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Branding as a sole prioprietor - Q & A

Doug calls to ask Karen how to start a brand as a sole proprietor.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.  Great.  Now we've got a caller out of Oklahoma City who has a question for you.  Doug, welcome to the show.

Doug:  How you doing?  Is this Rich or Jeff?

Rich Sloan:  This is Rich.  Jeff is AWOL.  He is in another country.

Doug:  Okay.

Rich Sloan:  And, I think in a sunny country, very sunny.

Doug:  I was kind of wondering if you guys were cutting back.

Rich Sloan:  No.  No.  He actually still is gainfully employed at StartupNation and he just is doing a little of what is so important and that's called R&R.  And, by the way, he's going to pay for that.

Doug:   Well, one of the good things, and I'm glad you've got Karen there because I do have a question.  My name's Doug Muron and I'm, again, from Oklahoma.  And I'm director of Pastel Paradise and working on a shoestring and trying to get a logo and a label for a clothing line together. 

I'm interested in the concept of the sole proprietor branding.  And, as Karen has already mentioned, I was under the assumption that a branding was my logo and my label.  And, from what she's already said, and she hasn't really addressed my specific question.

Rich Sloan:  Well, go ahead with your specific question, Doug, we've got a couple of minutes.

Doug:  Okay.  It's I'm interested in the sole proprietor branding.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.                                             

Karen Post: Okay.  All right.  Let me give you some points.

Doug:   And how to begin a branding process.

Rich Sloan:  All right.  Let's get to it.  Go ahead, Karen.

Karen Post: Okay.  Well, the logo and the tag line are important.  The first thing you need to do, even before you address those is ask yourself these four questions.  What is your purpose?  And you need to be able to clearly define that in 10 or 12 words.  What are your points of difference?  And points of difference are not better customer service, are not one-stop shopping.

Rich Sloan:  What would they be?

Karen Post: Well, depending on who you are, you know, I would have to ask you a lot more questions about your business.  But it might be the heritage of your business, where it came from.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.

Karen Post: It might be how you package your business.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.

Karen Post:  Like UPS, they're the brown guys.  They made color their point of difference.  Southwest Airlines makes that folksy, casual piece. 

So, you can have several points of differences.  But, I caution you that it is not your better quality or your better customer service, because most of your competitors will be saying those things also.

Rich Sloan:  Okay.  So, we've got purpose, point of difference.

Karen Post: The next one is personality.  Think of your brand as if it were a person and you were introducing them to another friend on a date.  How would you describe them?  Are they confident, assertive, edgy, a little crazy, fun, folksy?  You know, come up with five or six --

Doug:   Tall, dark and handsome.

Karen Post:  -- adjectives that describe your brand, and then your promise.  What does your brand promise to do?  And a promise is an emotional desire being filled.  It's not logical.  So, tell me a bit more about your brand, your company.

Rich Sloan:  What does your company do, Doug?  Real quick, we've got about a minute.

Doug:  Well, right now I'm in the process of establishing a clothing line and I have utilized some of those elements that you have.  But I have not utilized the heritage as much and I can think of some of the history that would bring a lot of emphasis to branding.  And I appreciate you guys' time.  I want you to know, first of all, too, that I've looked at a number of your items on the website and things.

Rich Sloan:  Yep.

Doug:  And they've helped a great deal. 

Rich Sloan:  Oh, that's great.

Doug:  In fact, some of those things could get you probably a loan or some help just in showing how to set things up as Karen has.

Rich Sloan:  Doug, thank you so much.  That's a very nice compliment.  And it is important to go check out those articles on our website.  We're going to go to a break here.  Doug, thanks a lot for your comments.

Karen, any further tips?

Karen Post:  Yeah.  The last piece that we didn't get to finish up on is the brand promise.  And the brand promise is this emotional piece, not a logical piece.  A logical piece would be that he provides warmth and shelter through his apparel.  We don't what that. 

What we want -- a promise -- is by when you buy his brand of clothing, how does it make you feel?  Does it make you feel hot and attractive and good about yourself and does it raise your self-esteem?  Does it make you an opposite sex magnet?  You know, those things are about feelings and emotions.  So, he needs to decide what the promise is.

Rich Sloan:  You just described –

Karen Post: The personality, the point of difference and the purpose and that's where his brand will begin.  And then the other pieces we just --

Rich Sloan:  Right.  Now, you just described exactly how I feel when I wear a Speedo, by the way, Karen.

Karen Post:  That's right.  That's right.

Rich Sloan:  So, thank you for --

Karen Post:  But fashion is a great place for branding.  I mean, when people buy a fashion brand, many times they buy it because they think it is a reflection of themselves, or they aspire to be like that brand.  So, there's a lot of opportunity when you're working with apparel and branding.

Rich Sloan:  Okay, Karen.  So, now, we talked about those four key points that you mentioned, the purpose, the point of difference, personality and promise.  Those are all on the StartupNation.com website on the radio section.