The trouble with the word “branding” for small business owners is that most don’t really know what it means. For most people, its about getting a logo, a website, some colours and fonts; and they feel intimidated by the big businesses whose “brands” seem to be out of reach.
And that’s exactly why most don’t ever think of themselves as “a brand” they consider themselves “just a small business”.
But if your business needs to sell things (and most do…) then the secret is that branding is just a really efficient way to sell things.
So what’s the difference between branding and selling?
When was the last time you bought something you didn’t really need? You hadn’t researched it online. You hadn’t been coveting it for months. And you hadn’t anticipated spending that money.
Selling is about being convinced to purchase something.
Maybe it was a top you just decided to try on in your lunch break. The shop assistant convinced you it looked great; but you got home only to discover that in normal light it made you look 3 sizes larger than you really are.
Perhaps a telemarketer rang to tell you about all the new leads you’d get if you just advertised on their website, and if you signed up today you could get 20% off.
Or you were watching TV when an infomercial came on and sold you dreams of a perfect body in only 3 easy instalments; but now your “body dreams” machine sits under your bed gathering dust.
That’s selling. And IMO it often leads to buyer regret….
Thankfully however, most of the time it actually works like this:
- We aren’t sold a car, we buy a Prius.
- We aren’t sold a pair of shoes, we buy a pair of Tom’s loafers.
- We aren’t sold a new cellphone, we buy the new iPhone
The salesperson is mostly there to answer your questions and ring you up at the cash register, not to convince you to buy. You’ve already done the research, talked to friends, been coveting that item for weeks.
The brand did all the selling.
But I’m not a global brand, I’m small business.
No matter the industry you’re in, I bet you can tell me who leads the pack; and it won’t be because they have the top sales people in the country. Hell they might not have any salespeople.
To win in business it’s not about selling, it’s about the customer’s perception that there’s no other product or service quite as good as you.
Getting to the heart of why there’s nobody else quite as good as you and then communicating that consistently, through words, visuals and customer experience, is branding. It’s as simple as that!
How does branding sell?
When your customer is making their final decision to buy from you they may call you or schedule a meeting. This is mostly done to reassure themselves that you’re a good fit. They’ve already looked at you online, seen your ads, been referred to you by a friend and been ‘pre-sold’. By meeting or talking to you they just want to make sure you live up to the promises, so your job is to not blow it.
By the time they get to this stage, they’ve gone through a bit of a process that went like this:
- They became aware of you. They were struggling with something and you offered them a solution to that problem. You spoke their language, you understood them. They formed an opinion and felt a certain way about you right from the get-go. Maybe it was how you looked, or how you spoke, or how informative your website was and how easy it was to navigate.
- You appeared on their radar again and they began to recognize and remember you; their opinions and feelings about you grew stronger; they started to trust you.
- When they were out looking around at all their other options, it seemed like nobody else was offering quite the same thing you were. The others in your industry just didn’t connect with them quite as much and they didn’t feel drawn to them.
Everything that happens in the mind of your customer that leads them to a purchasing decision is influenced by the way they feel. And the way they feel about you is your brand. Branding is the “stuff you do” to influence those feelings.
How do I build my brand deliberately
First things first, before you get to the logo designs and websites and colours, you need clarity on your business and that’s where Brand Strategy comes in.
- Who is your customer?
- Why should they buy from you and not your competition?
- What is it like to work with you or use your product?
- What problems are you helping your clients solve everyday?
The great news? 90% of businesses never write down a Brand Strategy, so if you beat them there, you’re well ahead of the pack already!
When you’re clear about your brand — who you are, what you do, what makes you different, what makes you the only choice — then you’ll begin showing up in a consistent way, and you’ll become known for a thing. And that’s how you get clients coming to you to buy consistently.
