The Difference

A business can exist for donkey years, if only your customers know who you are, you are not a brand.

A brand transcends beyond its customer list— even those you do not know will know who you are. A business on the other hand is usually known only amongst those who have had dealings with it in the past or at present.

A brand stands for something. A business can stand for anything

Branding typically requires that you believe in something— a philosophy— and stay consistent with it. For a business, however, it doesn’t have to be a specific thing but a number of things which could vary from time to time as long as they are relevant to your customers. (e.g. Samsung the stockfish seller amongst other things back in the 60s? [check])

A brand has a message to share, a story to tell. A business has offerings to sell and profits to make, period.

A brand tells a story, shares a message about its purpose, mission, philosophy, attributes, culture and value. A business on the other hand, is more focused on serving its current customers and marketing (creating awareness) to gain new customers, no side attractions.

The Relationship

Let’s call branding “packaging” and business “product”.

Without a product (business) there will be no need for the packaging (brand).

Would you place an empty package in a store? Would you place an empty package with no content on sale?

The package is irrelevant without the product— the brand is irrelevant without the business.

Before you start thinking of going hard on branding, you should have products/ services (offerings) already in place or on the way, you should have a meaningful value you are offering— a unique touch (USP- Unique Selling Proposition) to that value that cannot be copied easily.

Great packaging (branding) attracts profitable attention to your product (business)

Now no matter how awesome your product (business) is, wrapping up a great product in poor packaging (branding) will most likely result in poor performance in sales and every other metrics that define success. If you want your great product (business) to achieve great success, it is therefore, important that you give it the nice, befitting packaging (branding) that it needs to truly attract customers.

The brand can decide whether you remain in business or not, whether your business succeeds or fails. Great branding leads to increase in customer acquisition, sales, profits and referrals.

Poor product + Great packaging = Epic Failure

No matter how awesome your packaging (branding) is, a poor product (business) will deliver a poor experience which will eventually lead to failure in the market.

Spending so much time and focus on the packaging (branding) while ignoring the product (business) will eventually result in failure; you can’t fake it for so long can you? You will eventually get found out!

The way you handle your business determines the strength or weakness of your brand. Therefore, you need to manage and run your business well to keep your brand relevant to your audience. Never trade keeping great business practices for sweet talking customers and target audience into believing you’ve got a strong brand. It is only a matter of time before your faults will be exposed.

Putting it all together…

The business is the reason for the brand’s existence in the first place but then the brand also determines the fate of the business— the brand impacts the business; the business impacts the brand.

So go on and build that solid foundation that your business needs to thrive in the long term and then keep it blossoming and radiating with authentic branding… all the way!