3 Keys to Build Your Brand

If I see one more Facebook ad that talks about how to build your “brand” I will engage in primal scream therapy.

Building a brand is not hard, as online marketers would lead you to believe. A “brand” is, simply, your reputation.

Here are the 3 keys to building a brand for your small business:

1. Capture what clients have said about you. They define your brand, not you.
2. Build a logo that’s readable and simple. That’s not your brand; just a doorway to your brand.
3. Answer how you show up when clients have a problem. Every interaction either builds or destroys your reputation—your brand. Get those testimonials too.

Here’s an example of how we built the DF Consulting, Inc. brand that might help you build your brand reputation.

Brand Building Case Study

DF Consulting, Inc. is my company. Everything published on and offline is under this corporate umbrella. Dawn Fotopulos’s reputation is DF Consulting, Inc.’s reputation.

What is our brand reputation?

Valuable content. We want breakthrough for every small business owner and accounting professional. Easy. Simple. Straight forward. Fast. That’s what we’re known for.

A quirky sense of humor that makes dry topics like accounting and statement analysis intriguing and funny. Accounting is funny? It is. Just ask a tax preparer around April 15th.

We are accelerators. We want a business owner or service provider to gain the benefit right now. Today. That what our courses do. We want our clients to improve profits to get a return on investment ASAP.

We’re fast; what takes everyone else months or years to accomplish takes us hours or days. This is what corporate clients get when they hire us.

We get to the heart of things quickly. We show small business owners and accounting professionals how to grow profits within weeks not years even if they have no prior knowledge.

We’re mission-driven. Everyone who works with DF Consulting, Inc. knows the mission is to double small business survival rates within the next five years.

We transform how business owners think and operate to build profits and cash flow a lot faster with less effort.

We don’t waste your time or ours. When you read the award-winning book, Accounting for the Numberphobic; A Survival Guide for Small Business Owners

We don’t care about teaching anything; we care about transforming the future of small businesses. That means changing the risk profile so failure rates drop instead of climb.

When we were building our reputation, I asked many people who had experienced webinars, workshops or online courses what THEY thought our reputation was.

Here are some comments small business owners and accounting professionals have said:

• “You never waste my time. I’m taking notes.”
• “When Dawn Fotopulos shows up, she always blows me away with knowledge bombs.”
• “You didn’t just teach me; you reached me.

Want to build a brand? That’s how you do it.