The Beginning Of The Brand

My new business venture has been successfully operating for two months now, so it is about time to tell some of the secrets of its success, and now it has nothing to do with the naked cowboy; I just put that image there to grab your attention.

Several months of planning went into getting it off the ground and making it profitable from day one. Considerable time was spent analyzing the business model, value adding, brand building and a growth strategy. This is fairly standard planning for all businesses, but it got me to thinking about how, many people do not fully plan a business venture, giving it no more thought then how much they can make and what the costs will be.

Following The Crowd

Something many people overlook when starting a business is that they are free to develop their own model rather then simply follow what has been done a thousand times before.

Now I don’t mean that you throw all convention to the wind and come up with some totally outlandish way of operating; what I mean is that instead of slavishly copying someone else’s business model, you put your own ideas into place.

Making A Living

There is nothing wrong with following a successful business model, after all, that is what many people do. It does not guarantee you success, but if everything is applied correctly, you should have a reasonable chance of success. Success here though does not mean that you have will a thriving business that will exceed your competition; how can it, you have not distinguished your business from your competition, you have simply copied them.

At the end of the day, many people are happy to make slightly better then a wage, under the belief that at least they don’t have a boss to answer to, so they are better off that way. This may be true, but here are a couple of points worth considering:

• You are working much harder then you would be for a boss
• You are probably working longer hours
• You are carrying more risk
• Your stress levels can be much higher

The particular business I have been developing, traditionally relies heavily on the people in it for its success. Nothing new there you say; well there is actually. If run correctly, by talented people, their is a reasonable chance of success, with the owners often making quite a good living out of the business. The problem is that the inherent value of the business is primarily dependent on these people.

To give you an example of the problem, I’ll provide a couple of examples. If you have a successful law firm, it can have talented lawyers that increase it’s revenue, but generally it’s value is built upon the clients and contracts it has. it can lose a good lawyer, but still have inherent value. Likewise, a successful retail company is not dependent on the people staffing it for its success. It can have massive staff turnover, but as long as the sales figures remain good, it retains an inherent value.

Developing A Brand

This is the problem I have; how do I take a business that’s typical business model relies upon a small element of goodwill and stock at hand for a valuation and build greater inherent value. What I have done is to look at ways I can build a business brand that does not rely solely upon the people in it for its ongoing success.

Like any new business, in its early days, success will be dependent on the people in it. After establishment though, the brand that has been built should take over and maintain the business and allow it to expand beyond the typical offerings.

How To Develop A Brand Concept

You might now be wondering how to develop a brand concept. It is pretty simple really, you just need to educate yourself on the business and market you are developing or thinking of going into. For this particular business, I used this background knowledge and then looked at all the weaknesses as well as opportunities for value adding.

This basically involved thinking; just running various ideas and scenarios through my head. Once I came up with a concept, I ran the ideas via other people. I then repeated the process and then repeated it again and again. I brainstormed with people and this is something that is very valuable for formulating ideas. I find that developing any idea or design is an organic process, you plant the seed, water it a little then tend it as it grows.

This is the process I followed. Eventually I arrived at the concept I have now. The next step is putting it into place.

What Is The Business And Brand

I created the business, B & M Hair Divas, for my wife and her business partner, who are both very talented hair dressers. As well as hair dressing, their backgrounds in other businesses give them other advantages when it comes to knowledge and experience.

As I noted earlier though, the value in this type of business is normally tied directly to the people in the business, rather then the business itself. To overcome this, the business had to be built from the very beginning with a complete focus on building a brand.

At this point, it is probably worth showing some images of what we had to begin with. We were fortunate to locate a premises that has previously operated as a salon in a good location, but as you can see from the images below, the it needed quite a bit of work done to it.

And this is what we have now.

We were also fortunate that along with my other qualifications, I have previously been a licensed builder and building designer and I was able to design and undertake the majority of the work myself, except for grinding the existing two-pack off the floor (yes, that is what that lovely brown floor coloring was).

If you visit the Website, you can see more shots of the salon.

Build A Culture

It is no good building a brand, without also building a culture. Without a business culture, the brand is nothing more then a name and some colors. A culture provides the framework for employees to work within and sets out your expectations and those of the client.

The idea is to give the client a consistent experience across the brand.

Marketing

The marketing campaign was designed in conjunction with the total theme, right down to designing the Website, logo and even writing the jingle myself. You can see this and listen to the jingle on the Website.

Obviously, there are a lot more details then have been covered in this article, I am still working on many of them, but hopefully this has provided you with enough information to come up with your own ideas. Alternatively, if you need help, you can always hire me.