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The 5 Questions Most Small Business Owners Ask About Branding
As a small business owner, you are no doubt bombarded by emails and ads promising you something like a “Bigger, Better Brand in Seconds.” When you opt in, they then attempt to sell you a consultation where they will help you choose your colors and design a logo.
As a personal project, we began to talk to dozens of these “professionals” and we realized we were always left with a queasy feeling in our stomachs. That’s because none of them went deep when asking us about our business. Once they found out that we were business coaches, they all went to “business coaches need to look like ……” What was AMAZING to us is that none of them picked up on the WE’RE A TEAM aspect of our business. We know that is important because for years, we have been using the benefit that clients get two sets of eyes and two brains as something that sets us apart from solo coaches.
To make sure it wasn’t just about the coaching industry, we each began to book other calls and used some of our clients as the answer to ‘so what do you do?’ We became a financial planner, a non-profit, a retail store and other service businesses. It turns out, it had nothing to do with our being a small business coach. They all went right for the graphic image.
Let’s take a look at the 5 questions we get most often from our prospects and new clients as we create their brand.
What is my brand?
The most clear way we can define this is: Your brand is what your customers say about you when you are not in the room.
It is the image they carry of you in their mind. When you read the word McDonalds, what do you think of? When you read the word Mercedes Benz, what do you think of?
This can also be an industry-wide brand. For example, what do you think of when I mention hypnotherapy? Or used car lots? Or high-end restaurant?
What are the first steps to define my brand?
We’re going to need to know your story. Another way to think of this are the answers to these questions: ‘Why does our company exist? Who do we help? How do we do it? What is the driving force behind our company?’
An easy way to answer this question is “What problems do we help our customers solve?” Here is the best tip I can give you here: Your prospects will run away from pain faster than they will run toward pleasure.
What this means for you is that you can say “We help professionals retire faster and easier” or you can say “We help
professionals avoid working hard for 30 years and having nothing to show for it.” See the difference?
Here’s another example: As business coaches, we tell two stories. First is that we are the EASY BUTTON when it comes to systems to make all your marketing easier. We can also tell you that by holding your hand through the difficult marketing decisions, they will become easier. I prefer the Easy Button image, but prospects RESPOND more to the hand holding, which is great because it’s something that most coaches don’t do.
For those of you who love the most esoteric way to ask this question is “What is your hero’s journey that got you where you are?”
How do I choose my company colors and a logo?
There’s a lot of information out there that has to do with the psychology of color combinations and how it effects the human brain in purchasing decisions. Is it all true? Some of it, probably (he said half rolling his eyes). But let me ask you a question: If there was ONE combination that worked more than any other in a SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT…. Wouldn’t all major companies figure this out and switch?
Here’s my biggest tip: You have to live with your logo and your colors, you better love them.
When I design a logo for a client, I first show them their corporate name in many typefaces in black and white. I want their feelings to start before we add any color or symbols.
Then I show them the ‘winners’ in a few colors, after asking them what color pallet they love.
Then we add the visuals.
This has been the process for hundreds of logos over the decades and it is RARE that we have to do a major re-do for many years.
How do I share this with my prospects? Another way to look at this question is “What is your voice?” You share your voice using a lot of marketing tactics. Here is a small, basic list:
1. The blog on your website.
2. The videos you use to support that blog and as stand-alone promotional pieces.
3. The ads you run in various places.
4. Press releases you send out to announce things happening in your business.
5. Each time you speak in public. That could be at networking events (elevator pitches) or webinars.
Your brand will become an integral part of your marketing.
How will I know that my brand is ‘working?’
The short answer: Test what you are doing with different messaging to different parts of your list.
The longer, more detailed answer: You must remember that your brand is what your customer thinks of when she reads your company name. The first way to see if your brand is resonating with your prospects is to look at your new customers after you begin to share your brand-enhanced messaging with the world.
When we run our Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamps, we will look at the registered attendees, cyber stalk them and figure out what their collective challenges are going to be. We also ASK them prior to the event what they are hoping to learn. Based on the answers, we can then change the content of the bootcamp to address their perceived needs. A way you can do this without following our bootcamp model is to survey your clients and, if possible, prospects who don’t buy from you as well.
When you begin to see your client base change to be the type of clients you most want to serve, you will know your brand is resonating with your prospects. If not, then you have to change your outgoing messaging or tell your story in a different way.
Finally…
When it comes to branding your small business, we know that this is a “fuzzy how to do it” challenge. To assist you in getting
focused faster, we would like to offer you a Free Marketing Consultation.
We’ll discuss where you are in your business right now - where you’d like to go - and how you might get there much more quickly without getting sucked into the vortex of conflicted advice floating around in the world and in your head. There’s nothing to buy on this diagnostic call. No gimmicks and no nonsense. That website to schedule your call is
www.HowToGetThereFaster.com
