Did you know that your brand is actually a business tool? Stop thinking about it as just a visual identity you associate with your business and start thinking about it as a tool for growth and success. My years branding small businesses have shown me that every business has its own unique challenges. And what's important to note is just how many of these common problems can be solved through branding.
So read on to see if you’re faced with any of these common small business problems and find out how branding will actually solve them so you can earn more recognition and revenue than ever before.
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COMMON SMALL BUSINESS MISTAKES
Before we look at common problems in small business, it feels important to offer you a few small business mistakes to avoid that I’ve written about before. My personal faves worth highlight are:
Don’t have just one logo, have a collection of logos.
Don’t design your brand for YOU, design it for your ideal client.
Don’t focus on the solution in your marketing, focus on the result and transformation.
Don’t fall victim to trends, be your own trendsetter.
I’ve got five more small business mistakes you can learn from here. Okay, but now let's dive into the seven small business problems branding can solve.
7 COMMON SMALL BUSINESS PROBLEMS
1. Struggling to Stand Out and Build Brand Awareness
There is an ever-growing problem small businesses face and that’s standing out online. This is nearly impossible to do if your business has a Canva-made logo because it means you're choosing to blend in with the hundreds, possibly thousands, of other businesses using the very same design.
To build brand awareness with ease and beeline to your ideal clients, working with a brand designer gives you the opportunity to be strategic with your design choices, analyze the market, and design a brand experience that is truly tailored to the individuality of your business, making it more memorable for your target audience.
When you hire someone who specializes in branding small businesses, you gain their design expertise and are able to create a memorable brand experience that resonates both visually and emotionally with your best fit clients.
2. Your Small Business has a Low Inquiry Rate
All too often I hear from clients about their struggle to scale their business. The first year or two of business was smooth sailing, but now they’ve maxed out their network and referrals and can't seem to generate new business.
This is a very common small business problem that professional branding can absolutely solve. When you’re in year 3+ of business, your DIY brand will stall your growth. It suggests to your audience that you’re just starting out and are inexperienced. You’re leaving money on the table.
To experience more organic interest in your business, you need a brand experience that’s been designed to captivate, connect, and convert your dream clients. You and I both know you’re an expert at what you do, but your DIY brand is telling a different story.
Investing in a custom brand identity will make every first impression count and you’ll soon see steady influx of client inquiries. A professional and thoughtful brand experience is that extra vote of confidence they need to know you’re going to be a worthy investment.
3. You’re Too Passive on Sales Calls
This is a very common small business problem, especially among creative entrepreneurs. If you struggle to speak confidently on sales calls or you’re always underselling your services, you may be surprised to learn that branding can give you the tools you need to land those sales with ease.
This common small business problem is solved with brand strategy. In my blog, How Brand Strategy Helps with Selling Your Services, I discuss this connection between brand strategy and selling your services:
"Brand strategy is about zeroing in on your unique value as a business. Your value, of course, will ultimately be decided by your potential clients. They want to know if the solution you have is valuable enough to pay for. What they deem valuable may be different than what you know to be valuable."
When you’ve hired someone beyond your business to develop a brand strategy, they will be able to bring an objective perspective and think about your business strategically and through the eyes of your ideal clients.
Say goodbye to rambling sales conversations and get to the point! Your brand strategy guide acts as a script, giving you the clarity and emotion-driven messaging you can rely on to convert your leads into high ticket clients.
4. You’re Underpricing Your Services
One all too common problem small businesses face, especially in competitive industries, is feeling the need to discount their offers to land a sale. This goes hand-in-hand with your lack of confidence on sales calls (see common small business problem #3) and having a DIY brand.
The confidence and pride to be gained from investing in your brand is something you can only really understand once you’ve done it for yourself. When you have a brand identity that has been designed for YOUR unique business with thoughtful details and a brand experience designed for your unique audience—it amplifies your value.
You’ll be able to increase your rates and have clients more than happy to pay you for it. The ripple effect that professional branding has on your ability to grow as a small business is not to be underestimated.
5. You’re Unsure How to Communicate and Market Your Business
Arguably, the best thing you can do for your business is to have strong brand messaging. It’s one of the best ways to distinguish your business from the competition and provide your audience exactly what they need to connect with your brand.
CLIENT CASE STUDY
When my client behind The Sober Shaman reached out, he was so lost in what he was trying to communicate through his brand and was desperate for some guidance and support.
The solution? Brand strategy.
Together, my client and I dove deep into his goals, analyzed his audience, and simplified the many facets of his business into cohesive themes. This led us to identify the core message that would become the cornerstone of his marketing and the tone of voice that would resonate with his unique audience.
Working with someone outside of your business will always reveal ample opportunities for success that are impossible to see on your own.
6. Struggling to Bring Cohesion to Competing Offers and Ideas
As entrepreneurs, we are always struggling to prioritize the many ideas that come our way. A blessing and a curse, you might say. This can lead to things feeling chaotic behind the scenes as you impulsively try to bring all the ideas to life, often without any rhyme or reason. To your audience, this becomes super confusing and possibly detrimental to their perception of your brand and business.
If you are a multi-passionate entrepreneur and are juggling competing offers or ideas, working with a brand strategist is going to allow you to simplify the chaos in a way that makes sense for the bigger brand picture.
Brand strategy is how we turn this common small business problem into an intuitive brand framework you can filter any and all new ideas through. It allows us to strategically unify the segments of your business under one brand.
So yes, you can have your cake and eat it too.
7. Struggling to Navigate an Evolving Business
No matter what kind of small business you have, evolution is inevitable. How you started your business in year one is unlikely to be the same business you find yourself in in year three. But one thing is for sure, with every passing year your vision for your small business becomes increasingly clear.
Whether you’ve outgrown your old business model, have refined your service offering, grown your team or are just pivoting entirely, approaching this next chapter through the lens of your brand will give you the tools to make this challenging time a recipe for success.
CLIENT CASE STUDY
For my client, Heather Lillico, she had built a career as a personal brand helping women manage their anxiety using nutrition and other natural methods. She had reached a point in her business where she wanted to pivot her business model away from one-on-one clients to a holistic anxiety app, Cultivating Calm, that would allow her to help a larger audience.
Together, we set out to design a brand for the app that would also lead the way for a visual rebrand of her personal brand. This ensured that both arms of her business felt unified and each brand was able to support the success of the other.
These are just seven common small business problems that branding can solve. It can be hard to know where to turn when you’re faced with a challenge in your business. How do you diagnose the problem?
Is it a marketing problem?
A messaging problem?
Do I need a business coach?
Remember, branding is the heart and soul of your business — there’s nothing it doesn’t play a role in. Every small business has its own unique set of challenges. That’s why the Studio offers tailored brand services to help you solve yours. Join me for a free Brand Realignment Call and chat with me about your current hurdles in business and let’s see what branding solutions are available for you.
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Jenny Henderson Studio develops memorable brand experiences and strategic brand foundations to improve recognition and revenue for service-based small businesses.