Describing your entire business in one sentence

Helping entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses architect their brand.

When you launch your own business, there is so much to do.  After coming up with the idea for your business and figuring out your business plan and how it will all work, you still have to name your business and brand it.  Naming is tough, but you got it done.  You’ve picked a name that is reflective of the products or services that you offer, with a bit of your personality.

But the branding stuff, that’s the difficult bit.  In my work with people who have just launched, one of the hardest parts is often their branding.  We’re not all writers, or graphic designers.  If we were, that would be our line of business.  But that’s not you – you’re a photographer, or artisan, daycare owner, virtual assistant.  Or maybe you own a brick an mortar, a cafe, restaurant, boutique or even auto repair service.  You have a wonderful skillset, and very little time – so why should you expect yourself to be able to handle your branding too?

Your brand is important, and it consists of the content and visuals that make up your company’s identity.  While I can’t help you with your logo, (though I can recommend other’s who can), I help with things like your brand positioning statement, your buyer personas and content marketing plan…

Did I lose you there? It was the brand positioning statement wasn’t it?

I want you to remember the last time that you told someone about your business; whether it was the concept about which you were thinking, or an actual description of a formed business.  You have a very short amount of time, and words, to sum up what it is that you do.  You don’t want to waste time dancing around the point – not in a conversation, and not online.  But boiling what you do down to a sentence, seems downright impossible.

Fear not friends.  I love this stuff, and literally do it for a living.  Let’s take my own business and branding for example.  I have loads of experience with sales, marketing, social media, writing, email newsletters, and community building.  When I first launched, I didn’t want to miss out on any potential business that came my way, so I tried being a little bit of everything to everyone.  Until one day my content marketer self woke up, rapped me on the head a few times and said “What are you doing???”

It was time to invest some time into my own branding.  I decided what I loved to do – work with people like yourself, to craft clear, relevant and consistent content around your brand, and deliver it to your target customers – ie content marketing.  That was it – my who, and my what.  Now I needed to put that together in a sentence that was strong and purposeful.

“Propelling entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses forward, through thoughtfully designed and architected brand and content marketing strategies.”

I chose “propelling” because I want to show people the power of what I do.  I’m not doing work that moves the needle a little bit.  I want to take you from maybe 10mph to 60mph in a slingshot.

I broke down my audience into three segments because these people are different – a small business owner might have employees where as an entrepreneur might not, and there are various definitions for all three of these segments.  If I lumped them together into one word, I might miss out on reaching two additional segments of my target audience.  This is a tough step.  You really need to sit down and think about your business, your products and services and think who they are benefitting.  I’m not saying you need to craft a fictitious person, give them a name, a family, career and a few existential thoughts the way the buyer persona might instruct, but you do need to put some time and thought into this stage and tell those people that you are perfect for them.

Finally, I chose the words “thoughtfully designed and architected”, because I take the time to get to know my clients, their businesses, their needs, their customers, and what it is they exceptionally on a daily business, before I even get started.  After getting to know my client, to know you as a person and a brand, then I work with you to create a strategy and content that is centered around you.  If you go to another, larger agency, you won’t necessarily be given the same level of attention and effort and that’s what makes me different.