Polishing Your Image

By polishing your image, I don’t mean cleaning the mirror so you can see yourself better in it.

I mean you should always try to make yourself look more appealing to buyers. Don’t make it seem like you are better than you really are, though. The key is to actually make yourself better and allow that improvement to show through when you’re interacting with people and working with them.

People in the States are especially bad about this. People of the younger generations are even worse about it. There’s this nasty misconception that people should like you for who you are. That you’re unique, special, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate you is just jealous.

Your Mother Was Lying to You

If you’re a blithering idiot with absolutely no ability in your chosen field, people won’t like you. You’re not special, you’re hardly unique, and the reason people don’t appreciate you is because you’re rubbing them the wrong way in ways you can’t even imagine.

The good news is that you can change that. It won’t be easy, but you should do it.

Being a buyer is a lot like holding the gun in a hostage situation (and we’ve all been there, haven’t we?). That last thing you want is for your hostages to start telling you their name and about their kids. It makes it much more difficult to off them when you’re trying to make the point that you have no intentions of playing around with the law enforcement officials.

In terms of freelancing, if you make yourself more human to the buyer, it will increase your chances of being noticed. That’s the whole reason you’re supposed to write custom cover letters for each job. It’s much easier to deny an application which appears to be submitted by a robot. If you submit a letter to a job which appears to be a cut-and-paste letter sent to everyone else, the buyer will move on to someone else. Working with a robot is a pain because they can’t make intelligent decisions, so you never want the buyer to view you in that manner. And believe me, they will view you that way if they see 30 other applicants with cut-and-paste cover letters.

Once you’ve made yourself appear to be an intelligent person on the other end of the text, you’ll be noticed. However, being noticed doesn’t mean that you’ll get the job. You need to always work on self-improvement. One of the major, cross-discipline skills you need to master is communication. If you’re a native English speaker, you should be able to write with correct grammar even if it’s simplistic. If English is a secondary language for you, the same applies if you’re working in an English-speaking market. It will impress any buyer if you can communicate with them effectively as it’s such a rare skill.

Take time to speak intelligently, professionally, and with great care. Don’t say the first thing that comes to mind when you’re speaking to them. Filter everything you say before you say it. These seem like obvious things to do, but it’s still very rare to actually see these principles in practice.

The same applies for your profile and everything else the buyer will see about you. Your portfolio, profiles on other freelancing sites, and anything else they can find with a quick web-search can affect your standing with a buyer. Run it through the filter and edit it until it is, as far as you know, perfect.

Now, you’re looking as good as you can. Time to improve yourself. By improving your skills in communication as well as your field, you are also giving yourself a chance to improve your profile. Research new technology, read trade journals, and practice your craft tirelessly to give yourself an edge.

Eventually, you will find that you are unique, you are special, and you will stand far above your competition as a leader. If you don’t put in more work than everyone else is willing to, you won’t get there, and your application will get sent to the slush-pile along with all of the others who can’t cut it.