshop. In workshops like this, it is not only the students who learn from me and the brand experts, but, in fact, we learn each other. And it has been the hallmark of every Freelance Blend workshop — (1) everyone goes home from the workshop taking at least one small thing with him or her that will have a tremendous impact in his or her freelance business and (2) a sense of community where everyone connects with one another not just as business connections but also lifelong friends.
Day 2 – [November 14, 2015]
Apart from my usual introduction of my own personal branding story, we also open with the participants sharing their own personal and business stories — a ritual similar to campfire bull sessions — which gives everyone in the room a background of who each person is and why he or she is attending the workshop.
Plan of A-T-T-A-C-K
I start my discussion with a recap of the previous week’s session and then dive deep into the how’s of personal branding. This is when I share my own branding hacks — productivity tips on how to build an engaging and powerful personal brand.
Then, I introduce my Plan of A-T-T-A-C-K, an acronym for:
A – Adapt to the market
T – Think different
T – Turbocharge your network
A – Audit and augment your online presence
C – Choose your audience and your niche
K – Kickstart your Personal Brand
Afterwhich, I guide the group into creating their one-page business plan using the Branding Canvas method, which is based on the Lean Canvas used by startups. This exercise allows the participants to map out their own business plan in a quick, strategic and efficient way without the use of too many words that you see in a typical, old school business plan.
Brand Experts
In running a freelance business, it is important to get feedback from other people, especially since we usually work alone and the only feedback mechanism that we use are our own guts.
What better way to receive constructive criticism than to get it from people who have gone through the same experience before and who have succeeded in their own respective fields. So we were happy to bring back our Brand Experts: Ginger Arboleda — a serial entrepreneur, pro-blogger and founder of ManilaWorkshops.com, Makoy Pare a.k.a Showbiz Bro of Machong Chismisan Podcast and Magic 89.9, and Nikki Tiu – professional make up artist and blogger at AskMeWhats.com — to help coach and mentor our participants.
As in the previous workshops, this portion of the workshop has been the most impactful as all participants were able to share with us and present their respective Branding Canvases in front of the group. The experts were then able to breakdown and give their own assessment of each canvas. It was truly an eye-opening experience for the participants, especially those who never received any type of comment or evaluation about their business idea other than their own.
To conclude the workshop, the brand experts selected Don Velasco, triathlete and multi-sport performance coach at Flying Don V as the winner of the “Most Promising Brand of the Workshop”. You can check out his website at www.flyingdonv.com. He also won a copy of my book, Cyberpreneur Philippines – Online Business Start-up Guide.
Results
One of the best things that I experience after the workshop is seeing at least one student take action. I was surprised to find this Facebook post from Pido Cristobal, wedding photographer and attendee of Day 1 and Day 2. I was surprised because Pido was a quiet guy all throughout the workshops. Little did I know that he was in fact absorbing all the information we were sharing and then took instant action right after the workshop. Kudos to you, Pido!
Free Coaching from Marv de Leon
Are you struggling to grow your freelance business? Maybe you need to get quick, expert coaching from Marv de Leon?
Then why not join our Free Group Coaching Webinar on December 8 (Tuesday), 8pm – 10pm.
We will also have social media expert and Marv’s co-author of the Cyberpreneur Philippines book, Bryden Elizan and personal finance expert, Allan Ngo of TrulyRichClubBlog.org in the webinar to help you with any of your business concerns.
To register, please click the registration button below or go to: www.freelanceblend.com/freegcw2
Thanks and see you at the webinar.