A Match Made in Minutes

10-Minute Branding Refresher: How do you build your brand 10 minutes at a time? You start small, and you simply begin. An excellent way to convince yourself to get going is to plan your ending. You can even set a timer. Then, be sure to bask in the success of your huge accomplishment of actually beginning and also appreciate the amount of work that got done. Then, repeat the process tomorrow. And the next day. And so on. You will be amazed at your branding progress . . . 10 minutes at a time.

Consider Bringing a Partner On Board

Owning and operating a small business can be a lonely and overwhelming proposition. Sometimes, you just wish you had some additional resource you could rely upon. If you have ever found yourself in this position, perhaps you should consider enlisting the assistance of a strategic partner – the topic of this newest 10-minute brand building tip.

Such a relationship can but does not have to involve any kind of formal legal arrangement. Rather, you are looking to pair with another business that – like you – is hoping to gain a certain marketplace advantage.

Identifying a Potential Prospect

Some combinations seem to have a natural synergy – like the way peanut butter pairs with jelly or marshmallows with chocolate bars and graham crackers. When considering prospects, ask yourself what other product or service might be acquired to better take full advantage of the characteristics of yours.

For instance . . .

If your business is to share advice about branding, you might consider forming a strategic partnership with a designer who produces branded stationary, business cards, etc. If you are a farmer with apple orchards specializing in the production of cider, perhaps your ideal strategic partner would be a grocery store or farmer’s market that uses seasonal campaigns (such as fall, Thanksgiving, Halloween) to promote sales.

Basically, think of a business that could benefit from your product while, in turn, enhancing yours. That said, you will want to consider issues such as goals for growth, culture, values, attitude toward service, and history of success to ensure the optimum likelihood of a good match.

Potential Benefits of a Strategic Partnership

Many exist . . . but I will concentrate on three for the purposes of this piece.

Cut Costs

One role of well-matched strategic partners is the ability to run joint sales and advertising campaigns, which has the potential to substantially reduce the expense of both parties by splitting costs while also allowing everyone to take advantage of economies of scale. Better deals can sometimes be available to companies willing and/or able to spend more, which can be accomplished through a partner while your own original investment remains the same. Any activity targeting large numbers of prospects falls into this category (direct mail/e-mail campaigns, sales events, etc.)

Increase Your Audience

You have your own list of customers as well as a data base of prospects. More than likely, your strategic partner does as well. Combining these lists for activities such as direct mailings or even telemarketing campaigns substantially increases your pool of highly qualified prospects. If you’ve chosen your strategic partner well, their customers should be very interested in your products/services and more likely than your average cold contact to ultimately become your customer as well. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that you already share some of the same customers and that letting them know about your strategic partnership can only strengthen their loyalties to both of you, which suggests a joint loyalty program might be very successful.

Remember, strategic partners are not your direct competitors. Rather, these companies are ones that complement your main focus . . . so sharing of customer data is reasonable.

Enhance Your Product

Even the best products can always become a bit better . . . but you just lack the resources to pursue such development. By choosing your partner wisely, you can make your product better by being able to offer additional qualities brought to the table by your partner. (Once peanut butter found jelly, that partnership created a new enhanced offering called PB&Js . . . and the rest is history!!)

In the case of a branding blog, we try to explain some of the characteristics that create an effective brand, we can even provide instruction for building certain basic tools like logos. However, a partnership might allow us to highlight certain vendors who are able to supply finished products for items like brochures (helping those readers who prefer not to take the DIY approach).

Your 10-Minute Branding Assignment

Identify a company offering a product/service that complements yours. Visit their web site to get a sense of their audience and approach to sales. Determine whether the prospect has been involved in a coordinated effort with another business (perhaps even one of your direct competitors). Track down the names and contact information of people within the operation who might be the best ones to approach about possible partnerships. (The “About” page of the candidate’s web site can sometimes yield this information.)

While your 10-minute task for the day is done once you’ve completed this assignment, another day your mission will be to make a preliminary contact. This process can be repeated as many times as necessary to move forward. The potential benefits will easily justify the effort.

Sponsor a Community Team

Grassroots BRANDING

Would you invest 10 minutes of your time and a very modest amount of money to get your name (and BRAND!) publicized within your community in a very positive way for weeks (often months) at a time?

The answer seems obvious, but a surprisingly small number of businesses take advantage of the opportunity to sponsor a local athletic team – ranging from those of young kids to adult recreational groups. Typically, a quick call or e-mail to a league official would be all that’s required to agree to sponsor a particular sport.

What You Get (in Addition to Gratitude)

In return for your sponsorship, you can expect to receive some combination of the following forms of recognition:

Your name on hats and/or jerseys (both of which tend to be worn for years after a particular season has ended).
Your name on printed programs and/or schedules.
Your name displayed in some manner within the athletic venue.
Your name repeated every time the player mentions the team in conversation with others.
Your name listed in any newspaper covering the sport (ex: Donny’s Hoagies plays West End Pizza tonight for the league championship!).
Your name mentioned at any end-of-season banquets or perhaps reproduced on a trophy.

This word-of-mouth exposure can be especially effective within a local community and seems ideally suited to retail operations (though larger regional and national companies can still benefit). When you consider the high cost of advertising, an investment of this kind provides a good shelf life and return for each dollar spent . . . while associating your brand with community involvement in a very positive way.

Opportunities Abound

When considering possible sponsorships, all forms of athletic teams are available – from little league baseball and mini-football to intramural/recreational softball, soccer, hockey, and basketball. You can even consider branching out further by supporting school plays, choral groups, etc.

While the exact amount of your investment will vary with your location, type of exposure provided, potential audience size, etc., you are very likely to find that the 10-minute branding activity needed to set up the sponsorship and the modest amount of money involved will produce results that compare quite favorably with other branding opportunities.

Always Have a Back-up on Hand

Welcome to another installment of 10-minute branding!

Disclaimer: While we only recommend products we know and love, we want to note we use affiliate links and may earn a commission for purchases made through those links.

I recently wrote a piece about making your brand a consistent statement throughout your business by reviewing all the physical documents your customers see, your advertising, your web presence, and signage to make sure each piece fits your brand — logo, company colors, tag line, etc. Doing this audit from time to time and addressing issues by revising, reprinting, and/or repackaging is the ideal way to go. And yet, sometimes, a last-minute stamp right before a piece goes out the door is the best we can possibly do. In those instances, it’s good to be prepared.

This week’s 10-minute branding recommendation is to buy your business a logo stamp for those eventualities in which you have no other way to make your brand known. Maybe you run out of a certain size box and need a short-term fix until you get a new batch. Maybe you need to use an envelope size that you’ve never needed to use before and therefore don’t have anything pre-printed. Maybe you have a print job go wrong. Thankfully, a good stamp goes a long way and will still look professional in such instances.

If you don’t already have one, here are a couple options for you from Zazzle:

A round or square logo:
https://www.zazzle.com/
your_logo_rubber_stamp-256591105496181633?rf=238905376834006182

A wide or long logo:
https://www.zazzle.com/
your_logo_rubber_stamp-256983210512542367?rf=238905376834006182

HAVE A QUESTION OR COMMENT?

We’re always happy to hear from you. Scroll down to the “Leave a Reply” section below.

Build a Contact Prospect List

Add Three New Names Per Session

When you think about telemarketing, direct mail, or some other sales campaign, you probably imagine using a huge database of prospects obtained from a third-party source. Perhaps the list was purchased from a vendor or downloaded from a non-profit professional organization of which you are a member. Then, you probably see this list becoming the engine that drives a huge concerted effort involving many people . . . and then producing results measured in depressingly low percentages.

Well, that description is very often extremely accurate and can indeed be extremely worthwhile . . . but can also sometimes involve extensive resources. However, another 10-minute approach to the same basic activity does exist.

Specifically, build your very own sales contact list three entries at a time. Create a spreadsheet or other electronic list that includes the following columns for:

Name (consider separating into separate columns for first, last, and salutation)
Address (consider separating into separate columns for street, city, state, zip)
Phone number
E-mail address
Social media presence (identify which ones)
Dates contacted (Leave space for three entries)
Contact method (Leave space for three entries)
Contact response (Leave space for three entries)

When identifying the entries to include in your database, consider prospects from the following:

Your street, town, neighborhood
Personal acquaintances that could also have a business interest in your products/services.
Business associations and memberships such as the Chamber of Commerce, trade groups, etc.
Leads mentioned by your friends and family members.
Internet searches using a variety of terms related to your business.
Possible leads encountered through social media or other advertising activities.
Sign-in sheets located either online or within your place of operations.
Etc.

You Get the Idea

Prospects can come from almost anywhere; you probably encounter a half dozen a day . . . but never bother to formally collect the information into a useable file with accompanying contact information.

When entering such data into your spreadsheet, finding the names will probably come fairly easily, but you will spend the majority off your time gathering the other information that makes the file useful, using phone books, online searches, social media searches, directories published by groups and organizations like your local Chamber of Commerce, etc. I can almost guarantee that 10 minutes will be required to do your three daily entries, and you will probably not be able to fill in every column of contact information but WILL succeed in collecting enough to be useful.

Next Steps for This 10-Minute Branding Task

Collecting three prospects per day may not seem like enough to be useful . . . but perform that task for 10 days during a month, and you have 30 at the end of that period. Do that for six months and you have 180. Furthermore, your list is reusable. Following the basic principles of sales contact campaigns, you should plan to reach out to each name you have collected at least three times at different intervals to try to assure that you get your information in front of that person at buying time – the circumstance in which you are most likely to be successful in making a sale, adding a new customer, etc. Similarly, you can try to approach your prospects in a variety of ways – by phone, by mail (direct mail letter or postcard), by social media messaging, etc. That way, you are giving yourself the best possible chance of reaching out to each prospect by his or her primary media preference.

Will You Be Successful?

Conventional wisdom suggests yes – with sustained, consistent, and professional effort, you will generate new business. While the percentage of victories will probably be low, new customers tend to be recurring and can more than payoff your 10-minute investments fairly quickly over time. Furthermore, I think you will find that a list assembled in the ways described above will be somewhat prequalified and therefore more useful than prospect lists obtained in other ways that tend to include countless entries with little likelihood of success.

For more information, see Role of Branding in Direct Mail/E-mail and Creating a Mail Merge Document for Direct Response Mailing. Also, look for further 10-minute branding suggestions upon executing a prospect sales campaign three leads at a time!

Protect Your Brand: Check for Copyright Infringement

Welcome to another installment of 10-minute branding!

If you create something of value, someone, at some point, is going to try to steal it from you.

Image by Freepik

You’ll most likely encounter such a culprit even if you don’t go looking. However, if you stay vigilant and catch copyright infringement quickly, you don’t risk losing too much ground. I recommend performing this check once per month. (If you never see any copycats, you can extend the task to once every three or six months.)

SEARCH FOR TEXT

Use a search engine to search for your company name, company slogan, product name, product slogan, etc. I usually go about five pages deep. If you don’t see any infringement by that point, chances are you’re good.

SEARCH FOR YOUR GRAPHICS

Using google’s reverse image search, I would search for the portion of your logos (company and products) without the text, so you’re searching for any graphical components individually. To do so . . .

1. Go to google.com and click the camera icon at the far right of the search box.

2. Click the ‘upload a file’ link and follow the prompts to select your image.

3. Google may automatically crop the searchable area of your image as was done for mine below. If so, you can simply drag the corners of the outline outward to extend the highlighted area of the picture.

4. Scan the “visual matches” for any copycats.

ISSUES

If you find any copycats, bookmark the web site(s) containing the infringement as you go. If you have a lawyer, forward your results. If not, stay tuned. We’ll elaborate on ‘next steps’ in a future post.

HAVE A QUESTION OR COMMENT?

We’re always happy to hear from you. Scroll down to the “Leave a Reply” section below.

Order Pizza for Your Employees

Today’s 10-Minute Tip

Your employees are your best brand ambassadors. They have the most direct and frequent contact with the general public/your audience/your customers and can be the key to reinforcing the brand image and message you want to communicate while embodying your service philosophy.

In taking 10 minutes every once in a while to order pizza or some other treat (such as picking up the tab to have an ice cream or food truck come to your place of business), you tell your team that you recognize their importance and value their daily contribution . . . while giving you a chance to reiterate your branding message and service philosophy to a receptive group!

Want to take the gesture one step further?

Treat each pizza party as an opportunity to highlight an employee of the week/month/year and celebrate his/her efforts by posting that person’s picture within the workplace.

Fast. Easy. Affordable. Fun.

Pizza parties provide a perfect way to complete your 10-minute branding assignment for a day . . . and even save some time for yourself by taking care of your lunch!!

Remember, we are very interested in hearing your thoughts and comments. Just use the space below.

Learn more about the importance of customer service to the process of branding:

Branding Through Customer Service

Make Your Brand a Consistent Statement Throughout Your Business

Welcome to another installment of 10-minute branding!

So how do you make your brand a consistent statement throughout your business . . . in 10 minutes a day no less?!

The endeavor sounds so much harder and more intimidating than the actuality.

ENSURING BRAND CONSISTENCY: THE PROCESS

Day 1: Collect all the physical documents that your customers see.

(Remember that any task taking more than 10 minutes gets paused to continue the next day.)

Day 2: Make sure each collected piece fits your brand — logo, company colors, tag line, etc. Put any off-brand item aside.

Day 3: Repeat the process for all current advertising.

Day 4: Go through your website and any other online materials. You can bookmark any item needing to be addressed.

Day 5: Repeat the process for any signage, noting items in need of change.

Day 6: Fix identified issues. One piece per day is probably a reasonable goal, though more complicated items may need to be spread across multiple days.

And then you’re done! The process may takes weeks to complete, but if you approach it in a organized manner and commit to 10 minutes per day (no more or no less), your brand will be consistent in no time . . . without having to take away from the business of actually running your business!

GOING FORWARD

Having this process fresh in your mind will help you be attentive to branding your materials in the future. Still, you may want to put a reminder in your calendar for one or two years ahead (whichever seems more reasonable based on the quantity of materials you have) to repeat this process.

HAVE A QUESTION OR COMMENT?

We’re always happy to hear from you. Scroll down to the “Leave a Reply” section below.

Ask a Customer (Just One) To Do a Review

Today’s 10-Minute Tip:

If you have a very friendly repeat customer who has been complimentary about your business, you have a possible candidate to write a review for you. Very often, you just need to ask. Since this 10-minute branding activity can be done at any time, any day that you don’t have a specific idea for contributing to your company’s brand, you can ask a customer for a review.

When approaching an unfamiliar vendor to acquire a needed product or service, most of us at least take a cursory glance at past customer ratings and reviews. While some of your patrons may not be comfortable offering a review, many would be more than willing to help out.

While an in-person request is probably ideal, an e-mail, text message, or note at the bottom of a customer satisfaction survey can also work just fine.

When making your request, emphasize how quickly and easily the task can be done. Suggest the various ways the review can be performed – from filling out an online form to writing a short note on a piece of paper, giving you a message that can be repackaged to display on a sales counter or reproduced in a brochure. Remember, the goal is to find a method within his/her comfort zone. (If appropriate, offer to pass along a link to an on-line review site.)

Helpful Hints You Can Provide

The review can be used to discuss your product(s) and/or services.
Suggest the person be as detailed and specific as possible.
Honesty always comes across best and creates a more meaningful and sincere message.
Reviews and ratings can be revised/updated in the future.
Tell the person to consider what he or she would personally like to know and include that kind of information.
Thank the person.

Making a customer request for a review can be accomplished in under 10 minutes . . . but the benefit can linger for years to come.

Learn more at:

Getting Reviews for Your Business

Review Request Sign

Weeeeeeeeeeee’re Back . . .!

Prefatory Note:

When Carole first suggested the idea of moving forward with a somewhat altered approach to our blog (i.e., 10-Minute Branding) I was intrigued and sensed some real value that would speak to the current needs of people trying to build a successful small business and have some semblance of a work/life balance. While I am currently at a different stage than her (having – for instance – two adult children out on their own rather than two teenagers at home), the freshness of her plan was appealing and seemed in keeping with our DIY mentality. BUT . . . me being me, I had to build a justification for myself. Below is where I landed.

Perform an Internet search for the statement “attention span of millennials and Generation Z’ers,” and you will find a variety of references to an 8-to-12 second time frame.

Is this finding a sad commentary on the younger crowd who are soon destined to rule the world, or is this fact a symptom of necessary adaptation to survive and ultimately thrive within an increasingly complicated and complex society?

Personally, I’ve come to believe the latter. As the demands on our time and attention have grown, the ability to process information quickly and make meaningful use of small blocks of time becomes essential. Furthermore, this realization has led us to consider the ways in which we can best be of service to small business owners who have among the greatest demands on their time and resources and who must achieve the highest level of efficiency to be successful in today’s fast-paced business environment.

10-Minute Branding

We think this concept of 10-minute branding can indeed be an important key to Get Sh – Done (and perhaps still create some extra time for family). So . . .

After a two-month pause in new additions to our blog, we have decided to resume but with a shift in focus for the immediate future.

Over the past three years, we have covered many of the basic principles and tools of branding for small businesses. Equipped with this library of resources, we decided we could be of greatest use to you – our audience – (while still preserving our chosen DIY focus) by offering weekly tips on branding activities that can be accomplished in just 10 minutes. (While some activities might require spilling over into multiple 10-minute sessions, our goal is to avoid intruding upon your already-busy schedule while still helping you realize your overarching goal of building a better, stronger brand identity.

Can You Really Accomplish Anything Meaningful in Just 10 Minutes?

Guess we’ll see, but . . .

Some branding activities can indeed seemingly be done in 10 minutes. For instance, you can write a thank you note to a customer that instills in them a strong sense of service while giving you a chance to tout your business in a desired way. Furthermore, 10 minutes a day for each day of a six-day work week yields an hour of potential productivity. If you used those 10 minutes to collect three prospects’ contact info, you’d have a dozen and a half by the end of the week to approach the following week one by one with a branded message. I fully suspect that converting some of those prospects into loyal customers would justify the effort and validate the process.

Furthermore, devoting one hour per week in 10-minute blocks yields more than 50 hours of annual productivity devoted specifically to building and refining your brand. Needless to say, a lot can be accomplished in a work week+ period.

That said, you will have to be disciplined in doing your 10 minutes per day. If you do, we believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Our Part

For our part, we will provide tips that we believe can be accomplished in one or more ten-minute blocks. We figure one way to make this happen is to try to devote as close to 10 minutes as possible to our creation of the tip, which should help ensure that the activity does not get overly complicated.

This approach is very much an experiment on our part. As a result, we really would appreciate your feedback by leaving a comment in the form below or by sending a private email to brandbuildingforsmallbusiness@gmail.com.

We’re Hitting the PAUSE Button!

We are writing to let you know that we will be putting Brand Building for Small Business on Hiatus while we spend time developing a new project.

A short pause while we explore a new project!

We published our first article (“Build vs. Buy”) on August 28, 2019 . . . and have added 131 pieces over the past three years. We have appreciated the opportunity to interact with a growing audience, and we sincerely hope that both new and existing subscribers will continue to explore and use the content we have already made available.

When we defined our brand, we determined that our focus would be providing a useful tool to smaller businesses – the kind of largely under-appreciated entrepreneurs who form such a large portion of the American business landscape. Having worked many years for a company that targeted this same audience (a company that was – in fact – a small, underdog start-up at the time I was hired), Carole and I felt we brought some meaningful knowledge and expertise to the table. Hopefully (three years later), you agree. In establishing our brand, we also decided that we wanted to have a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) focus – believing that many small business owners would of necessity be taking on the challenges of building their own brands. Consequently, we have tried to offer a blend of the conceptual framework needed to build a successful brand as well as practical tips and instruction.

We promise to keep checking the site on an ongoing basis and will respond to any comments or special requests for new specific topics. You can use the Comment boxes below each article to get a message to us, or you are welcome to send us a private e-mail at brandbuildingforsmallbusiness@gmail.com. We promise to consider your input carefully.

While we are developing our new brainchild, you can expect us to occasionally post a new Quick Tip or two and will keep you posted about our activity. Meanwhile, good luck with your branding efforts . . . and keep checking out our content at www.brandbuildingforsmallbusiness.com.

See you later . . . !!