What Is The Difference Between A Business And A Brand?

If you are trying to grow your online presence, then developing both your business and your brand can help you get there. Developing a business and developing a brand go hand in hand. Your brand will support your business and your business will support your brand, yet developing each requires taking a slightly different approach. I find that it is helpful for indie biz owners and growing founders to clearly understand the difference between their brand and their business because this helps you identify as well as better strategize how you will grow your online presence in an ethical, sustainable and authentic way. Within this article, I break down the differences between a business and a brand, providing readers with tangible takeaways that you can apply right away to help you distinguish yourself online.

What often happens for indie business owners that are trying to establish an online presence is that they are uncertain what to focus on or talk about, let alone HOW they could possibly share all the things they love & do without totally confusing their audience. When you are multi-disciplinary and creative, trying to condense yourself into one simple to understand brand can feel quite difficult. This is a challenge I have run into time and time again, especially since I am someone who loves to play with design, change things up often, and I have a hard time sticking to one visual style for too long. If you find yourself often wanting to have the freedom to play with your visual brand without feeling stuck, yet you also are finding yourself having a hard time building the type of traffic and exposure you want to your business, this article can help you clearly clarify your brand in a way that still gives you the freedom to be multidimensional, expressive and authentic. Ultimately, your brand will help you express to people what you stand for, what your personality is like, and what they can expect from you. You can be authentic while also having a strong brand presence that helps you not just grow your online presence, but your business too!

A brand is NOT the same as a business

A brand relates to the image or identity that your business reflects & projects. A brand therefore helps to establish how people PERCEIVE you and your business as well as what folks ASSOCIATE you and your business with. Your brand is quite simply the image of you and your business!

On the other hand, a business is the organization that produces our services or products. A business is how you make & exchange money & directly connects to the offers you provide others. Your business is the technical entity that conducts activities to deliver products and/or services. When a brand is well developed, it can help people develop interest, trust and curiosity about your business. Your brand can also help you tell the story of your business in a way that is relatable to your target audience. I often find that when folks do not take the time to properly define their brand, they have a hard time standing out online. This is because they are leading more with their business than their brand. When you lead more with your business than your brand, you lead more with selling your products and services…yet you have failed to build a story, image, and identity FOR the business that sells said services and/or products. The brand is the relationship between your target audience and your business. You can think of your brand as the friend your target audience meets and begins forming a connection to. We rarely form emotional connections to a business, yet we often form emotional connections to a brand. A brand feels more human, real, and relatable!

Defining your brand

There are things about a brand that help people recognize us, whether that be our aesthetics, messaging, or style. Yet there can also be things about our brand that relate to what our business stands for (purpose-mission-vision!) that also help us be memorable. When you begin to define your brand, you will be also defining how your target audience relates to and connects with your business. Your brand relates directly to how people perceive you, so this is where you get to showcase your authenticity, personality, identity, and what makes you unique. Without a defined brand, it becomes incredibly difficult to build a sustainable online presence because we often wind up blending into the sea of other online businesses. A brand can stand on its own with or without a business. There are many brands that exist today that are not attached to a business at all. Take, for example, social media influencers or powerful movements that are build around a cause, issue, topic, or passion. Anyone can build a brand, and in my own opinion everyone has their own personal brand whether they realize it or not!

Think for a moment about your personal style: From your clothing choices, to the way you decorate your home or the things you typically gravitate toward. All of these things make up aspects of your personal brand. I guarantee that if you stepped into your closet and took a quick look, you could pull out your personal brand color palette and various styles that help make up your personal brand! Now, think about your personality: From your unique personality traits, things that you naturally are good at, what people typically compliment you on, what folks come to you for help with, or how people describe you. These aspects also help make up your personal brand! Lastly, consider what you usually are interested in: Maybe its an aspect of your personal identity that matters a lot to you to express, maybe its a social or environmental topic that you are passionate about, maybe its a hobby you love, or maybe it’s a unique way you approach or think about something that makes you different. All of these aspects of the self help make up your personal brand. Your brand is not just about how something physically or visually looks. Your brand has an essence and personality all of its own! When you know yourself really well, defining your brand becomes all the easier. Defining your brand is a self exploration journey and a process of tapping into your authenticity in a way that helps you clarify how you can then express that for others to understand. If we don’t know who we even are, what we like, what matters to us, or what makes us unique… then it can be challenging to define our brand. Therefore, to define your brand you must go on a journey of defining yourself! Your brand is the first exposure people have to your business, making it just that much more IMPORTANT to develop!

When working to define your brand, here are some things to identify:

• Your unique value proposition

• Your target market

• Your mission statement

• Your vision statement

• Your brand story

• Brand voice and tone

• Brand visual style

• Brand personality

• Brand pillars

• Brand values

You need more than just a brand to grow your business online

You can have the best brand in the world but if you are trying to grow a business alongside your brand, you need to incorporate strategy, marketing, and systems. I understand that there are folks out there that believe you don’t need strategy to grow your business online and that having a solid brand can be enough to get you where you want to be. And sure, that may be the case in some instances but it’s not a sustainable or long lasting approach to building online presence or growing your business. Strategy, marketing and sustainable systems help your brand grow now and into the future alongside also growing your business now and into the future. Since your business relates to the products and services you sell, and also relates to how you make money as well as support clients or customers…your business will need structures in place to support the inflow of traffic that your brand brings in. Your brand is the first exposure people have to your business, and also typically is what attracts people to your business. But, what you do with those people once they become interested in your products and/or services is where your business strategies and systems come into play. If you have a fantastic brand that is growing a solid online presence and building interest in your products and/or services and yet you haven’t properly developed your business, then you will quickly begin to lose that interest you’ve build. We need to establish supportive systems and strategies to handle the traffic our brands create! This is how we create a strong brand AND business presence that is sustainable.

When defining your business, here are some things to identify:

• What you do in your business

• How you deliver products/services in your business

• Why you are in business (your purpose)

• Who your business is for

• The mission of your business

• The vision for your business

• Your triple bottom line impact strategy

• Your marketing strategy and KPIs

• Your traffic and visibility strategy

• Your sales and promotion strategy

• Your customer experience and journey

• Your workflows

• Your financial goals and KPI’s

• Code of ethics

• DEI standards

If you are investing a great deal of time into content marketing, such as creating content for social media, a blog, a podcast, pinterest, or any other internet platforms…then developing both your business and your brand strategies are of the essence. Otherwise, you may find yourself feeling like you are pumping out a lot of content and spending a great deal of time online building your brand but that those efforts are not converting into results that help you also grow your business. Strategy is the bridge that connects your brand to your business. With strategy, you will not only develop a strong online brand presence, but a deep interest as well as trust in your business. Your business standards, especially your code of ethics and DEI practices, will help ensure that your brand is being expressed in an ethical and human-centered way. Your brand standards, especially your defined personality and values, will help ensure that you practice business in a way that is in alignment with who you are and what you stand for.

As you can see, developing a brand and a business together is the duo that will help you generate a rock solid online presence that can withstand the test of time!

Have questions or need support in developing your business and/or brand? Reach out! I’d love to support you.