Building a Successful Freelancing Career Twitter Chat with Roxana Nasoi @roxanasoi #VCBuzz

Post on by VC Bee

twchat-roxanaViral Content Buzz helps you build your personal brand, therefore we are always interested in featuring people who invest in themselves! Today we are learning from a prominent freelancer, Roxana Nasoi @roxanasoi

***Please sign in here to follow the chat -> twchat.com/hashtag/vcbuzz

***Important: Join this event on Google Plus to be notified of upcoming chats (It’s easier with daytime savings and different time zones!)

About Roxana

Roxana is @Elance ambassador in Bucharest, Romania, digital marketing strategist, statistics consultant and BA in psychology.

Roxana Nasoi is founder at SERPlified.

She maintaining a freelance diary on Facebook. That’s a very interesting way to utilize tools Facebook is giving to us! Please follow!

Questions we discussed

Q1 How and when did you become a freelancer? Please tell us your story!

I am stubborn and ambitious (dad’s influence). Growing up with Diabetes I learned I must only do what makes me feel good.

For me, freelancing goes a long way back. I made my first money in 4th grade. Elementary: went to all paid chess tournaments, won 90% of ‘em. High school: worked w/ local radio & school paper).

I started online freelancing in college, 2008. I was into design at first, then fell in love w/ copywriting. I tried all freelancing platforms, but settled for @elance and @odesk mostly. I built my 1st company in 2010, working with clients from US & Canada. In 2012 I launched a 2nd company in Content Marketing.

Q2 How do you find clients and gigs?

At first, I found them on freelance platforms, then forums (warrior, digital point & more). Also by writing case studies on blogs and sharing them with business leads (on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).

How you build business leads? By attending networking events – my experience here

The thing when you under promise and over deliver is you get recommendations. The ball starts running. So BIG advice: be nice to your 1st clients. You never know who they become.

Working remotely with over 100clients in the past 7 years allowed me to organize my time. get out of your comfort zone.

Evergreen articles still bring in business. Here’s one “evergreen”.

You need to have real gut: take a look around you, pick a niche, offer a free website audit / a-1hr consultation. Email. Skype calls. Phone numbers of clients. Don’t delete them. They’re re-targeting material. Oh, and have good jokes. Nothing is better than doing business with a smile. ? Win their hearts, win their budgets.

Q3 How do you build personal brand online? Please share your favorite tip!

It’s built in time. An ongoing process. You gotta use your 6th-sense, be active on a couple of platforms & groups. E.g., I created my personal Twitter account in 2009, my personal FB in 2008. Didn’t use them til 2013.

Tip1: I did a lot of offline networking with bloggers, freelancers, entrepreneurs to connect to other “onliners”.

It’s lonely working remote. Beer tastes better face 2 face.

Tip2: a personal brand comes down to the 1-on-1 relationship. Give people the book, they’ll take what they want from it.

If you’re not afraid of being in the spotlight, accept cover stories, TV and radio interviews, print & online magazine interview. They help you get the message out there. And you learn to respect journalists more.

Speaking of that, cover story “freelancer with a CEO salary” for top business magazine in Romania, 2013.

Important: Don’t forget to be human yourself. It’s not all about the money.

Network online and offline to get the 1st-hand experience of pitching your brand and services.

Q4 What are your favorite tools you use on a regular basis (time management, social media, any!)

Team & Project management tools: Glip – @TeamGlip; Trello @trello; Bitrix24 @bitrix24

A list of Pluses & Minuses of Tools I use is also available here

I love to reviews my favorite tools. Special thanks to @DanielHonigman for this Q&A on @g2crowd

Social Media Tools: I’m a simple person (reason why I have WindowsPhone and minimum of apps). I use @hootsuite, @klout – but honestly, whenever I have time, I’d rather publish manually. In the past, I have also used @IFTTT, @Buffer, @TweetDeck. Right now I focus on analytics and data. Always hungry for stats!

BTW Promising new tool for community and marketing pr is @grytics – for FB and LinkedIn groups & pages.

Time management tool: I just exposed Owly to the world . Works for business and cooking too haha!

 

The idea – you don’t need too many tools, just the ones that work. Like a cup of coffee: espresso does the trick

Q5 You are doing a million of things: services, tango, traveling to name just a few! Please share your productivity tips! How not to get distracted when you are your own boss?

First, all my devices must be in sync. Windows monster laptop, Windows Tablet, Windows Phone. I keep a notebook with positive things that happened throughout the day. In case my mind goes negative .I apply a lot of meditation and mindfulness principles in my line of work. Business = clear mind, clear focus

Also having a balance between being analytical and creative (right-left hemisphere) helps. If smth is too stressful, I take a break and talk to family or get drinks with a friend. You can’t work 24/7. Every 1hr take a 5min break. ?

Workout. Hang out with people. Friends can remind you why you love so much what you do for a living.

Tip: diversify your line of work. Nothing is more unproductive than boring work. Also, get help, to ease the workload

Book a Read :). Here are my collections for personal development and leadership.

Take a dancing lession. I love tango and salsa, keeps me in high spirits. To laugh about it, here’s a peak to my freelance lifestyle in 2014.

And the best advice I could give to someone, be it 25, 50 or even 90 years old.

Extra: I have a small collection of freelancer stories written by myself&others on @medium. Medium works great with social media active accounts and pages/groups.

My only advice is just start writing. Like it were your own blog.

Biggest challenges: Finding the right client. I advise you start with small clients and move to bigger ones. The bigger the client, the bigger the challenge & responsibility.

Don’t promise if you can’t deliver. But also, don’t just deliver what you’ve been doing for ages. Diversity is good. For e.g., every year I pick a startup and help them, free of charge. They recommend me and I get business eventually. Plant a seed!

Previous chats with freelance writers to learn from:

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