How to build a stunning brand for your small business [50+ Action Steps]

“Build it and they’ll come”, they said. “That idea will take off for sure”, they said.

So you jump right in and create your business. You get yourself a logo, a website, a few social accounts and wait for the onslaught of new customers.

“Maybe I need to get myself an assistant to deal with the calls,” you remember briefly mulling.

But then you waited…. and waited…. and waited… until reality smacked you in the face like a two stone wet fish, followed closely by new mulling: “I thought it was going to be easier than this.”

Not so easy is it?

After a few weeks and months of the same, the pin finally drops. Trying to build a stunning brand (or just a small business for that matter) is not that easy, and no amount of Gary Vaynerchuck Youtube videos changes that (which is clarified by Gary Vaynerchuck in his Youtube videos).

So where to from here?

Bring it back to basics. When it comes to business, there are two fundamental pillars that simply cannot be skimmed over.

(1) Branding: What you want your business to be known for and how you get your audience to remember you.

(2) Marketing: Reaching your audience in the right channels with the right tactics to get attention.

You can have the best product or service in your space, but if you don’t tell the right people in the right way, they have little chance of knowing and less of remembering.

Small Business Branding Missteps

The hard truth is, the majority of small business owners consistently overlook the importance of both branding and marketing and do so at their peril.

Ask a new business owner to tell you about their brand strategy and most will stop at their logo, which means they don’t have one.

For every two businesses that survive the first three years, another eight perish and one of the common characteristics of these perishing businesses is their lack of strategic branding.

Small businesses that embrace branding on the other hand, set in place a framework which their business grows around and their audience remembers.

The framework of a solid brand

In this article, we’ll take a look at branding and the 10 essential branding blocks that small business owners need to understand when trying to build a stunning brand around their business.

#1 Purpose

#2 Vision

#3 Mission

#4 Values

#5 Positioning

#6 Personality

#7 Language & Tone of Voice

#8 Core Message

#9 Brand Identity

#10 Brand Expression

As a small business owner, some elements might seem irrelevant at this early stage but that is a common misconception that leads you into the perishable eight.

Include each of these essential branding blocks when building your brand and you set in place a strong brand framework that provides the support on which your business can grow around.

Branding Block #1: Purpose

Your brand purpose is the meaningful reason behind why your brand exists. This goes beyond traditional business reasons and taps into the human element.

To extract your purpose, you need to look at who you serve.

Your business solves a problem for someone whether that problem is hunger, thirst, a flat tyre, the need to get from A to B or a lack of experience in a particular field.

Your business is more organised in whatever it is you do than your customers and hence, you fill that void with your solution.

The emotion in the solution

Once your solution fills that void, there is a sense of satisfaction from the customer that evokes an emotion. Even an accountant providing tax returns evokes an emotion in relieving their clients from the stress of their tax responsibility for a year.

This emotion is the meaningful connection that the brand strives to make. Individually it affects people’s lives for the better but collectively it becomes a higher purpose, to make a positive impact in the world.

A brand purpose, therefore, is the belief that the brand can make a difference in the world for the greater good.

Start with Why

As Simon Sinek said in his New York Times Bestseller “Start with Why”:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”

Go on, it’s worth another look…

Brands that extract the emotional link and build upon it create a belief system that weaves an emotional connection with their audience.

These brands are built on foundations of a higher purpose that people not only relate to but want to become part of.

EXAMPLES of Brand Purpose

TOM’s is an online shoe company. They have an online store, you pay with your card and your new shoes are delivered to your door. Simple. What makes TOM’s different from other shoe companies is their brand purpose.

The meaningful reason behind why they exist is to improve lives. For every pair of shoes you buy, TOM’s will help a person in need. One for one.

Not only does that make the customer feel good about handing over their money, every individual working for TOM’s feel that they make a difference in the world with the work they do.

[ACTION STEPS] to define your Brand Purpose

DO

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and identify the feeling you get when you experience the solution you offer.

What is the emotion that you feel (even if just for a fleeting moment)? Is it relief, happiness, excitement, ambition, encouragement or relaxation?

What impact would that emotion have on the lives of your customers?

In providing that emotion to your largest possible audience, what positive impact would you make in the world?

Articulate that positive impact into a statement. This positive impact is the meaningful reason behind the work your business does, your brand purpose.

Add this to your brand guidelines (Create a new document called “Brand Guidelines”).

DON'T

Create a purpose that has no foundations in the solution you offer.

Look to replicate what others stand for.

Relate your purpose to financial success.

Branding Block #2: Vision

Your vision is where you want your business to be in the future. It is about projecting your brand into the distant years and painting a picture of that future brand.

So, where do you want your business to be in 10 years and what does that future brand look like? How many offices, employees and customers will you have? How do your customers see your brand and how have you impacted their lives?

Belief in your direction

The benefit in having a brand vision is the belief in direction and its impact on behaviour. When you, and your brand personnel, understand where you are going, you subconsciously communicate that through your actions and behaviours.

A brand vision should challenge the possibilities of your business while inspiring and motivating employees and leaders to strive towards the future brand. Your vision should be big enough to inspire but not too big for brand personnel to buy into it.

There is no point in constructing a vision that no one believes to be remotely achievable.

Brand Vision in Action

Microsoft’s vision was to put “A computer on every desktop in every home”. This vision was big enough to inspire a movement without being too big for the leadership team to dismiss it as impossible.

Check out these “6 inspiring vision statements that built iconic brands” by the bestselling author of “Sticky Branding”, Jeremy Miller.

[ACTION STEPS] to define your Brand Vision

DO

Using your brand purpose as the basis for your ambition, visualise your business in the future (5,10, 20 years).

What does it look like? How many cities are you in? How many employees do you have? How many customers do you have? How do your customers view your brand? Record as much detail as possible.

Look back at the number of people your business has helped and the impact it has had on their lives collectively and reflect on the work, commitment and achievements that made the vision a reality.

Articulate this vision into a statement of intent.

DON'T

Create a far-fetched vision that too far-fetched to be believable.

Set targets that don’t challenge your possibilities.

Try to replicate the visions of other brands.

Branding Block #3: Mission

Your mission is a statement of intent that encompasses both your purpose and your vision. It is a commitment to impact the lives of the people you serve and to deliver on what you promise, on the path to your future brand.

Your brand purpose uncovers what it is that you give as a business to positively impact the lives of others. As such, it shifts the paradigm of the vision and mission from what you want to achieve from a business standpoint, to what you want to give and how you want to impact.

What do we need to commit to?

If your purpose is the “Why” of your business and your vision is the “Where”, then your mission is the “How”. How are we going to achieve our future brand?

This forces the question “What do we need to commit to?”

When looking back at the achievements of your brand through your vision, you could see the commitments it took to get there and so, identifying your mission is done by simply reverse engineering your vision.

If the purpose of your brand is to make a group of people feel a certain way, what is it that you need to commit to in order to make them feel that way? In other words, what do you promise to do?

A mission statement is all about action. It’s the grit that inches the brand closer to its vision each and every day.

Inc. gives you plenty of inspiration in this article “30 Inspiring Billion-Dollar Startup Company Mission Statements”

Brand Mission in Action

Starbucks mission statement optimises a commitment that is filtered through purpose with a dash of vision: “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.”

[ACTION STEPS] Define you Brand Mission

DO

List your short-term and long-term commitments. E.g. personable service, a human touch, quality of products, guaranteed timeline, a transition into green energy.

Identify the number one non-negotiable commitment that will help you achieve customer satisfaction. e.g. “to always meet deadlines”, “to always keep prices competitive”.

Include your good intentions for the greater-good in what you promise e.g. “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”

Articulate a statement of intent outlining the promise you are making to your customers.

DON'T

Create a long list of desirable outcomes without accountability.

List anything that is likely to result in a broken promise.

Make your statement too vague for comprehension or commitment.

Branding Block #4: Values

Your brand values are your rules of engagement and the moral compass for the way in which you do business. If your mission sets in place your overarching commitment in achieving your vision for the future, then your values are the behavioural commitments in your day-to-day activities.

Your values are internal first and foremost. It goes without saying that they should align with your purpose, vision and mission but the key is in the internal communication.

Communicating core values often, internally, ensures that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and that there is a collective underlying message in every interaction.

We trust actions not words

As people, our friends know what our values are, not because we tell them, but because of our actions and behaviours over time. The same is true with brands.

It is common practice today to list your core values on a dedicated page of your website, but without the actions to go along with the words they are little more than marketing.

Listing a set of vague and noble values on your website is relatively easy. Living through those values on a day-to-day basis on the other hand, is a lot harder and takes great commitment.

It’s all in the doing

The value of “Values” is not in the telling, it’s in the doing. We identify a persons core values through their actions, not their words. Even if they tell us what their values are (which is a shortcut in demonstrating them) we won’t truly know what they are until we see it with our own eyes.

Brands that boast real purpose and values with an aligned vision and mission stand out in the market not only because of their minority status but as a consequence of being a happy brand.

People who come to work every day and feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, have meaning in the work that they do which makes them happy.

Brands like these spawned the term “brand authenticity” which many brand attempt to portray, as this article by Content Marketing Institute highlights.

Brand Values in Action

A great example of a brand living their core values and radiating positive energy through their work is Zappos. The brand leadership team Identified values as the cornerstone for the business they wanted to create and today the value of the brand makes up a large percentage of its monetary value.

Not only do they live their values through their work, the use them in the hiring process, offering potential employees $2,000 to walk away. Obviously, they only retain those that are committed.

The result is a high achieving brand full of very happy employees all committed to the same cause.

[ACTION STEPS] Define your Brand Values

DO

Lay out your brand purpose to ensure your values are aligned.

Identify what is morally important to you in the way you do business while referencing your brand beliefs. (All of the leadership team should be involved at a minimum).

Prioritise your top three values that you want your brand to stand for.

Articulate these into short, unique actionable sentences for each listed value.

Add these to your brand guidelines.

DON'T

Create a laundry list of values that you will struggle to commit to.

Use vague and common terms that lack clarity of action e.g. “Integrity” or “Honesty”.

Use other websites values for reference (Chances are, they are without foundation).

Choose values that have little meaning to you personally. (Everybody else only buys in when the leadership does).

Branding Block #5: Positioning

The position your brand takes in the market comes down to who your audience is, who your competition is and what are your differentiators are.

When you know the finer detail of who your audience is, their likes and dislikes, their behaviours and more importantly, their problems, then you can begin to understand the best way to appeal to them.

Your competition is likely already serving your intended audience so understanding their appeal as well as their strengths and weaknesses, allows you to uncover opportunities.

Your differentiator is the very thing that your audience will remember you for. What is it that makes you different from your competition i.e. why should your audience choose you over them?

What’s your purple cow?

New York Times Bestselling author Seth Godin wrote extensively about the importance of having a differentiator in his book “Purple Cow”.

He said:

“Being safe is risky. Boring always leads to failure. Very good is an everyday occurrence and hardly worth mentioning. To be a Purple Cow is to be remarkable.”

Here he is talking about being remarkable…

There is always room to differentiate your brand

You need to be a different option than your competitor, not more of the same. Having a differentiator gives you an edge while trying to be more of what they already have is a ticket to obscurity.

Even if on paper, your competition is towering over you in terms of capabilities, you can always find a differentiator.

Check out this blog post by HubSpot, which shone a light on “11 Underdog Brands That Differentiated Themselves From the Competition”

Brand Position in Action

When Avis was entering the car rental market dominated by Hertz, they positioned themselves with a tagline stating; “We’re only no.2 but we try harder”. In doing so, they established themselves in the market and took market share from their giant competitor.

[ACTION STEPS] Define your Brand Position

DO

Create a detailed buyer persona of your “Perfect Client”.

If you don’t have a starting point, go to your top 5 competitors Facebook pages and analyse their followers.

Look for common characteristics and behaviours as well as problems.

Research your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and identify an area of opportunity.

If there are no obvious opportunities, look at what you could do better in a way that would turn the heads of their customers.

This point of difference will be your brand position.

DON'T

Try to replicate your competition.

Use a differentiator that will offer no benefit to your audience.

Give the market more of the same with no adjustments.

Branding Block #6: Personality

Your brand personality should be a reflection of who your audience is, what appeals to them and what position you want your brand to take in the market.

While your purpose, vision, mission and values give you substance that will make your audience stick around, your audience will never see your substance unless there is an attraction in the first place.

Resonating gains attention

Your brand strategy (Position, Personality, Language, Tone, Core Message) is all about attracting your audiences’ attention and resonating with them to generate interest.

Your audience wants to see themselves (or the best version of themselves) in your brand so when a brand portrays the personality of their audiences’ aspirations, they resonate on a powerful level.

Brand Personality in Action

Take “Mercedes” as an example. Their personality communicates confidence, sophistication, and exclusivity, which appeal to the aspirations of their audience.

Likewise, “Red Bull” has aligned themselves with extreme sports and projects an energetic, youthful and adventurous personality, which appeals their audiences’ aspirations.

Personality plays a big role when it comes to attraction. If your brand gets the opportunity to get someone’s attention, then the personality your brand portrays, will likely be a determining factor in whether or not they stick around to get to know “the real you”.

Be who they are or who they aspire to be.

[ACTION STEPS] Define your Brand Personality

DO

Take your buyer persona and expand on the behavioural. aspects to identify personality traits your audience admires.

Identify 1-3 traits that align with your overall brand.

Apply these traits throughout your brand expression whether visually, verbally or written.

Add brand personality to brand guidelines.

DON'T

Choose characteristics that appeal to anybody but your audience (This is not about what the leadership team likes)

Choose personality traits that are not in line with the position or the overall brand

Adopt personality traits that might offend your audience or the wider public (err on the side of caution)