When you first start out in business, you’re always eager to get things right. Because you’re new. And you often feel like you have something to prove. Or, you just want to be able to grow as fast as you can. Both options are cool, because they often motivate you and inspire you to push and develop. But sometimes, you can be intimidated too. Because when you’re a small business or freelance, and you’re new, you can feel inadequate. So the way to get over that, is to position yourself well. One of the best ways to do that as a new business with big ambition, is to brand yourself. Whether you work from home or you have a small office setup, when you have branding in place, it can make you feel so much more professional. So here’s how you’re going to do it.
1. Get To Know Your Brand
The first step is always to get to know your brand. If you’re going to be in a position to get your brand right, you have to know what you’re about. So spend some time thinking about who you are, what you do, who your ideal customer is, and what kind of image or message you want to put out. Really think about whether you’re budget or luxury, informative or entertaining, modern or classic. Get to know where you fit in the industry, and what you’re all about.
2. Bring It To Life
When you’re doing that exercise, so many ideas and questions and images are likely to come to mind. And that’s cool. But now you have to get it all down, and come up with actual branding that represents this. So you need to hire a designer or a branding specialist to do that for you. A lot of the time, they can take your answers and your notes and your visions and turn it into a tangible, professional brand for you.
3. Stay Consistent
Next, you need to make sure that you’re always consistent with your branding. You have to talk in the same way, use the same imagery, and really stay consistent with the branding you use internally and externally.
4. Use Merchandise
It can also help you to have your branding on stuff too. Merchandise like Promo Gallery can offer or advertising like Signwriting can offer is what you need. When you can bring your branding together in different places, it strengthens it.
5. Carry Business Cards
Finally, you should also make sure that you’re getting some business cards drawn up. You may be a new business, you may work from home, or you may be freelance, but you still need to make sure that you have them on you at all times. In a social and digital world, we forget about them. But you still need business cards because not everyone will be online. Plus, they are tangible and hold your branding, so you have more chance of someone actually then going on to contact you or do business with you.