Ep. 4 The Key to Build your Business

How to be SMART AF with building your Brand.

When it comes to building your business there are key strategies that come way before spending money on fancy logos and other “nice to haves.”  Learn where you should spend your time before you spend another dollar on marketing.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 4

[00:00:00] Torie: Just because it’s Facebook and it’s free. And just because it’s LinkedIn and it’s free it just because it’s Google and it’s free and YouTube and it’s free. Doesn’t mean that it’s it’s means less. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be serious about it. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t present yourself in a professional way.

Hey, Hey, welcome to Smart AF I’m your host Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today. So let’s get started. You know, I used to be a really big brand snob brand. Like I was a little, it was a little harsh. I was a little judgy some brands suck. Like I really try not to be as judgy anymore on people’s brands because pretty doesn’t matter as much as consistency. I give it if you want to be ugly, like just be uglier.

Like, I don’t think people want that, but I don’t think that it has to be like perfect and polished. I think taking action and getting out there and getting your business pushed out there quickly and not like I can’t do it because I don’t have a perfect website and a perfect logo and perfect headshots, like all that stuff is so nice to have, but it’s not a must have.

To make money like you are in business to make money and like Guinea to get out there and make money. As soon as you can. 

[00:01:28] Sean: In today’s world, it’s super easy to get out there. Like really quick Facebook page LinkedIn page, if you wanted Google business page which then will give you a, your own website.

If you want to take that before you ever even have to go down the route of trying to figure out your own website, you’re, you’re online with the business to people that don’t know within 15 minutes. 

[00:01:50] Torie: And, and you could have, you could buy like a stock logo or something and just, just roll with it and be consistent and always use that same one. But the worst things. 

[00:02:00] Sean: If you’ve gone through. I’m thinking 14 years. 

[00:02:03] Torie: I’m not going to tell you that. The point is though is just to be like, you can definitely adapt and change, but these people that we start to work with a lot of times, they’re rather than going with one ugly logo, which I’m okay with.

Like, I’m trying not to be snobby about it rather than one ugly logo. They’ll use like five at one time. So their Facebook will have one logo. Their business cards we’ll have one other, like, just be consistent with. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get started and make money online with your business.

But when you, like Sean said, when you set up all these things, you just have to be consistent with it. I think consistency is one of the most important things in marketing hands down, aside from like, you have to make an offer, you have to ask for the sale eventually. But people are not being consistent and being so.

Wishy washy everywhere. Like, just because it’s Facebook and it’s free. And just because it’s LinkedIn and it’s free it’s just because it’s Google and it’s free and YouTube and it’s free. Doesn’t mean that it means less doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be serious about it. It doesn’t mean that you present yourself in a professional way, snobby like you don’t need to, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be a thousand dollar logo and all this fancy branding just decide what you’re going to do, use it, and be consistent on all of these things. And you can literally run your business for years without spending any money on any of this stuff. 

[00:03:28] Sean: But they need a logo.

[00:03:30] Torie: For sure. I think, I mean, even if it’s just your words, it doesn’t have to be like this illustrated thing that people play. 

[00:03:38] Sean: Don’t need a character. You just go into like Canva and write your business name and download the JPEG and paying version of it and just use that everywhere. So it’s the same thing.

[00:03:49] Torie: Absolutely. As long as like, I think one of the worst things of, of side from not being consistent, is people choose some like crazy font that you can’t read. Like, so like you have to be consistent, but you need to have something that people can read. 

[00:04:03] Sean: Don’t be too clever. 

[00:04:04] Torie: Don’t be too clever. Everything doesn’t have to be incurred. Like crazy cursive, like you’re, you’re in a wedding. Like the people have to be able to read your what’s your business. Consistency. That’s one of the first things I look at when we’re going to have a new client. And I look over everything that they’ve done is, is stuff filled out properly and consistently is the information the same across all these things, because I am surprised day in and day out that people put their business name different, people put their logo different, people have different hours, different phone numbers. When people find you across all these things. One of the things that really makes you look like you’re a professional and trustworthy is that your stuff is the same. That you’re, you’re filling everything out and presenting yourself in a professional manner. It’s like you wouldn’t show up to a job interview in a dirty sweatsuit. Like you got to show up and you got to show up, like, you mean it. 

[00:05:06] Sean: From a customer standpoint, like for me, if I see say I search dry cleaner in Google, right. And I find a dry cleaner they say they don’t have much of a website there. So, you know, I want to see, you know, are they worse?

Are they worth going? So I’m looking at the reviews, right? Go onto Facebook or are they doing anything that might be looking for discounts or coupons or something like that? So I want to go and I want to see, Hey, are they, are they on Facebook? Does it look like the same company? If I can’t even tell, or maybe it’s maybe so old or they don’t do anything like that, they’re going to wind up losing me, whereas.

If I go to their website and that website takes me to their social media and that all looks the same. And then I can see, Hey, they’re actually posting something. And now I find that deal that I’m looking for. And I look at those reviews. They’re doing, you know, they, they, prices are great and their quality is fantastic. I’m like I’m sold, you know, that’s all I needed to see. Just a little bit of verification. 

[00:06:09] Torie: Absolutely. And I think, especially if you have any type of business that you’re building trust like maybe you’re taking your kids to a preschool or therapy or something like that, or you’re doing some type of counseling, like things like this that you really want to build trust with your clients like that is important that you showcase your business in a way that, like I said, it does not have to be super fancy branding. It just needs to look like some of you guys don’t look like you’re even in business, like, like I’m scared to go to your dental office because you don’t even look like a real business.

Like it’s not hard, to go through and set some things up. 

[00:06:52] Sean: How many websites have we gone to go? Really? I don’t think this is a real business. 

[00:06:58] Torie: No, no. And you never want people to feel like that about you. It’s so easy to put a good foot forward. As long as you are a little bit, or like, you don’t need to do that, or it’s just a little bit organized.

And if you’re not the one that wants to do it, like I’m sure somebody in your office will like to raise their hand and be like, I’ll be the one. Yeah. To make sure everything’s filled out. And that’s really important with this whole COVID thing that’s going on right now because people don’t know if businesses are open or if they’re closed or if they have special hours like there’s gotta be a way that you go through and systematically say, okay, we’re going to say the same thing on Facebook.

The same thing on our LinkedIn, the same thing on our Google listing, the same thing on our website. Because if not, you’re going to lose business. They’re just going to go to somebody else. Nobody wants to waste their time to go and have you not be open.

[00:07:48] Sean: But really like you, you may not use Facebook or you may not, you know, for some reason you use Google, who knows maybe you being but the bottom line is do customers, do you might as well be there and represent how you want to be represented across the board.

And so that no matter where they’re coming in from, they can tell it to you. 

[00:08:11] Torie: From the beginning. Like if you don’t know where to get a logo at, and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you can go to Fiverr, Google it, like you can spend less than 20 bucks and get a pretty decent logo. That’s going to work for you for awhile and use it everywhere, everywhere, and all your stuff.

It’s not, and it can make difference, a big difference in the amount of customers that you get to your business, especially like. So do it be consistent. It’s not that hard.