Growing a small business can be a challenge. There is that initial excitement when you first become aware of the idea you wish to create, to then be followed by the immense amount of responsibility it takes to startup your own company. Start off small, try not to get overwhelmed and realize that not all great companies succeeded overnight.

Brand management is one variation of turning the company from a household name into an incredible story. What exactly is branding? Well, it includes utilizing various forms of media until you have gained enough recognition in your community to help elevate your business and its sales. Brand development involves delivering the message your company wishes to convey to the general public. It will pull the consumer in and motivate them. It can also breed customer loyalty which is imperative in any successful brand. There are several ways to do this, but first you must carefully review which options will work best for your company prior to getting started so that you do not waste any funds on excessive advertising.

Due to the tremendous amount of success with the world wide web, there are millions of dollars to be made for those companies fortunate enough to have the know how to market themselves properly online. Small businesses can change rather quickly, with the right brand marketing plan in place. For example, you may have the best products in the world and sell them at unbeatable prices, but if no one recognizes your brand, then you will not be raving in sales profits this month. If the general public can identify themselves with your company, then you will embark on a much more satisfying month in sales and exposure for all to become aware of. You would not believe the amount of business one can obtain just by making themselves a catchy slogan or tagline to promote their company. Millions of people each and everyday buy a product based on a tagline, based on a jingle they heard on a radio advertisement, not solely ever on the actual product they paid for.

Visual branding, like for example logo can help greatly a smaller company with not a lot of funds for creating a great gimmick. It can help the buyer become familiar with your line and your products. If you commit to making a product line that is of high value and quality and also commit to helping your customers with the utmost respect, you will fall into a successful business branding demise.

You will need to look at your company type closely before going forward with any plans to increase the traffic. For instance, if you are seeking more sales in your flooring business, you may not need to advertise in formats that are for teens or young adults such as a magazine or a fitness publication. Instead, seek out those means of help to obtain those additional clients that are specific to your average business client demographic. Grow from that base, get more referrals and do sales specials often to encourage new clients and make more money.

The hardest part of starting a new business is getting your business known. You are trying to compete with hundreds of thousands of other businesses out there. Whether or not those businesses are successful or not is not necessarily your concern. What your focus needs to be is getting your business to be successful in the sea of choices available to your target audience. Think about how your business is unique to the rest, and build your brand around that.Your brand is what will keep you on the short list of choices for your target audiences. We all know the differences between national brand and store brand products. The biggest of those differences is usually the cost of the product. While the national brand may not be the best choice, they are often priced higher simply because they are nationally known brands. In short, you are paying a higher price for notoriety. Store brands, while usually specific to a region, are often better quality products, and of course they almost always cost less.The first task to consider is the name of your business (brand). It should be relevant to what you are doing, and catchy enough for people to remember. It is often a popular choice for a business name to include a reference to the area you are doing business in, as well as a reference to the product you are selling or producing. For example, an investment firm based on San Francisco may choose to call themselves, ” Bay Area Investments.” This type of name is not only relevant to the business operations, but very easy for the consumer to remember in a pinch. If they were to advertise on the radio, while the consumer may not remember all of the ad, they would most likely be able to remember that they heard an ad about an investment firm in the San Francisco Bay area. Googling that would most likely provide them with a list of relevant businesses, and they would be able to easily discern which firm they heard the ad about.Another important task to complete, is your logo. This is the visual for your business, and again needs to be relevant to the business, as well as eye catching. You wouldn’t put a photo of a plumbing fixture on the Bay Area Investments business card, would you? No, you’d put something related to a stock portfolio, and possibly an image of the Golden Gate Bridge to represent the company name. Your logo should be able to depict the written name of your business. Just like in the cave man days, they drew pictures to describe what has happened, your logo should do the same. This will provide a cohesiveness with your name, and again will allow the consumer to easily remember the company. As your business grows, you can even use just your logo as your advertisement, and people would be able to recognize your business from it.Tag lines are also very important. If you put just your name, and logo on a business card, and hand it out to your contacts, that is surely an effective way to get yourself out there, but not overly compelling. You need to be able to sum up your business’s intention in just a few short words or phrases. Bay Area Investments may aim to provide exceptional service on a smaller personal level than what you would find from a national company, such as Bank of America. Their tag line may say something to the effect of “small town service with big city results.” This of course would inform the consumer that they will not sacrifice service for results, or vice versa. Anyone who has ever experienced less than stellar service from their investment firm, would more than likely be open to speaking with a firm that truly cared about their customers’ investment success.The last, but most important aspect to getting your brand recognized is getting your brand recognized! Your challenge when just beginning, is to get your target audience to at least try what you are offering. When you first begin, often free trials or giveaways are the best way to get this to happen. Once someone tries something and likes it, their rate of return for a paid service is around 85%. So don’t be afraid to offer coupons, discounts, freebies, etc. Bay Area Investments may offer a free initial review of their potential new customers’ current portfolios. From there, they can make the needed recommendations, and attempt to close the sale of their product with their prospective client. Happy clients will usually tell their friends about great products they’ve tried, and in turn word of mouth advertising often is the most lucrative for your business. And of course, it is always the most flattering, because it tells you that your customers are happy with your product! That in and of itself is the most successful way to build your brand.Your success is only limited to your imagination, and drive. Get creative with your brand, it is yours!Carmella MartinezLowKeyMedia Marketing Team

A worker shortage might be excellent news for the economy! Maybe, just maybe, firms will awake and see workers’ substantial contribution to their success. Some CEOs take unconscionable sums and destroy their firm’s value, unlike many frontline workers who create value. During the pandemic, CEOs took vast sums as they laid-off workers. Some firms sought bankruptcy protection, but hat didn’t stop their greedy CEOs from snatching hefty bonuses.

We have a worker shortage and firms are scrambling to hire whomever is willing. Some firms, like McDonalds have paid signing bonuses. Canada’s Loblaw and its competitors paid a bonus to frontline workers when the pandemic began. They stopped it after three months in unison with their competitors. When government confronted them about this collusion, they claimed it happened independently. Go figure! It’s like you caught your three-year-old with her hand in the cookie jar and she said, Mom, “Cookie Monster did it!”

Worker Shortage Inevitable With Shoddy Treatment

Loblaw’s behavior disturbs me. During the bonus period, profits soared. Per se, that’s no problem. I favor firms making profits. To be sure, I am against government taxing profits. But paying workers the bonus during the pandemic shouldn’t hinge on profits. It was just right. Meanwhile, my wife and I shopped at a Loblaw store and workers continued their excellent service despite Loblaw’s slight.

Leaders must realize frontline workers are the firm’s foundation and treat them well, not as cogs turning out CEOs bonuses! When employers treat workers like machines, they disengage. Gallup said, over several decades, they and other researchers found a strong link between employees’ workplace engagement and the company’s overall performance. Yet employers refuse to accept this. But there is good news: surveys show some firms break the mold and treat workers with respect: Cisco, Apple, Accenture, IBM, FedEx are a few.

Next Quarter’s Earnings Drives Businesses

Companies see next quarter as the prize, so they exploit workers and fudge next quarter’s numbers. I repeat: I am against government taxing business. However, I favor the Biden Build Back Better provision to tax share buybacks that the House passed, and it is before the Senate, even if it might have only a modest effect on share buybacks. Companies shouldn’t be spending billions buying back shares while exploiting workers.

Firms should present to shareholder meetings options to use buyback funds. Choices might include effects of paying bonuses to frontline workers with buyback funds. Shareholders should hear about potential strategic investments, too. Another option is stopping buy-backs for five years after layoffs. Executives, too, shouldn’t get bonuses within five years of layoffs. We must get rid of worker exploitation that enhances CEO bonuses.