Today we’re going to talk about branding and how to brand your business correctly. And by the end of the video you will know what not to do when it comes to branding your business. Stay tuned.
Hi, my name is Mike Mancini, small business owner, entrepreneur and coach. And if you like videos like this, do us a favor. Hit the subscribe button below and hit the little bell notification next to it. That’ll let you know when we release new videos each and every week.
So today we’re going to talk about how to start branding your business. Now a lot of people think branding their business is literally just a business card and letterhead, but that could be further from the truth.
Does Your Business Name Represent Your Business Correctly?
First thing is yes you have your business name but you want to make sure that your business name represents your business correctly. You need to also look a little bit into the future. Do you want your business name now, will that represent your company down the road?
So for example, if you have a t-shirt company and you are selling designer t-shirts, but then all of a sudden you get kind of maybe off the path or later on you feel like you might be selling pop culture t-shirts, you probably don’t want to have a designer t-shirt name.
The reason I bring that up is because I did it. I had actually a t-shirt company that I started with a partner and we were going to do designer type t-shirts, but it ended up shifting more into a pop culture t-shirt company. And the name never really left us and a lot of people were very confused by it.
Learning lesson 101, don’t name your company something where in the future it’s going to become something that’s completely the opposite. So make sure the company name is appropriate to what you want to do now as well as what you want to do in the future.
But I also want to give you a tip on naming your company. A lot of times people want to go with some very outlandish name or very a unique name, whatever it might be, and people look at Nike and Apple and they’ll always talk about those types of companies.
The problem is is when they named the Apple Computer Company Apple Computer, people had no idea what it was. It built into a brand. The same thing with Nike. The problem with the small business is you don’t have the kind of money to build those into a brand. You have to start early.
So if you get the idea where I’m just going to name this something absolutely unique, as long as it fits in some way or it has a good story behind it, that is one thing.
But if you’re naming it something quirky, just the name it that without a good explanation or without being able to explain to people why you did that, then it’s probably easier to go with something else. It gets thrown in my face all the time.
What about Nike? What about Apple? What about Ebay? Those are brands now that you know, but they’ve also spent tens or hundreds of millions of dollars getting you to know their brand. Yes, they had to start somewhere, but when you have money, you can start building your brand and explaining it to people.
Right now you want the business to explain itself.
Do You Have a Great Logo?
Number two, create a great logo. Make sure it’s perfect for the title of the business though. Make sure it’s clean, make sure it’s elegant if it needs to be. If it’s some sort of icon, make sure it has something to do with your business so it can help explain what your business is about.
Perfect example would be something like a handyman that has a wrench in their icon. Simple but clean, but you would understand exactly what it is per trying to portray. And if possible, you absolutely want that icon to grab attention, make it stand out, make it memorable.
Do You Have a Tagline?
Third, and I think this one’s the most important for those of you who maybe do have a little bit more obscure name or a type of business and this would be your tagline. Make sure your tagline is between three and seven words approximately and it tells people what your business is about.
Too many times I’ll see somebody, they have, let’s just say a service business. Maybe it’s a floor refinishing company and their tagline is something transform into tomorrow. Something that has absolutely nothing to do with the floor refinishing business.
But if you have a name that doesn’t explain it, make sure you explain it in your tagline and you should always explain what your business does in your tagline as well.
When people would ask me what we did with our digital marketing business, my answer was I made your phone ring. It was lead generation. That’s exactly what we did. We got people leads, we made their phone ring, enough said. I make your phone ring. Five words, very powerful stuff and explained exactly what we do.
Brand Management
Let’s talk about brand management. A lot of people believe brand management is just basically putting all of this stuff on letterheads and envelopes and notepads and pens and stuff like that. That is not true at all. Brand management is managing your brand of your company.
Meaning when people see it, what do they think and why? So one of the greatest things and the easiest things to do for brand management is make sure you have happy customers. Customers will always remember a good brand and a good company if they have an outstanding service.
If if one company just has literally 100 testimonials from happy customers, people remember that and they know that and they will use you because you have all of these happy customers. It’s called social proof. Social proof is a part of managing your brand.
Make sure you have happy customers. Make sure your company workers are happy. Make sure you are showing people you love what you do. You have passionate about it and it’s very important to you to make people happy.
Find Someone You Trust
The last thing I’m going to talk about when it comes to branding is find somebody that you trust, but somebody that’s not going to tell you yes to everything you say. What I mean by that is find somebody you trust, but who will also tell you exactly what they think.
Whether you’re right or whether you are wrong. The reason why I say that is if you run this a business name, you need to run it by somebody who will tell you exactly what they think. This is something you’ve been thinking about as a business owner.
Maybe you’ve had this business name in your head for awhile and you’re sold on it. You are 100% focused in and I’m in, I’m 100% and this is the best name ever. The problem is you might spend all this money and do all this stuff where you’re building business cards and websites and stuff like that. Then you show it to somebody and they’re like, I don’t get it.
For those of you who have never had that happen to you, I have. I had a company I was starting online and it was a neighborhood services company and I just combined the two, neighborhood services. And as embarrassing as it as this is, I call it Nervices.
And it just, it made sense in my head. But I told my wife who was not afraid to tell me if I’m wrong. She’s like, I don’t get it. That does not sound right. That sounds like some pharmaceutical company or something like that. And she was right and it made sense.
So always run it by somebody who’s going to tell you the honest truth about whether it’s good or whether it’s bad.
And then also do the same thing with your logo and your tagline. And if they don’t like it, ask them what they don’t like about it and ask them how you can make it better. But don’t just get one person’s opinion on it. Do it to several people.
But once again, they have to be people that will tell you exactly what they think. That is going to help you build the best brand possible. If you have a group of people, and the majority of those people say, or all of them, say that’s a great name, that’s a great tagline. I love your logo. That is how you’re going to start yourself building a great brand.
Don’t Spend All Your Money on Branding
But the last thing, and this is kind of a bonus tip that I want to give, is don’t spend all your money on your branding. I don’t know how many small business owners just start their business and the worst case one I saw was she was a small business owner and she got talking to somebody in graphic design and that person sold her on a $7,000 graphic design package.
And all she got out of it was business cards, letterheads and envelopes and that was it. They charged or something like $6,500 to design perfect logo and it was insane. She had no money left for marketing. She didn’t know how she was going to get business. She had no money left for a website.
That is what I’m talking about. Get a business card. You don’t have to have somebody design, spend $1,000 on the design. You can go to companies like 99 Designs. We’ll put a link down to them below. There are other places. Fivver is a great one.
You can get logo designs for $5, $10, $15. There are a number of places where you can get logo designs that aren’t going to cost you an arm and a leg. You can try them out and if they don’t work, then guess what? You haven’t spent a small fortune. So yes, branding is absolutely important when you start your small business. However, it’s not the most important thing.
The most important thing when you’re starting a small business is to make money as fast as you can in a logo is not going to do that. So remember that.
I know I’m flying in the face of all the branding experts out there, but when small businesses start up, they should be thinking about branding, but they should be more thinking about how are they going to get customers and make money. But then again, that’s just my take.
Let me know what you think about that in the comments below. Do you think it’s more important at the beginning of a business to get branding or to get customers and make money? And be honest. There’s no wrong answer here, but let us know in the comments below what you think.
And if you like videos just like this one, over on the right hand side you see a couple of other options on how you can either get started with your small business or how you can grow it and start to scale. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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