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3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a
number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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Bolinda's goal is to end small business
failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need to succeed and live the life you've
dream of.
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Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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And what welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
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I'm a small business lady, America's number one
small business expert, and I am excited to
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welcome you to today's show.
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Today's show, it's all about developing your
2021 business strategy.
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If you need a new strategy for where your
business is gonna be going in the New Year?
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Well, we've all been affected by the pandemic,
and you're in the right place.
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Small Bish Pat is really it's a live peer to
peer interview show.
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That gives small business owners a way to get
and share valuable information and advice.
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The mission of small business chat is to end
small business failure.
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And today's show is featuring 3 live guests,
and we are also broadcasting from my small
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visited Facebook page, my YouTube channel, And
we're streaming live on Twitter via Periscope.
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On small business chat live, our goal is to
give our small business audience An opportunity
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to hear sage advice from multiple angles to
grow your business and take it to the next
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level.
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So with that, I would love to introduce my
guest And now it's time for us to have a smart
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conversation about branding and marketing.
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You know, 2020 has been a heck of a year, but
one of the things that has been really
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important is for brands to start thinking about
things like brand story.
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And my next guest is the perfect expert to talk
about this.
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Ross Kombrowski is the founder and CEO of
crowdspring With more than 220,000 experienced
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freelancers provide branding and design
services before founding cross thing he
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practiced law for 13 years as a successful
trial lawyer.
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He also counseled and represented clients from
small Internet startups to Fortune 100
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Companies.
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And complex disputes involving intellectual
property.
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He also founded several other startups,
including startup foundry, quickly legal and
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respect for more information we can head over
to crowdspring.com to learn more.
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Alright, Ross.
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So, you know, the world's most successful
companies make great products, but a huge part
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of their value wise and their brand What is the
most important thing that small business owners
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should understand about building a successful
brand?
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Most business owners actually misunderstand
what a brand is.
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I think that's probably the single biggest
lesson.
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So a brand is the sum total of the experiences
your customers and prospects have with your
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company.
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Problem is most business owners, particularly
small business owners, think that their logo is
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their brand.
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And a logo is a small part of a visual
identity.
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So anything that you, your employees, your
customers can see is your brand identity, but
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your brand is so much more.
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And so the important thing is you're not done
creating a brand when you have a logo or a
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website.
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You need to invest in email in communication
and building a voice in building relationships
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with your customer from the customer support
person who answers an email to the
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receptionist.
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They answers a a phone call.
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And that's the single biggest lesson I think
that small businesses really misunderstand, and
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it's an opportunity for them to truly build
strong brands when they can cover every
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interaction with a customer.
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But isn't really about understanding your brand
strategy in order to improve your branding?
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Cause I feel like you know, logo website email,
that's almost like collateral materials, right?
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Isn't it really about thinking through your
overall brand strategy first?
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Whether you're you're 100% right because at the
end of the day, if you do nothing, you still
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have a brand.
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And that's that's the thing about brands, but
the brand that you have is not particularly
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strong and likely won't reflect what you do.
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So you should be deliberate because if you look
at, for example, the values of the world's most
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successful companies, whether it's Apple or or
Airbnb, one of the most successful startups
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that's just filed to go public.
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They invested a lot in a strategy to build
those brands, and and there's 6 things you can
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do to to build that strategy.
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Number 1 is to really document your mission
statement, your vision, your values, what your
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business is about.
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Number 2, determine your target audience to
your market and understand your competitors.
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This is where a lot of business owners fall
flat.
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They assume they have no competition, but in
reality, we all have competition.
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Number 3, and this is a tough one is define
your unique selling proposition.
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What's your special sauce that makes your
business different?
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Number 4, find a good, memorable name.
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Number 5, create all the visual assets, the the
brand identity, your logo, your website, your
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business cards.
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And finally, develop your brand voice because
without strategy, you're just doing things that
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ultimately are not going to build a strong
brand unless you get lucky and let's face it.
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Most people don't get that lucky every single
time, so you have to take proactive steps.
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Now, one of the things that I see a lot of
people don't think about is, like, there's
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these different brand types now.
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Right?
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So you've got the, you know, experiential
brand, the service brand, the disruptor brand,
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innovative brand, conscious brand, and, like,
the style brand.
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Right?
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So there's there's these types.
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How can a startup brand or even an existing
company process or really reinvent their brand
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as they're thinking about sort of like these
archetypes that exist already?
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Like, how do you think about it in terms of
that?
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Well, first of all, there's no right type of
brand at the end of the day.
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Your brand is largely based.
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If you're a small business owner, if you're an
entrepreneur, your brand is based on you.
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And what you can do.
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It's your voice and and how you approach the
market.
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So so one way that you can assess whether
you're a new company or an existing company
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what kind of brand you have and where your
opportunities lies to do something called a
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SWAT analysis.
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And it's done with by Big Corporations, but
it's a really useful for small businesses and
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and startups too.
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And Swatstones for for strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats.
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And each of each of these involves a series of
questions that you ask yourself and your team
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if you have founders or if you have employee
people, about your business and where you may
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be falling short.
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That will help you to define what's special.
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And it also includes asking questions of
customers if you already have customers because
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the way people see your brand is actually much
more important than what you say about yourself
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because your brand image is what ultimately
sells products and services, not what you say
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about your company.
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You know, I once heard somebody say your brand
is what people say about you when you're not
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back around.
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Like, that's really what what your brand
perception is.
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And that's a great way of of putting.
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So, you know, one of the things I see small
business owners in particular is they don't
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really have a unique selling proposition or a
unique value proposition.
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And I wanted to talk to you a little bit of
because there's a lot of just okay out there,
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and nobody falls in love with the just okay
brand.
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And so I'm wondering, like, have you seen this?
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And and what is the curfiness?
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So I see this all the time, and, of course, you
see this because you talk to tons and tons of
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small businesses all the time too.
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And one of the reasons this happens is because
as business owner, as entrepreneurs, we tend to
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fall in love with our solutions and not the
problems.
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And when you fall in love with your solution
and not the problem, you tend to become
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fascinated about what you do and you're
drinking your own Kool Aid effectively.
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The people that fall in love with a problem,
fully understand what problem they need to
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solve, who has it, why they have it, why
they're struggling, tend to build really strong
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solutions, And when they do that, they evaluate
what is unique about what I do.
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So as an example, Apple makes nice products
They're really good.
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They're expensive.
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Why do they sell so many of them?
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And why do they sell them at a higher price
than their competitors?
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It's because they invested for decades in the
customer experience.
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And the people that buy Apple products expects
high quality, expect high performance, expect
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beautiful visual design, and that
differentiates them every small business needs
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to find that special sauce.
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Oh, yeah.
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I would absolutely agree with you, and I would
define apples brand as a style brand.
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There's style, their design is integral to
their customer experience, which is what would
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make them more of a style brand.
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So if you want to establish your brand voice,
is that different from your brand story, or is
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it the same thing?
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Well, your brand voice is literally how you
communicate with with your customers and
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prospects.
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So if you're building a fun, funny brand, Your
brand voice is the way you talk to people on
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your website in your email communications, in
your voice mail greeting on your social posts.
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And one of the things that I think a lot of
small business owners forget is that your brand
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voice has to be national.
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In other words, if you're starting a business
or running a business, and you just don't have
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that sense of humor that is needed to carry off
a funny voice, then you either need to find
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somebody that does or change to a slightly
different strategy because it's really hard to
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execute an effective voice and meet the needs
of your target market.
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If you don't have that innate ability to talk
like that.
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So so it's really the attitude with which you
communicate.
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We expect a certain type of communication from
banks and insurance companies and lawyers.
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We expect a different type of communication
from from fun, young startups, and small
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businesses who are who are fun and irreverent.
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And and, ultimately, If they do that
effectively, they create loyalty, and that's
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what what what ultimately is important to
building strong brands.
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Our last question How do you suggest that small
business owners sort of like stay updated on
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the latest tools and even branding trends that
are out
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there So there's lots of of publications, of
course, lots of blog posts and and
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conversations on Twitter about these topics.
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The thing about trends and and this is this is
those 2 important concepts.
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Number 1, you should definitely be aware about
what's going on and and try to find ways to
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ignore fads because fads, if you remember back
in the dot com days.
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It was a fad to attach dotcom to your name, and
that quickly became a disaster.
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Then it became a fad to have three-dimensional
logos.
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And that that was a disaster.
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So So the best thing you can do is when you
hire somebody to help you with design, hire
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somebody who has the experience and the
credibility to be able to steer you away from
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fats to give you a custom design.
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Because at the end of the day, the problem for
most small business owners is they under invest
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in good design.
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And and we believe that good design is good
business.
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When you under invest in good design, it
actually ends up costing you a lot more in the
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mid to long term and can hurt your brand.
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So find credible designers who can help you
build a strong brand who can help create
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consistency who will give you unique custom
designs as opposed to forcing you to use
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generic, confident designs.
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You know, that's the best way to build a strong
brand.
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Thank you so much, Ross.
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I think that that was invaluable advice because
I think there's all these people out here, you
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know, using clip art or using free business
cards thinking they have a brand.
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And they do not.
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So I am so glad that you have finally co signed
what I've been talking about for years about
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branding and good design.
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And thank all of you for joining me tonight.
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Please head over to my blogs as soon as your
own boss.com.
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We'll have more information about all of my
guests tonight.
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And, certainly, I want to leave you with this.
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My mission of small business chat is to end
small business failure.
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But here's the deal.
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You never lose in business either you win or
you learn.
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Good night, everybody, indopla.
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Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat
podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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For more resources and small business success
strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen
to podcast and join us next Wednesday.
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3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
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00:00:08,615 --> 00:00:10,474
Ending small business failure.
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00:00:11,095 --> 00:00:17,079
Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a
number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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00:00:17,539 --> 00:00:21,719
Bolinda's goal is to end small business
failure, and she'll give you the information
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00:00:21,779 --> 00:00:24,704
you need to succeed and live the life you've
dream of.
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00:00:25,425 --> 00:00:28,164
Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady.
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00:00:34,145 --> 00:00:36,619
And what welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
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I'm a small business lady, America's number one
small business expert, and I am excited to
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00:00:42,119 --> 00:00:44,924
welcome you to today's show.
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00:00:45,144 --> 00:00:49,725
Today's show, it's all about developing your
2021 business strategy.
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00:00:49,945 --> 00:00:54,070
If you need a new strategy for where your
business is gonna be going in the New Year?
15
00:00:54,210 --> 00:00:58,710
Well, we've all been affected by the pandemic,
and you're in the right place.
16
00:00:58,850 --> 00:01:02,869
Small Bish Pat is really it's a live peer to
peer interview show.
17
00:01:03,015 --> 00:01:07,755
That gives small business owners a way to get
and share valuable information and advice.
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00:01:07,974 --> 00:01:11,355
The mission of small business chat is to end
small business failure.
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00:01:11,579 --> 00:01:16,859
And today's show is featuring 3 live guests,
and we are also broadcasting from my small
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visited Facebook page, my YouTube channel, And
we're streaming live on Twitter via Periscope.
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On small business chat live, our goal is to
give our small business audience An opportunity
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to hear sage advice from multiple angles to
grow your business and take it to the next
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level.
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So with that, I would love to introduce my
guest And now it's time for us to have a smart
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conversation about branding and marketing.
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You know, 2020 has been a heck of a year, but
one of the things that has been really
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important is for brands to start thinking about
things like brand story.
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And my next guest is the perfect expert to talk
about this.
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Ross Kombrowski is the founder and CEO of
crowdspring With more than 220,000 experienced
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freelancers provide branding and design
services before founding cross thing he
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practiced law for 13 years as a successful
trial lawyer.
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He also counseled and represented clients from
small Internet startups to Fortune 100
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Companies.
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And complex disputes involving intellectual
property.
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He also founded several other startups,
including startup foundry, quickly legal and
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respect for more information we can head over
to crowdspring.com to learn more.
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Alright, Ross.
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So, you know, the world's most successful
companies make great products, but a huge part
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of their value wise and their brand What is the
most important thing that small business owners
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should understand about building a successful
brand?
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Most business owners actually misunderstand
what a brand is.
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I think that's probably the single biggest
lesson.
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So a brand is the sum total of the experiences
your customers and prospects have with your
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company.
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Problem is most business owners, particularly
small business owners, think that their logo is
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their brand.
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And a logo is a small part of a visual
identity.
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So anything that you, your employees, your
customers can see is your brand identity, but
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your brand is so much more.
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And so the important thing is you're not done
creating a brand when you have a logo or a
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website.
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You need to invest in email in communication
and building a voice in building relationships
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with your customer from the customer support
person who answers an email to the
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receptionist.
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They answers a a phone call.
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And that's the single biggest lesson I think
that small businesses really misunderstand, and
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it's an opportunity for them to truly build
strong brands when they can cover every
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interaction with a customer.
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But isn't really about understanding your brand
strategy in order to improve your branding?
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Cause I feel like you know, logo website email,
that's almost like collateral materials, right?
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Isn't it really about thinking through your
overall brand strategy first?
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Whether you're you're 100% right because at the
end of the day, if you do nothing, you still
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have a brand.
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And that's that's the thing about brands, but
the brand that you have is not particularly
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strong and likely won't reflect what you do.
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So you should be deliberate because if you look
at, for example, the values of the world's most
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successful companies, whether it's Apple or or
Airbnb, one of the most successful startups
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that's just filed to go public.
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They invested a lot in a strategy to build
those brands, and and there's 6 things you can
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do to to build that strategy.
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Number 1 is to really document your mission
statement, your vision, your values, what your
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business is about.
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Number 2, determine your target audience to
your market and understand your competitors.
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This is where a lot of business owners fall
flat.
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They assume they have no competition, but in
reality, we all have competition.
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Number 3, and this is a tough one is define
your unique selling proposition.
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What's your special sauce that makes your
business different?
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Number 4, find a good, memorable name.
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Number 5, create all the visual assets, the the
brand identity, your logo, your website, your
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business cards.
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And finally, develop your brand voice because
without strategy, you're just doing things that
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ultimately are not going to build a strong
brand unless you get lucky and let's face it.
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Most people don't get that lucky every single
time, so you have to take proactive steps.
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Now, one of the things that I see a lot of
people don't think about is, like, there's
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these different brand types now.
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Right?
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So you've got the, you know, experiential
brand, the service brand, the disruptor brand,
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innovative brand, conscious brand, and, like,
the style brand.
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Right?
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So there's there's these types.
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How can a startup brand or even an existing
company process or really reinvent their brand
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as they're thinking about sort of like these
archetypes that exist already?
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Like, how do you think about it in terms of
that?
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Well, first of all, there's no right type of
brand at the end of the day.
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Your brand is largely based.
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If you're a small business owner, if you're an
entrepreneur, your brand is based on you.
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And what you can do.
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It's your voice and and how you approach the
market.
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So so one way that you can assess whether
you're a new company or an existing company
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what kind of brand you have and where your
opportunities lies to do something called a
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SWAT analysis.
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And it's done with by Big Corporations, but
it's a really useful for small businesses and
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and startups too.
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And Swatstones for for strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats.
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And each of each of these involves a series of
questions that you ask yourself and your team
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if you have founders or if you have employee
people, about your business and where you may
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be falling short.
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That will help you to define what's special.
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And it also includes asking questions of
customers if you already have customers because
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the way people see your brand is actually much
more important than what you say about yourself
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because your brand image is what ultimately
sells products and services, not what you say
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about your company.
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You know, I once heard somebody say your brand
is what people say about you when you're not
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back around.
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Like, that's really what what your brand
perception is.
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And that's a great way of of putting.
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So, you know, one of the things I see small
business owners in particular is they don't
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really have a unique selling proposition or a
unique value proposition.
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And I wanted to talk to you a little bit of
because there's a lot of just okay out there,
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and nobody falls in love with the just okay
brand.
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And so I'm wondering, like, have you seen this?
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And and what is the curfiness?
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So I see this all the time, and, of course, you
see this because you talk to tons and tons of
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small businesses all the time too.
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And one of the reasons this happens is because
as business owner, as entrepreneurs, we tend to
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fall in love with our solutions and not the
problems.
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And when you fall in love with your solution
and not the problem, you tend to become
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fascinated about what you do and you're
drinking your own Kool Aid effectively.
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The people that fall in love with a problem,
fully understand what problem they need to
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solve, who has it, why they have it, why
they're struggling, tend to build really strong
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solutions, And when they do that, they evaluate
what is unique about what I do.
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So as an example, Apple makes nice products
They're really good.
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They're expensive.
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Why do they sell so many of them?
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And why do they sell them at a higher price
than their competitors?
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It's because they invested for decades in the
customer experience.
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And the people that buy Apple products expects
high quality, expect high performance, expect
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beautiful visual design, and that
differentiates them every small business needs
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to find that special sauce.
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Oh, yeah.
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I would absolutely agree with you, and I would
define apples brand as a style brand.
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There's style, their design is integral to
their customer experience, which is what would
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make them more of a style brand.
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So if you want to establish your brand voice,
is that different from your brand story, or is
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it the same thing?
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Well, your brand voice is literally how you
communicate with with your customers and
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prospects.
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So if you're building a fun, funny brand, Your
brand voice is the way you talk to people on
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your website in your email communications, in
your voice mail greeting on your social posts.
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And one of the things that I think a lot of
small business owners forget is that your brand
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voice has to be national.
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In other words, if you're starting a business
or running a business, and you just don't have
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that sense of humor that is needed to carry off
a funny voice, then you either need to find
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somebody that does or change to a slightly
different strategy because it's really hard to
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execute an effective voice and meet the needs
of your target market.
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If you don't have that innate ability to talk
like that.
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So so it's really the attitude with which you
communicate.
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We expect a certain type of communication from
banks and insurance companies and lawyers.
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We expect a different type of communication
from from fun, young startups, and small
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businesses who are who are fun and irreverent.
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And and, ultimately, If they do that
effectively, they create loyalty, and that's
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what what what ultimately is important to
building strong brands.
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Our last question How do you suggest that small
business owners sort of like stay updated on
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the latest tools and even branding trends that
are out
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there So there's lots of of publications, of
course, lots of blog posts and and
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conversations on Twitter about these topics.
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The thing about trends and and this is this is
those 2 important concepts.
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Number 1, you should definitely be aware about
what's going on and and try to find ways to
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ignore fads because fads, if you remember back
in the dot com days.
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It was a fad to attach dotcom to your name, and
that quickly became a disaster.
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Then it became a fad to have three-dimensional
logos.
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And that that was a disaster.
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So So the best thing you can do is when you
hire somebody to help you with design, hire
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somebody who has the experience and the
credibility to be able to steer you away from
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fats to give you a custom design.
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Because at the end of the day, the problem for
most small business owners is they under invest
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in good design.
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And and we believe that good design is good
business.
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When you under invest in good design, it
actually ends up costing you a lot more in the
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mid to long term and can hurt your brand.
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So find credible designers who can help you
build a strong brand who can help create
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consistency who will give you unique custom
designs as opposed to forcing you to use
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generic, confident designs.
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You know, that's the best way to build a strong
brand.
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Thank you so much, Ross.
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I think that that was invaluable advice because
I think there's all these people out here, you
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know, using clip art or using free business
cards thinking they have a brand.
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And they do not.
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So I am so glad that you have finally co signed
what I've been talking about for years about
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branding and good design.
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And thank all of you for joining me tonight.
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Please head over to my blogs as soon as your
own boss.com.
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We'll have more information about all of my
guests tonight.
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And, certainly, I want to leave you with this.
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My mission of small business chat is to end
small business failure.
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But here's the deal.
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You never lose in business either you win or
you learn.
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Good night, everybody, indopla.
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Thank you for listening to the Small Biz Chat
podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:26,065
For more resources and small business success
strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen
to podcast and join us next Wednesday.
