Episode 14 RYOB: Brand building - so much more than just advertising

In this episode we will teach you how to build your brand. The moment you start your own business as a freelancer or entrepreneur, you by default start work on building your company's brand. 

The brand is the environment's perception of what your company is, what it looks like, and what you can expect from it.

You need to choose between a personal brand and a company brand

For some solo-entrepreneurs, the personal brand is strongly associated with the company. However, using your personal brand or building a company one boils down to your personal preference.

Depending on your industry, demand, and other factors, a personal brand helps the clients get a personal feel. When they think of your company and products they think of you, and when they think of you, they think of your company and products.

In other situations, separating the personal and company brand is advisable. The company's brand is built more independently of you as an entrepreneur in order to include more people in the future and maybe sell the company further down the line.

However, as you will see, for many small entrepreneurs, the brand consists of both personal and company elements. 

As you read through the article and get to think about all the components of the brand you can revisit this question and decide which of the three alternatives fits your company best.

You cannot not have a brand

Your business has a brand whether you like it or not. If you do not take care of your brand, it will take care of itself. The environment will form an opinion about your company and that will be your brand. In this article, we will discuss multiple brand building concepts and give some tips on how to own your brand building process.

The brand has 2 cornerstones

There are two concepts that create the basis of any brand:

• The first one is the physical expression: logo, profile colors, and the like.

• The second one is the value-laden identity of the brand. 

Many entrepreneurs and freelancers mistakenly think that when they choose a logo, make some business cards and design the website, the brand is set. Don’t fall for this fallacy. Your logo and other visual elements are there to reinforce the totality of your brand. They alone are not enough. The visual elements need to be part of something bigger, they need to be part of the identity and perception of what your company promises its customers. 

Long story short: the visuals should carry the meaning of the brand, not be the brand itself.

So let’s start there. Before you start designing the logo, you need to be clear about what your company means and wants to achieve. What is the purpose of your company?

Brand meaning

Begin by defining the vision, core values, ​​and brand promise

Maybe you did some of these already when you wrote your business plan. If not, now is the time.

The following questions can help you define your vision, core values, and brand promise:

• What do you really want to do with your business? Here you have to get past the obvious of providing the product you offer. Of course the product is a big part, but you do not run the company for your own sake. You come with a set of talents and abilities to offer the world and you are passionate about something. Spell that out.

• What is your vision of running this particular company? 

• What do you want - really?

Use the answers of these questions as a starting point and write down your vision. This will be the core of your brand and the tuning fork that all your future activities will be tuned to.

Expand the vision to find your core values

Now that you have the vision in front of you, you need to expand it and see how it relates to everything that you do. This is a very important step in your entrepreneurship journey. You can use these following questions as a guide:

• How do you achieve your vision? 

• What feeling do you want to convey when you achieve your vision?

•  What is your idea of ​​how your company should appear and be perceived? 

Brainstorm freely for a while and write down all the words that come to your mind.

Then see how the words in front of you are connected. Can they be grouped? Are there logical connections? Interesting contradictions? Sort them as you see fit. Take your vision as a basis, review the headings, groups and independent words in your brainstorming material based on the connection to your vision. 

To find your core values write down the most important ideas/concepts that stand out from the expansion of your vision. Pick 3-5 words that really describe what you want to be in the market.

Get extra help from a coach

Even the most self-reflective of us could use a helping hand now and then. It is easy to want to express many things at the same time or remain vague with certain elements. Get a coach to challenge you to stay concise and clear, and support you in finding those exact core values that are important to you.

Find a coach here or download our free material on finding your core values.

Write down your brand promises

Now that you have your vision and your core values, the next question is: what do you promise your customers? What is your brand promise? When someone buys your products, what can they expect? Go beyond “high quality product,” and dive deeper into the whole experience. Write down your promises.

The external attributes of the brand

Create a logo

Good work. Now you have done the groundwork. Next, you can start thinking about the external attributes. Ask a graphic designer to sketch a logo for you. Or if you prefer to do the job yourself, you can now start thinking about: 

• What does a company like yours look like? 

• How do you visualize your vision, your core values ​​and your promises to the customer? 

• Are they soft shapes or straighter lines? 

• What colors fit? 

Extra tip: if you have a favorite color that you know you often use yourself and you want your personal brand close to your company, you can include that color in your logo or make it your profile color.

All visual elements should reflect the brand

Build your website, your business cards, your brochures and the decor of your office to reflect and strengthen your brand. Create a style that expresses what your brand stands for and find ways to include elements of the vision, the core values, and the promises.

If you promise exclusivity, make sure your business cards reflect that. If personal closeness is one of your core values, this should be apparent when I visit your website. If corporate professionalism is part of your vision, you may want to skip decorating the brochures with kittens and summer flowers (even though they are beautiful).

Separate the brand from your personal taste

Now keep in mind that your visual expression should reflect the brand you have created as an entrepreneur, not your own personal taste. It's about what your company stands for and promises in the market, not who you are. With a brand that is close to you as a person, it is easy to mix them up. 

Practice separating yourself and the company even if you actually want to build a strong personal brand. You need to be genuine. You need to be YOU and like what you do. But you still have to have a private life as well. Not everything that you do should be expressed in the brand; this is about your professional persona. You choose how much of your entire identity you want to express there.

Let the brand live in your everyday life

Think about how you actually live your brand in your work day. Think about how you honor the promises you make to the customer as an entrepreneur. Think about what routines regarding purchase, payment, discounts, etc. will be right for a company with your brand promises. Think about the places where you should network, and the causes you should support.

At the same time, allow yourself to be unique and stand out. Your uniqueness is what makes the market notice and remember you - so take advantage of it. When you become too similar to all other entrepreneurs in your industry, it becomes harder and harder for those who meet you to find a clear hook to hang the memory of you on. What's your thing? Once you've worked on establishing your brand and people start talking about you - what are people saying when they talk to each other about you and want to remind each other of who you are? "It's he the one with…" or "You know her, her who…"

During the time you run your business, your brand will be alive, will breathe, and will develop. The reputation of your company will be built through the interactions with your customers, your competitors, your market, and the world around you. The more logical and clear you can communicate your intentions, the easier it will be for the right customers to find you. Your brand is strong when it clearly expresses the values ​​your company delivers and the outside world appreciates what they associate it with.

Summary on how to build your brand:

1. Develop a clear vision - why does this company exist?

2. Select core values ​​that reflect the vision. What is important for your business?

3. Formulate your brand promises. What do you promise the customer?

4. Design your style in the form of external expressions in line with your brand

5. Build business routines and networks in line with your brand

Live and communicate your brand day by day as long as you continue to run the business.

In our next and last episode of the RYOB series we will explore a topic that usually sets apart successful entrepreneurs from the rest: sticking to your own personal development journey.

Episode 11 RYOB: How to get customers? - Part 3/3

Welcome back! In this last part of the “How to get customers?” episode we discuss the last step of the water wheel metaphor: customer care. 

Customer care

There is an old truth among salespeople that it is easier to sell to existing customers than to chase new ones. This is really about the trust you build when your product delivers good value to your customers and the trust your existing customers have in you based on their previous experience with you and your products. Knowing and using this as a freelancer or entrepreneur can be a game-changer.

What happens to the relation between you and your customers during and after the transaction is completed? Let’s use the water wheel metaphor again to get some perspective. When the water has driven the wheel for one turn, where does it go next? Do you lead the water back to the pond so it can come back to the wheel again, or do you let them splash away at random?

Make sure to nurture the relations that you built with your clients. Depending on your product and industry, you can try to personally reach out to people and ask for feedback about the product and show that you care about their experience with your product. You can send thank-you emails or messages, personalized newsletters and offers for future purchases. 

As an entrepreneur you are in charge of your product, business, but also of the relations with your clients.

In all phases of the process we have described here, it is up to you to take good care of those who are interested in you. The way you nurture the relationship with your existing customers determines whether or not your customers stay close to you and easily remember you the next time they need something you can offer. 

Extra tip

Analyze your customer care process by stepping out of your freelancer or entrepreneur shoes and putting yourself in the shoes of the client. Start by looking at what happens after a purchase is made. To make it more concrete, look at your last ten customers: how did you communicate with them after their purchase? 

• Do you communicate with them today? 

• Are they added as subscribers to your newsletter? 

• Are they following you on social media? 

• Did you ask them to write a review on your website or on your social media? 

• Depending on your product and industry, do you have a group where customers can be invited where you host activities and where they can exchange their experience with other clients? 

Create a routine that suits you and your customers and then follow it consistently every time you finish with one of your customers so that you can continue to communicate with them and support them.

Customer care includes the clients who have not yet made a purchase as well. Look at the ones you contacted in the third step of the water wheel, when you made them an offer. How do you continue to communicate with those who said no? Some of them may still be potential customers when the time is right. Look at how you can adapt the routine that you have for existing clients and tweek it to fit this group of potential clients.

Closing thoughts

By actively and consciously working with your company at all four steps of the water wheel, you get a good flow of potential customers around your company. If you feel that it stops in some part, go there and get it started again. It is common, for example, that when things become routine and you are fully focused on delivering your product, the work of filling in the pipeline is forgotten and the flow of new customers stops. 

This is a constant work in progress. Just like everything in a freelancer or entrepreneur's journey. You need to constantly check the water wheel system and see where things get stuck and work on maintaining that section of the process. By keeping customer care at the top of your mind, you create channels which connect the end of your process back to the pool of people who know your business and replenish your source of potential customers. 

You cannot make everyone be a recurring client - but many can be led into the flow of interest again. The ones you lose can, if they have a good image of you, help you spread the word about your product. Nothing is wasted. Make sure to take good care of the process at all stages. 

That’s all for this time, next article I am turning focus to another important part of running your own successful business. See you in the next episode to get tips and useful hacks in financial management and budgeting.

Episode 10 RYOB: How to get customers? - Part 2/3

In this second part of the “How to get customers” episode we continue discussing the water wheel metaphor by taking a look at the second step: filling the pipeline. 

Fill the pipeline

At this step you are visible as an entrepreneur and as a company and you built a following who knows about you and your products. The challenge at this stage is to bring this group closer to a purchase by concretizing offers and clarifying how you can help them. Practical steps can include gathering contacts at a networking event, growing your newsletter subscribers list, or increasing the number of followers on social media.

In my water wheel metaphor, this stage is the equivalent of getting the water from the pond to the wheel - people who have seen you are taking a step closer to your business. Your job here is to be clear about what you offer and how. Capture those who know you and express interest and meet them where they are. The more of those who generally know you who also actively take part in what you do and what you can offer, the greater the chance that they will become a customer.

Be sure to deliver value to those who follow you. Whether it's via your blog, your newsletter, your social media pages, or where you are now gathering your audience, be sure to provide valuable information to those who follow you. This phase is about connecting with the people closest to you and becoming more available in their memory. Then, when they actually need your services you will be the first one to come up to mind. Give examples of what you do. 

Depending on your industry this can be done through short clips, articles, or live streams. You can also offer freebies that give your followers a sense of what they get as your customer and therefore create the basis of a relationship with those who are interested in you. One way for entrepreneurs and freelancers to be visible is for them to be generous.

Extra tip

Set goals for yourself about how many new followers you want to have on your social media or how many subscribers to a newsletter and then use your networking occasions to build that follower base. Having objective metrics and basing your work and decision making on those can take your entrepreneurship to the next level. Follow up on the (digital) business cards you collect and ask them if they want to follow your newsletter for a while. Set reasonable goals here so that you challenge yourself and at the same time reach them often enough to keep your motivation high. Three new contacts every week? 13? 30? Figure out what works best for you.

You need to think about what you will offer those who are interested in your products. What can make your service visible and concrete to them? How are you going to convey that? Set aside an hour and make a plan week by week for the next three months in which you figure out what you want to say to those who follow you and how.

Come to a conclusion

The third step in the water wheel metaphor is coming to a conclusion. To come to a conclusion is to take that step when the potential customers leave the transport route and make a decision. Often, a trigger of some kind is needed here. It can come from the customer themselves. Someone may have read your blog for several years and now something is happening that makes them feel it is time for a change. They know what you are doing and how you can help and decide to purchase your product. It can also come from you - suddenly you communicate something in a way that makes them place an order right away.

If you feel like you have a lot of people around you, many of whom think what you do is interesting but still there are too few sales at the end of the month, this is probably the stage where you are stuck. You need to be better at helping your customers make a purchasing decision or better at communicating with the customers who are ready to buy your services. Successful entrepreneurs and freelancers constantly refine their communication skills.

Let’s look at how you can do this!

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes

Think about what it is that prevents those who think what you do is interesting from actually placing an order. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

• What do the customers need to know to make a decision? 

• Would a custom offer entice them? 

• Would they need to try out the product before purchasing? 

• Do I fully understand their struggles and does the offer of my product address that enough? 

• Is it clear to the customers that my product addresses their struggles and can help them?

Use discounts

Discounts are a common method used by entrepreneurs and companies to motivate clients to make a purchase. However, here you are faced with a tradeoff. On one hand, discounts can be that extra nudge that your customers need. It depends a lot on the product. However, generally speaking, if you overdo it, clients might begin purchasing your product because it is cheap, and not because they want to make a solid investment. Consider carefully what your discount and its frequency will signal to your clients. 

Take ownership - invite your clients to make a decision

From your follower base, only a small portion of people will consider making a purchase. However, you need to remember that you are not powerless. You can approach prospective clients yourself and invite them to make a decision.

For example, if you decide to offer some freebies to one person a day from those who follow your newsletter or on social media, and do it consistently for 30 days, you have soon increased the flow of potential customers close to a decision with 30 people. Follow up each freebie give-away with a concrete offer. Even if you lose 60%, you have ten new customers in one month. Of course, how big these numbers are depends on your industry. Make sure to adapt the numbers to suit your product and market.

Similarly, think about approaching other companies. If you contact one company a day which might be interested in your product/services you have drastically increased your chances of any of them deciding compared to if you sit and wait for them to approach you themselves.

Extra tip

Just do it. Approach potential customers with offers. Set a goal for how many people/companies per day or week you should actually make a concrete offer and then make sure to stick to this goal. Dare to ask and make offers with confidence in yourself and your product once a day for 30 days and your sales are likely to go up. Here’s a tool to help you stay on track, our 30 days action plan.

In the next episode we take a look at the last stage of the water wheel metaphor. See you there!

Episode 9 RYOB: How to get customers? - Part 1/3

In the previous articles we looked at how you can set up your own business. Now is the time for us to address the area that is a priority for all companies, freelancers, and entrepreneurs - how will you find the customers and how will they find you? In the following 3 articles we will discuss several aspects that you need to consider when building your customer base.

Without customers, you will get nowhere. Regardless of your track record or time in business, you always need to replenish the customer flow. Because this is a complex topic, we will divide it into a few different stages and look at how you can work with these different parts.

The stages are: 

• Create visibility

• Fill the pipeline

• Come to a conclusion

• Customer care

Use the water mill as a metaphor

Metaphors and visualizations can be a powerful and useful tool for entrepreneurs. This is why I prefer to use the metaphor of a watermill. Let’s see how this metaphor can help you get more clients and boost your freelance or entrepreneurship journey.

Creating visibility is about creating your own collection of people who know that you exist and what you do. I see these as the water you get to use as the driving force for your water wheel. Maybe you are strategically placed next to a suitable stream, maybe you dam up a pond in your area. You can carry water there, you can create flows that lead water there, you can wait for the rainwater to fill a reservoir - the more active you are, the faster it goes. Use that entrepreneurial spirit and be proactive.

Then imagine a gutter where the water is led up to the paddle that runs the entire operation. This is what I call the pipeline. The gutter leads the water to your water wheel where it flows through and, with its power, drives the wheel round. Customers who know you approach you for your products and services and when this becomes a business, you can charge a price and the business gets revenue. Customer care is about what you do with the water after you work with it: do you let it splash away and find its way on its’ own, or do you lead it back to the pond?

Depending on the phase your company is in, you have to focus on different parts, but all four need to be up and running at all times. Whichever of them stops, it will soon dry out the others as well. Let's go through the four parts and see what needs to be done in each of them. Along the way, I offer you a tool for creating your own action plan. Regardless of whether you are a new entrepreneur or freelancer or a veteran who got stuck at one of these waterwheel steps, you will get tips for each step in turn on how to get started (or unstuck).

Create visibility

Every company, entrepreneur, and freelancer needs to have their group of people who know that they exist and what they do. In that group are your potential customers. This group is very small in the beginning when you start mostly alone with most awareness coming from your loved ones and friends. 

Pretty quickly you have to turn up the volume. It helps to be a loud entrepreneur. The more people who know you, the greater the chance that you will get the customers you need. Imagine the metaphor of the water wheel: the more water there is, the more the wheel will turn. Not everyone who knows your company and entrepreneurship journey will become customers, but the more they are, the greater the chance that you will be visible to the right person at the right time.

The first thing you should do here is decide who is your target audience. Who are the most likely customers? Focus on them. Being known by "everyone" is not necessarily a good thing. It is expensive and time consuming to reach everyone at once. The wiser strategy is to choose a specific group of people and focus on them.

Here are some examples of questions that you can ask yourself to reach your target segment: 

• Where are they?

• What are they interested in?

• What do you have to offer them?

The main idea behind visibility is that you need to connect the answers to these questions: figure out what value your product offers the customer, find this group and show them how your product can solve their problems or bring them extra value. Remember that entrepreneurship, in part, is about offering solutions to people’s struggles.

Channels you can use to gain visibility

You can create your visibility in many ways. Some standard channels include advertisements, lectures, flyers, and networking. In this phase, it is about getting yourself out there, drawing attention to yourself, and creating an understanding of what it is you are offering. Different products come with different challenges. You will need to adapt your marketing approach to fit your product. 

You need to reduce the uncertainty surrounding your product

Generally speaking, the more you can reduce the uncertainty surrounding your product, the more likely people are to buy it. This is why physical products tend to be more easily sold than non-tangible products. Your task is to find novel ways to make your product stand out and offer your customers as much proof of the product’s value as possible. Here you can think about offering freebies and demonstration sessions.

Another way to reduce the uncertainty factor is by first reaching out to those who already know you - perhaps former colleagues or employers, friends, family, and their extended network. Because they already know you and you have a relationship of trust with them, they are more likely to purchase your product.

One last tip on reducing uncertainty is by marketing yourself and your products in communities which already embrace the type of solution that you offer. For example, if you run a coaching business, a good place to promote yourself is in self-development groups where people are looking for ways to improve themselves and are hungry to learn.

Extra tip: zero in

What is your way of being seen as an entrepreneur or freelancer? Choose 3 activities that suit you and that make your company widely visible to new people. If you want ideas, borrow a book about guerrilla marketing or outreach sales work, there are lots of books and websites on how to get new customers if you are empty of your own ideas. The trick is to pick 3 things and actually consistently do them for 30 days. Here is a free action plan to help you follow through with this task.

Join us in the next episode when we continue our exploration of the water wheel metaphor.