Signs that your brand isn't working effectively to grow your business.
You've worked hard to build up your business, and branding is one of the most important parts. But how do you know if your branding is working? Why is brand design important for your business, anyway? Chances are you that you as a consumer, can tell when someone's business branding isn't working.
The signs are fairly obvious once you apply that critical eye:
They post infrequently on their socials.
There is no continuity of style or voice in their content.
Their content is poorly designed and reads as inauthentic.
Their sales strategy makes you cringe.
While we can recognize the signs in others, we often don't want to turn that critical eye to our own businesses... but- we need to be self-critical in order to grow. What are some signs that your own branding is broken?
You can't define what you do.
Questions to ask yourself:
What is my business about?
What service or product does my company offer?
This may seem obvious, but if you can't answer this question clearly, confidently, and concisely- it's a sign your branding is suffering. Stemming from one of the most common problems in the world of marketing—the inability to clearly communicate what it is your company does.
Branding should reflect not only your business morals, personality and aesthetic, but also what you do. If your brand is unclear, clients won't know if they can trust you with their business. If the branding is broken, it's difficult to communicate that message effectively to potential customers.
If you can't easily explain what your business does in a neat elevator pitch that instantly aligns with who you're trying to reach, then it's time to reevaluate to find what's coming up short- and adapt accordingly.
You're feeling burnt out.
It's time to take a break, but you don't want to leave your customers hanging. But if you do- there will be no revenue. And thus the anxiety spiral begins. If you're an OSP - you get how hard it can be to stay consistent and create a business model that's sustainable.
You want to show up and do the work that you've been hired to do, but you can't prioritize your own business tasks when there's client work to be done. So you feel anxious about it.
And that anxiety prevents you from doing it even more. And so it continues on and on and on until weeks have gone by and you're behind deadlines and you haven't touched your socials because you haven't finished client work and you don't want them to see you promote services that you haven't completed for them but you haven't completed the work for them because they aren't being clear about what they want and they aren't being clear about what they want because you haven't provided a clear system to support them and now all these projects are snowballing into each other and...and....
Deep breaths... It happens to all of use who started a freelance business in one form or another. Lack of clarity in client onboarding, or inconsistency in marketing efforts... there's simply way too many things to juggle as a solopreneur- and a lot of us jump into it thinking running a business by ourselves while doing all the client work by ourselves too is going to be a walk in the park.
If you get a functioning, cohesive branding plan in place- all of this seems a lot less demanding. When you have things like cohesive templates ready to go, social media campaigns crafted months in advance to keep your promotions on target, and a go-to business tools at your fingertips like proposals / contracts ready to send at the touch of a button- all of this seems a lot less intimidating.
You're resenting your pricing structure.
There are few worse feelings than being resentful towards your income- especially when you're the only one responsible for setting up your revenue streams. When effort exceeds the profits, it makes it difficult to see the point in your business. We've all been there. Calculating your net profit at 2 in the morning and realizing you're actually making pennies for the amount of work you've put in at this point.
It's a specific kind of torture to realize all your efforts equate to a ten cent an hour wage.
Are you charging enough as a creative service provider? Honestly, probably not. A lot of entrepreneurs struggle to put an accurate price on their services. It likely never seems like you're making enough compared to your overhead and efforts.
Having a cohesive branding strategy in place helps you see the value in your work. When you're confident in what you're offering, you're able to clearly see your business's value, and it will help you market to the people who are actually willing to pay you what you're worth.
Your social accounts don't match your personal vibe.
Your social media presence is a reflection of your business personality. However, if you're building a personal brand- it's going to have a greater chance of success if you are showing up authentically. That means not pretending to be someone you're not even if it is a social profile for your business. Your customers want to connect with you on a personal level in order to feel trust in supporting your business.
Consistent personal branding and showing up in a genuine, human way online helps your audience know what they can expect from you and also helps them connect with who they are supporting.
If you're not sure where to start, take a look at the other brands you admire. What do they do right? What makes their branding effective? You can also find inspiration by looking at other brands that are similar to yours and seeing how the top competitors in your field are doing things differently to stand out. Every brand has its own unique voice that sets them apart from other companies in the same industry- it's all about finding yours and leaning into that special magic that only you can offer.
I'm here to help you find yours.
Sound Familiar?
Chances are if you made it this far, you recognize a lot of your own experience in the above list. Feeling burnt out, resentful, and unable to define what it is your business does are all fairly concrete signs that your branding is broken. But broken is not hopeless: it can still reimagined to help you reach your goals.
Let’s get you back on track and confident in marketing your business online to the type of customers that are willing to pay you for your valuable services and products. So you can get back to feeling proud and confident in your business.
Just starting out and not ready to invest in outsourcing your branding just yet, but you still need some guidance? You can grab a do-it-yourself Business Planning Kit - with more than 50 pages through 8 different workbooks on how to set your business up for success. Including support with content planning, brand development, and more.
Business systems and client onboarding process a mess?
Honeybook is an amazing system I use everyday to run my freelance business. Organize client projects / pipelines, create custom proposals / contracts / invoices / questionnaires, or reuse past ones from your library. It makes setting up payment plans a breeze- and automatically deposits your revenue right into your bank account. (Not to mention it tracks all your finances so your bookkeeping is essentially done at the same time.)
Work From Home Goodies
Shop my Amazon Storefront for some of my work from home essentials.
*Disclaimer: A small commission may be earned by the author for affiliate link clicks and/or purchases made.
Comentarios