You can’t brand like a beer company…or a cola company.
The most important – and noticeable – difference is that the brand is YOU for a solopreneur. You’re not selling chemicals in water, like a beer company. You’re selling yourself. That means you must promote yourself as an expert without sounding like a conceited jerk. And you don’t have a lot of helpful guidance.
I discovered this myself when I was a new solopreneur.. My first website focused on midlife career change. It’s still up, and I get an occasional client now and then.
While learning to market that site, I took a copywriting course from a brand-new copywriter…and got hooked. I’ve always been a writer, so this step felt natural.
This time around I knew just enough about marketing to be dangerous. When I first set up shop online as a copywriter, I branded my business “Copy-Cat Copywriting.” A publicist had named her business The Publicity Hound so I thought…why not?
Many experienced marketers loved the name. It was clever and catchy, they said.
For instance, I met a high-powered “branding expert” at a networking event. He got excited about the concept. He suggested taking it further, with “purr-fect copy” and other feline attributes. In fact, for a mere $5000 he’d help me polish the brand to perfection.
Fortunately, I resisted the temptation.
Looking back now, I realize the brand did nothing to create realistic, desirable expectations. It was Madison Avenue branding applied to me, a solopreneur. And it didn’t work.
In fact, “copy-cat” is just the opposite of what I was doing. I’m an original. I abhor cookie-cutter marketing. People who know me usually sigh and say, “Well, Cathy, you’re … different.” That’s when they’re being nice.
Ironically, I had a perfectly good story. On my website, I wrote about business owners who were so afraid of sounding sales-y that they went to the other extreme. They wrote timid copy that tiptoed around the edges of their benefits.
I should have paid more attention to that story.
That was only the beginning of the bad advice I received. Another ‘branding expert” suggested branding on my energy and enthusiasm. She suggested using images of coffee to create a memorable persona. No problem: I could have Coffee Pot consultations and Cappuccino workshops.
Since then, I’ve seen many other entrepreneurs who brand themselves based on personalbrand on personal qualities, including “caffeinated,” “rebel,” and “curly-haired.”
I’ve also met business owners who went to the opposite extreme. They attended webinars sponsored by large agencies. They were encouraged to learn from the beer companies, the cola companies, and the sportswear companies.
NOTE: This article is taken from my forthcoming book, Your Mess Is Not Your Message: A Guide to Branding for Solopreneurs. Sign up here to be notified when it’s ready.