Building a Brand for Your Small Business

24 January 2018

One of the most essential aspects of building a business, no matter how small it is, is establishing an effective brand—especially if you want to make an impression in today’s highly competitive market.

But what really does branding mean? And what does it take to create a brand that truly defines what your business really is?

Defining Your Brand

Think of your brand as your promise to your customer. Its purpose is to deliver a message to your audience, which includes what you have to offer and how your products and services differ from your competitors. Basically, it describes who you are and the image you want people to perceive you to be.

However, defining your brand may be easier said than done. After all, it is a journey to your business’s self-discovery. Specifically, it involves defining your company’s mission, your offerings, your reputation, and your qualities. You may have to do some research to find a branding that truly represents your business.

Creating Your Visual Brand

While a brand is more than just your company’s logo, you’ll want to establish the look of your company by choosing the right image, colors, fonts, and tagline that perfectly represent your ideals. Failing to establish defined brand guidelines is one of the most common mistakes small businesses are doing, which eventually puts all their branding efforts down the drain. Following these guidelines to build a visual brand invokes consistency and gives your brand a clear direction moving forward.

Knowing Your Audience

If you’re in a rut in developing your brand, you may be failing at getting to know your audience. According to Carfused.com marketing head, Matthew Creole Rees, it is essential to first determine what resonates with your target market before trying to develop a brand.

Know your audience by finding out their wants and needs and understanding their habits. This is especially a must for start-ups that are still trying to get their brand across their customers.

Using Social Media

Social media is a great way to market your brand and to reach out to your target audience, especially for start-up businesses that are still on a tight budget. In this digital age, people spend most of their time on social media, and if you fail to build a consistent social media presence, your business basically does not exist to many.

Once you’ve established your presence, the next most crucial thing to do is to maintain it. Being consistent in showing your presence creates a positive impact on your brand’s perception.

Your company’s brand dictates the language of your external and internal communication. The people of the marketing team in your company need to know exactly what the company’s brand is so that they can always integrate it in their campaigns and look for better ways to raise the consumers’ awareness of your brand.

Going beyond Your Logo

Your brand’s logo may create a significant impact on your audience at first glance, but a brand has to go beyond the visuals in order for it to become effective. In the end, it’s not just about what you do but more about why you do it that makes a brand more impactful.

A brand should reflect your culture. For example, if you are keen on maintaining a drug-free workplace, get your workers to understand your cause before administering blood drug tests.

This way, they will understand the implications of such health requirements, especially in occupations and industries where safety is of the highest priority, such as in operating machinery.

Building a brand may seem like an overwhelming phase—and you may think that getting started is already difficult as it is—but it’s maintaining that brand that’s actually more challenging.

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Source: customlogocases.com

Ariana Smith

I enjoy writing and I write quality guest posts on topics of my interest and passion. I have been doing this since my college days. My special interests are in health, fitness, food and following the latest trends in these areas. I am an editor at Content Rally.

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Here’s How Staff Augmentation Can Accelerate Your Projects In 2024

Are you struggling to keep pace with the ever-evolving demands of your Agile projects? In today's fast-paced development environment, scaling your team efficiently is not just an option; it's a necessity. Therefore, you must use staff augmentation, a strategic solution that can rapidly accelerate your Agile project delivery. Discover how integrating skilled professionals into your team can bring unparalleled flexibility and expertise, significantly boosting your project's efficiency. We'll explore the tangible benefits, practical strategies, and insightful best practices to help you effectively scale your Agile team through staff augmentation. Get ready to transform the way you manage your projects and achieve remarkable results. Understanding Staff Augmentation: A Quick Primer Staff augmentation is a flexible strategy for outsourcing the right talent for the right job. This strategy is followed by big firms globally for managing augmented teams. Unlike conventional hiring, which often involves a lengthy recruitment process and long-term commitments, staff augmentation offers a nimble approach to scaling teams. This strategy is particularly beneficial for businesses needing specialized skills for short-term projects or to fill temporary skill gaps. Here’s a breakdown of how staff augmentation differs from traditional hiring: Time Efficiency: Staff augmentation services enable quick onboarding of skilled professionals, reducing the time-to-hire significantly compared to the traditional recruitment process. Cost-Effectiveness: It eliminates many overhead costs associated with full-time employees, such as benefits, office space, and long-term contracts. Flexibility and Scalability: Companies can scale their teams up or down based on project requirements without the long-term commitment of a full-time hire. Types Of Staff Augmentation There are three main types of staff augmentation, which are: Short-term: Typically used for specific projects with tight deadlines or to cover temporary absences. Long-term: Ideal for extended projects where ongoing support is required. Specialized: Focuses on providing experts in niche areas or new technologies that are not present in-house. Understanding these distinctions and the types of staff augmentation available helps businesses make informed decisions about how to effectively scale their teams and meet project demands. This approach is increasingly popular in Agile environments, where adaptability and speed are key. The Role Of Staff Augmentation In Agile Project Management Integrating augmented staff into Agile teams can significantly enhance project management efficiency. In Agile environments, where adaptability and rapid iteration are paramount, augmented staff provides the necessary skills and manpower to meet fluctuating project demands. Impact on Agile Processes and Workflows: Enhanced Skill Set: Augmented staff bring specialized skills that might be lacking in the current team, facilitating more diverse and innovative approaches to problem-solving. Increased Flexibility: They allow Agile teams to quickly adapt to changing project requirements, ensuring that deadlines are met without compromising on quality. Improved Productivity: With more hands on deck, teams can manage larger workloads more efficiently, accelerating project timelines. A practical example of successful integration can be seen in a tech startup that leveraged professional IT staff augmentation to speed up the development of a new software product. Facing a tight deadline, the startup augmented its existing team with skilled developers who specialized in the required technology stack. This integration allowed the team to maintain Agile methodologies, like daily stand-ups and sprint planning, while effectively managing the increased workload. As a result, the product was developed and launched within the desired timeframe, demonstrating the effectiveness of staff augmentation in Agile project management. The key to success in such integration lies in ensuring that the augmented staff are not only skilled but also align with the company's Agile culture and practices. This alignment ensures seamless collaboration and optimal results. Benefits Of Staff Augmentation For Agile Teams Staff augmentation offers a myriad of benefits to Agile teams, enabling them to tackle projects more effectively and efficiently. Here are some of the key advantages: 1. Access To Specialized Skills And Expertise Staff augmentation allows Agile teams to bring in professionals with specific skill sets that may be lacking internally. This is especially valuable for projects requiring niche expertise or for navigating emerging technologies. 2. Flexibility And Scalability Agile projects often fluctuate in scope and scale, necessitating a flexible workforce. Staff augmentation provides the ability to scale the team size up or down based on the current needs of the project, ensuring that resources are optimally utilized. 3. Cost-Effectiveness And Efficiency By augmenting staff, companies can avoid the long-term costs associated with permanent hires, such as benefits, training, and other overheads. This approach is also efficient in reducing recruitment time, enabling teams to focus more on project delivery rather than on lengthy hiring processes. 4. Enhanced Productivity With additional skilled resources, Agile teams can manage workloads more effectively, leading to increased productivity. This also allows for faster turnaround times on projects, as tasks can be distributed more evenly and handled more competently. 5. Focus On Core Business Augmentation frees up internal resources, allowing teams to focus on core business activities. This is particularly beneficial for smaller teams or startups, where internal resources are often stretched thin. Overcoming Common Challenges In Staff Augmentation While staff augmentation offers significant benefits to Agile teams, it also comes with its own set of challenges. Addressing these effectively is key to leveraging the full potential of this strategy. 1. Addressing Skill Gaps And Training Needs One of the primary challenges is ensuring that augmented staff possess the right skill sets and are up to date with the latest technologies. Regular training and professional development opportunities are essential to bridge any skill gaps. 2. Navigating Administrative And Legal Considerations Augmenting staff often involves dealing with contracts, legal compliance, and administrative tasks, especially when hiring internationally. It's important to have a clear understanding of these aspects or work with a partner who can manage them. 3. Ensuring Quality And Performance Maintaining the quality of work and ensuring the performance of augmented staff can be challenging. Setting up key performance indicators (KPIs), regular performance reviews, and continuous feedback mechanisms can help in monitoring and maintaining work standards. 4. Cultural And Communication Barriers Augmented teams might face challenges due to cultural differences and communication barriers, especially in a remote working environment. Encouraging open communication, cultural sensitivity training, and team-building activities can mitigate these issues. 5. Integration With Existing Teams Ensuring seamless integration of augmented staff with existing teams is critical. This requires clear communication of roles, responsibilities, and project goals, along with fostering a collaborative team culture. The Best Staff Augmentation Practices In 2024 If you want to make the most of staff augmentation for agile project management, here are some necessary practices that you must inculcate: 1. Maintaining Clear Communication If you wish to have a strong team that gets theory work done on time with zero errors, having clear and open communication channels is a necessity. Having proper communication between all the members of the team is necessary for development. This is because it facilitates everyone in the team to work together and solve any issues that may crop up. Moreover, open communication improves team bonding, which is crucial for all team members to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This helps the team leaders to make better decisions regarding the allocation of work according to everyone's strengths and expertise. Therefore, use team communication tools like Slack, Asana, Trello, Skype, and Microsoft Teams. 2. Clearly Define Job Roles To get the most out of staff augmentation, you must define everyone’s job roles. If all members of your team know what they must do - and what they shouldn’t do - to get the job done, it prevents chaos and conflicts between your team members. Moreover, having clear job roles will make everyone's daily tasks clear. In addition, having a job role comes with various expectations. Therefore, it will help team leaders better measure the performance and efficacy of team members. 3. Learn How To Use Project Management Tools If you want to lead a project from initiation to its completion, you and your staff must use the best project management tools in 2024. Project management tools provide better documentation and storage of all work done by your team. Moreover, this helps in staff augmentation since many outsourced employees might be from other countries. Therefore, giving them limited access to to your sheets will help you better track and manage their work. The best project management tools in 2024 are Trello, Jira, and Microsoft Office 365. 4. Encourage Documentation-Driven Development How do you know that an outsourced staff member has done their work? No word of mouth will be tolerated here. The only permissible proof is proper documentation of your work. Therefore, team leaders and managers should encourage a work culture where all staff members (especially augmented staff members) must have proper and updated documentation of their daily work. This will help you keep track of everyone’s work and help you asses future actions and strategies. Conclusion: Scale Your Agile Team with Staff Augmentation In conclusion, staff augmentation emerges as a powerful strategy for scaling Agile teams, addressing skill gaps, and enhancing project delivery efficiency. This approach provides a pragmatic solution to the dynamic challenges of modern project management, offering flexibility, specialized expertise, and cost-effectiveness. To recap the key benefits: Access to a global talent pool for specialized skills. Scalability to meet fluctuating project demands. Cost savings compared to traditional hiring. Increased productivity and efficiency. However, it's important to approach staff augmentation with a strategic mindset. Choosing the right partner, ensuring cultural and process alignment, and effectively managing augmented staff are crucial steps towards success. Additionally, overcoming challenges like administrative hurdles, quality assurance, and team integration is essential for a seamless experience. Moreover, following the best staff augmentation practices will help you manage and track everyone’s work. In addition, it also facilitates clearer communication with outsourced staff members as well. Read Also: Top Ways Contract Management Software Helps to Mitigate Contract Risk Why Should I Get Started With Event Management Software? Which Marketing Mix Element Deals Specifically With Retailing And Marketing Channel

Six Pointers to Starting a Successful Business

So you've decided to bite the bullet and start up your very own business. If it's the first time you've ever dared to create your own venture, you're probably intimidated. But if your passion is deep and your willingness to work is significant, a lot can happen. But first, you must address some first steps to starting a successful business. Here are our tips and pointers to doing just that: 6 Pointers to Starting a Successful Business: 1. Create a Plan and Implement It: The most essential step to founding a new business is to simply start. Research and create a plan that details the sequence of steps you need to take to create a business from scratch, approximately how long it will take to implement each step and your budget for each stage. Sticking to a blueprint will help you focus on your long and short-term business goals and keep you from getting distracted. Take advantage of the many free and paid resources across the Internet that help you structure and create a business plan. Once you have a plan you've researched inside-out, follow it! 2. Learn to Delegate: You may be tempted -- particularly if you are on a shoestring budget -- to establish your business on your own. But this is not the best path to business success. With the budget that you have, consider enlisting the help of a virtual assistant, a mentor or volunteers that help you get out of the day-to-day minutiae of your business. Doing this will enable you to focus on the bigger decisions and strategies that help you automate and build systems that keep the business running on a day-to-day basis. Don't skimp on just hiring anyone though, really invest time in finding the best employees for the position you are advertising. Employees who are intent on helping you with the best of themselves will be the lifeblood of your enterprise. 3. Investigate Your Audience: If you're able to think of five independent profiles of customers off the top of your head who'd be interested in your product or service, then you're on to something. Investing time and thought into finding out crucial information about your target audience is incredibly important to your business. Ask yourself the following questions: What target group would buy your products? Why would they value your product enough to buy it? When you are able to deeply identify your target audience, you're more likely to be able to figure out avenues of how to reach them. Knowing your target audience is what will ultimately guide you in the development of your product or service as well as your marketing. Make it a point to occasionally ask your customers what they think about your market, your product/service, and other such valuable information. If they would support website localization or foreign language subtitling for your onsite videos, for example, you should know about that. Doing this will help you prepare a positive, seamless experience for them from the moment they first hear of you to when they buy your product or service, and beyond. 4. Work Out And Stick To Your Rates: Many business owners make the mistake of charging what they think the market would be willing to pay. But instead, your baseline should be to charge the minimum, or more than the minimum, of what you need to earn to keep your company afloat. Set realistic goals of how much it will cost you to stay in business. Once you have a final figure in your head, set a rate or price that honors that figure while enabling you to make a profit. Try to set a price on the value of your service or product, rather than just cover a simple margin more than what it costs to provide or create the service or product. 5. Tap Into Your Passion: Beyond the nuts and bolts of the plan behind putting your business together, there's the human aspect --- your drive and passion for wanting to make it happen. The truth is that most successful entrepreneurs will often do whatever it takes to make their business successful. Starting a successful business is rarely easy -- it requires long hours, occasional failures, setbacks and disappointments that will make it difficult for you to continue. When you have the drive and determination to overcome these, you are that much more likely to find the success you deserve. 6. Roll Up Your Sleeves and Get Busy: Don't wait until you've got all your eggs in the basket to start putting your business together. Waiting for the right moment means it may never arrive. If you have an idea that is compelling and have undertaken the research and necessary planning to get it off the ground, go for it. But be prepared to learn some tough lessons while adjusting your plan along the way. Start now and commence your journey towards launching a business. Remember, even if you fail, you'll be that much more experienced when you revamp your ideas and strategy and start afresh. Read Also: 4 Business Leadership Skills For Business Success Why Should Retailers Use Pricing Tools For Their Businesses 5 Intelligent Sources To Boost Business Strategies All Over The World 5 Most Common Challenges Faced Bye Commerce Businesses Today

How To Sell A Small Business Without A Broker

Once you’re ready to sell your small business, hiring a business broker tops your list. An article from this perfectly defines the role of business brokers that is to act as “intermediaries between buyers and sellers of a business”. They are the equivalent of real estate brokers or agents who sell properties on behalf of property owners. Business brokers manage everything necessary to sell your small business, from planning to marketing to closing the deal. Some even assist during the transition process. Considering such an enormous task, enlisting a broker may seem the easiest and most convenient thing to do. However, their service comes with an outrageous fee, usually around 10% commission from the sale. This is certainly a huge cut from your profits. If you want to retain the full profit from the sale, you can opt to sell your small business sans middlemen. This is an excellent choice especially if you have previous experience selling a business, you know of prospective buyers, or you’re not in a hurry to sell-off. However, when you decide to sell your business on your own, you have to be ready for a tedious legwork. So, how do you go about the sale? Know your reason for selling the small business According to a business broker, the first thing that a buyer would want to know is why a business is being sold. For a business to attract a potential buyer, you need to have a good reason. Some of the common reasons are retirement, sudden changes in personal circumstances, illness or death, boredom, partnership disputes, and burnout. Prospective buyers find these as ‘attractive’ reasons to buy a business. It may be harder to sell a business if you tell the buyer that you’re selling the business due to its sorry financial state, persistent losses, lack of manpower, and changing market conditions and trends. Make your business easily marketable by timing your sale properly. Show positive attributes to make it more marketable such as a strong customer base, increased profitability, consistent good financials, well-defined business processes, and a good contract. Plan your sale Prepare your business at least two years ahead of the sale, especially if you won’t enlist a broker. Have an ample amount of time to improve your client base, business structure, and financial records. This will help improve the value of your business and make it more attractive to buyers. This should also help ease the transition process. Get your business appraised Once you’re ready to sell, you need to decide on the worth of your business. It is best to work with a professional business appraiser to get a proper valuation. Often, business owners become illogical when it comes to evaluating their own business. Some price is too low in an attempt to make it more marketable but end up losing on potential profit. Others price it too high hence making it unattractive to potential buyers. A business appraiser will evaluate your business to determine its worth. He then prepares a detailed explanation to give credibility to the proposed price. Prepare all documents Give time in preparing the design or sales package for your business. This document represents your business in the best possible light to potential buyers. It should include financial, operational and marketing information. If you are not comfortable with your communication skills, you can enlist the help of professional business writers. Financial documents are an important part of the sale process. Gather your books of account, financial statements, and tax returns for the past four years. Review these documents with an accountant. In addition, develop a list of assets that are being sold along with the business. Include other necessary documents such as lease agreements, supplier contracts, and contact lists. Prepare an information packet or operating manual that provides an overview of your business processes. In addition, you want to add photographs of your business, testimonials, case studies, and customer profiles. Highlight accomplishments and milestones to make it more marketable and command better-asking price. Prepare your business on-site Alongside the documentary preparations, you should also make your business site presentable. Check your physical store, production site, warehouse, and other related locations. You might need to have some areas repainted or redeveloped. Check if equipment or machinery needs to be replaced or fixed before the sale. Investing in such developments can help improve the asking price. It might sound cliché but first impressions last. An unkempt and dilapidated business site might turn off a potential buyer. It pays to invest in your physical asset as soon as you decide to sell on your own. Look for a buyer to sell your small business Finding a buyer is difficult, but it becomes doubly challenging if you don’t have a business broker. Unless you have a ready buyer, it may take several months to years before you can find the right buyer. The advantage of hiring a business broker is that they have wide networks and established marketing methods. If you are working solo, you will need to compensate for these services. There are listing sites dedicated to businesses-on-sale. You only need to pay a one-time fee and your business becomes available to potential buyers. You can also tap your networks. Perhaps, a friend or an acquaintance (or someone they know) is planning to buy a business. You can check your local business clubs or chambers. Visit online forums and social networks. Don’t limit your advertising methods. Final Thoughts As you can see, if you sell your small business without a broker is possible. It can even be advantageous if you play an active role in the sales and negotiation process. Quite obviously, business owners are more passionate to sell their business to the right buyers. Of course, you just have to remain rational and avoid getting your emotions to affect your decisions. As a final caution, if you have no experience selling and buying a business, you should consider working with a business broker or someone who has experience in this field. Better yet, you can check with your local chamber of commerce for assistance and counseling. Read Also: How to Boost Traffic to your Small Business Cost Effective Custom Mobile Accessories Packaging for your Small Business How To Empower Your Small Business through Digital Marketing? 4 Simple And Cheap Methods To Attract More Customers For Your Small Business

Building a Brand for Your Small Business

Defining Your Brand

Creating Your Visual Brand

Knowing Your Audience

Using Social Media

Going beyond Your Logo

Some Facts You Need to Know About Rainwater Harvesting

How to Start, Set Up, and Grow Your Own Massage Business

Tags

Ariana Smith

I enjoy writing and I write quality guest posts on topics of my interest and passion. I have been doing this since my college days. My special interests are in health, fitness, food and following the latest trends in these areas. I am an editor at Content Rally.

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Here’s How Staff Augmentation Can Accelerate Your Projects In 2024

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Building a Brand for Your Small Business

Defining Your Brand

Creating Your Visual Brand

Knowing Your Audience

Using Social Media

Going beyond Your Logo

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How to Start, Set Up, and Grow Your Own Massage Business

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I enjoy writing and I write quality guest posts on topics of my interest and passion. I have been doing this since my college days. My special interests are in health, fitness, food and following the latest trends in these areas. I am an editor at Content Rally.

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Follow Us

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