How to build a brand for a small business

The short answer

To build a brand for a small business, decide four things before you touch a logo: why you exist, who you're for, how you sound, and why you're different. Write the answers down in plain words. Then use them for every decision: your name, your line, your posts, your shop and how your team talks to customers. A brand is not your logo. It is the promise people remember, and the logo is just one result of it.

What 20 years taught me about brands

I've spent 20 years building brands, including at our agency Sofresh and later as CEO of Wunderman Thompson Vietnam. I worked on 141 brands. The lessons that matter most for a small business are simple.

• Trust comes before the logo. A restaurant group in trouble once asked us for a new name and logo. My notes put one thing first: rebuild trust with staff and suppliers. You cannot rebrand your way out of a broken promise. Fix how you behave, then tell the story.
• Be known for one thing. WPP bought our agency in 2012. What got us noticed was not our size. It was a clear name for one thing. A small business can do the same.
• Build around what you do that others can't. I started as a coder, not an ad man. That turned into our edge. Your edge is probably something you already do every day.
• Teach first. A big drinks brand once saw one of our campaigns and asked us to run a workshop for their brand managers. That workshop turned into planning for three of their brands. Giving away what you know is a brand, too.
• Even experts forget their own brand. We built brands for big clients, and our own agency's Facebook page was terrible. Give your own brand a plan and an owner, like you would a client.

The 8 steps

This is the free system I used with every client, refined over 20 years in Vancouver, Kyoto and Ho Chi Minh City. It takes about 60 minutes.

1. Purpose. Why you exist, beyond making money.
2. Audience. Who you're for. One real person, not "everyone".
3. Character. The personality your brand plays, from 12 characters.
4. Voice and tone. How you sound when you write and speak.
5. More like, not like. What your brand is more like, and what it is not like.
6. Positioning. Why you're different, in one line.
7. Point of view. What you believe that others in your market may not.
8. Name and line. Your name and the short line people remember.

You leave with why you exist, who you're for, how you sound and why you're different, on one page.

See it work: Mai Coffee

On the Brand Builder page you can watch the 8 steps build a brand for Mai, who runs a tiny coffee shop in District 3. Her audience is the night-shift nurse who looks after everyone else. Her point of view: "We believe the people who look after everyone else deserve to be looked after too." Her line: "Mai Coffee. We saved you a seat." The same answers brief her designer, her marketing manager and anyone else helping her grow.

Start now, free

• Get the free Brand Builder Playbook and work through it on paper.
• Or open Ly's Brand Builder Studio and do the steps on screen. You leave with your Blueprint.
• Want a guide? We do it together: a 15-minute first talk, then one 90-minute session. Talk to me.