The Golden Rule of Branding: Pick One Thing and Tell It Well

StellaPop-Blog_Balancing-Act_2

When building or defining a brand it’s natural to want to include everything. Especially if you’re an entrepreneur and your brand is basically you. There’s a lot that you want to communicate, and you want to make sure that people understand it.

But trying to do it all doesn’t actually build the trust and loyalty you’re after. Instead, it creates a muddled brand that confuses your audience. The most iconic, memorable and inspiring brands (including personal brands) are ones with focus.

Pick One Thing and Do It Well

If you’ve been in business a while, you’ve probably built a long laundry list of skills and capabilities. Whatever a client or customer wants, you can deliver it.

Which is great if you’re a multi-national company with several sub-brands under your umbrella. But not so much if you’re an entrepreneur, a start-up or a small biz. It’s harder to sell yourself as a jack-of-all-trades than it is as a carpenter.

Standing out in the market is already hard enough. Don’t make it harder by trying to be everything. Pick the one thing you truly want to be known for, and sell the outcomes and benefits of that.

Become an expert in that niche, build your platform, and grow your audience. When you’re established there, then you can think about expanding your brand. Even Amazon started out selling just books!

Life Is Full of Choices

The thing about branding is not to focus on where you’ve come from. It’s to focus on where you’re going stellapop-click-to-tweet

We get it. It’s tough to sweep a bunch of training, experience, and personal interests to the side and focus single-mindedly on just one thing. And we understand that if you’re a one-person biz expanding into something bigger, it’s not easy to dial back your presence in the brand and its story.

But your business will thank you for it. Because when you shift your brand away from your experience and expertise and focus on what your business offers, whole new worlds open up. You’re not defined by your history, but by where you see the future taking you.

When you specialize, you can charge more. You can brand, market and advertise more easily. You can hire people who can deliver that same specialty. And you’ll become the go-to business for that thing you do. So when defining your brand, think about the core thing you deliver. Make that your promise to your customers— and build your brand’s visual identity around it.

As you grow, you can build in secondary services and promises as sub-brands. But until then you have to make a choice. It’s not easy — like building a home when you love mid-century modern and Art Deco — but it’ll give you the focus you need to build your brand and your business.

Need some help defining your focus and building a brand that resonates? Drop us a line!

Also Read:
Building a Digital Employer Brand That Attracts the Best Talent
And, Action! How to Make a Business Explainer Video
How to Create a Well-Designed Email Newsletter That People Will Actually Read

Related Posts