4 Branding Tips Every Entrepreneur Can Use

I have been a small business owner for a long time and have partnered with dozens of other successful entrepreneurs. Through my own personal experience building my company, as well as helping the successful people I partner with, I have learned a few things about successful small business branding. Here are 4 branding tips that every entrepreneur can use. 

1. Know Your Niche
Understanding your target market is absolutely key to knowing how to market to them. In today’s economy, successful marketing means that a brand is more than a fancy logo or enticing slogan; in order to engage clients businesses must build relationships with them. Without understanding why and what your target market buys and what motivates them, you will not be able to build relationships or deliver value and quality that is relevant to them. Through relationship building, you will learn what your clients’ needs, wants, limitations, and expectations are and can cater to them accordingly.

[Tweet “In order to engage clients businesses must build relationships with them. “]

2. Present Your Ideas with Confidence
If you can’t get behind your own ideas, no one else will either. If you constantly question how you look or sound to others, or how your ideas come off, your insecurity will be communicated to those around you who will begin associating your business with instability and unreliability. Even if you’re just starting out and aren’t 100% sure what you’re doing or where you’re headed, communicate your ideas confidently and stand behind them. This doesn’t mean that you confidently get behind one business idea today and a totally different one tomorrow; rather your confidence is firmly rooted in your mission, abilities, and resources while leaving room for growth and curiosity. If you are inexperienced in this area, consider hiring a virtual assistant with a marketing background to offer coaching or consulting on how to effectively communicate your ideas, both in person and online. Your grounded, open assuredness will draw others in and make them want to learn more!

3. Get Visible
As difficult as it is to accept, talent does not usually win out over visibility. Make it a top priority to get and stay visible—to potential and current clients as well as peers and other businesses. Utilize social media, LinkedIn, networking events, online advertising in your target areas, boards, MeetUp groups—anything that gives you access to your target market and your network of peers and relevant professionals. One element of successfully using visibility to build a successful business is having a clean, attractive, functional website and quality, relevant online content (social media posts, blog articles, and website content). If content creation is not a strong area for you, hire a virtual assistant with experience branding small businesses through online content. We spend so much of our time on social media and blog sites—presenting yourself professionally and engaging others through these media is too important not to do well.

4. Have Impeccable Integrity
Integrity in the business world means knowing and respecting yourself and treating everyone you deal with—from your virtual team to clients to fellow business owners—with respect and honesty. When you stand in your integrity and operate respectfully, you will not fall into the trap of compromising your personal or business values or those of the people around you just to earn a buck. Respect also means responding to others with promptness, thoroughness, and professionalism and making it a point to be cordial and professional no matter what. Above all, be true to yourself and your mission and let your values guide you throughout the growth of your business.

[Tweet “Presenting yourself professionally and engaging others socially is too important not to do well. “]

What better way to help nail down your niche and become more visible than with your business plan? This workbook will help walk you through it step-by-step, setting you up for business success!