Home-based Business – Page 2 – A Bus On A Dusty Road

Branding is a very important aspect of any business. This is especially true when you are running your own home-based business. Branding is an area that many home-based businesses struggle with, yet it is a very important part of any business. Branding helps your home-based business look and feel professional. To properly brand your business you need to have a business name, logo, and tagline. Someone once asked me, how do I let my friends and family know that my business is not a charity or something I will give them free-of-charge but it is an actual business? I answered them that it was quite simple. All they needed to do was to make sure their home-based business had proper branding. Why Have a Brand? Many home-based businesses struggle with branding. They may feel it is not important, yet their family and friends are really not sure if it is a "real" business or a charity. Others may feel it is something they should not have to pay for, especially since the business is being run out of your home. One mistake a lot of small home-based businesses make is that they are not very clear about their intentions for their business. They are only really partway into the business. Some people may feel like a business is only a business if you have a proper office, staff, and all the other things we think of a business as having. But the truth is that a business of one person is still a business and that one person who is running the business is also called an entrepreneur. Branding your business helps turn your business into reality for you and for those around you. If you start to pass out your name cards to people when they want something for free, then they will quickly understand that you are serious about your home-based business. I find that usually giving a name card that has my company name, logo, website and other information shows them that I have a business. How To Brand Your Business? Now that you understand having a brand for your home-based business is important, the next thing we need to understand is what do we need to do to brand our home-based business? Here are some of the basic steps that you should take to properly brand your home-based business: Business Name Every business needs to have a name. The name is perhaps one of the most difficult things to decide on and sometimes this can take a lot of time. Having named quite a few companies, trends, and other things, I have found that this can be a tough thing to force if you are not sure. Here are a few steps you can take to try to find the name you want: Internet Research - Go on the internet and do some research. Look at companies that are similar to what you are doing in other parts of the world and check out the names, logos colors, and other things they are doing. Please do not directly copy them, especially if they are a well know company. Show people, you are creative and willing to get your own brand. For example, do not use the Nike swoosh symbol and change their tagline "Just Do It" to "Just Draw It" if you are an Architect. I personally find that to be tacky and at least borderline illegal. Brain Storming - Gather some of your family and friends to join with you for an hour or so and help you brainstorm the business name. They may have some ideas you have not thought of. Do A Social Media Vote - I have seen several people put up three or four potential names, brands, and logos on their social media and then ask their online friends to vote on which one they like and why,. Asking for suggestions online is a great way for you to know what people like and why they like it. They may see something in a business name you have not thought of. The final decision on what name to choose should be your decision. If there is a name that you like and you are not sure, at the end of the day, I will go with my gut feelings. I have found that usually, my gut feeling is the best choice for me. Once you have decided on a name then you should also try to get a domain name for your company website. We believe that every home-based business should have a website. You can read our blog about having a website called Why Your Home-based Business Needs A Website, What You Need To Know by clicking here. Logo Every home-based business should have a name and also a logo. Having a logo shows people that you are serious about your business. It also helps to give your company some recognizable identification. There are some websites that you can use to input your company name into their program and the site will give you some logo suggestions. Here are some branding logo sites we have tried in the past: Brand Crowd - They will allow you to put in your name and try it for free. Their computer program will give you some logo ideas. Click here to find out more.Looka - Looka uses artificial intelligence and your preferences to give you some logo ideas. To discover their service click here. Free Logo Services - This is also another program that will give you some free logo ideas. Click here to find out more. Tailor Brands - Tailor Brands is a company we have used before to see what ideas their system would give us for our logo. To discover more you can click here. If you have the technical skills then try to design your own logo. If you can do this then it will mean that the logo is really uniquely yours. For each logo I have designed I will always do the following: Fonts - I like a clean looking logo that uses different fonts. That is just my preference. So when I am doing a logo I will go ahead and set up what fonts I will use do for my marketing and website. This helps me to set a more consistent message. Colors - I will choose what colors I am going to use. Most of the time I will usually set my colors by using the color guide hexadecimal number as I find that is the one color guide number that I can use on most of my programs. Tagline I also think every logo and brand should have a short and sweet tagline that will tell people a bit about what you do. This tagline could be something as simple as "Teaching Music to Children" or "Delicious Home-made Cakes." Whatever the tagline is it should quickly and easily tell the story about what you do. My Tagline for A Bus On A Dusty Road is "Life Lessons From Living in Asia." Right from my tagline, you can probably figure I am a foreigner who has lived or living in Asia and I will tell some of the lessons I have learned from living here in Asia. When trying to figure out your tagline here are a few suggestions for you to consider: Keep it short, sweet, and simple - You want it to be short, sweet, and very simple. It should always be under 9 or 10 words. Give a clear message - Do not make the tagline so cute or catchy that people have no idea what you do or worse yet they totally and completely misunderstand what you do. Make sure it is something you can live with longterm - When you do your tagline it should be something that you can live with for a while. Branding takes time, but correcting a bad branding mistake can take even more time, and is usually also costly. Conclusion One reason we feel branding is so important is that with proper branding a small business can now begin to really play in the big leagues with some of the bigger businesses. Having a brand makes you look professional. In other words, a good brand will help you to be able to tell your story to your audience and to show them why they need your services or products. Your branding is the voice of your company. Related Questions What Are Some Home-based Business Ideas? We have given you some of our top 100 plus home-based businesses ideas that you can start today. Many of these may be business ideas you have thought about and others maybe somethings you have never thought about. But, we hope that these suggestions are an inspiration for you to start your own home-based business today. To see the complete list, check out our blog 100 Plus Home-based Business Ideas You Can Start Today by clicking here. What if I Want To Travel and Run A Successful Business? We have top 10 tips to travel and run a successful business, they are: 1) Make sure your business category works on the road, 2) fully know and understand all your legal issues, 3) have the skills you need to be successful already in place, 4) have a concrete plan, 5) make sure your data is digital, 6) have all the correct tools, 7) have any support or admin support you may need already in place, 8) do a short travel test run before going on a longer trip, 9) make sure you are healthy and 10) Have the income and money you need to travel already in place. To read more about each of these 10 top tips you can read our blog 10 Tips to Travel and Run a Successful Business While On the Road by clicking here.