Karan is an MBA in Marketing graduate, who decided to start freelancing as a digital marketer post leaving his corporate job. Having exposure to working in different brand campaigns, and meeting various CEOs and influencers further sparked his interest in the field of digital marketing.
According to him, the pandemic resulted in giving more growth opportunities to freelancers. He uses social media to learn, connect, engage and generate leads as a freelancer. As a freelancer, he highlights the importance of choosing a niche and personal branding. For him, having consistency and keeping yourself updated is necessary as a digital marketer.
Maintaining honesty and building trust in all his work relationships, Karan always seeks to understand the perspective of the other person too. Content with this life, yet he yearns to learn more as he moves ahead in the path. He believes that his mistakes have helped him improve a lot. Aiming to build his personal brand one day, we wish him success for the future. Read Karan’s exciting journey:
Question 1
Introduce yourself to us? Where are you from? About your family, parents? How was your childhood?
I am Karan Saddar and I was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra. I am an MBA graduate specializing in marketing. My father is a (rted) Naval Officer, my mother is a house-wife, and my brother is a Product Manager.
My childhood was like roller coaster rides, shifting from one city to another city in 6 months and experiencing life in several different places. Getting admission into the top colleges top participate in many Brand Campaigns, it has been a fair ride and I look forward to riding this roller coaster.
Question 2
- I have chosen the field of digital marketing because of my passion for learning new things and experimenting and implementing with different tools to grow in the digital platform. Also, wish to teach people about digital marketing and the different ways to grow in it without spending too much money on advertisements.
- I always wanted to help startups to grow digitally to generate 10x growth sales with less cost through different marketing strategies with the understanding the customer behaviour.
Interest in marketing came when I started pursuing an MBA in marketing, along with my internships. When I started working with my first company, a marketing agency, for 3 years in client servicing I got a chance to work with big and start-up brands such as Citibank, Deutsche bank, Sugarbox, BRICS, Zee Entertainment, Byju’s, Times of India etc. My interest in the field of marketing sparkled while handling different brand campaigns, online and offline marketing and meeting Influencers and Ceo. The experiences of 6 years of working with brands such as Enkaptivate Events, Weddingz.in and OYO Rooms, further ignited my interest.
Question 3
Why did you choose to freelance? When did you begin to freelance? Were you planning it, or how did it happen?
For me, Freelancing is still a side hustle because I always think that I can do more to give value to other clients with different strategies.
Well, I started freelancing after leaving my first company because I am into a field which I always wanted to pursue and experiment with. Also, during the pandemic, people had more faith in the work from home system. Their belief in the gig system is increasing, which is a conducive situation for the growth of freelancers.
Question 4
How do you use social media to your strength to build an effective network and generate sales leads?
Basically, I use social media platforms to build good online visibility and to connect with fellow marketers. Interacting with influencers and CEO helps to learn and circulate content. This also helps to generate inbound leads and give knowledge to my connections.
Question 5
Throw some light on the importance of choosing niches and working on personal branding for freelancers.
The importance of choosing niches is very important. If you love that particular niche, you would want to do it for a long time.
Personal branding for freelancers is becoming very important nowadays. You should know how to establish yourself as an expert, and how you draw clients to you. By branding yourself as an individual, you add a whole new layer of trust to your interactions with clients.
Question 6
As a freelancer, how are your services priced? What are the key strategies for you?
It depends upon the requirement. I consider various factors before coming up with a price, like time, the scope of the project, etc.
Question 7
What according to you are the most essential skills that anyone interested in this area of work should develop? Mention, if any recommended tools or resources for new freelancers/content marketers to use.
The most essential skills that anyone interested in this area of work should develop are:
- Consistency
- Keeping yourself updated
- Never fearing to test/experiment new things
Whether you are a content writer or digital marketer – the tool I would recommend using is ‘happyscribe’. This tool will give you lots of content regarding your niche.
Question 8
What is the one major pro and/or con of freelancing, according to you?
A major pro of freelancing is you can experiment with lots of things while maintaining a work-life balance.
A major con of freelancing is that we frequently have to follow up for payments with clients. Another disadvantage is that at times clients give some work urgently at the wrong time.
Question 9
What is the one thing about clients that you dislike? What can they do to improve your work life?
I don’t dislike anything as such. I cannot generalize anything here; it depends upon the client.
Honesty and trust are the foundation of every relationship. It should be from both sides to improve each other’s work life.
Question 10
What mission and vision do you have? How do you want history to look at you?
My mission is to establish my personal brand and share content that will add value to others.
Question 11
Do you feel content with yourself as you look back or do you think you have missed something?
Yes, I feel content with myself. However, I do want to achieve more in life. When I look back, I don’t have any regrets because I feel that the mistakes I made have helped me to improve myself a lot.
Karan can be reached out on Refrens, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
For delivering quality work on time, having a good brief is necessary. To know more, read our blog on what an ideal brief should be like.
