We were lucky to catch up with Sonia Moroni Duru recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sonia, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

Around branding! My approach to branding is pretty different and unique

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Sonia. I run a dual creative business: web & brand design agency, and I am a personal brand mentor too. My goal is to infuse the YOU-ness into your brand and website so that people will naturally gravitate toward your business.

I have always been interested in the online world, but everything changed when I started traveling around the world. I got sick of finding jobs everywhere I’d go, and I was craving a job that could travel with me.

My first online deep dive involved travel blogging and influencing, but things were able to move much quicker once I started to look into OSP (online service provider).

In January 2020 I started working as a virtual assistant and social media manager – I had lots of previous experience as I was running my own socials, but the work didn’t light me up. Thanks to a client that asked me if I could help her design a website, I got started into web design and I was hooked!

I quickly realized that I needed a strong brand in order to create a powerful website, and I started to dip my toes into the branding world. One more time, I was hooked. But now, more than ever.

I saw in branding the perfect ground to blend some of my favorite topics: personal development and business growth.

I researched, studied, and experimented with branding until I realized what I have is a gift, and I truly shine when I guide my clients in doing the necessary inner work in order to build a strong brand.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started my business back in January 2020 and I called myself a VA and SMM. I had just finished 3 months of hard work on a farm in South Australia, and I was determined not to go back to another regular job.

Finding clients wasn’t that hard, as I was already managing my socials, but I found out petty soon that it wasn’t my line of work. One VA client asked me if I could help her design her new website, and I was immediately hooked!!

Soon after, I realized I needed to have a strong brand in place in order to create a powerful website, and that’s how I got started with branding.

Branding was the perfect place to blend 2 of my dearest interests: personal development and business growth. I believe the passion for those 2 topics is what truly enabled me to put all of my efforts into my business.

The first milestone of this wonderful experience happened 6 months down the road when I was able to fully support my partner during our travels around Australia. I was making enough to live the life of my dreams and that meant so much to me. It was a big realization and I learned that yes: I was cut for this.

At the end of 2020, something in me started to shift. I had dedicated the entire 2020 to trying out all possible methods and I was so determined in making this machine work. I started to lean more toward the agency business model, and I hired 3 team members. My assistant, my designer/developer, and my graphic designer. A huge moment for me because I was finally able to step back and focus on what I found out I was liking the most: brand strategy.

The entire 2021 was focused on building my business in a way that didn’t require me to be that involved all the time. And the more I was delegating, the more I realized how important the strategies were for me.

I went back to my why, to the personal development + business growth part, and realized that the brand strategies I was having with my clients were encompassing all of that. Went even deeper and realized that, although I was loving doing brands and websites for my clients, I was playing small.

So finally, at the end of 2021, I started to shift my content and approach from DFY (done for you) to DWY (done with you). I was transitioning toward my role as personal brand mentor. Soon after, in early 2022 I launched my first ever branding group program, blending personal development & business growth.

Following my why and getting back to it over and over truly changed the game for me.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The one thing that really helped me in building my reputation and the authority was not being afraid of giving my everything. Not being afraid at all, really.

I was determined in making things work and to go full-time with my business, so I never hold back.

Especially in the beginning, I was learning so much about the industry and the work I wanted to do. So documenting my journey and treating my audience as a real friends I could talk to was very helpful too.

When working with paid clients, they already knew I was prepared to go all in and to make the best job possible, because I was already giving so much value for free on my stories, blog or IG lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wildlycreating.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildlycreating/