What is branding & Why is branding Important to your Small Businesses?

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What is branding & Why is branding important to you small business?

People say that marketing is asking people out on a date and that branding is getting them to say yes.

If you are screaming a lot, putting loads of things out there into the world, but your brand is really, really weak, all those things will seem pretty fruitless, and if that’s happening to you at the moment, it might be because you haven’t really considered your brand, your Brand Roots, what they’re all about. 

Creating a connection to your small business branding

As we move more and more into wanting a bit more of a connection with a brand that we’re purchasing from, we need to bring a bit more of that human touch, especially if you’re a small business. 

You want to give people the sense that, actually, by buying your product or working with you, they have a much better experience than they would if they went for one of those kinds of bigger corporate chain options.

I love supporting independent businesses. You make my world a really happy place! But unfortunately, those big businesses have got a lot of money that they can invest in branding. They have spent a lot of time diving into their brand strategy and thinking about their brand roots, and it can be a little bit overwhelming for a small business, but that’s why I call it your roots.

What transformation does your small business offer?

Your roots are all those things underneath that are going on, all about your vision, your purpose, what you stand for, what your personality is all about, who you want to attract, your people and finally, what transformation does your product or service offer. 

Those things are what you’ll focus on when then you start marketing, but if you haven’t worked out all those things, your marketing will feel very clueless if you don’t know what you’re doing, and your sales will feel the same. I  think what’s the point of doing all this stuff if you haven’t got your strong brand roots sorted. 

branding should come before marketing

Now once you’ve got those Brand roots sorted then all those activities, marketing, writing blogs, chatting to customers, sales will feel a lot easier, a lot more aligned because you kind of know that you’ve got those strong roots.

If you think about a tree that’s grown too quickly and doesn’t have strong roots, they topple over in the wind. Whereas a tree that maybe spends a little bit more time growing – I’m thinking of the oak tree, one of my favourite trees; they stand the test of time.

Storms come along, but those roots are really keeping them strong, and the other thing that I often say is that the leaves can change, so you know what you’re doing in your business; maybe your products might shift slightly, but your brand is bigger than all that. 

It gives you that freedom to kind of explore what you do differently; you can kind of evolve and change, but it’s still got a strong brand. 

a strong brand supports your small business to evolve

The example is me, like, I started off doing branding by just working one-on-one with clients, and now I’ve got The Forest which is a group program, I’ve got my Brand Builder course, I’ve got products out there, and so I’ve had the chance to evolve. 

I also put on walks, but all of it felt quite aligned with my brand because I really thought deeply about what it is and also, it can be quite hard to make decisions around your business, what to do, what’s the path to take, is this right for me, but when you’ve got your brand roots sorted you’ll immediately know yes this is right for my brand or no this isn’t. 

making small business brand decision with intention

So when you’re communicating, you’ll know what language works, how you’re going to communicate. When you’re choosing how to market, you’ll know the right places to go for your people.

You can see those decisions are made with intention. You’re not just panicking and throwing everything out there.

So a little short introduction of why I think getting your brand roots and your brand sorted before you go out and doing anything else around your business is really, really important.