How To Know When Your Small Business Needs A Brandover!

Folks, some of these are light-hearted but –bottom line— important for you and the success of your small business (personal branders listen up, you can learn something here too)!!

How To Know It’s Time For a Brandover:

2. You have forgotten your company’s logo or have forgotten why your logo looks the way it does (i.e., what it’s supposed to represent).  Worse, you never had a logo in the first place. 

Logos are important for many obvious reasons (i.e., differentiation in a crowded marketplace is but one) … As a research psychologist and long-time marketer, I can tell you that one of the most important things a logo does is to change the way you and your customers actually think!  Logos have power!  Use it!

3. Someone asks you what your company does and you can’t answer them in one single, energizing sentence –or worse!— at all.

Don’t even get me started on this one!!  This is a dead giveaway that you need a brandover!  When you know who you are and what you’re doing (your brand!), you will have the answer at your fingertips.  But when you just think you know who you are, but others don’t seem to “get” it –well, there’s a problem.

Having the right answer means that everything that you and your company does is working to a common goal.  If no one’s asked you yet –then ask yourself right now before they do!  If you have problems building that sentence, then start with identifiers like the work that you do (i.e., “construction”) and the quality that makes your work stand out or that you really believe in (i.e., “always on budget” or “always cheerful”).

4. Help!  The Competition is coming!

Even if you think you’ve got your brand down and doing everything right, the appearance of fresh competitors on your company’s horizon is a great time to re-examine your brand and do some polishing.  Some brands might have suffered from out-smarting themselves, but few brands have suffered from solid self-appraisal and fine-tuning!  If you have done your homework and your brand is imprinted in your customers, relax grasshopper, even if your customers stray, they will return and will be more loyal to you than before!

5. Where Are My Customers Going!

Losing customers long term is usually a good sign that your brand is shaky.  What is it that you aren’t communicating about your brand that you need to?  Problem is your customers won’t always tell you –hey, it’s simple human psychology … most people don’t like conflict they just walk away.  So, just like your branding work on yourself, you’ll need to ask them!  There are ways of doing this, but I’ll get to that in a later post.

6. You Don’t Think Your Company Is (Or Needs To Be) A Brand!

Wow!  As we say in Brooklyn: I don’t want to hear it!  Truth is that every company and for that matter every person is a brand.  Deciding not to acknowledge your company’s “brandness” is a huge mistake. Even the deli on the corner has a brand – it’s close by, it has the best cold cuts or that great tasting Mac salad. 

Ignoring your “brandness” is like driving a car at night in a fog at top speed with the lights out and ignoring your “carness.”  Fuggedaboutit!!!  The car can’t stop being a car and your brand can’t stop being a brand.  Folks, whether you like it or not, you’re the one driving your brand!!!

Embracing your brand is essential for success.  It’s the exclamation: “Yes, we do this!  Yes, we are this!” instead of the big, struggling questionmark: “Who are we?  What do we do exactly?” 

TODAY’S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY –

Branding is your flu shot for the competition!  Ask yourself one question: What is my business’ brand?