When Will People Start Listening To You?

So, you’ve decided to transform your side hustle into a proper company. Congratulations! 

Most solo entrepreneurs choose to abandon freelancing and start a company in an effort to gain credibility. Indeed, if you’ve been struggling to get people to pay attention to you as a freelancer, you expect them to listen to what you have to say now that you’re an entrepreneur. 

In reality, what will happen at first is nothing. Seriously. Genuinely. The day you become the director of your first venture, absolutely nothing will change around you. Why does your voice as a director carry as little weight as a freelancer? Because your audience needs a gentle nudge to accept you as the new expert in the market.

It takes time to build a presence 

Even though you might have your full plan in mind, you have to accept that you are not quite there yet. It takes years to build a reliable and trustworthy presence. More importantly, it’s important to pace yourself as you grow your business. You can’t go from being nobody to becoming a successful venture overnight. Ultimately, wanting to get there too quickly is likely to rush decisions and strategies. In short, the key is to learn and understand what to act upon and when action is required.  

But you can start by making yourself findable 

However, as you plan your path to success, you can begin by establishing a solid base that will make your business easy to find. In the words of Ignite Digital, increasing your organic presence is a long-term strategy. In other words, there is a big difference between being indexed on search engines and appearing on top of the search. But dedicated competitive analysis and keyword strategies will make sure that your target audience can’t miss you. The sooner you get started with SEO, the sooner your efforts will pay off. As your organic presence improves, you will begin to notice a shift in the public opinion, when your name appears regularly in the top-ranking positions.

Being seen is just as important as being heard 

While SEO strategies focus on boosting your findability for the relevant keywords, expanding your professional profile visibility is about making sure that people in your niche audience can see you, EVEN IF they were not looking for you in the first place. LinkedIn is the ideal platform to showcase your skills and expertise. Indeed, the networking platform uses a profile strength meter that evaluates your discoverability. With only 51% of LinkedIn users presenting a complete profile, you can boost your chances to appear in display results.

If they don’t listen to you now, they will listen to others 

People are predictable. They tend to ignore names they don’t know to focus on the known faces. In other words, whether you’re the director of your solo company or a freelancer, you are, as far as your audience is concerned, still a nobody. Ouch. You can, however, create a buzz around your name by working with influencers and close advocates – such as suppliers, partners, or customers – to boost awareness.

When will people finally pay attention to your business? Ultimately, the when depends entirely on you. You need to understand that becoming an LTD doesn’t make you more noticeable. On the contrary, the sooner you build a memorable presence, the sooner you’ll be taken seriously by your audience.