The Misconceptions

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding the term ‘brand’ due to misconceptions of what it actually means. A large number of people think branding is about one thing and one thing only, but this is just not true. It’s not just about your logo or your business name, it’s your whole identity. Stella Gianotto defines it as a “visual identity”, a marker, a grade of quality or an icon that people use to identify you.

It’s about recognition. Another misconception is that people tend to think branding is about marketing or media. One thing Stella talked about was how people want to get media exposure or improve their ads because they think that will help their brand. Stella suggests that marketing is actually an activity of branding and is essentially the activity of promoting a business, or product or service that sits below branding.

An important thing to mention is that it doesn’t have to break the budget. There are a number of stories that suggest branding costs a bomb! However, this is not always the case. It really depends on the size of your business.

If you’re an SME, for as little as a few thousand dollars, you can implement a great strategy and build your brand to where you want it to be.

Biggest Mistakes

What are the biggest mistakes people tend to make when getting their brand right?

• They leave it too late. Branding should be one of the first things you think about when you’re creating your business plan because if you leave it too late, you risk missing vital opportunities to integrate your brand into the business. If you take a retail business for example and they’ve completed their business plan, signed agreements and they’ve built the store, they have everything ready to go but still don’t have their brand. They will have missed the opportunity to include their logo in the design of their store for example.
• They try to change their brand. The second biggest mistake that people make with their brand is they use a simple brand just to get them started, then after growing organically, realise they want to change the brand. Stella points out how this can have a detrimental impact on your business. If you’re at a point where you have a large market size, people will already be invested in the identity of that business and so changing the brand can be a huge problem.

Building your Brand

So what’s the first step? Well, Stella’s expert advice is to find out the reason you’re in business. Are you there to make profit? Are you there for a specific purpose? Or are you there to leave a legacy? Once you’ve answered that question, you can start building your brand. Branding should be one of the first things you do when you’re creating your business plan.

If you’re a startup, your brand needs to be launched from the day you start the business. If you’ve already started your business, as soon as you can, you need to create your brand. Stella highlights the importance of having a brand strategy and advises people to put together a pathway from where you are today to where you want to be with your brand. Ask yourself, if money and time were not an issue, where would you want to be.

Stella suggests this is the best way to build your brand as you can reverse engineer it from your end point and put together your strategy. A great method Stella suggests to help create your brand is to pretend your brand is a living person. How do they talk? How do they walk and what do they wear?

The Business Brand vs Your Personal Brand

In the modern world of social media and all things digital, merging your business brand with your personal brand is becoming increasingly successful. The ‘wave’ of influencer marketing has opened up a whole new way of branding your business. Sites like Instagram and LinkedIn have allowed people to brand themselves, as well as their business and they’re complementing each other more and more. “People buy people”.

Stella explains the importance of being an “ambassador” for the business. Authentic business owners living and breathing their brand creates an environment that customers feel they can trust the product or service.

Finalising your Brand

Before finalising your brand, ask yourself these questions and get real with yourself:

1. Why did you start this business?
2. What differentiates your brand?
3. Where do you want to be? Once you have the answer to these questions, ask yourself if you’re happy with the brand as well as asking your clients. This will give you what you need to finalise your brand.

If you want to find out more, click here to watch or listen to the SME Experts show.