Whilst the Western Australian quality of health care debate continues to rage, his small business is making him enough money to cater for his personal need. Apart from his ethos, I admire his dedication to find out whether there was something wrong with his business practice. The niggling feeling can be examined by him without attending a ‘free business mentoring’ seminar.

No matter how small the practice and how busy you are, ask yourself:

• What is your vision about this business? Why does it exist?
• Do you want to stay this business size for the foreseeable future or do you maybe consider expanding in 2 or 3 years time?
• Do you have a one-page-business plan?
• Can you compare yourself to at least 3 other direct competitors and do you know their strength and weaknesses?
• Are there appropriate international industry examples you can learn from?
• What is your succession plan?
• How long is your cash flow holding up and when do you need to increase your marketing?
• What kind of clients do you want and what do you want them to tell others about you?
• What are your passive streams of income?
• How do you market yourself and what is your expenditure allocation per year?
• How do you know your marketing works for you?
• Who are your allies?

If there is one ‘I don’t know’ you reply to any of these questions, drop me an email or leave a comment so we can discuss further.

At first, it seems the investment in the re-branding stretches the strategic muscle to the limit of many business owners. The next step, actually using it to market, is an even bigger hurdle.

“Should we use it to express our message? What’s a campaign and what’s the difference in just saying who we are and what we do? How do we get there? Do we need to get there?”

I say to Consensio clients that corporate identity is like a passport. It identifies them on a superficial level, not on who their friends are, or what their personalities are like.

Getting to know a personality, you have to engage in dialogue. This is why we do it, when we market. How we do it, is using marketing tools.

Pressed for time and strapped for money, the call for brochures and websites is bigger than for meaningful strategy.

To resist the client pressure and develop a strategy beforehand, will benefit the client long-term, but it remains a matter of building client trust in strategy before action. Consensio has specialised in corporate identity and brand development since 2001.

10. Agencies don’t like to share. SME’s don’t have the same inflexible staff and strategies as large company departments. In SME’s people wear many operational hats and can often provide service components themselves. For example, graphics or programming can be provided by the client themselves. Agencies fear the uncontrollable client.

9. Agencies like to sell packages.Flexibility, tight cashflows followed by tight timeframes make the agency project management a nightmare. Agencies get often caught selling compromise instead of substance.

8. SME’s don’t have understanding of their own Marketing strategy. Agencies have a service selling strategy.

7. The brand is only as strong as the stewardship of the brand by the client who owns it. If it isn’t steered by in-house, agencies own it.

6. SME’s are too busy to care about their goals and lack in-house resources. Agency account managers are there to manage their brand project outcomes.

5. Agencies have large overheads and design competitions to win. SME’s think they need business cards.

4. Account managers listen to their clients. Account managers listen to their creatives. Creatives speak to their account managers. Creatives don’t speak to the clients.

3. “Time is money. We can only afford a limited amount on marketing. What’s the strategy again?”

2. “A website is what we need. Every business has one. What’s a web 2.0? Do we need a brand like Nike? I mean we are just a small fish in a big pond.”

1. “Two hours ago I couldn’t care less about this brand stuff. I’m just in admin. After this workshop, I have a sense of where we’re going and it’s exciting to be part of this. Can I come and see the design proposals when you’ve done them for us?”