Question: I've noticed a few companies on the web with names similar to mine. How do I stand out without changing my company name?
Answer: Since changing your name is not an option, change the way your company is viewed. Change your brand, your logo, colors, fonts, graphics and style, so that they are represent the uniqueness that is your company.
Start by taking a look at the companies with similar names. Look at the colors, the fonts, the graphics and their promise. Basically, everything your eyes can take in. What do you see? What don't you see?
To create a brand that stands out from companies with similar names, start by:
* Deciding what your company does, for whom and what do you help them achieve. What makes your company different from similar companies?
* Now decide what clients should expect from your company. Do you deliver projects and products on time, work within their budget, respond to messages within a certain time frame, and are you always upbeat and pleasant? What promises do you make to clients when they interact with your company?
* Decide how you want your company perceived. Complete the statement "When my clients tell their clients about my business they say…" Don't use generic responses like "I'm professional, efficient or cost-effective." Dig deeper.
* Now decide what characteristics make your company unique. Choose colors you like that complement each other and reflect how you want your company to be perceived and the feelings you want to evoke.
For instance:
-- Red is associated with energy, strength, power, love and danger.
-- Green is associates with growth, harmony, freshness, and safety.
-- Blue is associated with stability, trust, loyalty, confidence and intelligence.
* Create a unique logo that implies what your company does and use the colors you've chosen for your brand.
-- Choose graphics that represent what you do, your target market, how you help them and what they achieve. Your color scheme should also be followed through in your graphics when at all possible.
-- Choose fonts that can be seen and read by everyone. Use the fonts all the time.
* Now create your messages. Your tagline, elevator speech and company description should be clear, concise and compelling.
-- Your elevator speech should state what your company does, who you work with and what you help them achieve. Your elevator speech should be seconds long, not minutes long.
-- Your tagline should be solution-based, not feature based. It doesn't have to be a sentence: just a statement.
-- Your company description should be and expansion of your elevator speech. It should state who your company is, what you do, for whom, what your service and/or products you offer, what you help them achieve, why they should work with you.
By Beryl Powell
