What Makes Up a Brand? – Franchise Power

A good franchise opportunity will show itself through good branding. But what is branding? A brand can be defined as the art of distinguishing a product or service from its competitors. Branding is the personality that comes with a store or franchise and can be effected in many different ways. Despite popular belief, it’s not something that a company chooses consciously, but something that customers choose for the company.

It’s important to know your brand in order to make the best franchise opportunity as well as build your consumer base. You can’t advertise or leave a mark on the population if you don’t even know who you were are as business.

Finding Your Brand

It’s incredibly easy for franchise owners to try and think of their brand like it’s a thesis statement on an academic paper that they’ll be able to reinforce over and over again. However brands aren’t things that you can just come up with and state, but rather you discover them as you discover who your company is and what your franchise opportunity looks like. Branding is often brought to the attention of business owners by their consumers, which is often why in the history of current franchises, if we look back, we can see they’ve all changed their ‘brand statement’ or motto.

A brand is influenced by the mission and culture of the organization and that’s it. While you might say “Best Beats in Town” is your brand to begin with, you may discover there’s something that your store and your foundation is trying to say more honestly. You can usually tell when a company is trying to make up their own branding because it more often than not comes off cliché (like Best Beats in Town).

The best way to take advantage of your franchise opportunity and your brand is to open your store with your original idea, but reflect on what’s in front of you as you go. Listen to your store and your customers and see if you can hear the store telling you its brand.

Where to Look for Branding and a Franchise Opportunity

Franchise opportunity for branding usually comes from one to five places that are found in every business franchise out there. The mixture of ingredients will be what creates your personal brand, but just like a recipe, you won’t be able to tell what it’s like until try out the recipe first. When you’re looking for your branding franchise opportunity, look in these places:

• The Company Mission. The spirit you designed for your company.
• Values. What’s important to your company?
• Culture. The feel and style of your particular company.
• History. What does your personal past look like? What does the past of your business look like?
• Plans. What does you’re the franchise opportunity in the future look like?
• Consumers. Who makes up your consumer family? What do they think about you?