The annoying confusion for start-ups
Brand business, business brand!!!
I mentor individuals in starting their entrepreneurial journey. I also help small and medium organizations with their brand-building efforts. On many occasions, founders have asked if they should build their brand or business first. Is building the business first more important than building the brand? When starting a business, what should be prioritized between product, brand, or business?
Those are deep questions.
Pick any book on business and brand. You will notice the following:
Authors writing about business building dedicate a section to brand building. They explain brand building through the context of business building.
But, authors writing on brand building talk about business in the context of brand building.
Hence it’s natural for entrepreneurs to ask these questions. Building a brand or a business is time and resource-heavy. Hence, every act must count. That makes it imperative to find the right answer. One that’s relevant and applicable, especially, in the case of start-ups.
Too many answers spoil the broth
A search on Google about ‘what should be built first, brand or business’ will throw up close to 2.5 billion results. The results indexed on the first page have titles stressing building a brand first.
A few other results suggest building the product and thinking about the brand at the same time.
A few other results suggest building the business and thinking brand at the same time.
in this confusion, the right definition of the brand helps to gain clarity.
But what’s the right definition of a brand?
Throughout my career, I have come across various definitions and perspectives. I have also noticed many commonalities and overlaps between them.
But they were all right in their ways.
Most definitions of brands obtained through google searches were right too.
That makes choosing the right definition of a brand difficult.
Asking the right question helps.
How to identify the right definition relevant to start-ups?
“Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” Jef Bezos
I found that definition to be one of the best definitions of a brand.
It encapsulates the following.
People talk good or bad about the way you conduct your business. The way you interact with your vendors and suppliers. The way your product looks. The price of it. The things you communicate. Etc. etc.
Hence, brand building is not about designing the logo, website, and packaging, alone. Which is what most entrepreneurs tend to think of it as. It is about all the activities involved in building the business.
Brand building is about building an image and perception of the business in the eyes of the stakeholders. It guides every process of the business.
Hence, the question of what should be built first, brand, business, or product gets addressed.
When you think about starting a business, first think about this. What image or perception of your business do you want to build? why?
The moment you do that, you start to think brand. Which will then be a guide to product design and business-building activities.
I have redefined the meaning of the word brand in the following manner.
A brand is the sum of all your business activities.
Why did I redefine the word brand?
The role of information is to educate, build perception, and drive change. That happens when a target audience has access to it, finds it relevant, and understands it.
Redefining helped my mentees understand that brand building starts before logo design. It starts with thinking about how to identify and design the right product to evoke a positive emotion from the target audience. That’s because you want them to have a specific perception of you and your products. Once that happens, word of mouth spreads about your business. That increases the number of satisfied customers.
The satisfied customers evolve into loyal customers who form a perception about you and your business. That’s the result of the first step of business building. You began thinking about building a type of brand. That led you to design the right product and its delivery process. Which in turn built an image.
During the process of manufacturing, you paid the suppliers and vendors on time. You thanked them for supplying the product on time. You understood their business needs and built processes for them to benefit through the association. You considered their input while designing the product. You did these to establish a certain culture in your organization. A culture of co-creation with stakeholders. Doing that builds a personality about you and your business in their mind. That’s a critical step toward forming an identity for your brand.
Our minds are always busy. They are being bombarded with information faster than they can process them. And information bombing is only going to intensify.
Hundreds of brands are advertising to have their share of voice to draw attention to them. They all have a single goal. To have a share of your wallet. Which is not infinitely stretchable.
Under such conditions you expect the consumer to have top-of-the-mind recall of your brand. Especially, when they think of buying the category of product you sell. In other words, you are asking the consumer to remember your brand.
Remembering happens, through communication assets. The logo, the website, the pack design, the social media posts, the brand video, and other creative elements.
When a customer comes in contact with these brand assets they remember these:
- They loved using the product.
- The buying process was hassle free.
- There were enough variants of stocks to choose from.
- The pack looked attractive. It communicated the product benefits.
- It was easy to locate the physical store
- The website highlighted all the information required to make an informed decision.
Now pause.
Notice that the brand assets are reminding and reinforcing agents.
They remind the customers about their past experiences with the brand. They reinforce the identity of the brand.
You are starting a brand when you are starting a business.
Every aspect of a business is linked to building the brand.
So if you are starting a business. Or at an early stage of business, I recommend the following step:
Step 1: First identify the consumer’s needs you want to address. For example, people leave behind their valuables like watches and rings, in the hotels.
Step 2: From that need, identify the business opportunity. It is the product or service you can offer to address the need. Example: A travel box in which people can keep their watches and rings before going to bed.
Step 3: Identify the target audience for whom you are building the product. Try to be sharp about this. Meaning, be specific.
Being specific helps in the following:
- Product Design
- Crafting the communication
- Product Pricing etc.
Example: retired rich couples holidaying in exotic destinations.
Notice, how being specific about the target audience gets you thinking about two broad topics:
How to serve the target audience better:
- logistics, product design, inventory management, team building, infrastructure.
How to form a positive impression in their mind about your product:
- Communication, Website design, Pack design, Customer relationship management, Pricing.
The role of the broad topics is to make you think about making your brand Physically and Mentally available to the target audience.
When you think that way, you start to think of ‘brand’.
Notice how brand building began even before designing the logo.
Key takeaways:
1) The brand-building effort starts along with business building effort. It is the philosophy that guides all business-building activities.
Hence, both get built in parallel.
2) Brand building is not for established businesses only. Small, large, established, or not, every kind of business engages in brand building.
That’s because, from the first day you take the business to market, you start to build an impression. Which will later feed into building the brand image.
