When people think of a “brand” they often think of the Nike Swoosh or the Classic Coca Cola bottle (pictured left, courtesy of The Coca Cola Company). But it takes time and money to build a brand to that level. Small businesses just getting started do not generally have the means to advertise as a way of building their brand? When the small business first starts out there is usually little to no funds in their “advertising budget.” What’s that right? But you don’t have to have a large budget or even any additional money allocated for advertising and brand building over and above what you already need to be spending for essential supplies. In fact, you can start establishing your brand identity during your business building phase using only the money necessary to get your business up off the ground.

What follows are seven rather simple and inexpensive steps to begin establishing your image and building your brand using nothing more than the money you would otherwise spend to get your business going! And even if you have already been in business for a while, you can still use these steps to incorporate a new brand into your business scheme without costing much more than you are already spending for supplies.

Before I begin though, you need to keep in mind that consistency is of the utmost importance when trying to establish your identity and build your brand. One of the most common mistakes made by those that have smaller budgets for starting their businesses, is to change things over and over again or to have their business cards look different than their fax coversheets which is different from their stationary, and so on. You get the picture. By doing so, you are never establishing a solid identity and your identity is your brand. That is why it is so important to take time to develop and create an image you want to portray before bringing your business into the mainstream. Pick the theme, logo and colors you like and stick with them.

1. CREATE A LOGO

A good first step in establishing your brand is to create a logo. Although this is not necessary early in your business, the sooner you can create a logo, the easier it is to incorporate that logo into your brand. Hiring someone to create a logo for you can get very pricey. However, there are many resources available on the Internet that are either free or require minimal costs. Having a logo is optional, but regardless of when you choose to create one you need to do it right. It’s better to have no logo at all than to have a logo that makes you look like an amateur.

When you look for any type of free software downloads, you run the risk of downloading viruses and spyware. A trusted source that helps you avoid this issue is CNet.com’s Download page. Some of the top free downloads for logo creation recommended on CNet.com’s Download page are Xara Xtreme 5.0, and Logosmatrz 5.0.

2. BUSINESS CARDS

Whether you choose to create a logo now or later, you need to have business cards as soon as you get your business started. A serious mistake made by many people just getting their business started is to print their own business cards. This says, “I’m New and inexperienced” and is certainly not the image you want to portray when creating your brand; especially when there are websites such as Vistaprint.com that offers you the ability to create professional looking business cards for very little money.

When you create your business cards, be sure and splurge a little and get your cards with a glossy finish which will give your business cards that “professional” look. Remember, both your identity and the image you portray are your brand.

3. FONT STYLE AND COLOR

When you are building your brand, it is imperative that choose the right font style. You want to choose a font that easy to read, not too fancy, fits well with your logo and most importantly, is easy to reproduce. You want to choose a font that is available to you in your word documents on your own computer. Remember, consistency is key to branding! Choose a font that you know you like and don’t settle for a font that is just OK when you look at it. Also, don’t get too fancy and stay away from fonts that have a lot of curvature to them or are very small and/or very “thin.”

4. STATIONARY AND LABELS

Can you say Consistency? Repetition works! When people see the same thing over and over, it sticks and that is how your brand is born! Whatever design and fonts you choose for your business cards, the same design and fonts and colors should be used on your letterhead, fax cover sheets, labels and even your bank checks. Vistaprint.com is an excellent resource for trying to establish your brand on a smaller budget.

5. CHOOSE YOUR THEME

You should practice creating your identity through sampling different styles, colors and tastes before spending a lot of money on your business supplies. This is something you can do with or without having already created a logo. The brand you want to build will help you establish company credibility and stimulate customer trust. You need to make emotional connections with the audience and your brand is your first way to attempt to do so. Extremely important in building your brand, whether you’re an attorney starting your own firm or a handyman starting your own construction company is to choose a theme that says “This is who I really am.” You want to choose a theme that is welcoming and compliments the image you are trying to portray. I know I sound like a VistaPrint Commercial, but the fact is, it’s an excellent source for inexpensive (but not cheap) brand building supplies.

6. SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social networking is another way to build your brand and the best part about it is that it’s FREE. As far as social networks goes, I find that Facebook, although better than MySpace, is a lot less business friendly than Twitter and LinkedIn. Both of these networks are widely accepted by the business world, are easy to set up a profile on and are less often used just to “chat with friends.” I find that LinkedIn has remained the most profession all of these more common and mainstream social networks. To help build your brand, you should open up a profile and start connecting with colleagues you know from previous work experiences including law school. Get your resume up there and your bio and start to ask previous employers, managers, and fellow professional colleagues to give you a written recommendation.

When you create your profile use the same easy to recreate font where you can on these sites as well. If you have options to change font colors use the same colors you use on your business cards and other stationary.

7. BUILD A WEBSITE

This is something that is relatively easy to do. There are companies on the Internet that offer you the ability to create your own website as well, such as Go Daddy, where you can register a domain name. And guess what, VistaPrint offers the ability to create your website as well. See, repetition works. On VistaPrint you can use the same theme, fonts and colors to create all of your stationary items, business cards and website for very little money.  So the advantage of using Vistaprint, at least to start, is that you can very quickly obtain uniformity.