There’s a good chance you’ve heard the term “branding” and have felt confused by the term — is branding all about the logo? What does it have to do with my business? Why do I have to think about branding when I have one thousand other things to do to keep my business running?

All fair questions. I wrote a blog post here that explains some typical jargon around the word “brand,” so feel free to pop over there and read that first.

The bottom line is that your business has a brand, and the brand is your business’s reputation. By branding your business, you are building your reputation, crafting the perception of your business, aligning with your business goals, and clarifying the needs and desires of your ideal audience.

Branding is definitely more than just a logo. It’s an alignment of your vision, voice, and visuals, ensuring that your message is clear and attracting the right person based on what you’re offering and what they need.

I was reading a branding textbook the other day #nerdalert and found these three reasons for investing in branding outlined by the author Alina Wheeler. I immediately felt like everyone needed to be aware of these ideas. They’re so good.

I give you: three super smart reasons to invest in branding right now:

1. Good branding makes it really easy to sell your stuff.

Branding provides you with a clear idea of what you need to say, how you need to say it, and what your visuals need to look like in order to capture your person’s attention.

In other words, if you understand the foundational pieces of your brand it should be a no brainer for you to come up with content to share, brainstorm marketing campaigns, and craft offerings that will uniquely fit your audience.

Does this all sound too good to be true? Like, almost too easy?

I promise, when you have that level of confidence, clarity, and understanding about your business it will feel easy to sell your stuff. Even if selling has felt difficult or icky to you in the past.

Selling doesn’t have to be hard. When you care in equal amounts about what you’re offering and the person you’re offering it to, the process of selling can actually feel really great.

Wouldn’t that be nice for a change? 🙂

2. Good branding makes it really easy to buy from you.

When you’re selling confidently because you believe in what you’re offering and everything else about your brand aligns with that, you’ll be more attractive. People will want to buy from you because they feel like they can trust you. You look and sound professional and not shady or creepy like a 90’s website or a random Halloween Express popup store.

Like, do you enjoy doing business at places that feel shady? Gross fluorescent lights, no music, uninspired staff… Nah, right? It just feels like they’re trying to take your money and… that’s about it.

As a consumer you want to feel like the energetic exchange is equal. You want to feel excited to give someone your money because you value what they do, and you want them to feel excited to sell to you because they believe in what they offer. That’s an equal energy exchange.

The way to get there is to brand yourself really well. The alignment of vision, voice, and visuals is magic and makes it so much easier for people to say yes, please take my money!

3. Good branding makes it really easy to build brand equity.

Your brand aka your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you don’t have a solid reputation, you don’t have a solid business.

Investing in branding right now means you expect your brand reputation to grow and build on itself over time. It’s like putting money into a high yield savings account instead of leaving it sitting in your bank — if you want that money to grow over time, you need to give it the right environment to do so.

Same thing for your business. Provide it with the right branding and watch it grow.

Branding is about finding every opportunity to communicate your value. As you continue to build your brand reputation, you’ll find the most important thing to your business — customer trust, loyalty, and differentiation within the marketplace — grow over time.

It’s easy to think in the short term about our businesses and forget about the value in long-term vision. If you want your business to be around for the long haul, think about building your brand equity by investing in branding.

So, what now?

If I convinced you it’s time to invest in branding, do you need to have thousands of dollars on hand to do so?

Nope. That’s the best part.

You can get started right now, on your own and for free if you want to.

Here are two suggestions to help you gain confidence in selling, be the person people want to buy from, and build your brand equity:

• Check out the Tiny Brand Checklist to DIY your brand (free)
• Purchase a Tiny Brand to experience the magic of creative collaboration on your brand (super affordable)

My inbox and Instagram DMs are always open to answer any questions you have about branding, Tiny Brands, or whatever else I’m nerding out about lately. Let’s dish.