Taking the loneliness out of creating your brand
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Posted: Thu 15th Aug 2024
When you are inside the jar, you can’t read the label.
There is no denying you are brilliant at what you do. That's why you set up your business in the first place. But doing what you do well and setting up a business doing what you do are two completely different things.
Juggling so many business demands can leave you stretched too thin and you can find that your business is underperforming. So, what do we do to fix this?
Work harder or longer
But these haven’t led to the game-changing breakthrough you were hoping for.
Does this sound familiar?
This is because you are still trying to do everything yourself. You've absorbed lots of information but are still approaching the same issues from the same perspective – yours.
You can’t do everything on your own. Working alone tends to make us set in our ways. You can’t solve problems with the same thinking you've always used.
Is going it alone holding back your growth?
An external perspective can often help you see your blind spots, especially when you're working outside your area of expertise.
Take creating your brand, for example. You can't create your brand yourself. Having an outside perspective will change the way you communicate with yourself and others.
Small business owners often find themselves caught up in the daily grind, leaving no time to think about creating a compelling brand for their business.
Starting and growing a business can leave you feeling isolated. You often have no one to bounce ideas off. You naturally try and solve problems the way you've always done and fall into the mistake of talking about your business from your perspective.
Recent gov.uk statistics reveal that 57.6% of small businesses in the UK do not survive to celebrate their fifth anniversary. Forbes Magazine identifies eight key reasons for this, including a lack of vision, no niche, no marketing plan and no consistency. In essence, half of the reasons why small businesses fail boils down to a fundamental issue – no brand.
I've been working with small businesses for 18 years and one of the most common issues I have experienced is that business owners feel lonely.
They've normally started a business, having worked for a much bigger business before, where they had a team around them to bounce ideas off and they had other departments doing the things they had no experience doing.
Many small business owners have partners at home who don’t always share their passion and may not understand why they put so much time, effort and energy into their 'baby'. I've spoken to quite a few business owners whose partners encourage them to go back and get a “proper job” again.
You start a business because you have a passion for something but to grow a business involves a lot of skills that you've never had and that other people did in your previous jobs.
With your own business, you have to do everything yourself. Everything! And that includes one of the hardest things to do on your own – creating a brand.
Turn a business into a brand
Recognising these challenges, I introduced a ground-breaking 28-Day Brand Launchpad, a group brand creation programme that brings together a small group of business owners who give each other feedback, advice and encouragement as they turn their business into a brand in just 28 days.
Surround yourself with like-minded business owners. This collective approach taps into the diverse knowledge, experience and perspectives of other people who approach business challenges in different ways.
Knowing when to say 'no'
When you start your own business, all you think about is how to get new clients, any clients. You want to attract as many people as possible who might be interested in your products or services.
You are likely to say: "Yes, I can do that" to people and things that are not what you are best at because you have bills to pay and people to prove you can be a successful business owner.
Over time, you find yourself working on projects and working with clients that don't fill you with excitement. You notice you are spending too much time and effort on stuff that isn't fun and isn't as profitable as you had envisioned.
Suddenly, this running-your-own-business malarky isn't as fun as you thought it would be. But how can you tell anyone that?
Shouldn't that be what running your own business is all about?
When you start your own business, you rarely spend enough time thinking about how to attract your ideal clients, the ones you have a passion for helping, the ones you can help the most and the ones you can create the biggest impact for.
When you are doing your best work for the right clients, they benefit more. You get a kick out of helping them. You get a buzz from them telling you how much you have helped them and they talk enthusiastically about you to their friends.
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