5 Reasons to Brand your Service-Based Business

A lot of my clients find me because they are looking for a better solution.

They feel like they are lost when it comes to marketing, and aren’t seeing the results that they want. Or, sometimes they are booked solid, yet not making a dollar over 30k a year. 

Maybe you want to make more money but aren’t confident enough to raise your prices for fear of losing customers. 

Maybe you struggle with imposter syndrome and feel like you aren’t good enough, or don’t deserve to make more money, or to even own a business at all. 

Maybe you’re growing at a stable pace, but are ready to scale, grow your team, and introduce new services that complement the ones you already offer.

Or maybe you’ve just been in business for a while, and you’ve bootstrapped all of your brand & website design from DIYing it on Canva, or hiring random freelancers here or there, and now you’re left with a janky, all over the place, brand design that doesn’t reflect your customer experience or the quality of service that you offer.

None of these problems just fade away without being confronted head-on. I see this all the time. People neglect/hold off when it comes to investing in their brand identity, and then wonder why they aren’t seeing the same success that others are experiencing. 

It has nothing to do with you– but everything to do with your branding. 

Our goal in owning/operating a business is to make it: fulfilling, sustainable, and profitable. So hopefully these 5 things motivate you to start taking your brand a bit more seriously and to feel inspired to jump in and start seeing your business flourish.

 

 

 

01/ Branding Builds Awareness– 

We’ve alllllll heard the statistic “it takes, on average, 7 encounters with your brand for it to stick with the consumer.” And if you haven’t heard that- well now you have.

There is merit to this well-known stat. It does take experiences with the same potential buyer multiple times for them to finally recognize your business, what you are selling, and what your name is. Seeing consistent branding builds awareness of your brand & makes you come to mind more often when people think of the service you provide. This means that having a consistent look and feel is SO SO SO SO IMPORTANT. Earlier I mentioned that you may have been bootstrapping a bunch of different designs together and calling it your “brand”. But if there are differences in style, colors, fonts, etc. it can really affect the likelihood of someone remembering who you are and what you do…

Making it that much harder and wasting more time and money on marketing, that just falls flat because due to lack of consistency.

 

 

02/ Branding Builds Trust

If you look janky, people will think your quality, customer service, and overall business is… you guessed it, janky. Nobody really trusts that the guy who hand-writes on corrugated signs that say “interior & exterior painting” with a barely legible phone number is actually going to come into their home, do a phenomenal job, and have the best customer service ever…

Now, could that be the case, right? But by having a, gonna say it again, janky handwritten sign, with no website, social media, or google business profile that highlights his work, customer reviews, or just his overall services, he will be missing out on SO MANY MORE POTENTIAL CLIENTS. People won’t go out of their way to research you unless you give them a good first impression and a reason to learn more.

People want to know they can trust you. It is the ONLY reason why they will buy from you. What’s even more important is that you follow through with building that trust by delivering a service that they are excited to tell their friends about. If you build trust in the beginning, you will land a lot more of the leads that you typically have a hard time closing, and your brand identity can do that for you if you take the time to make sure it will connect with your clients and make them feel like you’re the one for the job.

 

03/ Branding Improves your Client Experience 

When you have a streamlined brand and work with a professional brand designer, you can find solutions to a lot of the problems your client faces. 

For example, let’s say you are a personal trainer. You provide exercise training, as well as nutrition plans. Your process of delivering these exercise and nutrition plans is to simply hand them a typed-out plan with minimal organization, straight from your word doc. Yes, they have the information, but with a lack of organization, your clients are left feeling confused, lost, and just flat-out burdened by trying to dissect the information. They could end up just overwhelmed, and less likely to stick with your service due to mere inconveince.

Instead- what if your brand identity, marketing material, website, workout plans, nutrition plans, and other collateral were all aligned, and designed professionally? The goal for this personal trainer would be to make their client feel far less overwhelmed and will have resources they can use daily with distinct action plans for them to stick to. When you work with a professional designer, they can help you find solutions to best deliver information to your clients, leaving them to feel motivated, inspired, organized, and supported.

This is what your branding can do for you when it comes to just designing for simplicity and helping your clients. This increases your client experience, and in turn, will most likely mean they are going to tell people about your business & you can expand your word-of-mouth marketing.

 

 

 

04/ Branding will Streamline your Marketing efforts

Do you get exhausted when it comes time to think about how you are going to market, what that will look like, or if it is worth your time and money? Or do you worry about posting a Facebook ad, spending hundreds of dollars, only to get 1 lead out of it? Yeah, thinking about that exhausted me too. If you have a strategic brand identity that is designed FOR your target client, then your marketing efforts will reap far more results with less time & money. When you lay a solid foundation, it is a lot easier to start building a plan for marketing that doesn’t suck your energy or wallet dry. 

Focusing on the strategy of your brand encompasses who you are talking to, how you talk to them, when and where you can find them, and what you do you solve their problems. Do you see how knowing those things can make coming up with content ideas, advertisements, and marketing ideas can come so much easier?

 

 

05/ Branding Builds Confidence

You own a business that you should be damn proud to represent. So many business owners feel brand & website shame… Like, they know they need help with it but are so scared of taking the leap and investing in professional help.

Lacking confidence is like being sprayed with a skunk when it comes time to sell your services. Your clients can sense that you are not as confident as some of your competitors, and it makes them weary of buying from you. I have found that myself and my clients noticed a spike in my confidence when I re-branded and re-designed my website.

Sometimes just having a professional designer as a partner to help guide you, strategize, design, and help you is all you need in order to step into the role as a business owner who is fulfilled, building a sustainable, long-term business, and making more money than ever before.

 

I hope this brings you some clarity on things you could focus on and improve to see great results in your business. Whatever it is that you could use help on, I’d love to hear about it. Shoot an email to hello@littlerhinodesign.com to chat with me about how we can help grow your business!