What did it take you to become an entrepreneur? Did you always know that you wanted to work for yourself? Or did you start your career in the big company? No matter how you started, your passion for entrepreneurship and believe in your idea and business will bring you to success.
This conclusion I made today after visiting the Day of the Freelancer (De Dag van de ZZP’er) #dvdzzp
This is the yearly event the Netherlands, that brings together entrepreneurs and freelancers to network, attend informational seminars and practical workshops, inspire and get inspired.
The day started with the official opening by the municipality Amersfoort (Willem-Jan Stegeman) and the warm welcome of the presenter Annic van Wonderen.
I think it was a great choice to ask Annic to be a presenter of the event, because she is not only a person on stage who is responsible for interaction, engagement and connection. She is well-known to entrepreneurs from her business inspiration platform www.annicvw.com where she shares knowledge how start-ups and freelances can bring their business to a new level.
For me it was very exciting to see Annic in person, after years of reading her blogs and watching vlogs.
At 13:00 the informational program started, where visitors could choose from 4 different auditoriums with different keynotes, seminars and workshops. It was difficult to choose. Sometimes I wanted to be at two places at the same time. I will tell you what I have seen and learnt.
The presentation of Marcel Molenaar, Country Manager Benelux of LinkedIn was very timely, considering the recent redesign of LinkedIn interface. I personally think that now LinkedIn website became easier to navigate and the design is much cleaner and nicer. But there were people in the audience who wanted to go back to the old interface. Marcel Molenaar replied to that that it is in human nature: people say that they like changes but when it comes to changes they do not like it. 🙂 Anyways, there were many useful tips how to set up LinkedIn Profile, what new features were introduces and how now you can find prospects and generate leads on LinkedIn. I will write a separate blog post about it next week.
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I had a chance to ask the Benelux Country Manager of LinkedIn a question about my business. As you know, at 26 Deco I create exclusive wall décor items – photo frames with words or names spelled out with photographs of famous architecture. You can see the examples of my work here.
So I was wondering if posting about art, photography and home interior would be relevant for LinkedIn since it is a networking platform for professionals. And I was very happy to hear that information about my art creations can also be interesting for LinkedIn contacts. They also have birthdays, weddings, houses they want to decorate with style.
The only thing we all should remember while posting on LinkedIN – never be pushy about the sales. Share valuable content, useful information and your personal experiences. People who like it will also become interested in your product or service.
The main Giveaway from LinkedIn presentation:
Make sure you fill out Summary section of your LinkedIn profile. Choose what information is the most important one and place it at the top of the summary. Then someone is looking at your profile, the About Section will be collapsed. Only the top two lines will be visible. Make sure that your write there something that will trigger people to open your About Me Section and Read further.
Just like at the page of a Personal branding & Linkedin Trainer Anke Koster. The first two lines tell the most important details about what she does and how she can help.
And off course I would not miss the presentation of Stephanie Aukes from Supastar-pr, how to get free publicity. The most interesting fact that she shared that stroke me – newspapers, magazines and journalists are constantly looking for interesting stories. They need something to write about everyday. Make a nice story about your business and any media would be willing to talk about you.
The other interesting keynote was by David Beckett “How to Build a Scalable One-Man Business”. He talked about different software and apps that can make the life of an entrepreneur easier and work more efficient. Most of all I liked the tip about Gumroad.
Gumroad is a platform that enables creators to sell products directly to consumers. As opposite to Amazon or iTunes it lets you take control of your business and keep the contact details and emails of your customers.
At the end of the day there was an announcement of the winners of Freelancer of the year in different categories – FOTY Awards. The Freelancer of the Year 2017 became presenter and actor Boris Lange.
Some time ago we shared his creative YouTube video Showing IKEA print to Art experts.
This video has been watched 2,839,442 times and it was nice to see it once again during the event. Good timing for April Fool’s Day 🙂
Have you visited the Day of the Freelancer in Amersfoort on April 1, 2017? What did you like about it? Share with us in the comments below.