Whether you are just starting a new business, restructuring a struggling established company, or strengthening a highly successful business, branding is an investment you can’t afford to skip.
Your brand is your value proposition; it is what you are to your customers, the marketplace, and your organization. When we think of Nike, one of the world’s top brands, most of us think “Just Do It.” Here are a few thoughts on defining, building, and nurturing your company’s brand.
Great Brands
Great brands don’t just “happen.” They are built over years, or decades, through hard work and planning. Apple, Nike, Microsoft, McDonald’s, and Starbucks consistently come in at or near the top of most brand rankings. Each of these companies means something to its employees, customers, and competitors.
Starbucks has (mostly) done a great job at turning its brand into the quintessential coffee shop. Despite several stumbles with pricing, quality, and customer service, Starbucks still has a high favorability rating among consumers. Priya Raghubir, branding expert and Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, believes that fans of independent coffee shops are not converted Starbucks fans — they were never core Starbucks customers to begin with. “I think there’s a goal customer,” she said of Starbucks. “I think they value the convenience, they value the welcome, they value the fact that they can find the Starbucks anywhere … and the offerings are uniform.” Those customers generally won’t be wooed away by another shop, even one claiming to offer a superior product.
Not So Great Brands
On the other end of the spectrum is Sears. Sears was once one of the greatest brands in retail history. Today, they are a mess. Edward Lampert’s arrogance and refusal to follow the advice of numerous retail experts played a massive role in the decline and fall of Sears. Sears’ many mistakes over the past two decades could easily fill a few dozen books. Poor management, inconsistent advertising and messaging, poor store design and product placement, understaffing, lack of attention to customer service, confusing partnerships (Land’s End, Martha Stewart, Kardashians, etc.), and more.
Today, almost no one knows what Sears stands for. It is a sad, sad story. So how do you avoid becoming the next Sears? Start by getting out of your own head.
Gaining Client or Consumer Perspective
Begin by understanding what your customers want and need. What matters to them? Don’t guess. Ask them.
Ask past customers and prospective customers. Pay attention to social media, specifically to what your customers and audience are “liking” and commenting on. Hold a couple of informal focus groups or conduct a survey. Once you understand your customers’ wants and needs, take a look at your position in the marketplace.
Gaining Marketplace Perspective
Make your value proposition distinct. You want your brand to be unique. Scope out your competition and determine how they position themselves. Is your company different in some meaningful way? If not, you have a problem.
Gaining an Internal Perspective
Consider why you love what you do, and what your vision is for your company. Ask your employees and management team what makes your product or service unique. Where and how do you create value that your competitors don’t? Talk to your sales team. Where are you getting referrals?
Reconciliation
Compare the internal perspective with the external findings. Are they consistent? If not, you’ll need to rethink your brand and how you communicate it to all parties. This may just require minor tweaks or major changes. In any case, a good step is to develop an internal document that defines your value proposition and how you will communicate that both within the company and to the marketplace.
Once you’ve defined your branding, you need to protect it. Great brands take decades to build, but can be destroyed in weeks, months, or years.
Just Do It
Great brands take decades to build, but can be destroyed in weeks, months, or years. It isn’t hard to find examples. Chipotle, Wells Fargo, Boeing, and General Electric have all damaged their brands over the years.
Chipotle grew rapidly and built a fantastic brand over a very short period of time, and then destroyed it by growing too fat, cutting corners, and poisoning hundreds of customers with contaminated ingredients. Wells Fargo, one of the oldest brands in the United States, was caught creating large numbers of fake accounts and lying through their teeth. The 737 MAX scandal severely damaged Boeing’s reputation, and was made things even worse by trying to cover up their mistakes and then underestimating how long it would take to fix the problems.
General Electric, the only stock in the Dow since the beginning (1896), foundered for years under incompetent and/or dishonest management, starting with Jack Welch, who built his reputation on great management, but then showed his true colors after he left. Investigative reporters unearthed astounding levels of hypocrisy and self-dealing.
Larry Culp, the first non-insider to run General Electric in 126 years, became CEO in 2018. Widely considered a talented, tech-savvy leader, Culp has been slowly rebuilding the General Electric brand, while streamlining operations and spinning off energy and healthcare entities. Even corporate giants can lose their way, and it takes years of hard work to recover.
Your Brand IS Your Business
I am always amazed when I encounter small business owners who don’t seem to have given any thought to their brand. They think branding is too expensive: only big firms worry about their brand. But nothing could be further from the truth.
If you neglect your brand, your business will never go anywhere. As a small business owner, you don’t (and can’t) spend millions of dollars on branding. But that is not an excuse. You can improve your value proposition. You can improve consistency. You can improve communications. And many of these things can be done on a very modest budget.
Your brand IS your business. Take care of it.
When Was the Last Time You Thought About Your Branding?
Here’s the truth: branding isn’t something you can put off until next quarter or next year. It needs attention now. At Ground Floor Partners, we help small businesses and nonprofits pinpoint their real differentiators and turn that clarity into sustainable growth. You don’t need millions of dollars to build a strong brand. You need a clear strategy and someone who understands your challenges. That’s what we do. Let’s talk.
Posted on October 30, 2025 | Published by Ignite Local
