I approached most of my previous business ideas completely backwards. The first thing I would do is buy a domain name and set up a website. Then, I’d get a logo. Then, I’d set up all the social media profiles.
Nobody followed them because I had nothing to say. I was setting up empty systems.
Most people approach business that way. It’s much easier to set up systems than it is to get someone to pay you for your product, especially if nobody has bought it before. We want to build a website and social media presence because we think it will give us the confidence necessary to sell our product. It won’t.
The only thing that gives you confidence in your product is when somebody pays you for it. Before you have paying customers, branding is a distraction. It becomes an empty, inaccurate symbol for the viability of a product or service.
The purpose of branding is to show people what the business does. Before the business has done anything, there is nothing to show.
Bonanza is in a different spot. We already have several employees and paying customers. The business is operating, bringing in cash and pushing out videos, even though you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at our website or social media… Because there is no website or social media.
We started by doing the thing that felt most necessary: getting paying customers. We didn’t worry about creating a website or social media presence because the way we described ourselves was bound to change once we got a paying customer anyways.
A lot of the initial jobs were done for cheap or free simply because we didn’t have any work to back up our quality and to instill trust in the customers. Now that the business actually exists, the pressing need has shifted to branding. We’ve gotten to a point where our lack of branding is holding us back from growth. In order to move from free/cheap jobs into higher paying jobs, we need to level up and build more trust in our own brand.
It’s hard to sell video and media services for high prices and on a bigger scale when we don’t have videos and media for our own business. The priority for this month is building up a website, social media presence, and a way for more people to find us and trust us.
Sometimes it’s good to develop preemptive systems, but actually feeling the need has a way of directing your focus. Wait until you feel the need for something before creating it.