Marketing & Branding to Grow the Small Business

Last year, General Motors and Procter & Gamble each spent more than a billion dollars marketing their products. But, as a small business owner, what will you spend? If you're like a growing breed of savvy small office-home office (or SOHO) entrepreneurs, who are keen to modern marketing trends and how to implement them, you'll spend little or nothing -- and effectively position yourself for success.

It's called agile marketing. And the result is the building of a brand.

Brand building is the goal of every marketer. It is positioning your product or service in a favorable public light. It entails building public awareness and perceived value about what it is you do or provide. As a small business owner, your clients and potential clients turn to YOU as their partner and service provider. Therefore, many SOHO'ers must brand themselves as well as their products.

Where does it start? With the papers that say, "This is me" -- your stationary package. Make sure your letterhead, envelopes, corporate thank-you cards and even business cards that you've created to represent your business speak volumes about you -- and leave a lasting, positive impression. Choose lightly colored paper -- gray, purple, blue -- so your correspondence stands out on the cluttered desk of your customer or potential customer. And work with a graphic designer or your printer to create attractive and memorable designs for your package. Use the back of your business card to detail your accomplishments or areas of expertise. The point is to make sure that your prospects remember your package from all others.

Next, be chipper in the way you present yourself and answer the telephone. Optimism and good vibes can be infectious. So, when calls come in, or when you're calling prospective customers -- or anyone for that matter -- always be upbeat and lively.

The voice-mail messages you leave on your machine and the answering machines of others should leave them talking about the experience. For example, my answering machine tells callers that if they've gotten my outgoing message, I'm either on the phone or away from my desk out bonding with my kids. It's warm, it's fuzzy -- and it's memorable.

Finally, establish yourself as the expert in your field. How do you do that? Many say that an expert is someone with a business card and a brochure -- and who proclaims themselves as such. Start by putting "consultant" on your business card.

Then offer to speak anywhere potential clients may be -- at local chambers of commerce, business associations, civic groups and especially your own professional organizations. Join associations complementary -- but not competitive -- to your business, and make strategic allies of those members. Network with and steer business to one another.

Offer to lecture for professors at an executive MBA program the local college or university. Write authoritative, bylined articles for local newspapers, and pitch yourself to reporters and editors as an expert on your area of specialty.

In today's business environment, the modern SOHO business is a young, agile enterprise whose marketing prowess depends on the ability of the owner to brand the business, position it in the market, and sell.

Jeff Zbar, the ChiefHomeOfficer.com, is a speaker, writer and expert on alternative officing. He is the author of Teleworking & Telecommuting: Strategies for Remote Workers and Their Managers (Made E-Z Products, 2002); Safe@Home: Seven Keys to Home Office Security (FirstPublish 2001) and Your Profitable Home Business (on CD-ROM from Made E-Z Products). Visit his Web site to subscribe to Home Office Success Stories, his free electronic magazine on home business and teleworking.