3 Simple Tips From Business to a Brand in 3 Years Time

Before I show you the 3 Simple Tips to become a brand a 3 years time, you need to understand first what happens if your business is not a brand?

If your business is not a brand, your business will be just a commodity and service provider. There is no clear identity of what your brands really are. 10 or 20 years later , everything will stay the same – You will also be jealous of the success other bigger or newer brands.

If your business is not a brand, consumers will NEVER pay a premium to buy your products and services. You will have to slash down your prices, that means earning LESS, in order to make your products sell. You earn just enough to make ends meet. And that is it. Just enough to make ends meet.

If your business is not a brand, you have to spend a lot of time talking and selling to people one by one. Customers will not come directly to buy from you. This means that you cannot sell better and you cannot sell faster than the big brands.

Hence let’s delve down to the 3 Simple Tips Now:

#1) Be the FIRST in your industry

Aim to be the FIRST in your industry. Not second, not third, but FIRST in your industry.

there is a saying that goes like this,

Reach for the moon, even if you’ll miss you’ll land among the stars.

The rule is very clear. If you don’t aim high? You will never be a brand. If you aim to be Number one in 3 years time at least you’ll be in the Top 10!”

So you got to have big ambition!

Somebody will say, ” I do not have a big budget, how can I be the FIRST?

Being the first in your industry in today’s era does not mean your company has to spend a lot of money on advertisement and campaigns like the big boys. It is not like that.

Being the first in your industry is to be REALISTIC, while at the same time, plan to reach the first in the industry ASAP. You can be a thought leader in your industry, be good at customer service so that you can be first in your individual consumers’ minds or you can create a new niche and be that leader of that new niche.

In the early eighties, IBM dominated the world’s computer industry. Apple, at that time, was still much smaller than IBM, but APPLE aims to beat IBM to become the NEW market leader. With this strong determination to be number one, in 1984, APPLE created the first Macintosh computer, that changed the whole ENTIRE computer industry.

You MUST aim to be the FIRST in your industry. No matter what!

#2) Create Opportunities Constantly

Don’t wait for opportunity to come. You need to create opportunity for your business. Always be marketing your business so that you can create opportunity effortlessly.

Everyone is creating opportunities to boost their business. But sad to say, not all of them are doing the right way and the fastest way.

I was once like them before when I would spent countless amount of time, energy and money creating opportunities that are not expansive enough. Things like distributing my advertisement flyers door to door, cold-calling, creating outdoor ad banners, spending money on print ads, email blasting and so on.

All of these methods will not work today for the entrepreneur with little or no budget as they are time consumer and may not be able to differentiate your brand from others.

Hence, you should focus on marketing strategies that will give you expansive effect even with little budget. Leverage on social media, Google, Twitter or other effective branding strategies to create more marketing opportunities for your brand!

#3) Expand Your Business Further

When your business start to see profits coming in; the very next thing you need to do, is to reinvest the profits back into your business and EXPAND your business further.

SUN TZU said in the Art of War that, “competition is constant”

If you stop advancing, your competition will overtake you. So, the only way, is to move up with better and bigger branding strategies.

To expand your business, you can expand your niche customer base further. Say your main customers are home owners. Once you have established your brand positioning among the home owners industry, you can look for new customer niche such as pet owners; you can tell these pets owners how your products and services can make their homes a pet friendly environment.

Next, you can also create your brand story and then sell to business prospects such as franchisees, licensees, venture capitalists and investors. These group of people can further help your brand to expand by injecting more funds and bringing your brand to more branches and countries without using all of your money. Other than that, you can also consider leverage on events that can help to lift your brand image up as well!

Summary

So there you have, the 3 Simple Tips From Business to a Brand in 3 Years Time.

1) Be the FIRST in your industry

2) Create OPPORTUNITIES Constantly

3) EXPAND Your Business Further

I wish you the best in your business!!

[This article was extracted from the author’s speech in December 2013 on “3 Simple Tips From Business to a Brand in 3 Years Time” held at Singapore Suntec Convention Centre. ]