For many small businesses, the initial lack of customers and cash flow often causes them to put off designing a logo and marketing materials professionally, at least “until they get a few clients”, or “until they get up and running.”
Often, as a cost-saving measure, many opt for creating their own designs. Many times, designing your own marketing materials when you launch your businesses – rather than having them professionally created, can make getting those initial clients more difficult, and may work against your business’ success.
Many entrepreneurs choose to design their own marketing materials when they launch their businesses, mainly starting with the creation of their first business card. Or, sometimes they will have an amateur designer, friend, or relative create the design. There are many reasons why this can often be a terrible idea.
Do you really even know how mucah your Brand should cost? Or, worse – how much a bad design can cost your business?
Consider these points:
- Your business will not look stable. It can appear to be less professional, and more likely to fold or to fail. Clients may not have confidence in doing business with you. Think about it – would you do business with a smaller business that seems to be on unstable footing, or that seems like it might not be in business by the end of your project or after you have purchased an item?
- You small business will LOOK like a small business. Large, successful businesses would never consider doing business without professional, originally designed marketing materials. Using materials that are not professionally designed makes your business appear even smaller and can possibly indicate that you cannot perform to or meet the standards required.
- You will look unpolished and rough. Not having a professional “look and feel” can make it appear as though your business does not matter to you. Customers may get the impression that you do not care about the way your business presents itself, which might indicate that you would not care about the quality of your work or the way that your work reflects upon their business.
- You can cause yourself to look “unfocused”. Unprofessional, uncoordinated marketing materials can make your business look “jumbled” or confused. If you have a business card with one look and feel and a Web site with another, this creates a confused — and confusing — look and feel for your business. This can also cause an identity crisis for a small business. When looking at your differently designed materials, potential clients may be fooled into thinking that they are looking at materials that represent different companies.
About half of all businesses fail within their first few years. One source of failure that is commonly cited by experts is sloppy or ineffective marketing. If your marketing materials do not stand out from those of your competitors, your sales will suffer.
When you are initially starting your business, you need to create the quickest possible results that lead to business success. A logo helps to create this by contributing to your business’s visibility, credibility, and memorability — three factors that will help your business to achieve the goal – success.
So, while putting off your logo development may seem like a great idea from a cash-flow point of view, it could result in your business never getting off the ground. It can also lead to your business folding when it would otherwise succeed.
If you think that you can’t afford to design a logo when starting your business, consider the outcomes — how can you afford not to?
