• Discover how planning your marketing strategies and brand is important


• Find out why investing in a high-quality and world-class brand logo, and web design is better than under-investing


• Learn how first impressions matter in a business brand

Resources/Links:

• Check out Ross’ Blog on How to Build a Strong Brand Identity: crowdspring.com/blog/brand-identity

Summary

Are you struggling with how to build your own brand? Are you planning on using an online logo generator for your brand?

Don’t settle with the generic instead go with something mesmeric. Be authentic with your brand and settle with something high-quality and world-class while paying less! First impressions matter, so grab their attention with your authenticity and the rest will follow.

Ross Kimbarovsky is the Founder and CEO of Crowdspring where 220,000+ creatives help businesses, startups, agencies, and non-profits with high-quality custom logos, web and graphic design, product design, and business names.

In this episode, Ross shares how thinking about your brand identity and investing in it is very crucial, especially for small businesses. He also shares his insights on what to do and what to avoid when building your own brand.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:28 – Ross’ ideal client: “Ideal client is a solopreneur or small business, one-to-nine employees looking for ways to level the playing field against bigger competitors.”


• 01:50 – Problem Ross helps solve: “Small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups have a tough time finding affordable high-quality design and finding people that can execute, do high-quality design. And so, Crowdspring helps entrepreneurs, those businesses, small agencies with everything from custom logo design, to website design and marketing materials design for every stage of their growing business.”


• 03:11 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Brad: “Well, there are a number of things. First of all, marketing campaigns. Good marketing needs two things. Well, three things. Strategy, good copywriting, and good visual design. Marketing campaigns fail without any of those three things.”


• 05:08 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Ross’ solution: “I was going to say that this is a problem. When you under-invest in design in the beginning, it creates a poor foundation. So, everything you do later, you’re making poor first impressions. Your marketing campaign suffers.”


• 06:02 – Ross’ Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Do a SWOT analysis. So, SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats used by big businesses, great for small businesses. It’s a way to evaluate what your strengths as a company and brand are, what your weaknesses are, and foremost, it will be about visual design and the way you message and communicate about your products.”


• 06:43 – Ross’ Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Check out Ross’ Blog on How to Build a Strong Brand Identity: crowdspring.com/blog/brand-identity


• 07:20 – Q: Why can’t they wait a year, six months, a year and a half, to invest in design after they’ve launched and have a bit more money? A: You make first impressions when you’re initially launching. And when you’ve been in business for a year, whether you like it or not, you’ve developed a brand. You’ve developed a visual brand identity. And if it’s poor, if the foundation is poor, it’s really difficult to turn around after a year. And now the cost is significant because you have an identity.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Cheap, and free design is never cheap or free. It costs you a lot more in the long term.” -Ross Kimbarovsky
Click To Tweet

Transcript

(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:09

Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to you from Little Castaways Beach in Australia, joined today by Ross Kimbarovsky. Ross, good day, sir. Where are you hanging out?

Ross Kimbarovsky 0:23

Hey, Tom, happy to be here. I am in Chicago, Illinois in the United States.

Tom Poland 0:28

Chicago, Illinois, all the way to Castaways Beach in Australia. For those of you who don’t know Ross, it really is a privilege to have you on the show, Ross. What you’ve achieved- I don’t know what you’re 140 years old or something because what you’ve achieved in your lifetime is truly breath taking and extraordinary. For those of you who haven’t heard of Ross, he’s the founder and CEO of Crowdspring, and that’s where 220,000 and counting creatives are helping businesses, startups, agencies, people like us, and non-profits with high quality, custom logos, web graphic design, product design, business names. So, it’s fitting therefore that the title of this little interview is, How a Strong Brand Identity Can Help You Build a Successful and Sustainable Business. So, let’s put some flesh on that skeleton. Ross, our seven minute starts now. Who’s your ideal client, sir?

Ross Kimbarovsky 1:28

Ideal client is a solopreneur, or small business, one-to-nine employees looking for ways to level the playing field against bigger competitors.

Tom Poland 1:37

Perfect. Thank you. So, tell us in addition to levelling the playing field against bigger competitors, how would you- question number two, how would you define the problem that you solve for those people?

Ross Kimbarovsky 1:50

Small businesses, entrepreneurs, startups have a tough time finding affordable high-quality design and finding people that can execute, do high-quality design. And so Crowdspring helps entrepreneurs, those businesses, small agencies with everything from custom logo design, to website design and marketing materials design for every stage of their growing business. Ultimately, we cut prices 10 to 15 times less than the market in a different model. In a traditional model, you’re picking a designer, and then waiting for weeks to see the design. In Crowdspring’s model, you pick your price, and designers compete by submitting actual designs. So, you’re picking from dozens of custom logos, dozens of custom website designs for your business.

Tom Poland 2:40

So, you solve the problem of price and creativity, and-

Ross Kimbarovsky 2:45

And choice!

Tom Poland 2:46

Essentially, yeah, you deliver a diversity of options for the client. Perfect. Thank you. So, tell me- what I’m interested in now, question number three, five and a half minutes left, what are some of the typical symptoms that the solopreneurs these consultants, these small business owners- how do they know they need Crowdspring? What’s going on in their business or they think, “I got to check this out”?

Ross Kimbarovsky 3:11

Well, there are a number of things. First of all, marketing campaigns. Good marketing needs two things. Well, three things. Strategy, good copywriting, and good visual design.

Tom Poland 3:24

Yeah.

Ross Kimbarovsky 3:24

Marketing campaigns fail without any of those three things. And without all of those three things. So ultimately, one of the challenges for small businesses is how do you get a high-quality custom design at an affordable price. So as an example, logos used to cost 10s of 1000s of dollars from agencies, our price point starts at $299, including all fees. That cuts the price 10 times or more, giving small businesses, startups access to high-quality visual design from a global group of freelancers. So, a business knows they need high-quality design when they’re struggling with their marketing campaigns when their visual brand looks like 1000s of other brands.

Tom Poland 4:05

Yeah.

Ross Kimbarovsky 4:06

A lot of people think I’m just going to get something generic, use a generic template, use an online logo generator. Problem is none of that is remarkable. You’re not standing out. You look like 1000s of other businesses. And that creates a problem because every marketing campaign is built on a foundation. The foundation for design and copywrit