Sharon: Hello, this is Sharon, and I’m here today with Steven Kohnke from Denver Business Coach. Hello, Steven.
Steven: Hey, Sharon. How are you doing?
Sharon: I’m good. I’m looking forward to learning something from you, as I always do in these little chats. So what’s our topic today?
Steven: Yeah, well, as you know, business owners, it’s helpful to think about your business as not just a service or product or things that just happen, but really in several different areas, technical areas that need to be focused and maintained regularly. So what we’ve done here is really broken down those big components in to foundations, leadership, sales, marketing, operations, financials and H.R. And we’ve really put together a series of tips and insights that any business owner can apply today to build a better business. So, that it mind,today, we’re really focusing in on the marketing pillar and specifically the branding, website and online presence of your marketing.
Sharon: Super important and such a hot topic and with all the business owners that I come across in a day. So, how would you define really excellent branding, excellent website and a strong online presence?
Steven: Yeah, excellent branding is a website online presence has a lot to do with identity and consistency of that identity. So your business really has a clear understanding of how to grow the brand recognition through digital channels for digital platform websites, social and a couple other things that are on there. So your website is consistent for example, in color schemes, consistent in messaging, consistent fonts and layouts, your online presence is active and consistently active, really through social channels or articles or updates that you have, online engagements, email. So it’s really being able to be persistent and consistent with that digital presence.
Sharon: So I think we all know that it’s important, but I’d love to hear you talk a little bit more about why it’s so important to have that branding be really consistent and to have that really solid website and online presence. What’s really the why behind it?
Steven: Yeah, I think a good way. Another way to look at this question is what happens when you don’t have a consistent branding? So let’s just take your website for, for instance, because most businesses should have a good website. If someone is visiting your website and your color scheme changes, you go from blues and greens on your home page to reds and oranges on the next page, or your messaging is inconsistent or your type font changes, the level of trust actually declines. And that individual visiting the website, whether it registers with them or not, people notice when things are different.
They don’t really notice when things are the same. So if the brain is flagging inconsistencies when engaging with any business online, the likelihood of them moving closer to a sale goes way, way down. Inconsistencies, they take efforts. And through that effort, the brain is worn down and the person actually becomes mentally exhausted on your website whether or not they registered it or not.
And so they either subliminally just say, this isn’t for me, but if you if you have the consistency, you have the same color, the same fonts, same layouts, and everything like that. It’s very fluid. And there’s there’s not really kind of a stop and go, stop and go that your brain has to do in order to kind of keep up with what’s going.
So in that fluidity makes it way easier to engage with the website and making that consistent, positive experience. And that’s what we’re going for from a digital presence. So whether we go back to social channels, those are going to be the same as the as your website. Now, that’s important of making that jump. So there’s just the consistency and really making sure that it’s the it’s a positive experience and not taking stress to actually engage with the website.
Sharon: It’s interesting the way that you just explained it, I remember a website specialist doing a presentation I was at a few years ago and she showed some really bad examples. And I had that experience of feeling like stressed and trying to like my eye didn’t know where to go and that feeling of being kind of overwhelmed and what are they trying to communicate? And it took me right back there.
Steven: It’s not a good experience.
Sharon: It is not. It is not. So let’s get to the how as business owners, how can we make sure that our online presence and branding is consistent and so our customers, potential customers can recognize us and provide that consistency?
Steven: Yeah, very important, right? This is this is a pretty important piece that I think too many business owners do overlook, and where a business owner can start is by better defining who they are as a business. So things like core values, mission, vision, what is the purpose for existing that creates a foundation? And a lot of the identity comes from that. And from there you can build on top of that.
You can choose the right features, right colors, your logo, your layout that all kind of can stem from those foundational pieces of your business. You can create the templates from that. And it’s just making sure that you have, you know, what are your color numbers? What is that exact font? How are you using it? And if you have templates, have the templates be the same type of layout.
Headline one, headline two, paragraph quotes, you know, all those things you can program word to do that. So you have your business branding into word. I’m not sure if Google Sheets has the same feature, but I know word does at least. You know, this is it is such an important piece to be doing.
And I understand that engaging with a brand strategist or someone like that is can sometimes be expensive, but it’s worth it because it can be carried on for a very long time and because of the importance it is, I do recommend to find someone who is really, really good. That’s what they do as they come up with your font or your identity colors, all that, so you can take it and move forward with it to keep that consistency and make sure people are not stressed when engaging with you.
Sharon: So important. And I know this is just like a tiny, tiny slice of a very big conversation. So, if somebody wants to explore this more, you know see how to proceed, how to, you know, maybe even find that brand expert to help them, what would be their next steps to talk further with you?
Steven: Yeah, great question. So easiest way to engage with us is on the website, denverbusinesscoach.com. We have a curated list of professionals that we trust in this area. So, once we get to a point of the conversation where it’s a little we need more expertise, we have a list of trusted people that we have gone through, which is one of the big benefits of of talking to one of our coaches. So, if that’s something you’re looking to work with, just reach out to us on the website. We’re happy to have that conversation.
Sharon: Wonderful. Thank you, Steven, as always, great talking to you. And I look forward to next time.
Steven: Thanks Sharon, talk to you soon.
Sharon: All right. Bye bye bye.