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Stop being the best kept secret: How to actually build your personal brand as a contractor - Part 1

Let’s talk about personal branding…

8 days ago · Lucy | Women Who Contract

This week we are continuing with that theme of Personal Branding. So, grab your coffee and let’s f*cking go!

7. Get comfortable talking about your achievements

This is an important one, particularly if you find talking about yourself uncomfortable.

You might be brilliant at delivering work but less comfortable explaining what you’ve achieved. Perhaps you worry about sounding boastful, or you assume your clients already know the value you’ve added.

But people can’t always see the full picture.

They might know that you’ve delivered a project. They might not know that you brought a struggling team back on track, reduced a significant delivery risk, improved stakeholder engagement or helped an organisation navigate a difficult transition.

You don’t need to exaggerate your achievements. You need to explain them clearly.

Instead of saying:

I supported the delivery of a transformation programme.

Explain what you actually contributed, where possible using evidence:

I led stakeholder engagement across a transformation programme, helping teams understand the changes, prepare for implementation and address issues before they affected delivery.

Where you have measurable results, use them. Where you don’t, explain the practical difference your work made.

And watch out for language that unnecessarily diminishes your contribution.

There’s a difference between being thoughtful and constantly qualifying what you say. If you have relevant expertise, you don’t need to begin every recommendation with “I just think” or apologise before offering a professional opinion.

You can be confident without being arrogant. You can be clear without being aggressive.

Your job is not to convince everyone that you’re brilliant. It’s to give people enough evidence to understand the value you bring.

8. Commercial confidence: know your numbers and demonstrate your value

A strong personal brand should support your commercial confidence, too.

It’s one thing to be visible. It’s another to make sure that visibility translates into opportunities that work for your business.

Start with the basics. Know your day rate, understand your costs and be clear about the kind of contracts you want to take on.

Know what you need to earn, what your business needs to operate and what makes a contract commercially worthwhile for you.

Then think about how you communicate your value during conversations with clients and recruiters.

If the discussion is only about your day rate, you may be missing an opportunity to explain why your experience is relevant to the problem they’re trying to solve.

That doesn’t mean ignoring market rates or assuming every client will pay more because you have a good personal brand. It means being able to explain your contribution, demonstrate your experience and have an informed conversation about the value of the work.

And once you’ve secured the contract, don’t disappear into delivery mode.

One practical habit I recommend is sending a concise weekly update to the relevant stakeholders. Include what you’ve completed, what’s coming next, any risks or decisions that need attention, and progress against agreed outcomes.

This creates a useful record of your work and gives everyone a clearer picture of progress. It can also help you prepare for contract extensions or future conversations about your contribution.

For limited company contractors working through their own businesses, keeping clear records of work and maintaining appropriate contractual arrangements can form part of good business practice. However, weekly updates alone do not determine IR35 status. Tax status depends on the specific working arrangements and the relevant legal tests.

The wider point is simple: don’t leave your value to chance. Make your contribution visible throughout the contract, not just when you’re asking for an extension.

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9. Learn to use feedback without letting it define you

Building your reputation means putting yourself out there, and sometimes that means receiving feedback you don’t particularly want to hear.

Perhaps a client has criticised your work. Maybe a post doesn’t get the response you expected. Perhaps you put yourself forward for an opportunity and don’t get it.

It’s easy to take those experiences personally, especially when your business and your professional reputation are so closely connected to you.

But feedback is information. It isn’t automatically a verdict on your ability or your worth.

Take a moment to understand what has been said. Is there something useful you can learn? Is there a pattern you need to pay attention to? Is the feedback specific and supported by evidence, or does it reflect someone else’s expectations or preferences?

You don’t need to dismiss criticism, but you don’t need to accept every opinion as the truth, either.

Reflect, ask questions where appropriate, make changes if they’re needed and move forward.

The same applies to your personal brand. If something isn’t attracting the right opportunities, treat it as a reason to review your approach rather than proof that you shouldn’t be doing it.

Building confidence doesn’t mean never doubting yourself. It means learning how to respond when that doubt turns up.

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10. Review your personal brand as your career evolves

Your personal brand isn’t a one-off project.

As you gain experience, develop new skills, change specialisms or build a different kind of business, the way you describe yourself will need to evolve.

I’d recommend reviewing your brand every six to twelve months, or sooner if something significant changes in your career.

Look again at your vision, values, voice and visuals. Check that your LinkedIn profile, CV, website and professional introduction still reflect the work you want to do.

Review the opportunities you’ve attracted. Which projects have energised you? Which clients have been the right fit? What have people consistently valued about working with you?

And perhaps most importantly, ask yourself whether your current positioning is helping you move towards the future you want.

You don’t have to change everything. Sometimes a small shift in the way you explain your expertise can make a big difference to how people understand it.

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Your personal brand action plan

If all of this feels like a lot, don’t turn it into another enormous project on your to-do list.

Start small.

This week, do these five things:

Write down three things clients or colleagues consistently come to you for.
Complete the sentence: “I help [audience] solve [problem] by bringing [skills or approach].”
Review your LinkedIn headline and About section. Do they communicate your value, or simply describe your career history?
Choose two channels where you can build your professional visibility without burning yourself out.
Identify one recent achievement and practise explaining the difference your work made.

You don’t need to do everything at once. The aim is to build a professional brand that reflects who you are, communicates what you offer and supports the kind of contracting business you want to run.

Stop being the best kept secret

Contracting gives us independence, flexibility and the opportunity to build careers around our skills and ambitions. But that independence also means taking responsibility for the commercial side of our work.

We can’t always rely on an employer to promote our achievements, define our career path or make sure the right people know what we do.

That’s our job now.

And no, that doesn’t mean becoming a full-time content creator, shouting about yourself on LinkedIn every day or pretending to be someone you’re not.

It means knowing your value, communicating it clearly and making it easier for the right people to recognise what you bring.

You can be excellent at what you do and still need to work on how you position yourself. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

So, here’s my question for you.

If someone recommended you for a contract tomorrow, would they know exactly what to say about you?

Would they know what you’re brilliant at, the problems you solve and why you’re the person to bring in?

If the answer is yes, brilliant. Keep building on that reputation.

If the answer is no, perhaps it’s time to stop being the best kept secret.

Your experience deserves to be seen. Your expertise deserves to be understood. And your business deserves the opportunity to grow.

Let’s make sure the right people know what you’re capable of.

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Until next week,

Lucy xo

P.S. Check out our event schedule here. Hope to see you online soon!

Stop being the best kept secret: How to…