Whether Entrepreneur, Freelancer, or Pursuing a Side Gig, You Need a Signature for Your Business

Leave your customers impressed, entertained, informed, curious, and rewarded

According to an article on CNBC.com, author Jill Cornfield states the plain and simple truth: About 57 million Americans have a side hustle.

Seems a lot of folks are starting a side business.

Due to the pandemic, many are not working their usual eight-to-five, and they find themselves with time to convert their hobby or personal knowledge into a money-making operation. And yes, a lot of these folks are starting small, hoping their fledgling enterprise will grow to the point of replacing their day job.

Whether you’re pursuing a home business because you need the extra income, want to fund an investment or retirement account, or just need to scratch an entrepreneurial itch, you can usually do it without jeopardizing your day job. In fact, I always suggest keeping your traditional job while starting and growing a home business.

Prematurely ending your main source of income is taking a huge financial risk

Keeping your current job while you navigate the start-up challenges associated with most small businesses will reduce the pressure of needing to be profitable right out of the gate.

Here are two of the most frequently asked questions I receive from those just starting out:

“How do I distinguish myself from the competition?

“How do I make sure I’m the one they remember when it’s time to buy?”

These questions are presented with the assumption that we’re going to talk about branding. The majority of new business owners believe that’s the next logical step.

But for most small businesses, it’s way too early in the game to spend time and money to establish brand recognition.

Fledgling businesses need sales

And sales come from marketing — creating a reason to buy. And not just from anyone, but from you — and your business.

Reasons to choose one company over another vary from customer to customer. But price, delivery, quality, customer service, and warranty are often cited as the big five purchase criteria.

There is, however, another method to differentiate your product or service from the competition. And the greater the generic similarity between your product and those offered in the marketplace, the greater its importance.

I call it creating a “professional signature”

Let’s jump right into an example, and the concept will be a lot easier to understand.

One of the most successful car dealers in the nation started his business back in 1951. His name was Tex Earnhardt and he sold cars to anyone who would take the time to talk with him. And yes, he sold plenty of cars.

How did he do it?

He could have tried to impress people by wearing three-piece suits and Italian leather shoes. Or he might have attempted to “look successful” with an upscale office and expensive furnishings.

But he didn’t. He wore a pair of jeans and a cowboy hat. He walked around in western boots. And when he really wanted to dress up, he added a bolo tie. (For those of you who have never been west of the Mississippi, a bolo tie is two braided strips of leather that slide through a small western style ornament.)

He was Tex — a good ‘ol boy.

How did he talk to his customers? Just like you would expect him to — he used short, direct sentences and came right to the point.

“No Bull” became his motto

Tex went on television. He straddled a huge, live steer and told everyone to “come on down to his place and he’d treat ’em right.” He promised “a good deal” because that was the only kind he knew how to make.

And while some undoubtedly saw him as unsophisticated, he was also upbeat, positive, and friendly. His image and personality became such a powerful sales phenomenon that many customers chose his dealership because they wanted to buy from Tex.

Would this approach have worked in San Francisco? Or New York?

I don’t know. It worked in Arizona, because “Tex” knew the market contained a large group of potential customers who would respond to a no-nonsense, down-to-earth sales approach delivered by a bull-riding cowboy. And that realization made Tex Earnhardt very successful.

What I want you to understand from this example is that a company signature is more than a static logo on a letterhead. It’s the art of establishing company identity by associating your business with a single, positive, easy-to-remember element — and then using that element in all customer communications and marketing messages.

Consistency is the key

Here are several more examples, a few of which are still going strong:

A southern gentleman wearing a white suit selling buckets of chicken A taco-eating Chihuahua 31 flavors of ice cream Three little nerds named Snap, Crackle, and Pop Cookie-baking elves living in a hollow tree

Get the idea?

How much more effective could your marketing program be if you designed a “signature” for your business?

It might be employee uniforms (for example, the Hooters restaurant chain dresses their female servers in tight shorts and low-cut tops). It could also be something as simple as the consistent use of color (look at UPS with their brown trucks and uniforms), a short motto (“You’re in good hands with Allstate”), or how about “Home of the biggest, juiciest, freshest, longest, fastest . . .”

Think about some of the benefits you currently offer to customers

Could they be represented effectively with a short motto or jingle? Or how about a bigger-than-life spokesperson?

Evaluate as many different ideas and concepts as you can, then try different combinations. Make absolutely sure your signature piece cannot be misconstrued as being offensive or as having a double meaning.

Share your ideas with vendors and trusted customers and ask for feedback. In fact, one of the most reliable tests you can do is reveal your top three concepts to a group of loyal customers, wait a week, and ask which one they remember — and why.

Isn’t “branding” the same thing?

Not exactly.

A “signature” connects the product or service with a concept, a person, or an idea — and does it with the specific goal of evoking a response or emotion from the customer that’s positive, fun, attractive, tasty, and so on.

And get this: While the response is anticipated to be favorable, the reasoning behind a customer’s positive perception may not always be the same.

For example, some people see a Smart Car as the right choice because of its high gas mileage. Others are drawn to the sticker price. And I’ve seen a few who thought the vehicle was the perfect choice for private street or community transportation, preferring it over the usual golf cart for runs to the clubhouse, restaurant, or recreation center.

And yet, the Smart Car has been a financial failure. Why? Remember, it had a great, well-respected brand behind it — Mercedes. But it had no signature. Yes, it was cute, inexpensive to drive, and could park in half the usual space. But did it evoke a consistent, emotional, and memorable response from consumers?

There was plenty of logic behind owning a Smart Car. But the company failed to establish a single, positive, easy-to-remember element about owning and driving the vehicle that registered with the American marketplace. And as a result, 2019 was the last year the car was distributed in the United States.

Compared to a business signature, branding is a consistent and intentional identity campaign

It’s used to establish consumer recognition within a specific industry. Branding’s specific purpose is to create customer loyalty based on trust, reliability, and constancy — then grow market share through a “no-equal” attitude in the mind of the consumer. Ideally, a company can transfer that positive association to other or new products.

For example, when Crest brand introduced teeth whitening strips to the market, they had a huge customer base already familiar with the name “Crest.” And many consumers automatically associated the positive experience they had with Crest toothpaste to the new product.

Your business signature can certainly be a part of your brand

And, in some cases, a signature can eventually evolve into being such a significant part of brand recognition, the two become not only interchangeable, but inseparable. The previous example of UPS is an excellent case in point: Say the words, “brown” and “shipping,” and most people think of UPS.

Why? The UPS signature of brown trucks and uniforms is so consistent, and so expected by consumers, that it’s become an integral part of the company’s brand recognition.

I’ll leave you with this

As a small business owner, you have the opportunity to create a signature that will leave customers impressed, entertained, informed, curious, rewarded, uplifted — and in all cases, remembered. Do it consistently, and you’re well on your way to establishing long-term brand recognition.

“I sometimes think I was born to live up to my name. How could I be anything else but what I am, having been named Madonna? I would either have ended up a nun, or this.” — Madonna

© 2020 Roger Reid. All Rights Reserved.

Roger A. Reid, Ph.D. is the host of Success Point 360 Podcast and author of Better Mondays: The New Rules for Creating Financial Success and Personal Freedom (While Working for the Man). A certified NLP trainer with degrees in engineering and business, Roger offers tips and strategies for achieving higher levels of career success and personal fulfillment in the real world.