Category: Branding

Article Contributed By Jeff Beals

“Had a very long day today. Got into an argument with my boss and a client. All I want to do is drink a glass of wine and take it easy, but I have to do laundry tonight. Arrrgh!”

This is the text of a post I once read on a friend’s Facebook page. She was clearly frustrated after a tough day at the office.

There’s nothing earth-shattering about this post and certainly nothing unusual. We all have periodic days we would rather forget. It’s common to come home from work tired out, feeling sick to your stomach, knowing you have important work to take care of at home.

That said, the Facebook post above does nothing to build my friend’s personal brand, and worse yet, it probably harms it. In the branding game, we need to paint a picture, cast a vision of ourselves as interesting, fascinating and anything but ordinary. We should never lie when we make a post on the social media, but don’t focus on the mundane. Focus on those things that will make people want to know more about you, wish they were like you and want to go out of their way to work with you. Be special. Be fascinating. Be intriguing.

The Internet is the greatest marketplace ever invented, because it is available worldwide 24-hours a day, is so vast that every imaginable product or service is available, has low barriers to entry and is comprised of billions of prospective customers.

The Internet is also the worst marketplace ever invented, because it is available worldwide 24-hours a day, is so vast that every imaginable product or service is available, has low barriers to entry and is comprised of billions of prospective customers. It’s too loud and crowded, making it hard to be noticed.

While the Internet (and the social media that are a part of it) provides us with historically unprecedented access, it also provides us with unprecedented clutter. It is easy and challenging at the same time. It has the potential of bringing riches but is filled with land mines. You can’t afford to take missteps.

That’s why savvy professionals carefully manage their online brands just as they manage how their personal brands appear everywhere else. Below are a few pieces of advice to keep in mind as you promote your personal brand online and take advantage of the countless benefits that come from the world’s greatest AND worst marketplace.

It’s a Game of Fundamentals – Regardless of the medium used, your personal branding must be of value and stand on its own merit. In other words, nobody is impressed just because you have a presence online. People are impressed if your presence is interesting, fresh and provides value to them. When determining what you’ll write or say online, think back to your area of self-marketing expertise, the part of your professional self that is most interesting to other people. That’s what you talk about when you make posts on the social media.

The Invisible Man or Woman – I will periodically receive a call from a stranger, who says, “Jeff, I’d like to meet with you, get to know you and pick your brain. Do you have time for lunch next week?” As soon as I hang up, the first thing I do is Google that person. I want to know who I’m dealing with and what he or she is all about. This may not be fair, but if nothing or very little pops up after I Google someone, I’m unimpressed. My assumption is that they don’t have much going on; they’re not involved in their profession or community.

It’s safe to assume people are Googling you too. When that happens, you MUST have a presence. A number of positive things about you should show up in their search results. To be safe, I recommend you Google your own name at least once a month. Also check Bing, Yahoo and other search engines just to make sure you cover all the bases.

If you are not satisfied with your search results, start building a better online presence now. Deliberately build a “Google trail” that people can follow to get to you:

• 1. Maximize social media. Postings, links and photographs show up in many searches.
• 2. Become a blogger. Write interesting articles about your area of self-marketing expertise. You can also comment on others’ blogs.
• 3. Once you have a blog, submit your articles to the countless websites that publish articles written by a wide variety of people. Just make sure your writing is of high quality.
• 4. Tell everyone about each of your new blog articles via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
• 5. Shoot short but interesting videos related to your area of self-marketing expertise and make them available on YouTube.
• 6. Post messages using your real name on discussion forums that relate to your profession. Just make sure the forums are legitimate.
• 7. Write reviews of products and services on various websites using your real name.
• 8. Develop your own personal website, where you post articles, photos and information about yourself in a flattering way.
• 9. If you are an officer in an organization, or if you sit on a board of directors, see if the organization will include your name, bio and photo on its website.
• 10. Start a regular podcast.

Live Socially – The social media are such an important part of online branding, they deserve their own section:

• 1. Develop a nice list of friends, connections and followers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Don’t just invite people willy-nilly. Make sure you know them or have had a professional interaction with them.
• 2. Participate in LinkedIn discussion groups
• 3. Ask and answer questions on LinkedIn. This has generated powerful results for many professionals.
• 4. Keep your profile information up to date especially on LinkedIn and include all your accomplishments. In a lot of ways, a LinkedIn profile is akin to your resume or professional bio.
• 5. Don’t just tweet. Re-tweet the tweets of other Twitter tweeters.

Avoid the Gotcha’s – A few words of caution are in order:

• 1. Don’t succumb to the temptation and do anything online that would undo the hard work you put into building your personal brand.
• 2. Never slander or libel someone else.
• 3. You may want to disconnect from or de-friend anyone whose online behavior is unbecoming or unprofessional.
• 4. Carefully manage how you are depicted in photographs. Keep in mind that undesired photos of you may appear in someone else’s social media.
• 5. If you want to participate in non-professional discussion forums, consider using an alias or a pseudonym.

In conclusion, remember that your Internet presence is to you what a big advertisement in the yellow pages was for large companies 20 years ago. If you’re not easy to find, you might as well not exist. But just don’t put yourself out there for the sake of “existing.” Manage your online brand and carefully control your online presence. Be interesting and relevant, while always remembering that the most effective messages you can deliver are the ones that bring value to your readers, listeners and viewers.

About the Author

Jeff Beals is an award-winning author, who helps professionals do more business and have a greater impact on the world through effective sales, marketing and personal branding techniques. As a professional speaker, he delivers energetic and humorous keynote speeches and workshops to audiences worldwide. You can learn more and follow his “Business Motivation Blog” at JeffBeals.com.

Article Contributed by Erin Ferree

Do you ever feel like your brand’s a little bit chilly? Like it’s too professional or boring? Or you’re distant… not as cozied up and close with your clients as you’d like to be?

Why not warm it up a bit? Warmth in your brand can make it seem more alive, open, passionate, and even both interesting and interested. The warmth is a sign that your small business is run by a real person and that you care about your clients.

A warm brand also does a lot for your client relationships. Warmth will create a better connection with your clients, make nervous, shy or hesitant clients feel welcome and at home buying from you, encourage engagement and conversation around your brand, foster goodwill and up your likeability factor. It can also increase your client attraction significantly, because people are attracted to warmth and openness – instead of feeling shut out in the cold.

In this season of open houses, holiday parties and rekindling relationships… you can learn a lot about warming up your brand from the parties you go to. The best holiday parties create a natural, easy “warm and fuzzy” feeling in everyone’s hearts.

Here are a few ways that you can create that feeling in your brand for your clients:

• Focus on how you want your clients to feel. Parties create an emotional experience – they create happiness, celebration, closeness or even reflection. Instead of trying to tell your clients just what’s happening, or how it happens… use words and images in your brand to evoke a specific feeling.
• Design your brand to create conversation. Whether or not there’s great conversation at your party depends on a few factors: lighting, music, whether you have games or dancing, and how comfortable your guests are talking to each other. If you want to create conversation in your brand, design opportunities to start and encourage conversation. To make this happen: ask questions. Create open-line teleconferences. Hold a “fireside chat” where the focus is more on talking and less on teaching. Introduce and connect your clients to each other to create community.
• Bite-sized nibbles (of information) are the way to go. Unless you’re at a sit-down dinner party, maneuvering with a plate full of food can be tough – and it’s even harder to enjoy what you’re eating. In your business, how are you filling your clients up with information instead of breaking things down for people so that they can enjoy it one bite at a time? It’s tempting to show off all of your expertise and information, but that can make it harder for your clients to learn. One of the greatest ways you can serve your clients is by breaking things down and making it easy for them to learn, understand and use.
• Be upfront about what you expect your clients to do. When you’re invited to a party, it’s natural to ask, “what can I bring?” Clients want to know what they need to bring, too. For example, when I design a website, I let the client know what they’re expected to bring to the table – like website copy, website hosting, their headshot. I even provide a handy checklist so they can work through it and make sure they’re organized. How can you do the same in your business?
• Welcome a new client warmly in their first moments with you, and let them know what to expect. When you show up at a party, the host says hello, tells you where to put your coat, shows you around and makes sure you’ve got your first drink in-hand. How are you settling your clients – and even your subscribers – in? And how can you make that part of the experience better?

These are just a few of the lessons you can learn from a holiday party about warming your brand up. As you go to parties this season or reflect on those you’ve been to, what lessons do you see that you can implement now in your brand?

About the Author

Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up. She’s branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. Erin works with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and create an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity – instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery. Learn more at http://brandstyledesign.com

Article Contributed by Erin Ferree

Do you ever feel like your brand is out of alignment with your values system? Like you have to do things in your marketing that you wouldn’t want your mother or your mentor to see?
If you said “yes”, I’m curious: why is your brand icky?

Your brand is made up of the look, the feel and the experience of doing business with you.

Does it look like a mess? Is your design all over the place? Have you outgrown them and become more sophisticated and evolved?

Does it feel pushy or sleazy? Are you using tactics that you think you need to use to make sales? Do you find that when you market, you wind up feeling like a slimeball?

Is the experience in your brand one where your clients feel comfortable, cherished and welcomed? Do they understand what’s going on every step of the way with you, so that they know how to make the most of their time working with you? Or do they feel like you’re just trying to get them to buy, and then rushing through the deliverable so you can move on to the next client?

In any case, an icky brand is no fun. It’s gross and uncomfortable, for both you and your clients.

Join me in stamping out ickiness in branding.

Your brand should represent you with integrity and make you proud. Your marketing should make your precious, ideal clients feel special, honored and seen. And once you welcome new clients in, they should be made comfortable and really taken good care of – throughout the process of working with you.

What if you could move away from the icky energy of trying to “make” them click this, opt-in, buy from you, or rush through your service delivery, and create a brand you’re proud of and that your clients love?

Here’s 3 ideas for how you can create your ick-proof brand:

Brand from your values. There’s a lot of talk about creating a brand that “targets a niche” or “stands out”. While those are both things to consider, they’re certainly not the place to start from in your brand.

With standing out and branding for your clients, then you’re reaching outside of and shining the light on things outside yourself. Which are both important perspectives to consider in your brand, this leaves out the most important part of your brand of all – aligning your brand with your values.

Your values – what you think is right and what you think is wrong – show up in your brand in a lot of ways: They show up in your:

• Core positioning: What you and your brand stand for.
• Words and tone: How you speak about your beliefs and the level of passion and conviction you convey.
• Consistency: If you’re not in alignment with your values, your brand will be inconsistent and all over the place. Once you’re aligned, consistency becomes easy.
• Affiliations and recommendations: Are you promoting for profit or because the people you recommend will help your clients?
• And, really, everywhere and all throughout your brand.

Know that you’re not strapped into your brand’s look forever. If your brand’s look has gotten messy, your business has outgrown your brand, then never fear! You can always evolve and change your brand to make it look as good as possible, and to match the current level of sophistication in your brand.

There’s a common belief about branding – that when you design your brand, you’re stuck with it for life. There’s nothing that could be further from the truth.

In fact, here’s the thing… when you’re an evolving, growing, learning entrepreneur who’s always going deeper into how you serve your clients, I don’t think that it’s possible to design your brand at the beginning and then have it be relevant for the life of your business.

You’re learning, growing and changing. Your clients are becoming more sophisticated as they work with you. Your brand needs to grow and change with you as you evolve, and as they grow with you – to keep up with how awesome you’ve become.

Your charge is… to evolve and stretch it with care and in a way that keeps your clients comfortable.

Take excellent care of your clients after they buy. The emphasis in branding is on marketing and selling. This approach doesn’t take into account the most important part of your brand – the experience that your clients get with you after they buy your services.

There’s a statistic that 20% of your clients will make up 80% of your business. That’s a comfy place – where you’re serving a small, close-knit group so well. You can really transform them!

In order to make that magic ratio happen, you’ve got a responsibility to your clients – you’ve got to induce mutual comfy-ness. Make them feel welcome and secure, and like they know what’s going on throughout the process with you – so they can surrender their trust to you.

These 3 ideas will give you a solid, non-icky start to creating a brand that’s inviting and welcoming.
If you want to get your hands on 10 more ways to create an ick-proof brand that invites your clients in to work with you, head over to http://brandstyledesign.com to download a free party favor from me!

About the Author

Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She’s been told that her right-brain, left-brain combination of creativity and logic is hard to come by… and that it’s what small business owners need to be successful. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up.

She deeply enjoys working with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and look good doing it. Who want all of their branding and marketing to make sense and speak to their ideal clients. And who want an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity – instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery.

She’s branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. She’s been published in so many books and periodicals that she stopped counting. She’s shared stages with some awesome people – like Michele PW, Linda Hollander, Lisa Cherney, Sheri McConnell and Kelly O’neil.

In the rare moments when she’s not obsessing about branding or design, she can be found hugging her corgi-dog Stanley, going for long walks, cooking improvisationally, or throwing parties so her friends can enjoy them.

Article Contributed by Brandon Serna

When starting a new business, you’re going to find yourself working closely with advisors and consultants of all types.  There’s a lot of ground to cover, after all, and it’s important that you get things right the first time.  In the business world – particularly today – there’s seldom such a thing as a second chance.

For this reason – and others, as we’ll see below – it’s important to work directly with a good signage company as well.  A sign company can quickly become one of your most valuable allies as a small business owner, as they can guide you through the process of selecting not only the signs that you might want, but also the signs that you will need.

For example, do you know offhand what signage the Americans with Disabilities Act requires your business to have?  If not, make sure you work with somebody who does!  Regulations will vary according to the nature of your business, but you may need signs that warn of specific dangers, direct traffic, indicate parking areas, identify exits, identify handicap accessibility, include words in Braille and carry out various other tasks.  Do you really want to be responsible for that yourself?

Whatever kind of business you may be starting, signage of all kinds should be a prime concern.  It can attract customers, direct them to where they need to go, inform them of valuable selling points, help them to compare various products or services, keep them safe, keep them knowledgeable, and even keep them entertained, and those are just the most general applications.  What you decide to do specifically with your signage can help you to create and reinforce a “personality” for your business, and that’s going to be very important as you grow your brand.

You should have business signs that identify the name of your company and its purpose, services or products. If your company has its own building, those signs should be mounted outside, on the building itself or as near the building as possible. If your company shares a building with others, interior signs can identify your business location, and they should be used effectively in order to keep your customers from getting lost or, worse, finding one of your competitors instead!  Even in this case, an additional sign outside the building will attract more attention and may help gain new customers or clients, so be sure to take advantage of this if possible.

As far as the actual design of your signage goes, this is where a reputable signage company will be worth its weight in gold.  Colors and font sizes are important when designing signs, so you want to make sure you maximize their effectiveness and choose the most vivid, readable and exciting combinations available.   Certain colors go together better than others and have different effects, and some fonts on signs are easier to read than others. It is difficult to get all of this correct without a great deal of trial and experimentation, so hiring a professional sign company is nearly always the most cost-effective way to go.

Whatever you decide to do, it’s ultimately your responsibility to have the signs that you need, so take signage seriously.  Do your research on local rules and regulations, as well as federal ones.  Work with a professional to maximize the effectiveness of your signage, and start projecting the image you desire.  There are customers out there who want to shop with you, so help them find you!

About the Author:

This article was written by Brandon Serna on behalf of FASTSIGNS, a company that specializes in business signs and other visual communications services.

 

Brand management is a process that helps your business produce long-lasting connections with your customers. Your brand is an establishment of how you would like people to feel about your business. A good brand provides a solid identity, which endears itself to your customers. By taking the time to adequately brand your business and providing excellent customer service, you will be able to enhance the growth of your business and increase your bottom line. The following are ten things to consider as you brand your business.

1. Distinguish yourself from the competition:

A unique brand identity will help you stand out in a crowded global marketplace. When you think of majorly successful companies and their products, you will notice they all have iconic branding.This is not a coincidence. Add high-level customer service and high-quality products or services, and your business will outshine the competition.

2. Marketing becomes more effective:

Your brand conveys the message of who you are and what your company is about. By establishing your brand and identity in the minds of your customers, marketing your business becomes much easier and more effective. Truly successful brands need no introduction.

3. Make your business more recognisable:

A good brand will stand out in the minds of customers. Psychological theories and ideas, such as Cognitive Fluency, state that the easier something comes to mind, such as your business name or the visual representation of your logo, the more likely a person will choose it. It is therefore very important to make your business more recognizable than your competition.

4. Creates business credibility:

Credibility is more important than whether or not you’ve been in business for a long time. If your business lacks professional credibility, customers will go elsewhere. Provide excellent service and well-managed brand will come to represent that service to establish your business credibility.

5. Helps create a connection with your customer:

Good products and services establish a connection with your customers. In fact, customers enjoy the feelings they get when they purchase or use a particular item that they love. Imagine a favourite pair of shoes or car manufacturer. Establishing your brand with your customers in this manner will evoke that type of connection.

6. Helps ensure loyalty:

A well-managed brand takes the connection that is created between the product and customer and ensures loyalty to the brand. How many times have you heard a person rave about a great product and how they absolutely love the company that makes it? This type of loyalty is established through excellent branding.

7. Conveys establishment and stability:

By staying the course with your brand and providing top-level customer service, your brand will help your business convey stability and the idea that it has been established for a long period of time.

8. Helps your business look larger:

A professionally executed brand identity and logo system provides a look and feel for your business that could make it look larger than it really is. If you have a poorly executed logo and brand, it will create the feeling that the business is small and less established.

9. Attracts more customers:

Having a good brand will naturally attract more customers. More importantly, a good brand will attract customers through word-of-mouth, which is one of the best forms of advertising and brand equity that a company can receive.

10. Creating something more memorable:

A quality brand will evoke good feelings in customers. In return, these feelings will be more memorable in the minds of your customers. This will ensure that they return to your business when they need more of your products or services.

With new technologies and the Internet providing a global face for your business, brand management is incredibly important. If you focus on developing your brand for the long-term, and bolster it with superb customer service and quality products or services, you’ll ensure growth and longevity for your business.