First, describe your company, then describe your brand. You are not alone in thinking that the two are the same thing. In fact, this confusion may be the reason why many businesses neglect branding and fail to capitalize on their primary point of differentiation in order to expand.
Your business is the services you provide, while your brand is the image you project. This is the difference between a business and a brand. However, there is no simple answer to growing either. How about we examine how to adjust both.
Branding Impacts the Business
The hard truth is that companies technically don’t have control over their brand. Your image is the picture your business projects yet still up in the air by the way that customers see your organization.
Take a look at Procter & Gamble. How do you feel about it? While others may associate the name with several soap operas (or Satan, if they believe every silly urban legend that arrives in their inbox), others may have heard the name but struggle to name a product associated with the company.
Despite marketing Charmin, Pampers, and Duracell, Proctor & Gamble has struggled to establish itself as a brand despite its highly profitable business.
These are brand names that are in a split second recognizable as well as promptly evoke an affiliation or profound reaction in shoppers. Charmin is delicate, Spoils guarantees tranquil evenings and perky days, and Duracell keeps endlessly going.
Yet, as a private company, how might you ensure you’re developing your image while developing your business when you don’t approach billions of publicizing dollars?
Growing Your Business and Brand
Developing your business regularly implies extending your extension and offering extra labor and products to your clients. This, at the root, is tied in with getting more cash. We understand that expanding your business was one of your year’s objectives. Notwithstanding, remember that developing your image is probably going to acquire more cash.
As we referenced, you don’t control your business’ image account — purchasers do. Building your brand usually means giving your business a heart and serving a bigger purpose than just your services. Therefore, what is the community in which your company operates? What else do people mention in addition to your services when they talk about your company?
Perhaps, as a barber, the brand is all about quick and effective cuts. Consider participating in the community if you want to set yourself apart from the narrative and give your brand a more human feel. Be the hairdresser who gives free hair styles to school year kickoff week or one end of the week a month to the destitute.
Find out what matters most to your company.
Is Balancing Both Necessary?
Therefore, I ought to concentrate on expanding my brand rather than my business? In a nutshell, no.
The two don’t necessarily go hand in hand; it is feasible to have a productive business with a solid, promptly recognizable brand name, yet this doesn’t occur unintentionally. Building your brand alongside your business necessitates a concerted effort, and you must be willing to compromise and make concessions when necessary to achieve this balance.
It’s quite normal for organizations to fixate on one while overlooking the other. Either the brand name will be diluted or profitability will suffer as a result of this. A valid example: Dell Corporation
Dell Computer had a niche when it first started out. They were a business that sold PCs straightforwardly to different organizations. Dell was synonymous with “business personal computer specialists” during the first quarter of 2001, when they were the world leader in personal computer sales and profits.
When it came time to expand, Dell employees did so without a care in the world for their brand.
They stretched out to offer PCs to customers, which implied they were no more “business” PC trained professionals. Then they enlarged their concentration to customer gadgets, which implied they were no more “PC” trained professionals. When they moved into retail dispersion, they were no more “direct.”
They were no longer Dell PC Corp., however Dell Inc. There’s no denying these progressions were beneficial for the business, however as business went up, the worth of the brand diminished. In 2007, they lost ground on Hewlett-Packard in terms of market share, and they never recovered.
Even though you probably don’t run a tech company, service-based businesses can still learn from Dell’s branding failure. Building your business can yield the outcomes you’re going for, however your prosperity will be transient without a brand to hang it on.
However, while building your brand may earn you the admiration and loyalty of your customers, if you allow your business to fail, those customers will be few and far between.
It is essential to learn how to strike a balance between the two. Construct your business in the present moment with an eye for your image character in the long haul. Although it’s harder to do than to say, it’s not impossible. Simply ask the people at Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Walmart, IBM, General Electric, Amazon.com, Coca-Cola, Volkswagen, Shell, Disney, Target, Settle.