Build Your Own Brand, Everyone Else's Is Taken
“Be yourself,” Oscar Wilde once said, “everyone else is taken.”
The same principle applies to branding, which involves finding the key features that differentiate you from everyone else. And many small business owners and solopreneurs aren’t aware they need one.
Branding is more than just a logo and colors, it’s also the copy. From our experience, many people don’t realize how generic they sound to potential clients in writing. One of our services is rewriting website copy, and reading through a future client’s site can feel like Groundhog Day. We have seen the same language, the same words, and the same phrases over, and over, and over again.
If You’re Using These Phrases, You Don’t Actually Have a Brand
Businesses often believe they have a brand even though they’re using the same words and phrases as everyone else. Here are a few of the vague, overused, phrases businesses fall back on when they don’t have a brand of their own:
Highest standards
Customer satisfaction is our priority
We never fail to...
We have an innovative approach
Our unique ...
Now, these statements may all be true. A company might have the highest standards, make the customer their priority, and also have an innovative approach.
But saying you’re unique in the same words that every other business uses isn’t the best way to show people what makes you special.
3 Questions That Can Help You Find Your Brand
When creating your brand, you’ll need to sit down and dig deep into what makes your company different from your competitors. You’ll need to be able to answer, in specific language, why you’re someone’s best choice. Asking yourself the right questions can lead to answers that can define your brand, like:
1. What are your superpowers?
What do you do better than anyone else? It doesn’t have to be a big thing; even little differences can be key factors in a potential client’s decision-making process.
2. What do your clients say about you?
If you want to know what to say about yourself, listen to the language clients use to describe you, both in conversations and testimonials. An enthusiastic client might understand your brand far better than you do!
3. What do your success stories say about you?
We had a client who described their service as “white glove.” When we asked for an example, they described flying a support technician to a client’s headquarters just after a major hurricane to restore internet service. Telling that story on their website communicated “white glove service” far better than any overused phrase.
Keep asking questions
When we do branding for our clients, we ask these questions and so many more. Once we’ve asked enough questions, we compile a list of concepts and phrases that reveal a business unlike any other. This allows us to create copy for that business telling visitors what makes them - yes - unique.
Without ever saying the word.
Need help standing out from the crowd? Having trouble finding your voice? We can help. Drop us a line.