Put your best foot forward and be the one and only you!
Consistent Positive Brand Touch Points Will Gain You Lifelong Clients
During these trying times, connection and honesty play a large role when establishing long term client relationships. New large scale projects may be more difficult to develop when potential clients are in survival mode, but continued connection with ongoing clients can help boost momentum.
Reviving the initial value you provided now established clients can help calm fears and revive creative opportunities for ongoing work. It is a good time to consider what you stand for (your brand and values) to help strengthen connections and evaluate how to move forward.
The Brand is in Your Every Move
Your “brand” consists of the many ways potential clients experience your business. Your website, social media presence, blog or newsletter, and your personality constitute how your clients experience the “you” in their world. Your formal brand representations are your opportunity to connect with clients, to engage and meet them where they are at the moment. Your brand is only as good as you are in real life and you can’t fake it.
Your follow through on promises, the tangible effects of working with clients is your very own “brand contract.” This is the agreement you make to deliver the goods. Your personality, presentation, timeliness, speed of language, organization or disorganization as well as your product or service quality all influence how a client feels about you and your work.
It is important to think this through and identify your values prior to engaging with clients and certainly before creating communication materials.
All client touchpoints matter. Your website content, its “look,” and its usability as well as how you speak to your audience via business communications all influence your potential value. There is a period of time in your burgeoning client relationships when you must make the “sale.”
Your personal characteristics and providing the solid answer that clients need to be answered help you connect with them and convince them to trust your process. Yes, the smartly worded terms of your business contract will protect the relationship from financial issues, but clients must first “buy in” to you as a person.
Present the Best Version of Yourself: Be True to You
As a small business owner, your character is center stage. You place your heart and soul into your business or rest your family’s name and tradition on your work. Infusing your website and online presence with what makes your work special, helps relay your humanity.
Your trustworthiness, creativity, dependability, intellectual charm, similar personal experiences to those you help clients manage, intelligence, or passion for what you create are the characteristics that clients can most easily identify with.
Items that help showcase your personal touch include: creating a blog from your industry vantage point, adding welcoming messages, including helpful content that clearly explains your services, and taking the time to capture and add unique images all help express your personal brand.
Truth is, you need both an honest and reflective brand as well as the ability to follow through on promises. Invested client relationships develop when you can be counted on. The digital representation of “your business” must be the same as you are in real life. Align these elements and you will find clients who want to continue working with you and help you find others to join their ranks.
Have you worked to maintain these attributes of your business brand?
Does your brand need more consistency? Are you struggling to reach or keep clients?
Contact me to learn how I can help increase your confidence and retain clients.