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If you have been running your business for a while now, you probably already are familiar with some of the warning signs that you are working too hard:

• You are tired all the time

• Your stress level is through the roof

• “Success” always seems just a little bit further down the road.

Don’t worry. These aren’t signs that you are doing something wrong. Instead, they are an indication that you are doing everything right!

That’s because these warning signs mean you genuinely care about the success of your business and that you are willing to fight to achieve it.

They also may mean it’s time to start taking your brand to the next level by brining in some outside help.

Ready? Set. Grow! – You Aren’t Superman (Or Superwoman)

When new enterprises first launch, by their very nature they tend to be one-person operations. But eventually they reach a point where they become too much for one person to handle … no matter how committed they are to its success.

If your successful businesses is growing too big for you to handle entirely on your own, it’s time to bring in outside help.

Why?

The reason is very simple: It will help you achieve your goals faster, capitalize on the momentum you have created, and allow you to focus on the things you excel at.

Ready? Set. Grow! – You Owe It To Your Customers

Another great reason to rely on professionals to build your brand and expand your business is that your customers deserve it.

When you try to do everything by yourself, inevitably some things are going to fall through the cracks. Deadlines get missed or ignored entirely. Product quality starts to slip. And if customer service starts to fall short of your expectations, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

If you do nothing to correct this, sooner or later the size and scope of your enterprise will begin to regress rather than grow. Sales fall short of projections. And profits shrink. None of which is an acceptable outcome.

Work Harder and Smarter

Whoever first said “Work smarter, not harder” obviously didn’t own their own business. When it’s your reputation on the line (not to mention your livelihood!), you need to work both harder AND smarter!

But if you find yourself running faster but not getting anywhere – or at least not as far as you think you should get —  it’s a red flag that you are cheating yourself the compensation you deserve. It could mean a number of things:

• Inefficiencies
• Your brand isn’t connecting
• You are overworked and overwhelmed
• All of the above

I’m not going to tell you to take a step back from your business. Instead, what you need to do is take a step forward.

You Need Help

You could continue to keep running your business on your own. But if it isn’t working now, why would you think everything will suddenly change?

Lytron has the experienced, knowledgeable brand developers who can help you take your business to the next level. Our multi-pronged approach to building your brand – and consequently your business, your customer base, your sales, and your profits – is the solution you’ve been looking for and didn’t even know it.

You work hard to make your business successful. Lytron can help you finally achieve the success you deserve.

Successful business owners quickly learn that there is an inverse relationship between the growth of their business and the demands on their time.

In other words, the bigger your brand becomes, the busier you become … and the less time you have to spend working on the “big picture” elements that are essential to building your brand.

It’s a Catch-22.

But there’s an obvious solution: Hire people to help you.

Notice that I said “obvious” solution. Not a “simple” solution.

That’s because hiring outside help is often one of the hardest things for newly successful business owners to do.

After all, YOU know your business better than anybody.

You are the BRAINS behind your business. But you don’t have the be the BRAWN as well.

Building a successful brand is all about scaling your business. If you have the greatest small business ever created, that’s terrific. But it’s not going to mean a thing until you scale it upward to become the biggest mid-sized business … the biggest large business … the biggest (and best) major corporation.

Okay, maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about hiring …

WHAT before WHO

The success of your business has led to the discovery that you can’t do it all on your own anymore.

Congratulations! That’s a good problem to have!

You need help. So how can you find people who are going to help grow your business while remaining true to the driving vision you have for your brand?

Before you decide WHO to hire, you need to determine WHAT you need employees to do. In other words: What can you delegate?

Start by making a list of your current work routine. Be as specific and honest as possible. What tasks do you do every day, every week, every month?

Got it? Okay, now take out a highlighter and mark those tasks that are non-essential to the growth of your business. In other words, identify the things you currently do that aren’t doing anything to build your brand.

These are WHAT you can delegate to employees. And knowing that, it’s time to start bringing new people on board.

Finding the Best People

It’s always better to have a very clear understanding of what jobs you can delegate to others before starting your search for help. Not only does it help you clearly describe the job to prospective employees, but it provides you with a clear vision of how your business will operate once they are on board.

The first thing to keep in mind is that hiring people is supposed to help you build your brand, not make your life even more complicated.

So when you can clearly tell people, “I need you to do A, B, and C but X date and time”, you aren’t wasting your precious time managing people instead of managing your brand.

The second thing to focus on is hiring people who can help you, not the other way around. This may sound mercenary, but you are in business to make money, not friends.

Look for people who are:

• Experienced at the specific tasks you need
• Have a strong track record of success within the type of environment you are creating
• Can back up these success claims with proof (references, testimonials, documents)

There’s no way around it: Hiring is a cumbersome process.

If you want good people (and you do) and you don’t want to cycle through a bunch of losers before hitting on some winners (and you don’t have time for that), then investing the time and energy up front can pay off later.

Budget time for interviewing, checking references, and onboarding people with clear and specific instructions.

Then be prepared to supervise and manage people while simultaneously growing your brand and building your reputation – at least until you can grow big enough to hire mid-level supervisors and managers to handle this task for you.

Avoid the Biggest Mistake

There are two types of prospective employees: Experts and implementers.

Experts are people who have a specific knowledge that can contribute to your brand’s success. Maybe it’s previous experience they have had in your field. Or maybe it’s a natural talent or skill they were either born with or learned, such as being good with numbers or being a personable salesperson.

Implementers are people who can effectively perform a specific task as long as they are given instruction and are provided with enough supervision so that they stay on track most of the time.

So which type of employee does your business need? Experts or implementers?

Probably both.

The key to successful hiring is picking the right people for the right role. The biggest mistake is doing just the opposite: Choosing the right people but for the wrong job.

You may hire somebody who is an expert but if you ask them to just do a specific task over and over again, sooner or later they are going to get bored, or frustrated, or both and quit. Or fail.

Or you can hire an implementer but if you ask them to come up with new ideas to grow your business you are going to be the one who becomes frustrated.

So to be successful you need to hire experts for expert tasks and implementers for implementation jobs.

So how can you avoid this mistake? By understanding what your business needs then zeroing in on that specific hire. (Now do you see why it’s so important to understand what exactly you are hiring for?)

Listen, nobody said it was going to be easy.

But the effort will be worth it if you can free yourself from the mundane tasks that are currently preventing yourself from focusing on the key to success for your business: Building a trusted brand.

Want to learn more? Lytron  has the expertise and experience you need to successful grow your brand. Contact us today for a free consultation.

You’ve built your brand. You’ve watched it grow. You have plans for its future. Nothing can stop you now, right? pause…

Reality Check: Most businesses fail. Even people with the clearest brands, the clearest visions, and the best reputations don’t make it.

Hate to burst your bubble. But you shouldn’t be living in a bubble anyway.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that a little success automatically translates into a bright, unlimited future. Just because you didn’t step into any of the early pitfalls doesn’t mean you are going to not have any setbacks.

You will. It’s a part of business.

The difference between a successful business owner and a loser is recognizing that every failure is an opportunity learn to be better.

You are going to make mistakes. But your mistakes should be your own. They shouldn’t be other people’s mistakes.

So give yourself a head start by avoiding these 8 biggest branding mistakes tons of other business owners have made countless times already.

Mistake 1 – Trusting the Wrong People

Your brand will be judged by the company you keep. And while you can control your actions and decisions, you can’t always control those of the people you choose to be partners with.

So it’s essential that you choose wisely. Don’t make decisions on who to bring on board to your brand lightly. Yes, you will need to hire outside help like consultants or marketing agencies. Yes, as you get bigger you will need to rely on other people to help you run the day to day.

But no, you shouldn’t trust everybody. Or even anybody without vetting them first.

And not just people, either. You need to worry about the other brands your brand is associated with as well. If you tie yourself to somebody else’s brand, you better make sure it’s not going to blow up in your face later.

So how can you protect yourself and your brand? By asking questions. Lots and lots of questions.

For example, when hiring an outside vendor, consider things like:

• Do they understand my brand?
• Do they have a track record of success helping brands like mine?
• Are there any red flags I need to be aware of?

Even partnerships with other brands come with enormous risks. Trusting your gut is fine. But knowledge is power. Ask questions like:

• Are their values consistent with mine?
• What other partnerships do they have?
• Would I choose their brand?

Don’t waste your time with people or other brands that you don’t believe in. If you are willing to put in the effort, then time is on your side.

Mistake 2 – Chasing Trends

Trends come and go. But successful business stick around for a long, long time.

If you are constantly chasing after the shiny new thing, then you are going to be constantly frustrated. That’s because the public is fickle. And what’s popular today probably isn’t going to be at the top of the Yahoo! Trending list in a week or two.

Instead, focus on your core beliefs rather than what’s popular. These are unlikely to change much over time. And when they define your business, you truly believe in them, and you can get people to put their genuine trust in them, they can ensure a longer-term success.

Mistake 3 – Being Afraid of Letting Go

Have you ever watched the TV show “Hoarders”? It features people who fill their homes and storage lockers with tons and tons of useless stuff they just can’t let go.

When it comes to running your business, don’t be a hoarder. Instead, learn to become comfortable with change. Let go of outdated or inefficient things that harm rather than help your business.

This includes people, systems, products, promotional campaigns, designs, content, logos, and anything else that doesn’t feed growth and profitability.

Inefficient brands live in the past. Successful brands live in the present and strive for a brighter future.

Mistake 4 – Making Bad Hires

We’ve written in the past about when and how to hire. At some point, growing your brand needs to become a bigger priority than running your day to day. That’s when you need to bring others on board.

But picking the wrong people can sabotage all the success you already have achieved and keep your brand from living up to its potential. That’s why it’s so important to schedule time, money, and resources to hiring the best people for the right positions.

Inevitably, there is going to be some turnover. Life is complicated.

But if you can find excellent people who genuinely believe in what you are doing, you can minimize the amount of time you spend replacing people and maximize the amount of time you focus on big picture branding growth.

Mistake 5 – Straying from Your Core Values

Okay, it’s a tricky world.

In order to attract new markets, you may need to consider new strategies for growth.

But these should never, never, never compromise the core values you established when you created your brand.

Stay true to your core values and people will trust in you.

But if you compromise your message just to attract new audiences, you invariably will lose the customers who are most loyal to you. And once they fall away, there’s usually no winning them back.

Mistake 6 – Brand Wandering

Similarly, you need to stay loyal to the brand you created. If you wander too far away from your successful brand, it’s going to alienate existing customers and drive off prospective new ones.

For example, what if Apple suddenly decided to get into the fast food business? How would the people who own iPhones and Macs think about the company if they started also selling tacos and cheeseburgers or milkshakes?

Apple is smart enough to know its core business is tech. And they have built that brand into a trillion-dollar business that serves passionate customers who are fiercely loyal.

So what’s your core brand?

Identify it and stick with it. And avoid new products or services that don’t align with your proven brand.

Mistake 7 – Taking Your Eye Off the Prize

If you’ve built a successful brand, it’s probably because you had a clear vision of where you wanted your business to go.

Don’t screw it up now!

Preparing for growth means always seeing the big picture. Once you lose sight of where you want to go, it’s difficult to recapture the magic that made your brand successful in the first place.

The business battlefield is littered with brands that took their eye off the prize.

Maybe they chose products or services that weren’t consistent with their core values in order to attract new markets. Or maybe they made bad hiring decisions and spent more time managing people than managing their own brand.

There are lots of distractions out there. As an effective brand manager, it’s your job to keep steering toward the successful goal you have set for yourself and your business.

Mistake 8 – Failing to Define Your Brand Standards

The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning.

The biggest branding mistake you make is failing to define your brand standards, your core values, in the first place.

You can’t build a successful brand without a firm foundation. And that’s one that’s based on a clear understanding of what you stand for.

You need to understand what your business is all about before you can move forward. Failing to do that is going to undermine every step you take as you build your brand:

• You won’t be able to differentiate what’s good or bad for your brand
• You can’t hire people whose values are consistent with your brand
• You can’t guide your brand towards a driving goal
• You can’t dispose of things that aren’t consistent with your brand

Your brand standards are the driving force behind every decision you make as a brand manager.

So when they aren’t clear, if they are constantly changing, or if they don’t exist at all you already are doomed before you even begin.

Fortunately, helping business owners avoid brand mistakes is what Lytron  does best. Want to learn more? Call or contact us today!

Choosing a branding company is one of the most critical decisions any company can make.

Branding is one of those things that most businesses don’t spend enough time focusing on. But it actually plays a huge role in the enterprise’s long-term success or failure.

Collaborating with a successful branding company that knows what it’s doing can have powerful, immediate impact on things like market share, sales figures, and profitability.

But all too often, business owners either pick a branding partner from among the affordable yet unproven random freelancers currently peddling their wares online or – worse yet – think they can do their branding themselves.

Before you choose a branding partner, consider the three essential elements of successful branding and how they play into your overall business strategy:

1. Visual Branding
2. Brand Messaging
3. Brand Positioning

Some branding partners are good at one of these things but aren’t experienced in the other two. Or perhaps they can be successful on two of these elements but can’t close the deal on the third.

But your business will only have a successful overall branding strategy if your branding partner can hit for the cycle and deliver on all three (more on that in a moment).

So let’s take a look at what role each of these three elements play.

Visual Branding

Visual branding is the element most people are familiar with. When you think of big, successful brands the first thing that typically comes to mind is something visual: the Ford logo, Apple’s iconic symbol of the apple with the bite taken out of it, the US Marine Corps’ symbol that features an anchor, a globe, and an eagle.

These are instant, immediate symbols that can call a brand to mind visually. And while they aren’t exactly easy to create, they don’t generally require as much work or effort to sustain once you land on a visual logo or branding symbol you like.

Yet visual branding designers are available by the boatload online. Freelance designers, artists, and branding “agents” compete ferociously with each other for the opportunity to draw your brand logo or symbol. While this can often lead to competitive pricing, it can also be a time trap.

You see, the symbol of your brand – while important – isn’t as critical to your overall success as the other two branding elements we are about to describe. Yet so many business owners spend so much time pouring over dozens of logo proposals or spin their wheels working with artists and freelancers when they could be doing something much more profitable – such as working on their brand messaging or positioning.

There are plenty of great companies with less-than-perfect visual branding elements. And there are even more businesses with knockout logos or symbols that can’t get off the ground on the more important elements of branding. Speaking of which …

Brand Messaging

The easiest way to describe brand messaging is: Words more than pictures. Brand messaging can include things like a tagline – such as the US Marines’ “Semper Fidelis” or “Semper Fi”, McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It”, or Mercedes-Benz’s “The Best or Nothing” – as well as other words, phrases, or even the overall tone they use to describe their company or products.

The way Pepsi talks about its products is quite a bit different than how brokerage firm Merrill Lynch describes theirs. Yet both are the product of brand messaging specialists who focus their skills and talents on communicating to prospective customers through words and phrasing rather than logos or visual images.

While some branding agencies are adept at integrating design with messaging, it’s a good bet that the art school graduate pitching their visual branding skills on Craigslist, Upwork, or another freelance marketplace isn’t going to have the writing experience or skills needed to succeed at brand messaging.

Finally, there’s …

The Three Pillars of Successful Branding – Brand Positioning

Today, it’s not enough to have a great logo, amazing ad copy, or print or video ads that combine the two. Your business needs to get its message TO its prospective customers first. Otherwise, all the time and money invested in developing visual branding and brand messaging will be squandered.

That’s where brand positioning comes into play. Its also where experienced branding agencies excel in the 21^st Century.

You see, all the old paradigms of business marketing were shattered about a decade ago. Traditional marketing platforms like TV, radio, print media, and direct mail don’t have the value they once had.

New media such as social media platforms, podcasting, streaming video, and other technologically advanced models are now the best way to reach consumers regardless of how you have positioned your brand with visual images or ad copy.

The successful branding agency can do all three: Create or improve existing successful visual branding, develop effective and consistent brand messaging that genuinely connects with targeted audiences, and then deliver both of those things on the platforms people actually use today.

The Three Pillars of Successful Branding – Lytron Design

As our name implies, Lytron Design originated as a design firm. But we quickly came to realize that if we were going to successfully deliver the kinds of measurables our clients demanded, we were going to have to expand our offerings to include all three branding pillars.

Currently, we are one of the fastest-growing branding agencies in North America, creating highly effective, hugely successful visual branding, brand messaging, AND brand positioning for small- and mid-sized businesses worldwide.

It’s not enough to pick a branding partner that can do only one or two of these branding pillars well. If you want to truly reach people and expand the size and scope of your offering, you need to collaborate one that can do all three. And that branding agency is Lytron Design.