As an entrepreneur, what's your biggest challenge in creating your brand identity?
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Nov 7, 2012
In addition to having a focused and appealing message, there's another dimension: Getting all the visual materials in synch: Website, blog, online profiles, Facebook and Twitter pages, biz cards and mail pieces. Logo, graphics, colors, look and feel, etc.
It's not just CREATING your brand identity initially but SUSTAINING it over time. Things change. You evolve and offer new things. Graphics look dated. "Your website looks so-o-o-o 2000s!" What used to work no longer produces the results it once did.
Be concise, be consistent, be integrated, be on the lookout, be ready to change it.
Nov 6, 2012
beholding the power of focus. Most definitely important. So easy to get distracted isnt it?
Nov 6, 2012
NARROWING the focus. SO many people feel they need to be everything to all people and that's a sure ticket to hell.
So, for example, are we marketers? Are we online marketers? Or is it even better to be The Video Marketing Guys?
Tighten as best you can. If you need MORE than one niche, do that... but keep your focus narrow - it's MUCH easier to get your message across when you do that.
Nov 4, 2012
I found it fairly easy to translate the emotions we wanted to transmit into visuals. It was really difficult was to find a unique voice in the blog and everything written.
Nov 4, 2012
One of the businesses I started, provided lots of different services. The customers like choice and information but not the hassle of trying to locate it on a vast website. The solution for me was to create micro sites that answered questions quickly. The niche is what my customers appear to want, and it works.
The challenge is that this all takes time, lots of time, because the information is very specialized, it is not something that can be farmed out for someone else to write and develop for me. It also means I needed to brand multiple sites and not just one - creating lots of duplication.
Whats great is how easy this method is for slipping under the radar of larger, less agile competitors.
Nov 4, 2012
Narrowing my focus. I haven't cut down the number of services I offer. I have cut down the number of services I talk about when networking. To One. Three years ago I started presenting myself as just an Elevator Pitch Coach. As a result, all areas of my coaching practice have grown by leaps and bounds. Counterintuitive, yes. And it works.
Nov 7, 2012
I completely agree. Paige's advice is right on. The challenge is that it's tempting to get pulled in all sorts of different directions. The most psychologically difficult decision I ever made was focusing on my Elevator Pitch work. I wish I'd done it sooner. I get much cleaner leads and inquiries now from people who know exactly what I'm about and how I can help them. Even though it works much better, it still seems counter-intuitive...
Nov 4, 2012
In our multi level social media it is being consistant across all the countries you wish to add your product too and continue to change the wording or video and picture images to suit the client.
When you are working across these different facets the wording can make a big difference so your Brand name needs to be constant while the smaller print only changes.
Nov 4, 2012
People are going to "pigeon hole" you; its the nature of how we cartmentalism data. The biggest challenge is trying to control which hole you're going into. are you going to be the call center guys, or the customer service guys? I know some teenagers that consider Apple to be the iPod company. So my advice is to shorten-up the pitch and embrace the pigeon hole.
Asking an entrepreneur like myself "what they do", ends up one big list. I have found that people respond much better and are more comfortable when you say just one of the things you do. Like Paige Burkes said above - go deep not wide, and exploit the power of the niche.