Build Your Brand
When starting out as a contractor, it’s tempting to see branding and other ‘softer’ sides of the business as less important, an optional extra, something to get round to once trading is fully off the ground. Why bother looking at a marketing strategy, choosing logo colours or starting to place adverts when you have yet to find an office space?
Why? Because branding is, in fact, fundamental to the future of your business, and this is something you need to focus on from the day you set up your business.
Ice-cream flavour. A brand is more than just an image, it’s about having a clear idea of what your business is about. What are its predominant characteristics? What’s your unique selling point? Who are you really trying to appeal to? How do you see your business relative to other similar ventures in your field? If your business were an ice-cream flavour, which would it be?
Perhaps the last question is not the most pressing line of inquiry in building your brand, but knowing your business inside out is absolutely essential. Only when you have an understanding of who you are and what you are setting out to do can you start to sell ideas to other people.
Target audience. Spend time early on establishing exactly what shape you want your business to take, and how you can reflect that in your brand, whether it’s using PR, advertising or designing your logo. Do you want to appeal widely to a young, funky audience, or target yourself towards mature industry professionals? Is your business approach innovative and radical, conservative and cautious, or somewhere in between? Will street-wise media people or academic technical types be your clients of choice?
Armed with an understanding of these elements, you can begin creating your business brand, starting with the basics: a logo that can be used on your business cards, letterheads and website, an email address with a domain name reflecting the name of your company and a website.
Having a clear idea of how you want to position your business from the start can save you considerable time and money on irrelevant advertising or a logo that you will subsequently regret. Getting a thousand tight, white promotional T-shirts printed with a fluorescent logo may prove a mistake if you later decide to orient your business towards middle-aged chief executives.
Specialist help. Make choices carefully and consider investing in the services of design and/or media consultants. If possible, develop a long-term strategy in terms of how you want your brand to develop over coming months and years. Do you want to be a nationally recognised brand by 2010? What steps could you take to achieve this? Set a goal, stick to a plan, and you may well get there.
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