When it comes to small businesses, it’s all about wants versus needs.
For most, branding tends to be an afterthought, a “nice-to-have” or an “add-on”— like icing on the cake. It’s usually a placeholder, and 9 times out of 10 it is easily forgotten. Definitely not perceived as a need.
However, the opportunity it presents is huge. How customers perceive your business is everything, and if your brand looks like a million bucks then people will assume that it is worth as much.
Without a doubt, fully leveraging your brand is one of the easiest ways for a quality business to gain a strategic advantage over the competition. Just think—one day you’re wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, the next day you’re wearing a 3-piece suit. Society is going to perceive, acknowledge, and treat you differently. It’s a fact.
The reason people are willing to pay extra for household products and services isn’t necessarily because they are the very best offering. It’s because they are the best at branding.
The biggest advantage lies in the differentiation. Most small businesses have very poor, un-memorable branding. Yet their lack of branding is your chance to become an overnight sensation.
We hear about it almost every time a client flips the switch and rebrands on a large-scale. For example, when a no-name service company with a fleet of ten bland trucks all of a sudden implements their fresh new brand redesign, it tends to make waves. People see the vans out on the road, recognize the flyers, are impressed by the website, and then blown away by the quality service.
New prospects start to recognize and remember your name, your logo, and most important, your commitment to quality. Your business gets the job, project, assignment, and consumer dollar; but most important, your business has an even better chance of getting repeat buyers. And when you start to introduce new products or raise prices, customers will take it all in stride since you seem worthy of the extra charges.
That’s because truly great branding communicates a message of positivity as well as longevity. It subconsciously conveys that your business is healthy, valuable, and built to outlast the competition. The funny thing is, this consumer mentality usually becomes the well-branded business reality.