Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

3 Easy Steps To Stop Spinning Your Wheels With Your Brand And Start Making Sales

Do you ever feel like instead of moving forward with your brand and your business, you’re stuck you’re going around and around in circles with your confusing brand?

That your brand doesn’t communicate, doesn’t convert sales and is a bit of a mess?

What if I could show you how to easily get unstuck and create a brand that works? One that helps you get more clients, make sales and makes your business profitable. 

The first step in creating a brand that converts is to get clear. Without clarity, your brand is going to be confusing and too complex for your ideal clients to really understand what you offer. And, without clarity, your marketing and promotion – and, even just telling other people what you do - will be way too hard.

Let’s look at the first baby steps towards getting more clear:

1. What part of your brand are you unclear about? Your brand has several distinct parts: your message, your value, your differentiation, your personality and your service offering. Your brand also has to communicate clearly to your ideal client, so you have to know who they are and what they want. Which parts of your brand are you unclear about?
2. How is your lack of clarity showing up? Lack of clarity can show up in several ways: by being confusing, by saying too much and making your brand complex, by being too professional, by not choosing a specific ideal client to work with and by changing too often, so that your clients feel like they’re not sure what you’re doing. Which of these shows up in your unclear brand?
3. How can you start changing that? You’ve identified which part (or parts) of your brand you’re unclear about, and how your lack of clarity is showing up. Pay close attention to the areas you’ve identified, and notice as you see your lack of clarity come through in your marketing and conversations. As you go along, also note when you do feel clear in those areas – or when you’re having a chat with an ideal client and they are understanding you well. Use those improvements in your brand to make “baby steps” towards your clarity.

Even if you get 5% more clear in your brand, you’ll have made progress in the right direction… and you can keep using these tools to make more improvements and getting more clear as time goes on.

Do this "One Thing" For Website Success

If the next person who visited your website could only do one thing there, what would you want that thing to be?
Having one main thing for your visitor to do on your website is a powerful strategy that will help you get better results for whatever is most important on your website.

It's easier for you to do "One Thing" well. Trying to write copy, design a marketing strategy and create a business strategy around way too many things is a lot of work - and if you're doing too many things, you can't do any of them as well as they need to be done.

It's easier to get your visitor to do "One Thing". If you're offering one clear choice of what to do next, then your visitor can see what they're supposed to do, how to do it, and make just one decision - instead of deciding between too many things.

It's easier to get people to talk about  "One Thing". You want people to help you spread the word about what you're doing, right? Giving them one clear thing to talk about can help get the word out farther, faster and to make sure the message that's going out from all of the people who are talking about you is consistent and clear.

And, focusing on one thing doesn't mean that they'll only do  "One Thing" with you. It simply gives them a starting point. You can still offer many things, and serve people in many ways - but you just don't confuse or overwhelm them with that up-front.

Here's an assessment to see if your site is well designed to harness the power of "One Thing".

                How clear is your website that you want them to do that "One Thing"?

                Does that "One Thing" get lost in the shuffle of everything else you're talking about and offering?

                Can they do that "One Thing" from every page of your site?

                Is your offer for the "One Thing" compelling to your ideal client?

                Have you made your "One Thing" irresistible?

                Is the "One Thing" extremely obvious?

                Does the design around the "One Thing" make it stand out?

                Does the rest of the design on the page encourage the visitor's eye to move to your "One Thing"?

How easy do you make it for them to do that "One Thing"?

The 3 Kinds Of Confusing Brands And What To Do About Them

“What do you do?”

Such an innocent and curious question! And in the small business world, it’s where so many conversations go horribly wrong.

As the other person starts to answer, a funny thing happens. The conversation starts spinning out of control. Maybe they’re talking too much. Maybe they don’t really know how to answer. Or perhaps they decide, on the spot, to make up and “try out” a new reply they’ve never given before.

In any case, the person who asked the question in the first place goes from curious to confused, and starts looking, desperately, for the door.

Don’t be the business owner who’s confusing the nice, curious people you’re meeting. Here’s a handy guide to the 3 kinds of confusing brands and what to do about each one:

1. The “Talking Too Much” Brand

We’ve all seen this Confusing Brand in action.

When you meet the “Says Too Much” Brand Owner at a networking event, and innocently ask them, “What do you do”… you get back an entire novel!

They tell you all about the dozens of things they can do. Then they tell you their entire personal story. And their plans for the future. They just keep talking and talking!

And you’re wondering… what are they really trying to say? How can they be good at all the things they’re talking about? Are they just desperate for business? And… most importantly… how can I get OUT of this conversation?

You’re not engaged or interested in what they’re saying. They’re talking so much that you can’t even remember where they started. They’re making a terrible first impression. And you’re both wasting your time.

If you’re the “Talks Too Much” Entrepreneur, you need to focus your brand message down to what’s really important, unique and interesting for your ideal client. Be precise and extremely clear with your message. You need to learn how to say enough to create interest, hunger and desire… and then stop there! (I bet you never thought I’d tell you to stop talking about your brand!)

2. The “I Don’t Know” Brand

You’re unsure about what your business is all about, or what you stand for.

You don’t have a really clear picture of who you want to work with (really, you’d work with just about anyone who’d pay you!). You know you want great clients in your dream business but don’t know exactly what that means to you!

You don’t know what to do or say in your brand or your marketing. You spend a lot of time thinking about what to write or stressing about what to say.

You may spend a lot of time looking at other peoples’ marketing “just to get ideas” or modeling other peoples’ messages or programs instead of creating your own stuff and getting it out there.

You may even try to find a mentor to give you an idea – or even ask them to just tell you what to do. The problem with that is that then you’re running your business based on someone else’s vision, which you may not clearly understand, yourself – and your clients can see right through that. You’ll look fake and phony!

You need to figure out what’s really important and unique about what you do. You need to answer those questions for yourself and own it with confidence so that you can express what their business is all about.

3. The “Reinventing The Wheel” Brand

You’re constantly trying out different things in their brand. Reinventing the wheel.

This is the most exhausting kind of Confusing Brand to have.

You keep changing your message, your offerings, your services, and your title. You change their web site over and over again.

You’re reinventing the wheel because you aren’t deeply committed to what you’ve been doing. You don’t feel like you’ve found “your thing” yet.

You know that you’re supposed to be launching products and marketing things, and you need to make money… so you just keep making up new stuff as you go along.

You feel like nothing’s working. You keep trying so hard and not seeing results. People never seem to buy the stuff you put out there.

And you’re so tired from coming up with new stuff all the time! You’re a little burnt out and crispy around the edges.

To get clear, you need to make a commitment. To put your stake in the ground and claim your space. To choose one direction to go in, make a plan and stick with it for success.

If you confuse your clients or yourself when you try to answer the question, “What do you do?”, then you’ll have a harder time getting clients, doing your marketing and making money. Figure out what kind of Confused Brand you are today and start getting clear now!

What I learned about branding on my summer vacation

I went on a road trip with a friend recently, and even though I was “on vacation”, branding lessons kept jumping out at me. Here are the 3 most valuable lessons we learned about branding on our summer vacation:

1. The first lesson is about using your headshot in your marketing.

At Mount Rushmore, we overheard a little boy talking to his mom: “Those guys on the outside are on money. But who are the other two?”

Of course, he recognized Washington and Lincoln. Their faces are everywhere – and in his experience, they’re the ones on the money that he probably sees most often. More importantly, their faces are shown on the one- and five-dollar bills in a similar pose – so they’re recognizable.

Poor Jefferson and Roosevelt! He couldn’t recognize them because they appear most commonly in profile – on the nickel and dime. When he saw their full face, it didn’t look like the same guy. And, Jefferson does appear on the $2 bill – but that bill is pretty obscure. The kid hadn’t seen those often enough to be able to remember who Jefferson was.

The lesson here? Using a recognizable photo consistently in your brand makes you more memorable. And, being memorable is good for business! Make sure that you use your photo often in your brand, and that you choose a photo that looks like you do in real life!

 

2. Consistency and repetition stirs curiosity, creates familiarity, heightens suspense, strengthens hunger and desire and inspires loyalty.

And, this works even if the exact same thing isn’t repeated over and over again. For several hundred miles on Interstate 90, there are billboards making all sorts of claims, like:

• “Free Ice Water: Wall Drug”
• “Don’t Miss Out: Wall Drug”
• “Western Art Treasures: Wall Drug”
• “Dinosaurs! Wall Drug”
• “Homemade Donuts: Wall Drug”

I would say, “You get the picture”… but the truth is, you can’t. I could fill pages and pages with all of the messages from all of the billboards. There were literally hundreds of them, stretching over hundreds of miles. And every one repeated the simple phrase, “Wall Drug”.

This is what happened:

• After the first few billboards, we were curious. I got out my phone and Googled “Wall Drug” just to see what they were talking about.
• After a few more signs, we felt familiar with Wall Drug. After all, we’d seen about a dozen signs on top of Googling it. We were experts, and we liked feeling like we knew what the signs were all about.
• With every passing sign the suspense grew. We wondered… are we there yet? How much further?
• After a while, the signs awakened our hunger and desire (I’ll also admit that this was right around the time we started seeing the signs about the donuts). We found ourselves really wanting to go to Wall Drug.
• We went out of our way to go to Wall Drug. The signs had inspired our loyalty and we passed up opportunities to stop at more convenient places so that we could see what all the fuss was about!

Imagine if your brand could get all of those results from a bit of consistency and repetition! Best of all, consistency and repetition in your brand is easy – it just means that you have to use the same messages and designs that you’ve already created again and again. So there’s no new work for you.

 

3. Using whitespace makes you stand out, and makes your audience stop and really notice.

During our trip, the scenery was really quite green. Green corn. Green fields. Green forests.

Until we reached the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Suddenly, there was a whole lot of white out the window!

That white made the salt flats one of the most remarkable and stunning places we saw on our trip.They really stood out because they were so different from the green, green, green we had been seeing for days.

It made us stop the car and spend some time there relaxing and looking at the scenery – instead of just whizzing by, we really paid attention. Wouldn’t you like your audience to stop and spend more time paying attention to and noticing you?

See how you can incorporate more white space in your brand so that you won’t look like everyone else, trying to cram everything onto a page. It will make your designs look different from everyone else’s and make your clients stop and really look at what you have to offer!

Brand Planning Makes It . . . EASY! (Imagine That!)

How Creating Your Brand Plan Will Make You Proud, Part 3

• A brand plan makes developing your brand easy. You know exactly what your brand is all about, so you can talk and write about it with ease. Imagine - no more grueling copywriting sessions, because the words just flow from your brand plan.
  
  
• Your designs look amazing, because they were created according to your plan. They're effective, because they are brimming with the meaning and emotion behind your brand, and designed to show your ideal clients what you're all about.You get constant compliments on them and you're proud to have people see them!
  
  
• You have all of the pieces you need to market your business every step of the way. There's nothing worse than having an opportunity pass you by because you didn't have the marketing material to take advantage of it. With a brand plan, you get to look into the future of your business to figure out what you need, when you need it and what it will take to make it happen.
  
  
• Your designs get personalized rules and templates created just for your business that you use to create additional materials as your business grows and evolves. Every piece you design gets easier because you know what it's supposed to look like. And, since they all match, you get the power of repetition on your side - repeating similar designs throughout your brand will make you look like a serious business and will help your clients remember you.

Creating your brand plan will help you create an organized, professional, attractive brand that's easy to grow and that makes you proud to market with.

Brand Planning for Consistency and Cohesiveness

How Creating A Brand Plan Will Make You Proud, Part 2

 

Without a cohesive look and feel, and a consistent message, you don't really have a brand -- you have a bunch of stuff that you've wasted time and money designing, writing and putting together.

Consistency means that all of your materials look and sound alike. It means that you have the same logo on everything -- and if you have more than one logo in your company (for example, for different products) that those logos go together. It also means that your colors, fonts, background colors, texture, patterns, and photos all match from piece-to-piece.

That way, your website winds up looking like it's related to your business card. Your email newsletter resembles your PowerPoint template, and so on.

And your marketing messages are consistent -- what you say in your website sounds like the stuff you send out in your newsletter. Your tagline is the same across all of your materials.

This consistency creates a professional appearance, makes your business look established and gives your business credibility. When everything matches everything else, your clients can see that you're paying attention to the details in your brand. Everything looks classier, and you send the impression that you know what you're doing.

You set up all of the consistent elements of your brand in your brand plan -- and then all you have to do is refer back to the plan when you're creating new materials.

Brand Planning and Getting Clear

How Creating a Brand Will Make You Proud, Part 1

Does your brand ever feel like your stuff's all over the place? Do you have design shame, because you know your brand doesn't look good or make sense to the people reading it? Do you apologize for your business card as you hand it out? Are you horrified of what people would think of your website if they Googled you?

That's what it's like when your brand is chaotic and out of control. You feel scattered, ashamed and hesitant to market. Your potential clients see the train-wreck that is your brand and move on to work with someone else. Your business and your bottom line suffer.

There's a way to escape the chaos, and to create a classy brand that's well-thought-out, professional, and makes clients want to hire you.

All you have to do is make a brand plan. That will get you 3 big benefits: Clarity, Consistency and Ease. Let's talk about clarity in this article.

Clarity

Your brand sends a loud-and-clear message about you. Do you want that message to be "I'm not sure what I'm doing or how I can help you, but PLEASE hire me?" When you don't have clarity, that's the signal that you're sending out into the world.

And the world gets confused! People can't tell what you're talking about or if you're an expert. They don't feel like they can trust you to take on their very important project, so they don't hire you.

When you get clear and completely focused about your brand, you can create one central message for all of your designs and written materials. Everything can sing the same song, loud and clear.

You get the benefit of focusing everything in your business, so you don't feel scattered or "all over the place" - you know exactly what you're doing, how to talk about it and what you can do to serve your clients.

And your clients can see that. They love being told directly and exactly what you're all about... so they can easily make the decision to work with you and have the confidence that they've made the right decision.

This clarity is the first thing to create in your brand plan because all of the other parts of your brand will connect back to it.

 

A Contest! WIN A Ticket to Speak to Sell and my Profitable Brand Strategy Homestudy System!

Do you want to be seen and get huge visibilty?

Do you want to make a fabulous first impression?

Are You Ready To "Step Into The Spotlight"?

If you're ready to stop struggling and hiding, and to step out and rock it... then check this out.

I've got an extra ticket for my mentor, Lisa Sasevich's big "Speak to Sell" event in June. And I want to give it to you. I'm even bundling it with my homestudy program so that you can get your brand spotlight-ready, too!

 

Just visit this page to register
for your chance to win!

http://www.profitablebrandstrategy.com/spotlight

 

A VIP ticket to my mentor, Lisa Sasevich's "Speak To Sell" event in sunny San Diego, California! You'll learn how to put together your system and how to sell it from the stage!

"The Profitable Brand Strategy Homestudy System". You'll get really clear about your brand and make a plan to raise your visibilty and get clients and profits with your brand!

This package has a combined value of $1300!

The winner will be drawn on May 23!

Good luck and have a fabulous day!

 

 

 

Success Story

"I want to tell you that this woman is a genius! Not only does she have design skills, but she writes copy and she grasps the essence of your business and tells you more than you knew about it within 10 minutes. Not only did my investment in her pay off, it will change the trajectory of my business.

I booked a whole day with her, along with my business manager. She asked incisive questions, and got immediately to the truth of what my business is about. She is able to "talk in copywrite," as I call it. I frantically wrote down every word out of her mouth, and in looking at my notes, they are all gems. She created a triple launch schedule for me (alpha, beta and - gulp - actual launch), and helped my break it down into parts.

Now that Erin knows what my business is about, even better than I do I must add, she is going to create a whole look for my business -- everything from website to powerpoint to business cards! How good is that? This goes beyond branding -- this is copywriting, marketing strategy, planning, branding and graphic design. Wow. That's all I can say. I'm so relieved to be in Erin's hands.

Oh, one more thing, she took us to lunch at an unbelievably beautiful place with an outdoor terrace overlooking a cliff with a beautiful creek and a bridge. Here's a picture!"

--Gina Hiatt, Finish Agent

Harness the Depth of Power In Your Brand

There's a common misconception in the small business world that looks like this:

Brand = Logo

That's simply not the case--a brand is so much more! If you think your brand is the same thing as your logo, then you're missing out on your chance to harness most of your brand's power.

Here are the 5 powerful parts of your brand:

1. Brand Positioning I call this the foundation of your brand. This is where you get really clear on exactly what your business is all about and stake your claim. Your position is your chance to choose what you want your business to create. You get to declare who you are, what you do, what makes you different from the competition, who your ideal clients are and what impact you make on them.

Your position can even say what you aren't--you can say "unlike other business coaches, who are milking the same tired marketing approaches that you see everywhere, I focus on finding new, innovative ways that you can market and monetize your business and I make them easy, so that you can be ahead of the pack".

You need to create your brand position before you do anything else with your brand. When you have a strong brand position that's focused and clear, you'll be able to create the rest of your brand to express that. Everything in your brand will be consistently singing the same song, which is essential to creating a profitable brand.

2. Brand Identity This is where the logo fits in. A logo is a part of your brand, certainly--it's the face of your business. When you pair your logo with other visual elements of your brand like your color palette, website design, look and feel, your headshot, and other design elements, these make up your visual brand, which is also called your brand identity.

In your brand identity, you can communicate about your business and to show your style.

Your brand identity speaks to your ideal clients through symbolism, the meaning of colors, emotion in photos, and the overall "look and feel" of your designs.

3. Brand Message Every place where you're writing about your business is a part of your brand message. This is your business name, tagline, features and benefits, your expert title, and the text in your website and on all of your other marketing materials.

Your message is another opportunity to showcase your brand positioning.

To make the most of your message, use those "just-right" words. By using your words precisely and by picking interesting words with personality, you'll be able to communicate effectively and clearly with your clients.

4. Brand Strategy Your brand strategy is an intentional, step-by-step plan that lays out how you're going to use your brand message and brand identity to communicate your brand positioning to your ideal clients. What pieces, exactly, do you need to create? What will each communicate? How are you going to get them in front of your ideal clients? What's your plan to keep everything consistent?

Without a strategy, the other components of your brand are simply bits of stuff you've designed or created. The strategy is the part that helps you convert those "bits of marketing stuff" into paying clients.

5. Brand Experience This is the experience of doing business with your company. Are you pampering your clients with VIP service? Is your business about get-results accountability? Do you guide your clients through your process and teach them what you know, or do you just jump in and get things done for them so they don't have to worry about it?

From the time that your client first hears about you, while they're learning about you, to when they hire you, to the time when you're delivering your service, all the way through to your follow-up after you're creating an experience for them. What does your experience say about your brand?

The bottom line is, you have to think both deeper and beyond your logo when you create your brand. So plan your brand on all levels to communicate and you'll create a brand that's powerful and profitable!