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How You’re Doing Branding Wrong, And What To Do About It

The post How You’re Doing Branding Wrong, And What To Do About It appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Having a consistent and clear brand will help you build a business that lasts for the long-term. At the core of your branding should be a connection between you and your customer. The role of your brand is to communicate your value to your customer in the clearest manner possible. Only by understanding your customer can you truly create a brand that lasts. Most companies go about branding from the opposite approach and end up with a brand that speaks to no one. Below you’ll find some of the most common branding mistakes and what you can do to fix them.   1. Trusting Instinct Alone It’s easy to fall in love with your business idea. But, if it isn’t serving anyone, or no one is going to buy what you’re offering. Then it’s better left as a hobby than an actual business. Instead of focusing on building your brand identity and other activities to solidify your brand you should be talking with actual customers to verify your idea and uncover their needs. Only then does it make sense to invest more time into your project. After all, by going of instinct alone you’re essentially flying blind and will have no idea if anyone even wants what you’re offering until it hits the market.   2. Little To No Engagement or Feedback Like we mentioned above, if you’re relying directly on the assumptions you have about your target market you’re going to have a difficult time nurturing a brand over the long-run . The best brands speak directly to their target market’s needs and nothing more. Acting on instinct alone puts you at risk for attempting to raise awareness around your brand for years, with nothing to show for it. A better route is to find people in your target market, or people who already interact with your company and ask them some of the following questions: How would you feel if your product or service ceased to exist? What alternatives to your product or service would you use instead? Why do you choose to work with us over our competitors? How can we improve our offerings to serve you in deeper ways? By working with these answers you’ll be able to better refine your brand (if you have an existing company), and figure out how to position your offers to your fans in a more compelling and attractive manner.   3. Being Consistent When you have a stable brand it can be tempting to change up subtle elements of your brand just for fun. Although most brands go through design overhauls and image shifts over time they’re usually structured and thought out. However, even subtle inconsistencies within your logo, colors, and messaging can throw off your users and start to erode your trust. Make sure you keep an eye on brand consistency, once you’ve developed a strong brand and don’t stray from what you’ve created. Brands aren’t built overnight. The take consistent time, effort, work and refinement. However, by taking the time to incorporate feedback, and consistently engineering your brand towards service you’ll build a brand that works for you , instead of against you. web hosting Continue reading

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Are You Creating Deep Connections With Your Customers?

The post Are You Creating Deep Connections With Your Customers? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Are there any brands you love so deeply you wouldn’t know what to do if they suddenly vanished? This could be your favorite brand of coffee, the type of computer your use, or even something as simple as the style of pen you love to write with. The examples are endless and I bet there are lot of companies you maintain a nonsensical love for. The reason this connection exists is because you feel supported and loved, you feel like this company speaks for you and gets you in some deeper way. A humans we crave this connection and need to be seen. If you can create this level of bond with your customers and clients you’ll find yourself with an army that’s willing to stand behind everything you do. The good news is it all starts with developing and nurturing a deep connection with your audience — all of us are capable of doing this.   Know Yourself First Without knowing your company on a deep level you won’t have a backbone on which to base this relationship. You may know exactly what you’re selling, or the service you’re offering, but you still need to uncover your deeper operating principles. Once you know the deeper values you stand for you can bring these to light for your customer to see. For example, you may simply sell exercise equipment for women. But, really you’re selling the feeling of having the beautiful body that you adore. Connecting with this desire will give you a lot of momentum moving forward. Find your deep why and don’t be afraid to communicate it.   Understand To Whom You’re Speaking Every company has an ideal customer they’re going to be speaking to. It’s your job to know this person inside and out. What are their core desires? How do they want to feel when they’re done interacting with you? Does your company give them any social boost? You’ll need to go beyond demographics and truly get into their head and emotional states.   Create Memorable Experiences When you think back to an astonishing experience you had with a company, I bet it stands out because it’s extremely memorable. They did something that was above and beyond the norm. You’ll want to create these experiences for you customers. Especially early on in your relationship. A good rule of thumb is delight early and often.   Take A Stand For Your Loyal Customers Do you have any customers that have been with you a long time? A great way to deepen this relationship is by rewarding them for standing by your side so long. This can be something as simple as a customer loyalty program. Or, you can go above and beyond the norm and create a totally unique reward. It’s entirely up to you.   Don’t Be Afraid To Fail Sometimes you’ll make mistakes. This can be a marketing campaign gone awry, a product that you don’t feel good about, or a simple email exchange that was misinterpreted. Recognizing that you’ve failed and moving forward in a powerful manner is how you’ll strengthen these bonds with your customers. Admit where you were wrong, learn from your mistakes and start to move in a powerful direction. The bond you form with your customers is one of the most important parts of your business. Take the time to nourish this relationship and your business will thank you. web hosting Continue reading

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Time Management For Entrepreneurs

The post Time Management For Entrepreneurs appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . As an entrepreneur your time is sacred. You may marvel at those who seem to accomplish marvelous feats in the same 24 hours each day with which you both have to work. You might even start to believe that by some miracle they’ve been given an extra hour or two a day. There is no secret, it just requires taking an active approach to managing your time and seeing what needs to be changed. In this post we’re going to explore a simple process that will help you get more from your time, so you can do more every single day.   1. Understand How You Spend Your Time One of the most important elements of managing your time is understanding how your spend your time. Your time seems to either expand or contact based upon how you spend it, and chances are you waste a lot of your time with aimless activities you aren’t aware that you’re doing. For a week bring around a notebook, or piece of paper and record how you spent the last hour of your time. Over a week this will help to give you a realistic picture of how your time is spent.   2. Know The Most Important Activities For Your Business Once you have an understanding of how you’ve been spending or wasting your time you need to be equipped with an understanding of what activities are important for your business. There’s an old adage that essentially states 20 percent of your activities will be responsible for 80 percent of your results. It’s your job to uncover what these 20 percent activities are. Here’s a hint, usually they’re the ones you avoid the most. They’re the ones you could put off all day if you had to. Look where you have the most resistance and you’ll very often find the important activities.   3. Let Your Schedule Be Your Friend Your schedule and your to-do lists will now become your best friend. Your schedule will be your holy grail of how you’re spending your time. If you’re not used to using a schedule, then your time estimates for certain activities might be off. But, never let anything cross your mind without scheduling it, or adding it to your to-do list. To-do lists are effective in that they help clear your mind of precious mental space. This helps you to focus when you’re actually immersed in an activity, instead of trying to remember that thing you forgot to do. Another way to schedule is to schedule based on certain activities and actions, instead of hours on a clock. This can be helpful if your work is more creatively based, or artistic and less dependent on the clock.   4. Focus Will Extend The Time You Have To Work With As I’m sure you’re aware time seems to pass at different speeds depending on where we’re at and what we’re doing. If we’re waiting in line time seems to drag on forever, but if we’re focused and immersed in what we’re doing then time seems to stretch out a little. The key to having this occur more often than not is mastering your ability to focus. This means you’ll need to take extra care in cutting out any distractions, and making sure you have everything you need for the task at hand. This means no more multitasking. When you distract yourself from the task at hand you actually end up losing time, as it takes longer for your mind to get back to the task you were just doing.   5. Take Care Of Yourself Lastly, you need to make sure you’re in peak condition. If your mind and body are healthy it’s going to be much easier to focus. You know what works for you, but make sure you’re exercising regularly and giving yourself time to unwind. When you’re healthy and stress-free your mind works more efficiently, so you’ll be using less time for the same tasks. As the master of your time you’re going to be much more efficient getting things done if you actually feel good. Managing your time properly doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, once you stick with it for a little bit, it’ll become second nature. What are your best tips for maximizing your time? Let us know in the comments! web hosting Continue reading

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Infographic: Small Business Attitudes On Taxes

The post Infographic: Small Business Attitudes On Taxes appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . HostGator’s parent company, The Endurance International Group , recently surveyed over 800 small businesses and found that a vast majority are in favor of tax reform. The infographic below contains the results of this survey, some of which are quite interesting. To read the entire related press release, please click here : web hosting Continue reading

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Are Distributors Employees Or Customers?

The post Are Distributors Employees Or Customers? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Distributors are the companies or individuals that you use in order to get your inventory to your clients. They are designed specifically around the logistics of getting your materials to the people who have ordered your products or services. Your suppliers may even be distributors for other companies. These people and companies have a responsibility to you to make sure that your customers get what they have ordered within the agreed upon time frame. The question becomes how exactly should you treat these companies and individuals.   Employees Or Customers Distributors may seem like they are your employees, in a sense, as you are paying them to provide a service for your company. On the other hand, your distributors, like your customers, have their own lists of demands. These demands must be met in order for these distributors to do anything for you. If you are a small business, your distributor may simply be the post office, yet even the post office has its own set of demands regarding what and how you must ship certain objects. If you’re shipping lotions, for example, you must declare the lotions and follow specific protocols in order to ensure that they are shipped properly. Any liquid must be declared, as must anything flammable. The list goes on and on. Are they working for you? Yes, they are delivering your goods to your clients. Are they your customers? Yes, they have demands that you must meet. Are you their customer? Yes again, without their services, you would have a difficult time getting your product distributed, and as such you have certain demands that they must meet as well.   If The Answer Is Yes To All, How Do I Act? The answer is of course quite simple. Treat them as you would like to be treated. Explain your situation, explain what you are looking for, and determine if your distributor can meet your expectations. If not, thank them and move on to a different distributor. The important thing is working to ensure that all needs are met, and the only way to do so is to act like a thinking, rational, and respectful adult. If all the relationships do not work smoothly, they will not work. You wouldn’t yell at your customer for asking something to be shipped next day when you offer next day shipping, nor should you yell at the person or company you are attempting to use to get that done. Treat all distributors like both customers and employees. If you need something done within X amount of time, state this, like an employer would, but do so respectfully, in the same manner that you would use when you would talk to a customer. In return you will be treated like you want to be treated in a customer capacity. Supplier chains work the best when all aspects of the relationship are addressed and all are taken into account.   Image Source: Powered Play. (2014). Distributors. Retrieved from http://poweredplay.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/distributors.jpg web hosting Continue reading

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