5 Ways to Strengthen Your Brand and Business
In our January 2023 blog, we talked about 10 Ways to Strengthen Your Market Position. Since then, Indalma’s team has been working through our own list of brand and business strengthening tasks, taking on more challenging projects, investing in our systems, and onboarding new staff. We share what we did, and some of our insights, below.
1. Make sure your brand reflects who you are now
We launched our own brand refresh at the start of 2023. Was it a lot of work? You bet. Was it worth it? Yes! The new visual identity and messaging reflects who Indalma is now – we can refer people to our website with pride, knowing that everything we need to say and show is there.
Question for you: Are you spending a lot of time explaining to clients that your website/print material/tagline doesn’t cover off everything you do? Are your visuals looking a little dated? If so, it might be time for a brand refresh.
2. Make creative breaks part of your business process
It doesn’t matter if you’re an accounting firm or a design studio – every business benefits from creative thinking. It’s vital for coming up with new ways to work, meet customers' needs, or solve their most pressing problems – especially the ones they don’t know they have yet!
As a business owner or management team, it’s easy to keep your head down and work non-stop. You may feel you can’t afford the time to take a break and refuel creatively, but creativity leads to innovation, and innovation adds value. Inspiration can come from the unlikeliest places, and every business can benefit from seeing what others are doing, both inside and outside their field.
In March 2023, our boss headed to Australia to attend the wedding of Sheri, one of our graphic designers. Being the boss, she came home with hundreds of pictures of art, architecture and signage, lots of new ideas – and only a few photos of kangaroos. She also noticed the many ways that Australian small businesses work to stand out. Small break = big ideas.
Question for you: When was the last time you took a break to refuel creatively? What would that look like?
3. Grow with intention
One of the challenges of owning a small to medium-size business is growth. We all know the mantra “growth is good”, but for smaller, independently owned businesses, the decision to grow is also personal. How much do you want to grow and in what direction? How do you want to spend your day – does your satisfaction come from “doing” your business, or managing people? How much more of your time will be required if you grow – and is that what you want from life?
At Indalma, we realized some time ago that our goal wasn’t to grow in scale, but to grow in knowledge and skill, and take on increasingly challenging projects. But for that to happen, we needed to free up the boss, finesse our processes, and take on a project manager. We had a “full circle moment” in April when Mackenzie, who began her design career at Indalma in 2013, rejoined our team as Project Manager. She’s been making all of our lives easier ever since!
Question for you: When you think of growing your business or organization, do you want to go “wide” or “deep”, or do you want to grow at all? Bigger isn’t always better.
4. Put the processes in place that free up time
Put the right business processes in place, train everyone on your team to follow them, and the work will go oh-so-much more smoothly. It requires an investment of time up front, but pays off in time saved at the other end.
In our world, great work, delivered on time, with all of the boxes checked, is as much about process and project management, as it is about creativity. This year, we’re taking it to the next level by customizing our project management software.
Question for you: Do you have to hunt for files, re-create wording or pricing, or run through the same explanations every time you start a new project or create a proposal? It might be time to turn all that work into a repeatable, streamlined process.
5. Do great work
Not to toot our own horn, but we were involved with some great projects in the first part of 2023 – from helping clients refresh their own brands, to helping our craft beer client, Barnside Brewing Co., launch both a new product and a festival. We shared the photo highlights of those projects in this blog.
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