A Comprehensive Marketing Plan Helps Secure Small Business Loans

Having a plan for marketing your small business to the community will help you build your business and show lenders that you have a plan for growth. 

One of the biggest mistakes we see when helping small businesses with their marketing and outreach plan is that they didn’t incorporate marketing into their small business loan proposal to lenders.

Yes, part of making your small business successful is getting the word out to your target audience. Choosing marketing tactics that will reach your prospective customers through a variety of different avenues will ensure that they hear your message enough times to both remember you and want to buy from you.

But, a comprehensive marketing plan can also help your business from a lending perspective. Loan officers want to see that you have a plan for growing your business – this lets them know that you have a plan for making money, which in turn indicates that you’ll be able to pay back what you borrow. Showing how you plan on promoting your company to the community through a basic marketing plan is a thoughtful way to supplement the business plan you submit with your small business loan application. And if you’re new to the marketing world, here are five tactics that every small business should include in their marketing plan.  If you don’t want to enter the marketing world, be sure to hire someone who is an expert – and include that cost into your proposal.

1. Get a website. Let’s face it: the world we live in today is highly digital. Companies who don’t have an online presence – even smaller, local companies – are considered dated and out of touch. Building a website for your business an essential step towards having a strong brand within your community. Your website doesn’t have to be anything fancy – it just needs to be something basic with a modern visual appeal that clearly communicates what your company does, who you serve and how to get in touch with you.

2. Canvas the neighborhood. There’s something to be said for getting out and actually meeting the people who live and work around your business. Coming to them shows that you offer a high level of customer service, something that’s becoming much harder to find these days. A great way to share what your company does and how you serve the local community is to invite those closest to your business geographically to come in and check out your space.

3. Become a PR magnet.  To continue growing your business, ongoing visibility is key. One way you can continue to keep yourself front and center is to become a PR magnet – by connecting and interacting with local resources and media outlets online and in person.

Get on social media and start “following” or “liking” the television, radio and publication personalities in your area. Tweet at them, like their status updates – engage with them to get noticed. Once they know who you are and what you do, they’re much more likely to use you as a news source where it applies to your expertise. Want to take this a step further? Pitch a story idea (make sure it has a good ‘hook’) every once in a while to the media sources you’ve connected with – you never know when they might feature you on the five o’clock news!

4. Be a visible member of the community. This is such an important aspect of owning a small business – no matter what industry you’re in. Staying visible within the community, especially in charitable ways, will always reflect positively on your business. It also keeps your company front-of-mind with your local clientele and prospective customers because they’re seeing your brand in their everyday lives.

Sponsor a little league team, have a little booth at the local farmer’s market or offer to drive a truck branded with your company’s name in the high school homecoming parade. No matter how you do it, just make sure your local community sees you engaging and doing things to benefit them – it will reflect back on your bottom line tenfold over time.

5. Engage your clientele online. Getting back to that whole idea of online marketing, being engaged with the online community is a great way to help build your business. Do this by replying to people who reach out on social media, asking happy customers to leave a positive review about your business on Yelp! or Angie’s List and monitoring the use of your company’s name across the internet through tools like Google Alerts and Hootsuite. This will allow you to promote positive feedback while responding quickly to anything negative that’s added about your company online, helping to preserve your reputation and show that you truly care about what customers have to say about your business.

Building Positive Visibility Can Make a Difference

Having a plan to promote your small business to the community gives you actionable steps to start attracting new customers, build your business’ reputation and grow your bottom line. Lenders look favorably upon highly organized businesses who have a plan for growth, so creating a marketing plan can help show how you’re a step ahead of your competition and a great loan candidate.

If you need help building your marketing and/or outreach plan, contact us!  We would love to help put your business on the map and compete against the businesses with ‘deep pockets’.

Blogging for Business: No More Excuses!

Do you own or run a small business?  Do you blog?  If not, it’s more than likely because you don’t have the time or you don’t see the value. Using that logic, think of all of the efforts you put into promoting or marketing your business then look at the return on your investment (time AND money).  

Blogging on a frequent basis is a relatively easy, inexpensive way to enhance your inbound marketing efforts, drive traffic to your site, and attract more prospective customers.

Don’t like to write?  Don’t know what to write?  Get help! If you’re not blogging, you’re opening the door for your competitors to come in and grab your potential customers.

According to Hubspot, 57% of companies who have a blog reported that they actually acquire business from their blog.  Still don’t have the time or resources?  Find it!

The Case for Small Business Blogs

Here are some of the most important benefits of having a blog for your business:

1. Boost Search Engine Optimization: Search engines love fresh content. What better way to provide frequent content than with blog posts? By blogging consistently, you give Google and other search engines new content to index and you create opportunities to plug in those all-important keywords to increase your visibility on search engine results pages.
   
   
2. Develop Relationships with Potential and Existing Customers: Blogging allows you to connect with your site visitors. This can be accomplished by asking your visitors questions at the end of your posts to get the conversation going or by simply allowing comments and feedback. By reviewing and responding to readers’ comments, you can create a rapport with your audience, build trust, and gain valuable insight into what your customers are looking for.
   
   
3. Establish Your Business as an Industry Leader: No matter how small your business is, you can build trust and clout within your industry by providing valuable, expert information in your blog posts. Over time, you become a “go to” resource for helpful, informative content, which can ultimately lead to higher customer conversion rates. This is especially important for small businesses looking to gain credibility to compete with larger companies.
   
   
4. Connect People to Your Brand: Blog posting allows you to show a personal side of your business that potential and current customers may not see through traditional marketing techniques. Blogging gives consumers a sense of the standards, vision, and personality of your company.
   
   
5. Create Opportunities for Sharing: Every time you blog, you create an opportunity for your audience to share your blog with others. Whether they link to your blog post, tweet it, or email it to others, it’s free marketing and it further validates you as a credible business.
   
   

From a practical standpoint, blogging just makes sense. With minimal effort and expense, you can build credibility, boost search engine rankings, increase website traffic, and foster relationships with potential and current customers. This is an opportunity no small business should pass up.

If you have questions regarding the benefits of blogging, or need help getting started, we can help!  What are you doing to promote your brand?  If you’re not blogging, you’re missing out! Contact us if you need help with your blogging and branding plan!  www.stonekingconsulting.com  

Recruiting and Retaining Customers Through Your Brand

A large amount of sales and marketing’s attention is focused on getting the customer. But what about your current customers? Why should they come back?

Customer retention is a branding challenge. What separates your business from the competition? And do your customers care enough to come back again and again?

You don’t have to be brilliant at everything. Pick a focal point. What is your business known for?

Focus On Customer Service

Delivering exceptional customer service is more than a corporate value, it’s a process. Companies that deliver exceptional customer service invest in it. They hire more people, provide them better training and tools, and give them the freedom and room to delight their customers.

It’s not easy to deliver outstanding customer service, and that’s what makes it a powerful differentiator.

Take a look at your customer service process.  Are there things you are doing great?  Are there things in which you can improve?

Focus On Choice

Being able to buy everything you’re looking for in one place is appealing.

Offering breadth of service is a differentiator, provided your customers take advantage of your broad abilities and you excel at each of them. However, offering too many options may dilute your brand. Build your portfolio of products and services around your customer and their needs.

Focus On Your People

Happy employees create happy customers.

In some industries it’s very hard, if not impossible, to differentiate the products or services. And while these industries may not have a lot of external options to differentiate the brand they can still differentiate internally.

Organizations that build dynamic cultures stand out. Customers notice happy, engaged, and productive employees.

Your culture creates an energy that radiates out into your marketplace, and sets your brand apart from everyone else.  Why do people love working at Google? Because they have built an internal program that engages the employees, values the employees…and even lets them bring their children and pets to work.

Focus On The Experience

What’s it like to work with your company? Do you deliver a unique customer experience that sets your business apart?

Do you provide one-on-one service?  Are you accessible?  Do you take the stress out of your customers’ lives by delivering on the promise you have made? Some customers may come to you because they tried something else and had a bad experience.  Don’t make them regret they came to you.  A twice-burned customer is even harder to get back.

An experience goes beyond the products and services. It focuses on how your customers interact with the brand, and how you can aid them.

Focus On Convenience

Can you create a hassle-free experience?

This could be achieved by where you’re located, and getting really close to your customers (or being mobile). It could focus on the buying experience, and streamlining the process. It could focus on the product, and making it easier to use and maintain.

Saving your customers time, energy and money are excellent ways to differentiate your brand.

Pick a Focal Point

A brand can’t be all things to all people, and it’s unlikely you can be excellent at all five focal points. Just pick one.

A brand can stand out by doing one or two things better than everyone else.

But always keep your customer in mind:

1. Do they value the focal point?
2. Does it bring them back again and again?

The goal is to create an experience that your customers recognize, value, and seek out. What do you have to do to give your customers a reason to come back?

When developing your brand and choosing your focal point, ask the questions that all reporters ask:  Who, What, When, Where, How and Why.

WHO are you and WHO is your target audience?

WHAT services do you provide and WHAT sets you apart?

WHEN do you need to achieve your goals?

WHERE have you been and WHERE do you need to be?

HOW are you going to get there?

WHY do you do what you do?

If you need help answering any of these questions, contact SK Consulting.  We can help you develop a strategic brand and plan that will help you acquire customers and get them coming back again and again.  www.stonekingconsulting.com.  

Branding Your Business and Promoting Your Brand

Branding is just as important for small businesses as it is for big names – but what does it mean? 

Branding is a way of defining your business to yourself, your team and your target audiences. It could be called the business’ “identity”, because it embodies the core of what the business is and its values, not just what it looks and sounds like. Customers of all sorts of businesses are so savvy today that they can see through most attempts by companies to gloss, spin or charm their way to sales.

The benefits that a strategically-defined brand can bring are the same as when people fall in love with each other. When customers connect emotionally — because they share the same values and beliefs of a brand — it leads to higher sales and better brand differentiation. It also leads to loyalty, advocacy and can even protect your price in times when competitors rely on promotional discounts to drive sales. It can also give you the ideal platform from which to extend your offering or range.

Before you can effectively promote your brand, you need to understand it and be passionate about it.  

Keep these tips in mind when developing your brand:

1.   Define your brand.

Review the product or service your business offers, pinpoint the space in the market it occupies and research the emotive and rational needs and concerns of your customers. 

2.   When building your brand, think of it as a person.

Every one of us is an individual whose character is made up of beliefs, values and purposes that define who we are and who we connect with. Your business’ brand should encapsulate its character.

3.   Consider what is driving your business.

What does it believe in, what is its purpose and who are the target audiences?

4.   Aim to build long-term relationships with your customers.

Don’t dress up your offering and raise expectations that result in broken promises. Create trust with honest branding — be clear who your company is and be true to the values that drive it every day.

5.   Speak to your customers with a consistent tone of voice.

It will help reinforce the business’ character and clarify its offering so customers are aware exactly what to expect from the product or service.

6.   Don't repeat the same message in the same way over and over again. 

Alternatively, aim to make your key messages work together to build a coherent identity. 

7.   Don’t try to mimic the look of chains or big brands.

Carve out your own identity. There is a big consumer trend toward independent establishments, and several chains are trying to mimic an independent feel to capture some of that market.

8.   Be innovative, bold and daring – stand for something you believe in.

Big brands are encumbered by large layers of bureaucracy, preventing them from being flexible and reacting to the ever-changing needs of their customers. Those layers of decision-makers can make it hard for them to be daring with their branding.

9.   Always consider your branding when communicating with customers.

Don't lose your pride or dilute your brand positioning with indiscriminate discounting. Try offering more, rather than slashing prices. Promotions are an opportunity to reinforce your brand mission.

10.  The old way of stamping your logo on everything won't cut it.

The future of branding is fluid and engaging — respect your customers' intelligence by not giving everything away up front. Generate some intrigue and allow them to unearth more about your brand for themselves. Everyone loves to brag about what THEY have discovered.

Now that you have defined and developed your brand, it’s time to promote it.

Have a powerful presence physically
If you want to build up your reputation in the world, the first step is to make sure people see you. Advertise in places people will see, that makes sense for your business. Make sure that your company and your employees are present at important events where there are opportunities to promote your enterprise. No one can promote a brand by being invisible, so make sure to get out there and let yourself and your business be seen and heard.

Appeal to people intellectually
Think about specific questions people might have about your business and how you can provide logical, honest answers. Ask yourself questions like the following:

• What sets you apart from your competitors?
• What image do you give off to the community?
• What unique opinions do you have to share with the outside world?

Consumers today are smart. Win people’s brains in addition to their hearts.

Promote content on social media
Social media is a great tool for branding your business. In addition to using the sites for straightforward promotional messages, you can also use social media for promoting content that has something interesting to say about your industry. If you share information that’s relevant and compelling, people will follow you.  In turn, more people will become loyal to your business. 

Consumers will notice if you have a smart approach to social media.  They will also notice if you DON’T have a presence on social media.  Find the sites that are most appropriate for your business.  Not everyone needs to use Instagram or Pinterest.  If you’re unsure of what social media strategy to use, get help from a professional.

Don’t steal the show
While it’s important to be active on social media to establish your brand, there is such a thing as being too involved. You don’t want to spam people by promoting too much content. Being overwhelmed with information will turn people off, and you don’t want to be known for promoting yourself too much. Let the marketing wing of your company handle the job. You might be in charge, but you are only one person, and it’s good to share the spotlight when possible.  This frees up your time to do what you do best – running your business.

In order to brand your business effectively, you want to prove that you have staying power. Think about your business and where it’s headed in the future. What are you doing to embrace future trends in the business world? Will people still identify with your brand in five years? What about in 10, or 20? Your promotional message should be one of long-term potential. Your goal is not only to service customers’ needs now, but also to earn their loyalty for the long haul.

Remember, branding isn’t just for businesses – it’s for individuals too!  If you or someone you know needs help differentiating themselves from others in their field, contact us today.  Visit www.stonekingconsulting.com for more information on how we can help you strategically brand and marketing your business!

Navigating the Ever-Changing Fundamentals of Marketing

The fundamentals of marketing are always going to be the same, but with the landscape changing at the speed of technology, what matters most is how one activates the fundamentals. Smart marketers know that they need to get ahead of the trends and anticipate the next big things, or else be devoured by their competitors.

Transparency is an important tool of marketing. Consumers are going to continue to exert power and influence. The idea of radical transparency is something that few brands are taking advantage of now, and most brands fight it. The best brands aren’t necessarily those with the best stories, or sort of made up fictional stories, but those that give an accurate and real time picture of what they are doing in the interest of the consumer.

Chief Marketing Officers are actually Chief Simplifier Officers. Most companies have arranged themselves in endless vertical silos - by geography, product, or function that hamper them when it comes to working more closely and with the free flow of ideas. To optimize consumer and customer engagements, CMOs should put silo busting on top of their agenda and begin to think holistically about the company’s overall value proposition, integrating messages and insights across business units, geographies, and functional groups.

There is a growing need for marketing technologists. Too many companies think in terms of digital marketing. Instead, they should be thinking in terms of marketing in a digital world. The best marketer in a digital world would be the marketing technologists, people with heavy digital DNA and technology acumen. They should be integrated seamlessly with the marketing groups and play an important role in how marketing strategies are developed and applied.

Agility marketing is for winners. Social media produced a different, more elusive consumer with short-term thinking. Marketers are now chasing their daily meanderings in “likes”, “shares”, “tweets”, click-through rates, and ever more immediate metrics. However, the best marketers should have more consumer data, capable of faster adaption, shorter lead times, and real-time marketing.

Marketing should be about personalization. The world is more connected because of technology, but marketing is becoming more regionalized, localized, and even more individualized, as consumers resist standardization and cookie-cutter templates. Personalization is not a trend. It is a marketing tsunami that should transform how we think about and how we manage global brands.

Internal Communications are a must. Businesses should put a strong focus on internal communications as a marketing asset. If there is poor communication, it’s difficult to engage employees to become brand ambassadors.  By implementing a strong internal communications process, employees will feel engaged and will want to live the brand and better share the vision and strategy of the company. 

There will be previous trends to ignore, present trends to tackle, and future trends to watch because everyone is looking for the next big thing.  While keeping an eye on the future is crucial, sometimes it’s easy to get so caught up gazing into the crystal ball that we lose touch with the timeless fundamentals.

Listening to your customers is a marketing fundamental that will never go out of style. Neither will remarkable content.  Make sure you take the following steps when developing a marketing campaign.

1.       Know Your Target

2.       Educate on Your Benefits

3.       Craft A Strong Call to Action

4.       Measure, Monitor, Log, Report and Learn

Now that you've put in the work and you are ready to push your campaign live be sure to measure and monitor the progress. Learn from your efforts, it will come in handy for each campaign that follows.

What were the results? Did they meet expectations? If so, why? If not, why? Know the answers to these questions, understand the answers, identify how you can make a campaign better, identify what worked. Log these answers, analyze the data and work to make each subsequent campaign better.

Marketing is a fundamental part of business.  A comprehensive and strategic branding and marketing plan is a fundamental part of a successful business.  If you are wondering whether the marketing tactics you are currently employing are working for your business, then they’re not.  But, we can help!

SK Consulting prides itself on providing strategic marketing and branding techniques for businesses in need.  We keep up with the latest marketing trends so that you don’t have to.  If you or your business are in need of marketing or branding assistance, contact us today.  www.stonekingconsulting.com  

The Do’s and Don’ts in Creating a Logo

What makes a good logo? A good logo is distinctive, appropriate, practical, graphic, simple in form and conveys an intended message.

An effective logo should be:

·         Simple

·         Memorable

·         Timeless

·         Versatile

·         Appropriate

Simple

A simple logo design allows for easy recognition and allows the logo to be versatile & memorable. Good logos feature something unique without being overdrawn.

It’s the K.I.S.S. Principle of design - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Simple logos are often easily recognized, incredibly memorable and the most effective in conveying the requirements of the client. A refined and distilled identity will also catch the attention of a viewer zipping by signage at 70 miles per hour, on packaging on the crowded shelves of a store, or in any other vehicle used for advertising, marketing and promotion. Just like a simple graphic swoosh – not a very recognizable international brand. 

Memorable

Following closely behind the principle of simplicity, is that of memorability. An effective logo design should be memorable and this is achieved by having a simple, yet, appropriate logo.

Surprising to many, the subject matter of a logo is of relatively little importance, and even appropriateness of content does not always play a significant role. This does not imply that appropriateness is undesirable. It merely indicates that a one-to-one relationship between a symbol and what it symbolized is very often impossible to achieve and, under certain conditions, objectionable. Ultimately, logos need to be distinctive, memorable, and clear.

Timeless

An effective logo should be timeless – that is, it will endure the ages. Will the logo still be effective in 10, 20, 50 years?

Leave trends to the fashion industry – Trends come and go, and when you’re talking about changing a pair of jeans, or buying a new dress, that’s fine, but where your brand identity is concerned, longevity is key. Don’t follow the pack. Stand out.

Think Google.  Coca-Cola.  McDonald’s.  American Red Cross.  All timeless and memorable.

Versatile

An effective logo should be able to work across a variety of mediums and applications. The logo should be functional and should be able to work both in horizontal and vertical formats.

Ask yourself; is a logo still effective if:

• Printed in one color?
• Printed on the something the size of a postage stamp?
• Printed on something as large as a billboard?
• Printed in reverse (ie. light logo on dark background)

One must also remember printing costs – the more colors used, the more expensive it will be for the business over the long term.

Design the logo in black and white first, to ensure that the logo will look good in its simplest form. Color is very subjective and emotional. This can distract from the overall design – say if you saw your logo in all red, that color may be the first thing that you respond to and not the composition of the design elements.

Appropriate

How you position the logo should be appropriate for its intended purpose. For example, if you are designing a logo for children’s toys store, it would be appropriate to use a childish font & color scheme. This would not be so appropriate for a law firm.

It is also important to state that a logo doesn’t need to show what a business sells or offers as a service. Car logos don’t need to show cars, computer logos don’t need to show computers. The Harley Davidson logo isn’t a motorcycle, nor is the Nokia logo a mobile phone. A logo is purely for identification.

Common Mistakes

Unfortunately, many companies make serious mistakes when they design their logos. These are good businesses with bright futures, but they often end up with logos that are less than ideal, or even poorly designed. And getting customers to notice or remember a bad logo is a very difficult thing to do.

When you set out to create your new logo, be sure to avoid these critical mistakes:

Critical Mistake #1: Drawing Your Logo Yourself

Many bad logos happen because a business owner tries to do it all themselves. They need something fast, so they create it themselves or ask a friend to do it. And while they plan on doing it the right way eventually, they seldom get the chance.

An unprofessional logo can destroy trust among potential customers and keep customers from buying your products. And it takes very deep pockets for a business to survive a lack of customers.

Critical Mistake #2: Forgetting About Your Customer

Many business owners choose a logo based on their tastes. They select colors, icons and fonts that appeal to them. The problem is, they are often not their ideal customers. Before designing your logo, find out as much as you can about your customers. Are they men or women? Single or married? Young or old? Are they looking for a trustworthy image, or something more playful? The more you know about your customer’s likes and dislikes, the more easily you can develop an image that will appeal to them.

Critical Mistake #3: Looking Too Much Like Your Competitors

This is an easy mistake to make. After all, your competitors are successful, so why not do what they do? When your competitors zig, you should zag.

Don’t mimic your competition. Choose colors, shapes, icons and fonts that set your business apart. By contrasting your logo and brand image to your competition, you’ll help customers easily identify your business and products. When your logo resembles everyone else’s, you’ll lose customers who confuse your product with the competition.

Your logo is a major component of your brand!  If you need help developing a logo, a branding or marketing plan, contact SK Consulting at www.stonekingconsulting.com.  We’re happy to help!

Branding Your Business – More than Pretty Pictures and Catchy Phrases

If you’re the owner of a multi-billion dollar company, this blog post is not for you. However, if you’re a mom and pop organization or a new business and would like to learn how to brand it on a low budget, read on…

Large corporations spend millions on creating a brand message, but the ones that stick in our minds are based on simple concepts which have a creative spark.

The secret?  Branding that can be used creatively without explanation. Branding is not a difficult thing to do if you know who you are and how you want to be perceived by others. Yet quite often you might not be focused on your brand.  Some may decide to put their attention on products or services in an effort to bring in customers and revenue. That's fine if you're the only small business selling a particular product or service, but that's a rarity. This is why branding is imperative not just for big corporations, but also for small businesses. In fact, it may be even more important the smaller your business is.

Many get caught up with the word “brand” and believe it’s this colossal term reserved for corporate powerhouses. The reality is that every company—and in this day of social media, most individuals—should establish what their brand equals.

How do you effectively brand yourself and your business?

Create a standout logo

A good logo will go a long way. Unless you are able to create one on your own, which looks professional, you’ll need to hire an expert. At SK Consulting, we can help you create an image that lets people know what you and your company stands for instantly.

To save money, it’s best to have a rough idea of what you’d like. Brainstorm with friends and do some basic research. Don’t worry, it’s fun! Check out other company logos. Determine which ones you like and which you don’t.  Then hire an expert to design it based on your input.

What makes a good logo? There are a few key elements that make for a successful logo. Ask yourself, if your logo is:

• Functional: Will it work on a letterhead, a business card as well as a large poster?
• Aesthetic: No one likes an ugly image.
• Original: If you use clip art, it will be obvious. Create original art.
• Appropriate: Have the image speak to your business and you.  A plumber wouldn’t have a rose in his/her logo.
• Timeless: Pick a logo that will work into the next decade. Tweaks to logos are common (The American Red Cross, Pepsi, Coke), but the basic brand and look remains the same.
• Simple: A complex drawing with obscure references might confuse potential clients. Keep the drawing clean and simple.

Come up with a slogan

The word “slogan” comes from the Scottish Gaelic Sluagh-ghairm, which means army cry or battle cry. Don’t confuse this with your elevator pitch or your mission/position statement. It needs to be short and sweet, something you can say in a single breath, or battle cry.

If you can capture the right catchphrase, people will spread your message far and wide. A good slogan sticks like glue in people’s minds, reminding them consciously and unconsciously of your product, over and over.

With the right slogan, you can get free word-of-mouth advertising around the proverbial water cooler. People love a good slogan. Just consider several from the last few decades. None of these mention the company name, but are very recognizable:

• Where’s the beef?
• When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight!
• I’m lovin’ it!

Of course your slogan can also include your name, which can only help you brand your company. Here are a few that work well for the product:

• Got Milk?
• Subway. Eat Fresh.
• M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand.

What is YOUR war cry?

You can create your slogan on your own or with a group of friends. Everyone likes to pitch in ideas, but your slogan/war cry should complement your logo and the rest of your brand.  Hiring an expert can help ensure that your strategy is effective and efficient for years to come.

What is your elevator pitch?

You need to be able to sell yourself within a short pitch that can be easily delivered in the time it takes to climb a few floors in an elevator. You need to be able to answer the innocent question, “What do you do?” in such a way that the person wants to know more.

It’s OK for it to sound a bit sales-y as long as the concept is clearly communicated. If you’re shy about selling, you have to get over that. Every business owner must bite the bullet and admit they are (or need to be) a salesperson.

The first step will be to try out your pitch to yourself. Say it out loud, preferably in front of a mirror or on video. You can record yourself on your phone and play it back. How does it sound? How would you respond to your own pitch?

After you create one that you like, you need to practice it over and over and over and over (and over). Practice it in the car, in the shower, as you’re cooking, etc. Drill it until it is second nature, so that you don’t need to think about it at all. It should just come out naturally (which means if you keep getting tripped up on a certain phrase, change the phrase).

Next is the hard part for most people. You need to practice it on others (people who are not you). Start with friends, people who are supportive of your goals. If you stumble, try again. Friends will understand. Do this until you can actually take it to the next level, delivering it to someone you don’t know, at a networking event or other social setting.  It is just a matter of practicing with others until you aren’t worried about your pitch at all and it just flows out easily. Trust me, it won’t take long.

If You Communicate it, They Will Come

If you communicate your brand message to your target audience properly and your brand positioning is easy to understand, not only will your consumers/clients/customers be great brand ambassadors for you, but your employees or future employees will be too.  When your consumers are fans of your brand and identify with it, they, too, will become vocal in spreading your brand’s message. Word of mouth marketing has always been important in extending a company’s brand and offerings, but it is even more crucial in this age of social media. You want your consumers singing your praise across the various social media platforms, not only in the form of "Likes" but also in sharing their positive experiences and pictures. Just as you reward your employee, you should give perks and special treatment to those avid customers and fans of your brand who promote your products and services. Their endorsement is more powerful than any commercial or copy you could produce.

Are You on the Right Path?

If you are unsure whether your brand is working for you, contact us.  If you are a new business, a small business or an organization wanting to change directions, make sure you have an expert in the field of branding involved.  Not having a strategic plan and jumping into the fire can hurt your business in the long run.  We are here to help you develop a brand, develop a plan, determine your target audiences and how to reach them.  For more information on the services provided by SK Consulting, visit www.stonekingconsulting.com.