The wall of steel

Your business’s potential relies on the foundation of your brand. All efforts to improve your business will be easier or harder depending on how well the foundational work has been done.

Your brand isn’t your logo.

Your brand is made up of all the things that make your business different, that people can use to identify it. The voice, the values, the personality, the purpose. Rather than asking, “what makes us different?” ask, “what difference can we make?”

You need to find something that your customers can see as a meaningful difference between you and your very closest competitor. If people can buy what you sell from anyone, how are you going to convince them to buy from you? Without your own unique value, you’ll be in a race to the bottom on price. There are so many people out there selling so many things that it can seem next to impossible to distinguish yourself. If you want your business to last, put in the work early in your timeline to build this foundation.

If your product is easy to design and manufacture, you’re going to spend all your time trying to stay ahead of copycats. What are some ways you could make it hard for others to copy you and take away your singularity?

While it’s easy to create something unique, it’s important that your unique product is something that people will want. Will people miss you when you’re gone? Or could you leave your market without creating a ripple?

This is about finding a hole in the market, that once you fill, people can’t imagine having to do without. You want to create something unique that people really want–either an improvement on an existing product or something people have been doing without until you came along.

If you’re one of many selling the exact same thing, it won’t matter if your business exists or doesn’t. People will still be able to purchase. But if you sell something they can’t get anywhere else, you’ve set yourself up for success.