Use Your Business Entities to Brand Yourself!
How do you establish an effective brand? Branding--creating a distinctive corporate identity for your business--is critical to your success as an entrepreneur. You can, and must, use the process of setting up and managing your business entities to establish your own distinctive brand.The world's greatest companies have mastered this art of branding. You don't need even need to to see the name of the company to recognize the Mercedes or MacDonald's logo, so effectively have these companies imprinted their identity into the minds of the consumer.But branding is not just about a logo. It's also about making sure that you have a consistent identity, one that is reflected in your website, your stationery--all communications with the public. Individual entrepreneurs often use a haircut, accessories, even style of dress-as the "Man in Black" Johnny Cash did--to imprint their identity into the minds of the public. Even a small business owner doing business on eBay will profit from having a consistent, memorable image as an established, reliable firm associated with expertise in its niche.You can use the process of structuring your business (see our newsletter) to start building a strong brand. Whether you are establishing an LLC or a corporation or other entity, you will want to follow a number of steps to make sure that your structures will build a strong foundation for your brand.I recommend that you follow the sequence below:1. Make a list of several possibl