4 Ways To Make Your Business a Household Name

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made was also one of the most expensive: A few years ago, my second company, WOW 1 DAY PAINTING, was in trouble. We had a totally unique business model?—?to paint your home or business in just one day?—?but it wasn’t making a dent in the market. We were floundering.

I was starting to think I’d failed completely until it dawned on me that it wasn’t the service that people didn’t like?—?it was the brand. To fix the problem, I had to swallow my pride and start from scratch. It was a painful and costly exercise, but I’m grateful we caught the issue before we were forced to close our doors.

Branding flops like these have happened to many of the biggest, most established companies, like GAP, and to many lesser-known businesses like the Vermont Maple Syrup company. The takeaway is that you can use the lessons they (very publicly) learned to take your own brand from “dust mop” to the “Swiffer”.

It’s all in the name

With my first company, 1–800-GOT-JUNK?, I got the name right: It’s clear, it’s memorable, and it’s our phone number. When we applied the same naming convention to the painting business, 1–888-WOW1DAY! Painting, we missed the mark. It was a confusing, mixed-up mouthful.

When I went back to the drawing board, I thought about why other products and services are successful. What makes Apple so delicious? What gives Google its panache? In The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Al Ries says, “A brand is nothing more than a name. In time, the unique idea or concept of your company or product disappears. All that’s left is the difference between your brand name and the brand names of your competitors.” 

With that in mind, we changed 1–888-WOW1DAY! Painting to WOW 1 DAY PAINTING. The new name conveyed both the feeling our customers would get after using our service, and the timeline they could count on.

Simplifying the name was only a start?—?a full facelift was still in order.

Crowdsource your feedback

When it comes to branding, just because you like the logo?—?or your marketing team insists it’s the “one”?—?doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a winner.

During our rebrand, I consulted everyone I could think of for feedback. After conversations with staff, business partners, and friends, I ended up with an overwhelming number of suggestions but two clear patterns emerged: First, our blue and orange brand reminded people too much of college sports and in an industry filled with college painting companies we wanted to stand out from the crowd.

A second, even bigger problem was the dominant color of our brand?—?bright orange. A customer once described our painter’s uniforms as “penitentiary orange” a hue that doesn’t exactly create a sense of security when our teams enter the home. Building trust is the most important part of branding, and having painters dressed like convicts was (unsurprisingly) having the opposite effect.

Armed with awesome feedback, we turned to the pros for help.

Invest to get what you expect

There’s no getting around it: creating an effective new logo is pricey. Many companies?—?particularly startups with limited funds?—?are unwilling or unable to make the spend. But, while you might get away with an amateur logo in your early years, eventually investing in a solid brand presence is essential.

I ended up consulting with not one but two design agencies to create our new logo. After 16 designs and over $200,000 later, we finally got the look right. The total cost for the rebrand far exceeded our initial estimates, but I can confidently say the end result saved our business.

Not every rebrand has to be that expensive, of course. By working with freelance design experts and web developers, it’s possible to develop professional-looking logos and sites for a few thousand dollars. The operative term here, though, is experts?—?when it comes to branding, the DIY approach rarely cuts it.

Go for emotional impact

People are attracted to brands they can connect with emotionally. Some associations are built up over years of consistent advertising (think the Nike Swoosh or the Starbucks mermaid), but a lot of this emotional impact stems from the right use of shape and color.

For WOW 1 DAY PAINTING to be successful, I knew the brand had to draw an immediate, visceral response. So we went with a happy little blob of paint that looks like it’s smiling at you; people have told me they can’t help but smile back. And we chose bright green specifically because of its association with freshness and revitalization.

In the end, we found a winning combination. The new logo, combined with the new name, was exactly what the brand needed to increase customer engagement, which had a direct impact on sales (since rebranding, we’ve tripled our revenue). Although redesigning can be expensive and time-consuming, it’s worth asking yourself if your brand is the best it can be?—?because a few simple tweaks might be all that’s holding it back from becoming a household name.