Entrepreneurs and small business owners alike look at branding as a lifeline, especially in these days of social distancing and disrupted commerce. While it’s been a buzzword for some time, it’s not all that mysterious. It’s something you’ve been doing from the day you opened shop, yet it’s still worth considering. Whether you provide a service, sell a product or operate as a B2B entity, it determines your success. Let’s look at the basics of branding and then at how you can put this review to work during the pandemic crisis.

Simply put, branding both makes you visible andguarantees your work. It’s your promise to the payee that your business willsatisfy. No ifs, ands or buts. Your brand makes you worthy of a customer’sbusiness. Sure, you want to be known, but let’s face it: you want to be knownfor success, right?

Examples of branding failures abound, and usually withheadlines. In these days of instant communication, the dissonance between yourclaims and your results makes the news, and it doesn’t have to be on networkchannels. Failure is visible, it’s costly, and it takes years to reverse thatimage. A classic example of branding failure was the Kellogg entry into thebreakfast market in India. It was 1994, and thankfully, Facebook wasn’t aroundto make it a worldwide catastrophe. Corn Flakes didn’t mesh well with Indianbreakfast routines of using sweetened milk, and local customs in foodpreparation resulted in soggy flakes. It didn’t take long for Kellogg to pullout. The fact that you may not be aware of this failure is a testament to boththe time that has elapsed and the fact that Dick Tracy cellphones were still onthe horizon.

A good review of how to brand your businessnever hurts. Go back to the basics once a year and sharpen your approach tobrand recognition. Look at some crazyfailures sure to make you smile. Then sit down and once again map out yourapproach. Answer four questions:

• What is your mission statement?
• What do you offer?
• What do your customers think of your business?
• What qualities do you want others to think ofwhen the topic of your business arises?

Branding isn’t a one and done kind of proposition. During a normal economy it should be pulled out of mothballs once a year at least, dusted off, reviewing what applied then and assessing what applies now. March and April is that time, folks. It lies incumbent upon pandemic-wise small business owners to rekindle an awareness of their brand and to keep it visible while folks remain at home. I’ll be jumping on to our Face Book page to offer ideas on how to do more on this in person…watch for it!