Guest post by Lori Baer, a freelance writer who crafts marketing and corporate communications copy as well as feature articles. Her work appears at www.lbaer.com along with free resources designed to help individuals boost their writing skills.

Running your own business, like jogging, is an individual sport. No one else laces the jogger’s sneakers and no one else carries their butt to the top of that hill.

Just the same, many women business owners have no marketing department to sell their services for them, and no new business development team working to take their business to the top. Marketing falls solely on the individual—a fact that should be empowering regardless of how steep the climb.

Marketing is all about promoting your brand, and in a one-woman operation the brand is you. By charting a clear course with strategic planning—like the big brand boys do—the individual freelancer’s ability to define and control their brand with precision affords a race advantage most large companies only theorize about in conference rooms.

Absent marketing departments, committees, boards, bosses, and apathetic employees, your brand can be shaped and molded, scrutinized and honed with ongoing planning until your brand essence is as obvious as the North Star—shining clearly in your mind to help navigate your every business move and twinkling brightly for all prospects to notice and admire.

Consider the following currents that inform my everyday marketing practices that might also help you keep pace as you stride toward the top.

• Trust your own inner guidance. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, writes, “Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission.” If having trouble believing in your dreams of business success, read Cameron’s book.

• Create a vision. Define those dreams and hopes for your business and literally write down and sort out your goals, aspirations, and the ideal direction for your business to take.

• Know your target market. Continually research, seek to better understand, and segment your target audience with discipline. Doing so will help you frame your marketing messages with relevance, attract the clients you want, and save time and money by avoiding prospects and activities misaligned with your vision.

• Write well. Because words send verbal and non-verbal messages, your marketing copy must be strong and clean if “competence” is the non-verbal message you wish to send; basic errors in language or facts instead say “incompetence” and “poor attention to detail.”

• Stay persistent. The journey is as important as the finish line. Day by day, put one foot in front of the other and maintain pursuit of your vision.

• Be professional. Remember that you are a business woman first and an expert second. Establish business hours, be available for clients, meet deadlines, follow through on promises, and be polished whenever presenting yourself.

• Be genuine. Living your brand offers a level of transparency that clients can trust and also makes marketing yourself feel natural. Kimberly Wilson, founder of Tranquil Space and author of Hip Tranquil Chick, offers some basic tips on living your brand.

• Network, network, network. Like a former colleague always said:  “You’ve got to circulate to percolate.” Step out of your home office and network.