The most important thing I teach my clients is that image is everything. It really doesn’t matter if we’re talking about your personal image or your business image, but for the purposes of this blog post, we’re referring to your business image – your brand.
When we talk about branding, most people think we’re talking about logos. But a logo’s not a brand. A logo is a logo and nothing more. Should it be well planned, memorable, unique, and professional? Oh yes! (“YES” with the enthusiasm of Meg Ryan having lunch with Billy Crystal in Katz’s Delicatessen in the movie When Harry Met Sally!)
Branding is how you represent your business as a whole. It includes everything from your logo, your tagline, your marketing materials and your website to your social media profiles, the way you, your partners, and employees conduct themselves and the message your business portrays to others. Really, it’s the whole shebang. Saying your logo is your brand is like saying a ferris wheel is a carnival.
So what do you do when you know you need to get branded but all you have is a logo? That one is simple…you build your brand. This is no small feat mind you. Building a brand takes time. It has to be well thought out, nurtured, and most importantly it must be consistent. But the only way to brand yourself or your company is to get off your butt and just get started.
Then again, maybe you have branded your business. Maybe you’ve done everything right and have built a brand that everyone knows and trusts, but you’re changing the focus of your business and feel your existing brand no longer fits. This scenario is a little more complicated and it has its own name. The term for this is rebranding and it isn’t anything new. Businesses do it all the time, but just as when you started your business (built that brand, cultivated and nurtured it) rebranding is pretty much the same and you’ve got some work ahead of you. The question is, will your customers, associates, and admirers continue to trust and follow you or will they be cautious and pull away?
Well, there’s only one way to find out and that is just what Signature Worx is doing!
Signature Worx will soon be celebrating its 5 year anniversary (January 2011 to be exact). In the last 5 years, many things have changed, both personally and professionally. I’ve certainly had my ups and downs, learned quite a few things about how to run and how NOT to run a business. I started with little old me, added a few team members, managed a team of 20, and now I’m back to just little old me…just the way I like it.
I took some time off this summer to reflect and really delve into what I want, what I like, and how I want to run my business…better. It probably sounds a little selfish, but no one benefits from me being unhappy. Not my family, not my friends, but most importantly, not my clients. During these epiphanies I felt a real need to rebrand Signature Worx. The brand has served me well, but there is always room for improvement. After all, my entire business is changing, my target market is changing, and my service offerings are changing. And what better time to accomplish this than our 5th anniversary?!
I hope you’ll stick around to see the unveiling coming this December. The new Signature Worx logo is almost finalized and I’ve already started diving into the website redesign. But I have TONS more work to do. You’ll want to keep up though…there will be some major announcements. Trust me!
