4 Awesome Tips For How to Brand Your Small Business Effectively

How to brand your small business

Do you know how to brand your small business?  Branding a small business can be a challenge.  Two of those challenges are know-how and lack of money.  Below are some great ways to brand a small business successfully.

Identify Your “Pivot Point” – Most business owners never think through the true value proposition of their small business.  They tend to confuse what they do with why they are doing it.  The secret is that no one wants to buy your service or product – they want to buy what the service or product does for them.  Are you selling expensive cars or status and exclusivity?  Are you selling homes or giving the sense of independence?  Find the “it” behind your business.  What is the reason for your company’s being?  To know how to build your business, take the time to think about the key attributes of your small business and then you can build brand identity.

Brainstorm Ideas – Once you know the true benefit of your business, you can begin generating ideas.  Begin by thinking of phrases and names that will give you a business theme.  The name doesn’t have to be descriptive, but it should be engaging, capture the core of the brand’s key attribute and have the consumer begging to know more.  Feel free to use made up names, metaphors, positive connotation words and more.  Buy magazines that fit in with your own brand message and look for headlines, phrases and words that might spark ideas.  Always keep the company pivot point as the main focus.

Narrow Your List – Let all these ideas simmer in your mind overnight.  The next day or so, start gleaming on your list.  Keep only the ideas that allow your company lots of room to grow.  Experiment a bit with matching tag lines.  When you pair a company name with a tag line, it might sound great when you hear it.  Look around for some matching domain names, and see if any competitors are using something similar.  Here are more tips for choosing a business name and creating a small business website.

Select a Winner – If you found a name that sounds good and the domain is available, it’s probably a winner.  It’s always wise to hire a trademark attorney to make sure you don’t have problems.  Next, you want to move on to the logo design.  There are plenty of good logo designers out there that will do a good job for you.

Finally, you are ready to launch the new brand.  Start spreading the message about your brand by being consistent.  Have the same look and feel on your blog, website, and social media accounts.  By consistently giving the same look, you will own your own place in the business industry.

Now, you can say that you know how to brand your small business.  When you dedicate time, attention and commitment to branding your company, you will build a small business that keeps your customers coming back for more.  

Did you find these tips helpful?  If so, please leave a comment and share this article.

Choosing a Small Business Location

Choosing a small business location

Choosing a small business location is a great deal more complicated than simply picking the cheapest building or office suite you can find.  A small business has to be easy to find for its customers, and you have to be in a place where you are free to make it known that your business lives there without being encumbered by surrounding businesses or vacant offices.

A small business location has to accomplish three things.  The place where you are has to look good.  You can't survive in a community that doesn't look good, because no matter how hard you try, you can't be the one thing that shines in a nasty complex.

A small business location also has to give you options for expansion.  The worst thing you can do to yourself is choose a space you'll outgrow in six months.  This will mean a move that might turn off your customers.  While they may be happy for you, they are not going to want to learn a new location every time you need to expand your operations.

Finally, choosing a small business location should allow for your customers to easily find you.  Yes, there are a myriad of office complexes that are easy to find, but is your office easy to find in the muck that surrounds it?  When you are in a place that is hard for people to find, you will have a very hard time convincing customers that coming out to see you is a good idea.

The best small business location is a place that is so easy to get to that you have customers dropping by just because it was on their way home or to the office.  This is the best way to cultivate face-to-face relationships with your customers.  You give them a place to go that they like and they'll keep coming back.

A business has to feel free to live in a space where it can thrive and grow, and you cannot thrive and grow in a poor location.  You may feel that you have no other options, but the reality is much better.  There are tons of office spaces and storefronts that are easy to find, look good, and give you the chance to expanding without moving every few months.

You don't just put your small business somewhere where you can put up your sign quickly.  No, you put your small business in a place where people want to go.  The most loyal customers will bring their friends by, and the customer base will grow from there if you carve out a niche for yourself that no one else has.  Don't relegate yourself to some back alley.  Choose a location that is perfect for your business today.

Create Social Media Accounts for Your Business

Create Social Media Accounts

Create social media accounts for your business not just because social media sites are fun to use but because everyone is using them.  Nearly all of your potential customers are on social media sites, and they can be easily drawn to your business if you have a presence.  Every small business would benefit from social media because it is a free testimonial page for your business that can spread the news about you like wildfire.

Small business social media accounts are not a new thing in today's economy, and your website users  understand that companies have to do their best to bring in customers.  Setting up an account for your small business is just the first step to using social media properly.

When you start using social media to promote your small business, you cannot just promote your business.  It's actually much better if you are using the site, as the owner of the business, as if it were your own social media page.  Therefore, you post things that are of interest to the business as a whole.  You repost things you find that relate to your business and make you seem human.  Nobody online wants to read ads from someone who sounds like a bot, but people who see posts that are fun and interesting reposted to your page are more likely to follow your business and become patrons.

Some social media websites are the best place to reach friends and family because they can, in turn, recommend your business to their friends and family.  This is the best way to build a customer base in your community because many of the people on sites like Facebook have friends who live near them.

Create social media accounts for your business on every website that you think will help add to your customer base.  It is a good idea to be on the site, but you have to enjoy using the site.  The more you enjoy it, the more your followers can see it.  When you put those two things together, you end up with more excited followers of your business' page.

Small business social media accounts do not have to be a place where you endlessly promote your business as if you are a bot that's just pumping out messages.  Social media sites are a place where you can interact with current and potential customers in a non-business environment.  People who enjoy you are more likely to frequent your business in the future.

If you think that social media is only a cheap way to gain customers, you are missing out.  You can gain a great following on social media, and all for the price of some time in front of the computer.

Time Management Tools for Small Business

Time Management

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Time management is very important for small business owners and entrepreneurs. In fact, one of the biggest problems is when the owner is working 90 hours a week on a consistent basis. Many business owners can't figure out how to manage their time properly. That is why they are overworked and miserable. Here are some time management tools that can help you manage your time better.

Salesforce.com

This is one of the best CRM (customer relationship management) systems out there. Now, I understand that many business owners may not need it because they are not customer-facing themselves. But most business owners interact with customers on a daily and hourly basis. In fact, if you're not interacting with customers a lot, then it means your business may not be going well. In any case, Salesforce.com is a great tool that will allow you to save a ton of time. It will also enhance your customer relationships. It will enable you to load in contact information, create opportunities for your sales and deal pipeline and will allow you to set tasks so you know when and how to follow up. It's much better and easier to work with then keeping all of your customers in an excel spreadsheet or some other static database.

Synced Computer, Tablet, and Smartphone

I've noticed that the business owners who are the most efficient leverage the technology they have. Most sync their computer, tablet, and smartphones together. That way, they can manage their schedules and their projects on the go or when they're out of the office. It can be a bit of a pain to set it up so you can sync everything together. Outlook is a good standard schedule, email and project management tool. The great thing about it is that you can easily sync it with any tablet or smartphone.  If you own Apple products, may apps auto-sync such as Notes, Reminders, and Calendar...all helpful in time management.

Dragon Dictation App

One of the biggest time wasters is when you have a brilliant thought, you forget it, or have to spend hours figuring out the details. You could use the Dragon Dictation App. The basic app is free and very easy to use. You can speak into is and it'll dictate into text everything you say. That means you can take notes on the fly when you're out or on the road.

Basecamp

If you do a lot of project management, you really need to use Basecamp. It's a very useful tool that will support the management of projects. It's also great for teams to collaborate on projects. It collects all of the communications and schedules in one place.  You can try it FREE for 2 months to decide if it's beneficial for your business.

It's important for small business owners to manage their time properly. These are just some time management tools that can help you do that and maximize your productivity.


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Time Management for Business

Time Management for Business

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The common thinking when it comes to business is "time is money."  In order for a business to be successful, it has to be well-organized and efficient with its time.  Proper time management in business is often the key to being successful with both customers and employees, and putting time management strategies to use can have an immediate impact on a business.  If a business is having trouble managing time efficiently, the following time management tips may help.

When analyzing time management in business, one of the first steps is to decide what has the highest priority at that moment and for the upcoming week.  One of the best time management tips for this is to develop an Action Plan for the upcoming week.  This plan should be thought about at the end of each week, and developed in time to be implemented the next week.  Friday is often a good day to develop the next week's Action Plan.  A staff meeting can be held to find out what got done, what didn't get done and what is the most pressing assignment still awaiting completion.  Employees and management can work together to develop an Action Plan, listing the top three items that need to be completed the next week, what day they will be done and who will be in charge of seeing them be completed.

After settling on an Action Plan, the next of the time management strategies is to prioritize.  Take a close look at the items on the Action Plan, and see which of these is most urgent.  Ask yourself how each task will impact the business, and will it have a negative impact if put off too long?  Do the same with the second and third items, and soon the Action Plan will not only have what items need to be accomplished, but in what order as well.  Learning to correctly prioritize for a business is much like triage for a hospital, where the most serious problems get done first and so on until everything is finished.

The next and perhaps most important step in time management for business is learning how to stay focused on the task at hand.  No matter what type of business a person is involved in, there are always distractions trying to intervene.  Some of the biggest problems with distractions come from people who are self-employed and working from home.  With family and friends always wanting to stop and talk for a few minutes, it's much too easy to let the day slip by without getting much work done.  The best way to handle this is to have a regular work schedule, such as 8-5 Monday through Friday when you are officially working.  While hard to initially implement, it can work wonders once followed.  By staying disciplined and keeping distractions to a minimum, much more work can be completed and much more money made.  By using these time management tips, an individual or organization can find themselves being much more productive.

Five Benefits of a Small Business Website

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Despite the nearly universal opinion that internet marketing boosts the income and profits of businesses of all sizes, a disturbingly large number of businesses out there don't actually have a website. The following list includes several vital reasons why a small business should create a small business website. It's important to note that this list represents only a sampling of why it's great for all companies to create websites and that it doesn't take a degree in web design to get a terrific website launched.

1. Advertising is quick and easy

When a company that lacks an internet presence needs to advertise a sale or new product, a lot of time must be put into the marketing strategy for things like billboard advertisements, radio spots, and even television commercials. This is a pricey endeavor for a small business. A small business website offers a much less expensive way to let everyone know about something new and is particularly effective when paired with a social media campaign.

2. Website creation is not expensive or time consuming

There are several resources that will help a small business to create a beautiful website, and whether a web design professional is hired for the job or whether the process is handled internally, utilizing web-based tools for creation requires almost zero technical expertise. Although it is beneficial to have a website specifically designed to be unique for a small business, it's fine to launch the initial website with a simple template approach and automated website design software.

3. Web presence makes customer service easier

Placing a focus on customer service helps all companies, but small companies might have to spend a lot of time on the phone answering questions that could be handled less expensively online. Not only will a website offer a "Frequently Asked Questions" display to take care of most basic customer inquiries, but many customers these days prefer handling their customer service through the internet because it doesn’t require time spent on hold on the phone.

4. Improves company image inexpensively

Refurbishing a brick and mortar location takes a lot of time and money and can't be done particularly often. Making a professional and updated small business website, however, is a much easier process. Today's customers will very often have their first experience with a company through the internet, and so that first impression from the company's website represents a prime opportunity to show the professionalism and polished appearance of the company brand.

5. Increases selling power

The effort put into creating a website and proper web presence that includes things like social media and branding opportunities provides a significant opportunity to increase sales. A website may increase sales through online purchases, or it might allow a company to hit that elusive sales goal that was decided upon at the beginning of the year.

The internet exists as a significant equalizer in making it appear that a business is actually larger than it is, and this means that even the smallest companies can use the internet to create brand growth, increased sales, and higher customer engagement. Creating a website offers far too many benefits to pass up.



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