Muthoni Njoroge, CEO Bolds Creatives, a personal Branding Agency in Kenya. Photo/courtesy.
Freelancing is taking root in Kenya where young people are going out of the normal 9-5 jobs to do remote work and gigs. One such freelancers is Ms Muthoni Njoroge, who build a personal branding agency from freelancing
Muthoni was born in Kiambu and raised in Nairobi. She says her mother is her biggest inspiration since she saw her go back to school when she was in primary school. Muthoni understood that, to succeed, one has to go an extra mile in the work.
“My mom went back to college when I was in primary school. She was juggling going to school and taking care of me. I learnt that it’s important to put everything in order each time as my mother used to because that way, she was able to go from a lower rank in her job to a higher one,” Muthoni says.
The 24-year-old entrepreneur completed Form Four in 2018 and joined NIBS Technical College to pursue journalism. After graduation in 2022, she got a job in a call center where she was calling and receiving calls from clients. Unknown to her, was that her health would take a toll on her job when she developed hearing problems and persistent headaches. She went to the hospital where the doctor broke bad news to her. The doctor told her that if she continues working at the call center, she is likely to lose her hearing.
“After graduating I got a job in a call center {in Nairobi} which I did for four months. During this time I started feeling unwell. I was feeling a lot of pain in my ears the whole day. I went to the hospital where I was told if I wanted to keep my hearing, I had to stop working on a call or move to a different department. That really broke my heart,” Muthoni recalls.
She left the call center in November 2022 with no hope in sight for another job. All she had in mind was social media management, but she had no idea how to go about it. Luckily, she came across an NGO called Generation Kenya which helps youths to get jobs by equipping them with soft skills like communication and branding. She jumped into the opportunity without hesitation. Coupled with her urge to be a personal branding expert, Muthoni capitalized on the opportunity and learnt skills that later proved vital in her career.
“I joined Generation Kenya for eight weeks training and started learning how to manage clients, communicate effectively and to do social media optimization. I had always been intrigued with LinkedIn ever since I opened an account with it. I always wanted to manage people’s accounts. Because of that, I took an initiative to optimize the LinkedIn accounts of 50 of my classmates,” she says.
The turning point
Muthoni dropped out after six weeks having learnt vital skills. Also having to commute from Mwihoko to Kangemi was costly for her since she had no job. However, the skills she had amassed were enough to jump start her career.
She began managing LinkedIn profiles of her friends and her former colleagues for free for six weeks. She says this gave her the much needed experience and after six weeks some of the clients whom she was assisting to manage their LinkedIn accounts began paying her, setting her career off on a good footing.
“I put up six weeks to do pro bono work. I reached out to my friends and former colleagues and requested to optimize their profiles. I learnt how to create posts not for myself but for my clients also and learnt how to communicate effectively. After six weeks I started concentrating on paid clients because those pro bono clients brought me paying clients and some of them started paying me as well. From there I realize I can now make money out of it,” she says.
Few months down the line, Muthoni began getting more and more clients to the extent of acquiring more than five clients a day. She says she has helped more than 500 clients in Kenya and abroad to optimize their profiles earning her substantial revenue.
“I have been able to work with more than 500 clients both locally and internationally. Last year I could close 5-15 clients per day. Currently I charge Sh25,000 to optimize LinkedIn profiles for locals and $500 for international clients. However, I focus on executives and leaders because for them, they are serious with their personal brands,” she notes.
How Muthoni Njoroge Founded Her Personal Branding Agency in Kenya
As her work gained traction, including requests from corporates, Muthoni understood that to gain more acceptance she had to incorporate her agency. She registered Bold Creatives Agency and hired three workers who work alongside her to serve both local and international clients. To her, building systems involves having people to execute some duties in the agency to ensure the work is done without having her doing everything. She also partnered with international personal branding experts who helped shape her career.
“When I started getting requests from corporates , I realized I needed to have an agency and I incorporated Bold Creatives Network. This has given my clients more confidence because they know that they are working with an agency,” says CEO Bold Creatives Network.
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Despite the challenges that comes with freelancing and later incorporation of an agency, Muthoni says she has learnt vital lessons including the need to upskill and learn new skills each time. She says she has leveraged LinkedIn learning, YouTube and other online courses to sharpen her skills. Additionally. She emphasizes that taking responsibility and being accountable to her clients has enabled her to enjoy the fruits of her work. She was named among the Top 10 LinkedIn Growth Expert Worldwide at No. 5 by Favikon in this year.
Muthoni says that she is planning to build her business to be the biggest personal branding agency in Kenya encompassing all social media platforms. She also believes that personal branding is becoming a big thing as technology continues to be part anparcel of people’s lives. To a beginner freelancer, she says one has to acquire necessary skills and to choose a niche to focus on, arguing that being a jack of all trades is a losing strategy.
Advice to up-and-coming freelancers
“First, you have to learn necessary skills for the niche you want to pursue. Don’t take university certification as gospel truth because you need more than that. Also attend a lot of networking events, for me networking has enabled me to grow exponentially. So ensure you market your expertise because that will give you credibility, recommendation and visibility because visibility is now becoming a currency,” she says in conclusion.
