10 Anonymous SMB Branding Tips

You are flawlessly executing an anonymous small to mid-size business SMB branding strategy. Did you realize the mastery your small business has achieved?

Anonymous SMB branding fails to leverage your existing business model. Everyone is isolated in silos. Marketing is considered sprinkles on the cupcake when, in fact, it’s the front end of cash flow.

Here is a checklist of 10 how-to tips to create a flawless – and anonymous – SMB brand strategy which keeps you, and your company’s core capabilities, literally and digitally invisible to your current and future marketplaces.

1. Key decision makers have nonexistent, incomplete or not-current LinkedIn profiles – with no photos just the default “egghead” image.
2. Your employees have nonexistent or incomplete LinkedIn profiles. Or, if they do have LI profiles, they feature a vacation photo including the children and pets, offer little professional information, and their posted updates are more appropriate for Facebook.
3. There is no Company Profile page on LinkedIn, or the page has a minimum amount of information offered.
4. You and your team are unengaged in any of the LinkedIn Discussion Groups in those disciplines pertinent to your core business.
5. You consider your limited number of LinkedIn contacts to be a digital – and static – form of the old-school Rolodex file. You find it upsetting when certain Connections clog up your LI home page with posts about various business- and industry-related articles and resources they feel are relevant to your business growth.
6. Your website hasn’t been updated in the past 5 years. It’s small, isn’t mobile-friendly, and certainly doesn’t fill up anyone’s screen.
7. Your website sounds like an informational selling page and begs the reader to “call for more information.” That’s an invitation for potential and current customers to hit the “Back” button (because that’s how your website still is navigated), and go elsewhere.
8. Your Executive Team still is under the mis-assumption that everyone knows who you are. The digital world creates a far greater marketplace than your own backyard. If everyone knows who you are, why isn’t your pipeline filled with Everyone’s business?
9. Key decision makers are digitally reluctant to utilize social platforms to establish their thought-leadership and underscore your company’s expertise.
10. Your sales process consists of proactively waiting for requests for quote and proposal, rather than proactively using your digital branding and social selling strategy to identify new customers and markets.

Does this sound familiar? It takes more than a snazzy new website or marketing materials to achieve revenue-generating business outcomes.

Are you spending money on nothing more than another anonymous SMB branding strategy?

Otherwise you keep everyone in the dark. Including your own company. Time to get the light out from under that proverbial bushel basket?

Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC,  is a professional development coach and management consultant. She develops Playbooks for startups and small to mid-size companies experiencing unpredictable revenue streams. Then she brings these Playbooks to life.  Her Playbook on business development and sales collaboration strategies, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business?  is available on Amazon.com.