The easiest and fastest way to build customer trust.

Building a brand is crucial if you don’t want to constantly race to the bottom, in terms of pricing. Or if you just want to be great.

If you’re tired of begging for business and sick of giving away your services, this is the article for you.

And by brand I don’t only mean the visuals of things like packaging and uniforms, I mean something much more important – what you stand for.

Master this concept and you’ll reach new unparalleled heights in your business.

Before I start, let’s quickly break down what you’ll learn today

• Why does branding work?
• The visuals: where to start
• The emotional: where to start
• How to start today

Why does branding work?

To begin, in this article will discuss what I referred to as visual and emotional branding.

You see, branding isn’t only packaging materials and looks – it’s also an emotional branding that you create.

The visual branding such as good looking websites work because customers make instant and unconscious opinions about your business.

• Does this look like the other places I trust?
• Do these people look like they’re in business?
• Why do they look so much worse than the leaders in the space?
• Wow, they look like the best I’ve ever come across!

Have you noticed that all of these questions we ask ourselves are trying to judge what we think of the business will do, before we even buy anything? 

We’re trying to guess what her experience will be like and we’re constantly referring to our knowledge of what things should look and feel like.

The reason this is so powerful is because, mentally, we use shortcuts called heuristics.

For example, if you see a man in a fancy suit with a briefcase

Do you assume he’s a truck driver or an attorney. If those are your two choices, what do you pick?

Well, most of us say attorney. But that’s a mental fallacy because statistically there are more truck drivers than attorneys.

We use the superficial information to try to make a guess about the world around us.

And most of the time it’s not deliberate.

And this is why our visual branding is absolutely crucial! You need to come off as a time-tested expert in your field.

Emotional branding, as I like to call it, refers to the association that customers make to your business.

What mental associations do you have for the following businesses;

• Walmart versus small local store;
• Amazon versus craigslist;
• your local mechanic versus a national franchise;
• Apple versus Microsoft.?

And each example you can probably think of traits that don’t have to do with their logos or websites. That’s emotional branding.

Think of words like, exclusive, bargain, trustworthy, consistent.

The visuals: where to start 

With visual branding you need to start and think of “what feeling do you want to give your customers exclusively through visuals and materials?”.

Once you determine that, you have to select the main colors, fonts, and voice of copy that you’re used to produce those feelings.

Remember the truck driver and the attorney example.

What first assumption do you need to produce?

A luxury steakhouse will need a different fonts, color, a voice of copy than a car mechanic. 

There’s more to the visuals, such as

• Theme
• Choice of images
• Layout
• Borders
• Colors, etc.

All of these factors come into play in these elements:

• Your website
• Uniforms
• Phone system
• Email
• Email signature
• Drip campaigns
• Vehicle wraps
• Storefront stickers

This is a process we do here at CazRom for our clients. There are variations, but this is what we have found that works best.

The emotional: where to start

With the emotional aspect you need to think of the emotional associations that you want customers to make with your business.

This transcends logos, uniforms, packaging, etc.

This is the culture you want to build, the brand that customers will love.

Once you think of it, integrated into every pore of your businesses’s existence.

For example, Amazon’s attitude is that customer satisfaction is sacred.

This is their foundation for things ranging from the projects they embark on to how they’ll they’ll train staff. This is omnipresent in everything they do.

Get this right and you can really, really start building a brand for your business.

How to start today

Take a piece of paper and make two columns, one for emotional and one for visual branding.

Write down what you want to be remembered as and seen as. Write down the emotions, and the associations you want customers to have.

Now have someone random rate your existing visuals and ask for customer surveys. See how to compare to what you want to be seen as and what they think.

Make sure it’s someone who will be brutally honest – because your potential clients will be incredibly blunt. Either they like what they see or they don’t.

If they don’t, then you have some work to do.

It’s a lot easier to fix the visuals – start there. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself.

Anywhere where there is a deviation from what you seek to achieve and the current reality, you have to fix.

If you’re slacking on the web end-find someone to fix it

If your packaging isn’t what it needs to be–hire a designer

One way or another get it done, your business depends on it.

Conclusion

I hope you learned why branding is so effective and the two types, along with what they each mean.

If you care about having a business for the long term, effort here (if done correctly) will pay you dividends long into the future.

There’s nothing holding you back, make the commitment to be great.

Will you brand your business to be something that customers love?