Do you feel stuck when it comes to the branding/marketing side of building your bookkeeping business?
If you’re like most bookkeepers I’ve worked with, you have the bookkeeping training, skills, and experience but have a hard time with the creative, marketing side of building your business like choosing a logo, designing your business card, marketing on social media, and launching your website.
This is why brand discovery is a crucial process to complete before you begin searching for clients.
Here are nine questions to ask yourself when planning your brand to increase your chances of a successful DIY or professional website or digital marketing project.
1. What is your purpose?
A successful brand is clear about what the company stands for and builds the entire organization around this one core purpose.
This core purpose is your WHY. It’s the impact you want to have on your clients’ lives in the long term.
Once you have clarity on your purpose, the next step is to identify your values.
2. What are your brand values?
Values are the guidelines on how you run your business and should be specific, clear, and actionable. I’ve listed my brand values below to give you an example.
- Scalability – Leveraging tech and automation to increase organization and productivity
- Family – Creating and pursuing a healthy work-life balance to create a lifestyle of freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment
- Relationships – Building and nurturing meaningful connections to earn trust
- Transparency – Sharing personal stories and experiences to educate, inspire, and empower informed decision making
- Simplicity – Clarifying complicated ideas and focusing only on what is needed; avoiding unnecessary distractions
Once you have your brand values listed out, you’ll be able to make more confident business decisions moving forward such as who you choose to work with.
3. Who is your dream client?
Before you build a brand, you need to know who you are building it for. Some questions to ask yourself are:
- Who are your dream clients?
- What do they want/need/struggle with?
- What impact will your solution have on their life?
On the other hand, you also need to know who you DON’T want to work with, what are your red flags or dealbreakers, and what personality traits or characteristics do you clash with and want to avoid?
Look back on your brand values to help determine what separates your dream clients from your nightmare clients.
4. What is your personality?
We always hear that people do business with people they know like and trust. So, help your audience get to know like, and trust you by adding some personality to your brand!
Think of your brand as a person. It should allow you to stand out and be remembered. How would you want other people to describe it?
5. What will you name your brand?
Naming your business is a lot like naming a baby. While it is possible to rebrand and change your business name later, It’s something best done right the first time.
Your brand/business name should be:
- Meaningful
- Future proof
- Available – check with your state’s business registration office, domain registration/(website URL), and social media profiles.
- Simple to say
- Easy to remember
- Purposeful and fits your personality
- Appropriate – check translations and spelling in the URL
When choosing your brand name, you have three options to choose from:
For example Prosperity Bookkeeping Solutions
Chatsoni & Co. – That’s me 🙂
6. What should your logo look like?
Your logo symbolizes everything your brand stands for and what you want your brand to communicate and allows you to clearly and confidently connect with your audience.
If at all possible, invest in hiring a professional to design your logo. This is because a DIY logo or one that is too complex will alienate and turn off a lot of people so less is more.
Your logo should be:
- Versatile – your logo should be easy to read not only on your business cards, but also on your social media profile, your website, stationary, and promotional items such as bags and t-shirts.
- Simple – avoid overusing clip art and colors.
- Unique – avoid copying other logo designs. It’s great to find inspiration from others but you don’t want to build your brand in the shadow of someone else’s. Be original.
- Timeless – avoid trends and clichés. Have you ever looked back on an old photo of yourself and cringed at your outfit? Or maybe came across one of your Facebook memory posts and felt embarrassed about the content or quality of your post? Don’t make this mistake with your logo. Design for the future, not the present. What’s popular or funny now may not be 2-5 years from now.
7. Which fonts should you use?
Different fonts trigger different emotions. When planning out your brand, you want to ensure the fonts you choose reflect your brand personality and will resonate with your ideal clients.
8. What’s your tone of voice?
Your tone of voice is how you talk to your audience. Do you want to be fun, casual, and friendly, or sophisticated and formal?
Think back on your brand’s personality to help decide on your tone of voice and strive to maintain consistency.
Remember, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
9. What are your brand colors?
How do you want your audience to feel when they are introduced to your brand?
The biggest mistake I see many bookkeepers make when choosing brand colors is simply choosing a color that they like. However, your brand isn’t about you. It’s about your ideal clients.
Believe it or not, there’s a science behind colors. Certain colors trigger certain emotions. This is why this step is crucial.
In the same way you would carefully select an outfit for a traditional job interview, as a business owner, your brand should dress to impress your ideal clients.
For example, my primary brand color is hot pink. I chose this color because it is bold and energetic.
Even though my personality is very calm and mild, this vibrant brand color will help me attract my ideal clients – bold, energetic, women in the bookkeeping, accounting, and tax industry.
Evolve
Think of your brand and future marketing as a journey, not a destination.
Your branding will change and evolve as your business does and you’ll take a few pitstops and may need to reroute along the way.
But, as long as the foundation of your brand is solid, you’ll reach your goals and begin to set new, bigger ones.
I hope you find this information helpful as you begin to plan your brand before starting your new website project!
If you have any questions, feel free to post them in my Facebook community. I’m always happy to help!
