Branding Advice for Start-up Entrepreneurs

What makes one a marketing expert or an experienced marketing professional? So, you have an idea or you get a job with a company that already has an established brand, deep pockets and the foundation laid for the brand. None of it makes you an expert. Expertise comes from trying, failing and from experience. Until you have created a brand from concept, design and execution with little to no money and bring it to market can you self-proclaim you’re an expert and really be telling the truth. I run into people like this every day. I see marketing and social media companies pop up overnight because they have worked in the marketing field so now they understand the struggles of a startup entrepreneur. Do they really? I have people telling me what they can do for me yet they haven’t really looked at my business. Marketing is selling and most of us like debt collecting don’t like sales because it’s hard, it’s a challenge and more times than not you face rejection but if you’re lucky enough to have someone buy the story you’re telling, you can make it work with an established brand.

True Marketing and Branding experts provide solutions to complex branding challenges. You can have all the tools at your disposal but if the messaging, product and promotion are not aligned, you are spinning your wheels. When looking for branding help make sure the person or company you choose has dealt with the challenges you are facing, their social media platforms are better than yours in terms of content, performance and followers, if it isn’t that should be a red flag. If they haven’t taken the time to work on their own personal brand what will they do for yours?     
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Starting a brand from the ground up is lonely, scary, exciting, takes drive and believing in you when no one else does. It take convincing, selling to people smarter than you on your idea, getting them to join your team to create a truly successful brand. Assemble a diverse group from all the functional areas you’ll need.  Check out their backgrounds, incentives them.  You will receive many no’s because you don’t have the up-front money to pay them but the truly good ones; the smart ones will see the potential and jump on the opportunity.
Am I a marketing and brand expert? No! Have I built a brand with little to no money, used the tools at my disposal to build my social media presence? Yes! Have I surrounded myself with smart, qualified people to take the brand where it needs to be because I have strategic vision? Yes! I guess that means I have experience and know what I’m talking about. A degree, a tittle, someone else’s money and an idea does not make you a marketing expert or experienced enough to handle a grassroots campaign, experience does. This is something to consider when you listen to all the noise from those who haven’t done what we’ve done.  

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