Who Are You?
If you’ve made it this far then it’s time to start building your identity. That usually includes a few things. Again, if you’re already in business then you can probably skip this step. But it wouldn’t hurt for you to go through and review the steps to make sure you’ve hit all of the bases.
I guarantee you that there are more qualified people out there that can tell you more about branding your business. But if you’re just getting started then here are some roads that I take my customers down.
Your Logo Isn’t Everything
While the logo is going to be tough to bring into reality, the foundation of your business is going to be in your company’s culture. I recommend that you explore your company culture before you get into your logo creation phase. By defining your company’s culture, you will essentially create a roadmap on where the business is going and how it will get there.
No one has perfected company culture in a successful business like Tony Hsieh of Zappos. In his book Delivering Happiness, you can learn some of the unique ways that they run the business at Zappos. It is because of this dedication to culture, that Zappos is known as the industry standard in customer service. (This is an essential read for any entrepreneur.)
I highly recommend that you spend some time looking through http://www.zapposinsights.com/. For $40 a month you will get a step-by-step blueprint for creating the best company culture possible. It includes everything from hiring to firing employees.
But, Your Logo is Pretty Important
I’m not going to lie. Your logo is going to be the hardest thing that you come up with in the life of your business. It is the identity that your customers will come to know you by. You can always change it later, but you really have to put some thought into your logo.
- When it comes to your logo you need to think about what colors you want to have represented. There is a whole science behind colors and their meaning.
- If you have a slogan, you may want to consider including it in.
- You also want to make sure that you have various versions of your logo. You will need an all-white version, an all-black version, and a color version.
- You need to have a set that is print-ready (300 DPI CMYK) and a set that is web-ready (72 DPI RGB).
- You need a horizontal version (that fits nicely in your website header) and a vertical version (for letterheads and print materials).
There are many different options for having a logo created for your business. When you are ready to get your logo, I recommend you hire a professional. You can try to do it yourself, but unless you are a designer, I’m going to speculate that you will never be satisfied with it. You can try going on
You can try going on Fiverr and having a logo created. This is a great cheap option that doesn’t require a lot of investment. I usually start with Fiverr as a way to get the creative juices flowing. You can get a few logo options for just $5. If you end up liking one, you can request the vector art for an additional fee. This is crucial to create the various versions.
Another option would be to take a look at Graphic River’s Logo Templates. For $29 you can choose from one of over 53,000 premade logos. This is a great option if you have access to Adobe Illustrator to edit the file.
If you are serious about getting an excellent logo created for your business, I recommend doing a crowdsourced contest on a site like 99 Designs. I recommend investing $500 in this option. Within days you will have over 300 logos to choose from.
So there you have it. Get your logo and culture together. If you do this now the rest will be downhill. It’s going to make it a lot easier to complete the next steps. I’ll be back to share more on how you can get started with your online business.
