9 Tips To Build Brand That Will Kickstart Your Career

In this article, we are going to learn important tips to build brand that kick-starts your career or business. Do you dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur? Do you have one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg as your role models? If the answer is yes, first of all, you need to pat yourself on the back for deciding to follow your inner calling.

Not many people in the world have the courage to tread the treacherous path of running a business organization. After all, the average startup failure rate is 90%. Research also concludes that 21.5% of startups fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% in the fifth year, and 70% in the tenth year.

No doubt, becoming an entrepreneur and running your own business can be risky, but fulfilling your dream isn’t impossible. If it had been so, we wouldn’t have extremely successful entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates amidst us.

Now that you have decided to listen to your inner calling, don’t look back. Rather, you should move forward with firm determination and build a brand that’ll kickstart your career. Once your brand climbs the ladder of success in the beginning itself, there will be no looking back and you’ll only succeed further.

This blog is dedicated to helping ambitious entrepreneurs like you. So, let’s together explore 9 critical tips to build a brand that’ll kickstart your career.

9 Critical Tips to Build Brand that will Kickstart Your Career

#1. Understand what today’s customers need the most:

Why are there some products that attain overnight success? Think about it! Don’t you think the biggest reason why this happens is that those products fulfill customer needs? If a product is in alignment with customer needs, then it is bound to succeed.

Having said that, to build a brand that kick-starts your career, you should understand what today’s customers need. Conduct surveys, research the market, find a domain with immense potential but least competition and you’ll be ready to build a successful brand.

If you read the stories of the biggest entrepreneurs of all time, you’ll find that they found a unique problem to solve, worked on it with diligence, and consequently built an enormous brand. What did Bill Gates and Paul Allen do?

In a time when most people used typewriters, they understood what people needed next and found ‘Microsoft’ a company that makes computer software. It is not that you should also do something very unique to build a successful brand.

That’s definitely not the case. But you should certainly find a promising domain with the least competition and then think of ways in which you can fulfill customer needs in a better manner than your already existing competitors.

#2. Connect your brand’s purpose with social responsibility:

According to a report presented by Nielsen, almost 66% of consumers are willing to pay extra for products and services that come from brands that are committed to positive social and environmental impact. Given that, today’s customers are more inclined towards brands that shoulder excellent corporate social responsibility initiatives. Why so?

Most of us are sensitive towards the issues happening in the world around us whether they are related to the planet, the environment or our fellow human beings. When brands focus on resolving the issues that exist in the world, they naturally captivate the hearts of their target audience and customers.

Hence, if you aspire to attract multitudinous customers to your brand right away during the initial days of your brand’s inception, you should connect your brand’s purpose with social responsibility. By doing so, you’ll stimulate people to buy your products as through their purchases they’ll indirectly contribute to the betterment of the world, planet, or society, whichever is related to your brand’s corporate social responsibility initiatives.

However, as a small business or startup, it is imperative for you to shoulder a CSR initiative that doesn’t involve a lot of expenses. This is the way to captivate the hearts of your customers while not spending too much of your initial funds. You can check out the examples of CSR initiatives from the internet and think of some that won’t cost you much but touch the hearts of your customers.

#3. Announce exciting offers for your first few customers:

A newly emerged business is giving a 30% discount to its first 30 customers on their shopping. Won’t you feel excited to go there, see their products and make some purchases if you need them? Obviously, you’ll. There is no one in the world who doesn’t like getting discounts on his purchases. This gives you another way to attract customers and build a successful brand.

You should try to announce some exciting offers for your first few customers. If you do, you’ll establish a gateway through which you’ll find multitudes of customers coming to visit your store or e-commerce website. Even if they don’t make purchases, they’ll get to know about your products and they can purchase them whenever needed.

They can also tell their friends who need similar products about your company. This way, you can do excellent marketing for your business. Do try this tactic out and you’ll reap enormous benefits.

#4. Focus on customer retention:

In the words of Chip R. Bell, “Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.” These words truly highlight the importance of loyal customers.

In fact, the most successful companies in the world have emerged because of their loyal customers. According to research, almost 65% of a company’s business comes from repeat customers. Moreover, a 5% increase in customer retention leads to a 25% to 95% increase in a company’s overall profits. That’s huge, isn’t it?

Given that, if you aspire to build a successful brand, it is crucial for you to focus on customer retention. If your customers keep coming back, you’ll secure your business. Your customers will keep purchasing products from you over and over which will ensure that you at least have a steady inflow of profits.

Once you achieve a steady inflow of profits, you can further expand your business and pursue your journey of growth. Now, the following are some customer retention strategies that can help you achieve customer loyalty:

Wish your customers on their birthdays.
Start a loyalty program and offer rewards to your recurring customers.
Make exceptional customer service one of the major business objectives.
Derive regular customer feedback and resolve the highlighted issues at the soonest
Offer personalized offers to your customers. Know their preferences and make them feel valued.

#5. Embrace small failures but learn from them:

In the words of Arianna Huffington, “Failure is the stepping stone to success.” Why is that so? Failures teach you the lessons that you need to move ahead on the path of success. From failures, you derive insights that tell you what not to do if you aspire to achieve success and what to do more of. Ultimately, these lessons turn into your stepping stones to success.

So, when building your brand, don’t let the pressure of perfection bother you. Allow yourself to make some mistakes but ensure that you learn the required lessons. They are your treasures. You should note down these lessons and never forget them. If you do, these lessons will keep repeating. So, better learn them at once and use them to your advantage.

Read: 10 Reasons Why Nigerian Businesses Fail

#6. Produce impeccable quality of products and services:

Whatever you do to establish your brand, nothing will work until and unless you produce impeccable quality of products and services. After all, customers want quality products. If you don’t have them, keep implementing tactics to enhance customer happiness, your customers won’t stay with you in the long run.

Rather, negative word-of-mouth marketing will take your business downhill and threaten its survival. Hence, producing outstanding goods and services should be your top priority. Don’t compromise with the quality of your products and services.

#7. Keep an eye on your competitors:

There is enormous competition in the world of business. Needless to say, only the fittest survive in the long run. Having said that, you have to become the fittest one and survive the blows that come to you from your competitors. In order to emerge the strongest among your competitors, you have to keep an eye on them.

Study their culture, policies, their products, services, their unique selling points and devise plans to become much better than them. Always be ten steps ahead of them so that they can’t ever match strides with you.

In fact, you can deploy a specialized team to keep a check on your competitors. You should also be aware of the shortcomings that customers witness in the products of your competitors. You can use these shortcomings to your advantage.

If you create products that overcome those shortcomings and do the right kind of marketing, you’ll definitely grab your competitors’ customers and enhance your profits.

#8. Build an employee-centric culture:

In the words of Richard Branson, “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” His words reflect the core of truth. Your employees are the building blocks of your organization.

If they are unhappy, they won’t give their best. As their performance is directly linked to the performance of your organization, consequently, your company won’t perform at its best potential. Hence, it is imperative for you to ensure that your employees are happy and bring their best to work.

For this, you should build an employee-centric culture. Make your employees your priority. Make all decisions keeping them in your mind and involve them in the decision-making process of your company.

Moreover, you should also focus on employee engagement and employee happiness. Happy and engaged employees naturally perform better than their unhappy and disengaged counterparts.

#9. Get help from outside agencies:

Most of us don’t like criticism. But, constructive, honest criticism is crucial for us to grow in our personal and professional life. As the owner of your business, you’ll be the decision-maker. You’ll welcome opinions from your employees but many times they’ll not bring up an honest negative response if they doubt that you might not like it.

After all, their job will be very precious to them and they wouldn’t do a thing that snatches their job security. Under such circumstances, there will be no one to offer honest guidance or opinions to you. You might go on making decisions on your own but it is best to consider others’ opinions as our opinions are the best in our eyes.

Others can show us things that we did not consider and help us rectify our decisions before we make any mistake. So, you should try to get help from outside agencies such as business counseling agencies. Even after contacting them, you’ll still have the power to make your own decisions if you don’t like what they say or find it unimpressive. Believe me, contacting external guides can act as a beacon that shows you the right direction.

Wrapping up: Tips to Build Brand that will Kickstart Your Career

Every aspiring entrepreneur dream of building a brand that will kickstart his career. If you also have such dreams glimmering in your eyes, the above-mentioned tactics will help you realize your dreams. Do try them out and see the results for yourself. They are tried and tested methods. The best thing is that none of these tactics is hard to implement. So, go ahead with confidence.

Wish you All the Best.

Autor Bio: Kiara Miller

Kiara Miller is a keen enthusiast when it comes to writing and she loves to express her views, opinions, and perspectives through her insightful articles. Also, as a content marketing specialist, she loves to design effective content campaigns and has a great knowledge of the kind of content that engages readers the most.

Photo credit: Adecco