The Strategic Plan for Your Brand

Independent business owners and small business owners rise and fall based on the market’s perception of their brand, also known as their professional reputation. For that reason, the brand deserves constant monitoring, improvement, and promotion as a component of strategies designed to support new business acquisition and encourage repeat business. The goal is to build and maintain a good customer list. A useful way to review and evaluate your brand is with what many experts consider the gold standard of strategic planning, the SWOT analysis.

SWOT is the acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Every 18-24 months, freelancers will benefit from examining the viability of their brand, to better understand what actions enhance the brand and what can weaken it. Conduct a SWOT analysis and use what you discover as the basis of a strategic plan for your brand.

Strengths: experience, competitive advantages, A-list clients, referral sources, strategic partnerships, educational or professional credentials, financial resources, influential relationships. They are generated internally and are under your control. Potential actions include:

• Leverage resources to update the types of customers you work with
• Increase sales or billable hours by a certain percentage
• Develop a strategy to get more repeat business.
• Develop a strategy that convinces clients to hire you for more lucrative projects

Weaknesses: whatever challenges your brand. Competitors, ineffective marketing, poor customer service, weak perceived value of your products and services. These are internal and under your control. Potential actions include:

• Determine which shortfalls have the most negative impact on revenue
• Identify gaps that can be remedied quickly or inexpensively
• Understand how to minimize liability: what business practices can you change, professional credentials you can earn, relationships you can cultivate?

Opportunities: conditions that favor the achievement of objectives. These are external and beyond your control, however you may be able to reorganize and benefit from their presence. Good information about business conditions in their market helps business owners assess and visualize short- and long-term profit potential and learn how to reap the rewards. Consider the following:

• What new developments can you take advantage of to bring money and prestige to your company?
• Do you see ROI when offering new products or services?
• Are there good customers you could successfully sign on or lapsed customers who, with disclosure, might be willing to reactivate?
• Is there a niche market that you can successfully enter?

Threats: conditions that may harm your brand or your ability to acquire customers and generate sufficient billable hours. These are external and out of your control, however you may be able to re-equip and escape or minimize the damage caused by their presence. This item requires your immediate attention as it has the potential to seriously end or cripple your brand and business.

Has an important contact left your organization, leaving you at the mercy of the new decision maker, who has his own friends to hire? Or has there been a merger that resulted in the downgrading of influence from your top contact, who may lose the ability to greenlight projects you manage?

Has an aggressive, well-connected competitor arrived on the scene, ready to eat away at your market share and customer list through a better-known brand, more influential relationships, a bigger marketing budget, or other game-changing competitive advantages?

If your client contact has moved, take that person out for lunch or coffee and try to make the professional relationship portable. If your contact has lost influence on the new org chart, take them out for coffee and get information on the replacement, who may hire them for the next project if it’s scheduled to start quickly.

If the competition has intensified, do everything you can to offer superior customer service, affirm your expertise, deepen your network of contacts, enhance your thought-leader credentials, and foster relationships with your customers.

It might be necessary to implement a protective action strategy, for example, a rebrand relaunch or a shift into a more hospitable business territory. Stay on top of current and potential developments in the industries you serve. Communicate with customers and stay up to date on the status of their priorities and concerns. Good relationships will give you the resources of time and information that will allow you to evaluate and reorganize.

Thank you for reading,

Kim