Building A Brand As An Entrepreneur

Have you ever thought about building a brand for your online business? I have seen so many people just jump in and start sharing links without building that consistent brand that people will know like and trust.

Building a brand in today’s world is not only necessary but it’s a requirement in my opinion.  As a newbie in online marketing, I found myself pretty much getting nowhere.  I had a tough time getting sales and that was a real bummer.

I attended a Marketing Mastery Event in Las Vegas, Nevada back in 2017. My wife and I went through some pretty awesome training on building a brand and how it literally makes you the authority of your niche.? The way this material was presented was not only on point but also showed us why to build our brand.

When you’re branding is on point your following will grow.? Whether it’s blogging, online marketing, or an offline business.? This is how they (your crowd) associate you and can find you in a busy world.

Why Should We Brand Our Businesses?

Imagine going into a storefront and wanting to buy a cheeseburger, soda, and french fries.  You don’t really know anything other than what you followed your nose to find. But you know they sell all of these things you desire to have for lunch.

Now you have a choice to go to a branded burger establishment or the one you’re in.  Most would leave and go to something that they already know because change is tough for people.  But if the place you’re in had some sort of branding.  They would make more sales because if they like the food, they would tell others about their experience.

This is why I’m also pretty jazzed up that you’re looking to branding yourself. It’s a subject that intermediates and newbies alike are searching online.  Essentially, anyone that does not have a brand needs to build a brand immediately.

Being that it’s the new entrepreneur and even some of the more seasoned (intermediates) searching these terms, it’s a viable topic to talk about here.

Building A Brand From The Start

If you were to go to google and search for keyword terms about this topic you would probably see stuff like the following:

• How to build a brand
• How to build a brand online
• How to build a brand on social media
• How to build a brand on Twitter
• How to build a brand on Facebook
• How to build a brand fast
• How to build a brand on Instagram

You get the point.  People are searching for brands which they can trust.

Because, thousands type this type of question into Google, Yahoo or Bing.  You’ll want them to search for your brand there as well.

Branding All Entrepreneurial Endeavors

The last part of the equation is you, the entrepreneur.   Let’s dig in so that you can build your brand even if you’re brand new in business.

Are you thinking about branding your business?  If not, I would encourage you to do so.  Branding will bring about a professionalism that a business needs to be taken seriously.  It will also give you a better believe in what you’re doing because, let’s face it, most people have more respect for a branded business.

The general opinion of a self-branded website is that it’s not a fly by night operation looking to make a quick buck.  You’re in this to help people become successful too!

What Elements Do You Need To Build Your Brand Marketing?

First off, you should be already aware that if you’re posting on social media, or talking to other people offline – you’re already a brand.

That said…

Your next step is to focus your brand on something that you believe in so that customers can pick you out of a crowd from your branding.  Don’t just pick something out of thin air, to begin with.  Starting with something that is a passion and you can talk for days about would be your first logical step towards branding yourself and your company.

Other questions you should have answers to are:

• What am I all about?
• What’s my passion?
• What do I want to do that I can talk about all the time?

After you have answered those questions, it’s time to move over to your next step in this process.

Step 2 – Building A Brand

When I started with online marketing, I thought it was going to be a breeze and that it really doesn’t matter if I branded myself or not.  Afterall, that would come out in my videos and my social media post, right?

This is just a half-truth in the world of social media.

What you should do when you’re building a brand for someone or yourself is to go through the questions above and then pick 3-5 people who are authorities in your niche.  Follow them and pick out what they are doing that is working.

These people could be competitors, influencers or people already doing what you want to be like.

That’s what you want!

People will find you and already have a great perception of you and your business.

Step 3 – The Elements Of Building Your Brand

• Tagline – This is where you get to tell your customer how you can help them
• Colors – Figure out the colors you want to use that both you and your customer will align with.  You’ll need to get the hex codes for each color.  Typically there are 3 colors used in a brand.
• Logo – Can be your name or a graphic representation of you.com
• Font(s) – This is where you separate yourself from the pack by selecting 1 or 2 fonts that you use in your business.

These are the basic elements to get your brand up and running like a boss!  The tools that I love to use to accomplish the graphics side of branding are, Photoshop CC 2018, Canva, and PicMonkey

As you delve into these elements you’ll want to consider if you want to appeal to male, female, old, young, rich, poor, love to travel, etcetera.

Once you have figured out what your colors are and who you’d like to appeal your brand to fitting. The next step is to get photos done.

Now the question is do you want to get professional photos or are you starting out with a smaller budget and just going to use a friend to take a photo with a camera phone or if you know someone that has a DSLR and is willing to take a few shots of you.

Step 4 – Stepping Into Your Brand

This is where the rubber meets the road and gets very exciting.  You have a business that has declared to the world what you stand for and even more important, what you do not stand for.

The action step here is to start building a following.  Find 3-5 topics that you can talk about such as blogging, branding, marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Social Media.

Once you have built your following to 1,000 on ONE PLATFORM  (social media is not ONE PLATFORM).  You can then find another platform to build a following on.  This is very important because this will help you stay laser focused in your business.  You’ll begin to find things that work on that one platform and things that do not work.

This is how you master your platform and when you have built that following.  Put together a short pdf of what you learned about your first platform that you have mastered.  Your followers will love it and you can build more of a following with that short PDF.

Step 5 – Building Your Brand – Email List

You’ve probably heard it said from many successful marketers and I’ll say it here too!

If I had it to do all over again, I’d start building my email list from the very beginning!

Why would they say this to you from the other side of building a list?

I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark 🙂

They see how much more they have left on the table by not building an email list.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Build your email list now!

Last tip before I close.

BONUS: When you’re out there on social media, provide value but don’t give away the house.  In other words, give them enough to build curiosity.  Then ask for their email address to give the rest of the information.  You’ll find that your email list will start growing faster than you thought and it won’t cost you a dime.

Now, go out and take action.

This is so important that I think it’s worth a tweet:

When I say ‘mastered’ I mean you’re making $1k-5k from that outlet alone.