Your Business Looks Amateur—Here’s How to Change That

Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. What's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Your image matters. The way you project yourself and project your small business, i.e., your brand, matters. When I started my first business back in 2003, I didn't have any sales experience and had to learn sales the hard way to make ends meet. Also, what I didn't know about either at all was how much the business image, our business image, my business image as a consultant, and what I now call branding mattered. I was lucky that I had a co-founder who took care of the creative side of things, the logo, our email signatures, even the envelopes we used at the time to send some direct mails. But when I started networking, reality hit. I had this flimsy, cheap business card, no tagline, not a very strong presence, and I could see it in people's eyes. My brand wasn't making the impression I wanted. It didn't matter how, how skilled I was. People judge my business in seconds. And that's when I realized branding isn't about looking good. It's about being remembered, trusted, and chosen. And that's what I want to cover in today— and that's what I want to cover in today's episode: branding and improving your business image, and also the misconceptions about branding for small businesses, and the exact steps you can take today to create a winning brand, a recognizable name, even if you're a very small business, even if you just started, I want to help you take these 4 steps so that you are— you level the playing field. You level the playing field. And when you are at networking events, when people check out your social media posts, when people check out your profiles, when they engage you in real-time or virtual communication, you come across as a professional and you come across as someone who is ready, who's trustworthy, and who's ready to help the client achieve their goals. Now, before we dive in, a few housekeeping items. One, if you're watching or listening live or tuning in later, I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Let me know what the struggles that you're going through are. Let me know what kind of help you need. You can leave me a direct message on any of the social media platforms you're on. You can email, email us here at blackbelt@startupwithferg.com. You can follow us on LinkedIn. I'm happy to be of help. And I also want to hear about your wins, small wins and big wins, and other thoughts that you have. And remember that we have these episodes. We go live on Thursdays at 3 PM Pacific, 6 PM Eastern. So make sure you follow us on any of the platforms that you're on— Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, X now of course, uh, Facebook or, or YouTube and LinkedIn. And for this specific episode, I happen to be traveling, attending our annual summit, so I've, I've pre-recorded this, um, this session. And if you have— if you, if you leave us a comment or if you ask a question and I don't get back to you right away, um, we'll definitely, uh, reply within a day or so. So again, thank you so much for tuning in, and make sure you hit the like button, you follow us. Uh, this way you can— you don't miss out on the content that we're producing and how I help entrepreneurs scale, you know, start their businesses, grow, scale to 7 and 8 figures. Let's jump right in. What is branding, especially for a small business, right? So if you go to Let me start with the Harvard Business School. The brand is a collection of beliefs, feelings, expectations that, that people have about you and your business. This is what HBS said. The way I like to describe it, branding is like a handshake at a high-stakes business meeting, the first interaction before a single word is spoken. So if this interaction is weak or forgettable, you may lose the deal before proving your value. So before we go into building and establishing and improving your brand, I want to talk about 3 misconceptions, common misconceptions about branding, because a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of consultants that I speak with, they have these misconceptions and they keep them stuck in obscurity. So let's talk about how I want you not to think about branding, but I want to talk about the misconceptions first, and then we'll go into those 4 steps I mentioned to help you build a very strong, very memorable brand. So the first misconception is branding is just a logo. So you can go on one of the— one of the AI tools and come up with a logo, whatever, and you're done with branding. That's not what, what it is, because I know many small business owners think branding starts and ends with the logo and maybe some consistent color palette. It doesn't. A logo, logo alone doesn't build trust. It's part of the branding package that we'll talk about. It's part of the branding identity, but a logo needs to also establish trust, create authority, and make clients choose you, help clients choose you over your competitors. So branding is not just a design. The design is part of branding, but branding, but it's not, it's not it. The second misconception is branding is only for big businesses. So even if you are a one-person business, you already have a brand. The question is, are you shaping it intentionally or are you letting it happen by default? So that's something that we'll cover as well. And the 3rd misconception is branding is expensive. So many entrepreneurs avoid branding and they're still using their like @gmail or they don't have a business card with a logo or they do something at home and it just truly doesn't come out professional. You know, they think— Yeah. You know, to do— to establish a strong brand, you need a, a massive budget. But I'm telling you, if you don't invest a little bit in branding, which I'll cover today, you— the real cost of, of, of not investing, it's lost opportunities. And branding doesn't require a fat budget. All it requires is clarity and consistency. There's an initial investment, a small initial investment in terms of money, hard-earned cash, but that consistency and the thinking behind branding and the things that I want you to do will make you stand out, um, among the crowd, right? So think of a compelling tagline, think of your messaging, your story, you as a founder, why you left corporate or why you had this vision to start a company, maybe after a very tough time, maybe after a layoff, maybe after everything else failed and you wanted to build something that you're proud of. So the taglines, the messaging, your own story, the strong online presence, all of that can transform clients' perception about you and about the business and hopefully will significantly help you close more deals and actually attract Leads and qualified leads. So now that these misconceptions are behind us, let's talk about the steps that you need to take one by one to start really building a strong brand that is memorable. And we have some slides on those for those of you watching, and for those of you listening, don't worry about it at all. We will— I'll make sure that everything is covered. So if you're driving while you're listening to us, you should be able to benefit as much as if you're watching. But some of us, some of us like audio, some of us like video, whatever, whatever, um, is close to your boat. So number 1, step number 1 is— and let's make sure we have the slides here with us— is, uh, naming your business, how to come up with a brand name. So you don't need to spend months agonizing over your business name. Overthinking can keep you stuck in the planning phase instead of getting your business off the ground. Instead, follow a structured, a strategic approach to finding a name that fits your vision, fits, uh, what you want, you know, you want how you want to introduce yourself to, to the world, right? And a name that resonates with your audience and stands the test of time. So in terms of how to come up with a brand name, It's not about sounding cool or, you know, or yeah, something that is sort of trendy. It's about being clear, memorable, and future-proof. So to ensure that you pick a name that works for you instead of against you, one, keep it short and simple. And, and in all, in all these tips here, I'm going to give you examples, a good example and a bad example. And if you have some better examples Leave us a comment. I'd love to hear from you. So number one is keep it short and simple. Excuse me. So a good example would be Scale Edge Consulting. Clear, professional, easy to remember. A bad example would be Strategic Optimization Solutions by John David and Associates. Too long, forgettable, clunky. Right? So go with a clear, professional, easy to remember. The second element here is don't box yourself into a niche unless it's intentional. So think of something that's also future-proofed. So Ascend Financial Consulting, it's broad enough to grow with you. Too restrictive, maybe California Coaches for SaaS. So if that's the name of your company, software as a service, that is for those of us not in tech, it's just too restrictive. It limits expansion. First of all, you said SaaS, and second, you said California. So maybe in the future, in a year or two from now, you're providing coaching on product management beyond SaaS or maybe beyond, you know, outside of California. So keep in mind that You want to balance between niching down too much or not niching enough, but if the narrow positioning is part of your— it is part of your strategy, like tax pros for dentists, you want to focus on dentistry, that's it, then owning that niche can work in your favor. So just be intentional. So we talked about keeping it short and simple. We talked about not boxing yourself into a niche again unless you really want to. The 3rd element here is avoid trendy, gimmicky, or fad-based, fad-based names. Um, what sounds cutting-edge today might feel outdated tomorrow. So a timeless one would be Pinnacle Leadership Consulting, right? Something that may be too trendy— ChatGPT-Powered Growth Gurus. I love ChatGPT. I use it. I love AI. It's part of the present, part of the future. But what if ChatGPT changed its name? What if ChatGPT is taken over by something else, right? So, or maybe it evolves over time. So be thoughtful, be intentional when you are, um, when you are looking for these names. So again, we talked about keeping short and simple, don't box yourself into a niche, and then avoiding trendy, gimmicky, or fad-based names. Now, should you use your own name? Many consulting— many, many successful consulting, uh, consulting and service businesses are named after founders. The big ones, you know, McKinsey, Deloitte, others, um, you know, PwC. But before you, before you put your, your name on the door, consider personal branding, if your expertise is the brand, this can work well. Rachel Carter Consulting. But it also, it could cause scalability issues. So if you ever want to sell the business, for example, or maybe bring in partners, a name tied to you as an individual can be a limitation. And because we practice what we preach, Our brand is Startup with Feras. So my co-founder, my good friend Eric, and I debated this Startup with Feras for a long time. And then we landed on using it because of the brand is associated with myself, although Eric and team, they do a whole lot of the work behind the scene. And I owe everything we've done to the team and to Eric and their dedication. But I am the face of the brand and I bring in the experience with the teams, you know, in my 7 ventures that, you know, with all the successes we've had and all the lessons we've learned. So it was intentional that we would use— that we use Startup with Feras. And then we do also have our associated brand, Black Belt Startup, that's a bit more generic. So a lot of the things we offer in terms of training, coaching, in terms of the product that we have, the pricing module, or the whole entire curriculum on how to start a business, how to grow a business, all of that is— branded under Black Belt Startup. Again, I'm not in favor of having a lot of brands if you're just starting out, but I'm just giving you an example of the thought process that you want to go through before you choose a name. Now, if you're still not sure about the name, or— and I know this is if you've already started a business and you have, you know, you have a company name and you've, you know, you've filed your paperwork with the state and locally, You know, you can always do a DBA doing business as, and you can run by a name that is maybe more memorable, that would resonate better with your clients. If you have something like XYZ Consulting, I have a friend of mine, they have a name of a business called XYZ. I won't say the name of it now. I'm not making fun of them, but maybe they wanted to be different, so they called it XYZ. Generally, you want to have something that is more memorable, more I guess this one could be memorable, but something that would resonate better with, you know, with the clients. So if you already have a legal name that just doesn't fit any of these criteria, then you can use a doing business as, and we have a module on business names in our course. You can check it out. But for now, if you're in this phase of starting coming up with a name or in this phase of maybe rethinking the name of your business, try this approach called Smile and Scratch. And we thank Alexandra Watkins for coming up with this approach, this framework from, uh, I think it was Eat My Words. So it goes as follows, and we have a slide on this for those of you watching. It says SMILE. Basically, does your name have stickiness? So S for suggestive, M for memorable, I for imagery, L for legs, and E for emotional. We probably need an entire, an entire episode on, on this Smile and Scratch framework. But here I'm just giving you a hint and you can follow. I think we've covered this in one of our videos on our channel, but this is just to give you an idea of the process that you can go through. Again, I don't want you to spend 5 weeks or, you know, 3 months not hitting the pavement and trying to get leads, you know, and you're focused on the business name. It is important. It's going to be like your child. It's going to be— it's your own business. So put some time into it. But don't get too stuck on coming up with the perfect name. And you can always, you know, you can always, you know, you can always rebrand. Not something, again, I advise initially, but I would say spend a little bit of time, maybe a few days, a couple of weeks, and then move on, get the business going, and hit the pavement. So we talked about smile. Now scratch. Avoid these deal breakers. S, spelling challenged. I guess Feras is spell challenged. I can't change it now. C, copycat. R, restrictive. A, annoying. T, tame, no energy. Um, uh, where are we? C, curse of knowledge. And H for hard to pronounce. Okay, so, um, keep those in mind. Uh, run this smile and scratch test and maybe have Have, you know, maybe with your life partner, with your friends, with your— I don't know, if you have a business partner, of course run this with them, by them. But go through that exercise so that you have, you know, you come out, you land on something that you are, you know, you're happy with. Now, one thing that I want you to do before you finalize the name or select a name is I want you to check your domain, the availability for that domain name. Um, if you've shortlisted a few names, go online and go to godaddy.com or one of those services and see if those domains are available. You can also check for trademarks at uspto.gov. You can Google the name, you can search on social media, you know, do all of the above. You don't want to launch a business and there's someone, especially if they're local, as you're— if you're your business is local and you— and there's another firm with a very similar name locally, that could create confusion, could create issues. There also could, could be potentially like, you know, you're copying their name if they've been around for a while. So, so check again, check for trademarks, uspto.gov, Google it, search on social media, and just check domain availability if you go to godaddy.com or any of these services and they, um, They'll let you know what's available, the .com, the .net, the .info, and we, again, we have a module on name selection in our Black Belt Startup course, so check that out if you are interested. The other thing here I want you to think about is securing also a professional email address. A branded email address is in my mind non-negotiable for credibility, so I work with, with, with contractors who have Gmail address, no problem. I've known them for years and they're really not thinking of maybe growing the business beyond what they're doing, and they have a small, um, maybe circle of clients that come back to them for business and they're good with Gmail. I think that's fine. But if you are planning on establishing a business and grow that business and hire people, my friends, don't go cheap on, on domain names. You can get a domain name I don't know, $20, whatever it is these days, $10 maybe, and then a year. And then, and then you can go and get up, get a Google Workspace account or any of these email providers. And then you'll have, instead of janesmith@gmail.com, it'll be jane@smith.com if your domain name is Smith. So, or Leadership Consulting, whatever the case might be. So, so get an email address that is branded Get that domain name. It's gonna help you differentiate from this other consultant. I mean, just think yourself, think about it yourself. If you are at a networking event, you meet 2 people, they do the same thing, they're financial, they're financial advisors. One of them gives you a business card that they made on their own that looks flimsy and doesn't have a logo, and it has it at Gmail. And you have a financial, a financial advisor who has a nice business card with a logo, with a domain name you know, @financialconsulting.com, which one is going to come across more professional, more credible? No-brainer. So invest a little bit of time, a little bit of money, and that will make a difference because initially you're not looking for— like every little thing will help you, will help increase your chances of converting this stranger into a qualified lead who is interested in doing business with you. All right. So that's on, on, on emails. And the same thing as you're going through this email, uh, as, as you're doing your research on, on domain names and, and setting up your professional email, branded email, also go on social media. I would say go on all, all platforms and secure, create an account with that brand, with the brand name. So, so for example, for us, @startupwithferas, it's That's our YouTube channel, @StartupWithFeras. The website, Startup with Feras. You go across different social media platforms, we use that. At times there were some restrictions on the number of characters, so it might be Startup Feras or something like that, but wherever possible, use the same name, the same brand for all the handles across all the social media platforms because it will help you with brand consistency. It will protect your brand identity and prevents competitors from taking that name. And again, secure it on, I would say, okay, it's another half an hour, maybe at night after dinner. It's just very mechanical. Just go do it. LinkedIn for sure, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok, what have you. Just set those up even if you're not active on these. Uh, on these platforms. Maybe just you're just active on LinkedIn and Facebook. So on these other ones, you can say, hey, follow me on, you know, on, on LinkedIn. I just have a link there, or whatever, wherever the case might be. I'm not suggesting you get active on all these social media platforms. I say focus on one or two channels, but get those handles so when you grow and you have a marketing team and you are in 7 figures, then you can leverage the resources that you have to be active on all these platforms. Cool. So this is all about changing a name, and I spent a lot of time on it because it is important. I see, I see stuff out there when I speak with founders that is just— it really doesn't help if you don't have a, a strong name and a consistent, consistent brand across these different platforms we covered. So now we'll go into choosing your brand color. So this is the second step. So first step was choosing your name. The second step here Choosing your brand colors. I'm not a graphic designer. I'm probably the farthest away from a graphic designer, so I'm not here to, to go into the details of the color selections and the emotions behind the— the emotions behind the colors. I've learned a few things over the years working with designers, with graphic designers and artists, so I'm sharing a summary of this so that when you are, when you are working with a professional, with a designer and a brand, you know, specialist, you at least you can speak the language so you understand, you know, what they're talking about. So, so again, take, take what I'm saying here more as a guidance on to help you do this step of choosing your brand colors, your logos, and we'll talk about websites in a bit, um, be so you are more better informed, okay? The colors you choose for your brand do more than just make things look nice. They silently, subconsciously influence how potential clients feel about your business before they even interact with you. So there is a bit of psychology, you know, behind colors. It's not just decoration, as we said. It— colors do trigger— different colors do trigger different emotions. They influence decisions, and they create associations that can impact whether someone is going to choose your services or not. Again, it's not the number one thing. It's one of the things. There might be 20 factors that contribute to someone buying from you. And our goal as entrepreneurs, as business owners, as salespeople, our goal is to get this list of 20 or 30 things that contribute to someone making a decision. I want to check those off, all, like each one of them. That increases my chances of selling, of converting a stranger into a paying client. So just to give you a flavor of what a designer would be going over when it comes to colors, right? So the different colors commonly convey, for example, blue, trust, professionalism, stability. You know, you see that used by consultants, you know, financial services, think like LinkedIn, PayPal, all that. Green conveys growth, balance, and calmness. I don't know, Whole Foods comes to mind. Red, energy, urgency, and passion, you know, great for brands that want to motivate action and create bold statements. Think of maybe YouTube or maybe the Red Cross. Orange, creativity, enthusiasm, approachability. That is ideal for personal brands, you know, marketing consultants. So, you know, HubSpot has that color. Yellow, optimism, warmth, and friendliness. So probably works well for businesses that want to feel positive and approachable. I don't know, Post-it maybe, I don't know, McDonald's. Black, sophistication, luxury, and authority. High-end service providers, elite consulting, Forbes and others. Again, you don't have to be a specialist in this area, but be informed about these aspects of the colors you choose for your logo, for your website. And when you work with a designer, they can explain these factors, or they can give you a bit more details about how these colors work really well for your brand. And again, they're depending on maybe where you are, if you're watching or listening, you know, outside the US, there might be some cultural references to different colors and different shapes. So keep that in mind, you know, as you're selecting the name for your business, or if you are marketing to a different region or to a different country, you want to make sure the name that you select and the colors you choose also resonate well with folks of maybe different backgrounds and different cultures, so keep that in mind. Now in terms of specific tips on selecting a cohesive color palette, as we said, the brand colors should reinforce your message, help feel professional, and remain consistent across all platforms, so consistency is really important. So start, I would say start with one primary color, keep it simple, don't have a, I don't know, 7 colors to choose from, maybe 2 to 4 colors max, because unless, again, unless let's say a rainbow is part of your brand, so of course you're going to have a lot of colors, but for most of us, I would say too many colors would create confusion and inconsistency. And when it comes to designing your logo, as we said, your logo sets the tone for your brand identity. A cheap-looking logo, you know, or maybe inconsistent logos on different platforms, it gives the impression of an unestablished or untrustworthy business, even if you're highly skilled. So, but, you know, if you have something polished, well-designed, It does subtly, it does tell clients that, hey, I'm a professional and I take my business seriously. Now in terms of font, so we talked about colors, and I know this could be, you know, if, if you're starting a business, if you're struggling with your business, like, do I have time for this? Uh, my friend, these things are foundational, and these things, once you do, once done, you don't have to keep doing this. Like, it's not something like you update every quarter So investing the time as you're thinking of starting a business, allow time and a little bit of budget to do these things. Or if you've already started and maybe you're struggling to sell because of that flimsy business card and maybe the lack of logo, they're all not contributing to your image that you want to portray, that you want to project. So in terms of font choices, again, I won't spend a whole lot of time on this, but there is, you know, this is overlooked. But fonts do carry as much weight as your logo's design, and different fonts convey different signals about you and your brand. So for example, I'll just give you a couple examples like Times New Roman. It's more classic, trustworthy, used by, you know, high-end consultants, maybe law firms. And then something like Arial, clean, modern, approachable, maybe great for coaches and personal brands. Again, when you work with your graphic designer, with the brand identity person, they'll go over these details. So be prepared. The more you're informed about, about these aspects, or actually any aspect of the business, the better decision you make about choosing the right provider for you to help you in this area. Or if you're into it, you can do it yourself, but learn about these aspects about branding before you do design your own logo. Good, good. So again, and stack— maybe to stick to one or two fonts across everything you do. Your website, your, your, uh, maybe, uh, if you're sending mails, uh, if you, um, go on, go into a conference and you have maybe a backdrop, just be very consistent with, with colors and fonts. I think it will help a lot in, again, projecting that, that professional image and that you take, you take these things seriously. Now, how do you make a brand logo without breaking the bank? You can start with DIY logo tools. Like, I think there's one called Tight Budget. If you're on a tight budget, there's one called, um, um, Looka, L-O-O-K-A.com. There's also Canva Logo Maker. You can, you know, if you have Canva, Hatchful by Shopify, there are a bunch of other tools. I mean, you can go to a lot of these AI tools today. You can go Gemini, and there's some, some that are more specialized, and, and they'll give you, they'll give you something. But if you want to just spend a little bit more time and just a little bit more money, you might be able to do something nicer and more professional. So, but keep it simple if you're doing it yourself. Avoid overly complex designs that look like, like an amateur has done them. The, the other option is that you hire a freelance designer or, or a small agency for a custom logo. If you want something— again, this is if you want something more polished, more polished, more professional— I think it's worth the investment. And you can find inexpensive, high-quality graphic designers. You can go on Fiverr, you can go on Upwork. Again, I don't have any affiliations with any of these platforms. I'm just mentioning to be of help. You can also go to 99designs. They actually— it's pretty cool. You submit your request and you have multiple designers bidding on that request. So, so you can have multiple designers compete for your logo, and then you have a variety of options. So that's— that was the 3rd step. Now step number 4, how to develop a strong brand identity. So we talked about the name, the logo, the colors that we talked about being consistent across all the platforms, but how you develop a strong brand identity is by following everything I said until now. It's that complete look and feel and the personality of your business. It's what makes you recognizable, trusted, and memorable. So, um, that the, you know, the brand elements we covered so far also when you're writing on your website, on social media, when you are maybe commenting, that tone of voice is part of your brand identity, how you communicate. Are you casual? Are you authoritative, friendly, professional? Also, we talked about like your story, your messages. So your brand story, the why, behind your business. I was laid off and I always had this passion to build a company with a great customer service. I left corporate because big companies were driving me nuts with bureaucracy and I want to be very efficient, so I focus on process efficiencies. So the why behind your business connects with people at a completely different level, deeper level. You know, we sold our last business, our 8-figure business back in 2019, and I spent some time volunteering for nonprofits, and then I wanted to establish a business, a brand to help entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses and avoid the mistakes I made. So that brand story should be out there, and it's part of your identity. And the messaging, the key phrases that you use, the way you, you know, your perspective, your opinions on things, sometimes your strong opinions on things. We're not talking about politics and religion here, but whatever your area of expertise is, that's all part of your brand identity. And the way you want to go about it is start writing down your brand story. your brand story. So for example, it's not just a quick About Us, like a couple of paragraphs in the About Us section of your site. It's really, it should be a powerful story. It's a powerful tool that makes potential clients feel connected to you. And then, you know, the formula basically of this strong brand story, there are different ways to come to it, but basically I would say the best brand stories follow a simple Formula problem. You have you know you have problem solution, and in in that process there was transformation, right? So the problem is the challenge that that that you saw in the industry or the the personal challenge that you had your own experience, and and that made you start that business, or maybe you started now you want to grow the business. The solution is. Like how is it that you decided to solve this problem in a unique way? Maybe you deliver faster than anyone else, you have like a high premium level of service, or maybe you have the least expensive level of service, but you're very efficient, and then maybe you compete on being super responsive, whatever you solve in your own unique way, That's important, and that transformation, like how has your approach impacted the clients, right? So think of this brand story of how it will make your own audience think about that this person gets me, I can relate to this person, they understand my struggles and have the expertise to help me. Yeah. So my recommendation is for establishing this brand identity is to be very consistent, is to establish what we call a brand style guide that has the color palette, that has the logo, that has maybe a black and white version of your logo. It also maybe has a summary, you know, articulate your own sort of backstory and your own strong opinions and, and, and some maybe micro stories that, that has happened along the way. So when you are speaking with leads, when you are communicating with customers, you're also sharing with them, um, you know, sharing with them what made you do what you do today. Uh, people buy from people, right? And, and this brand identity concept of— and consistently presenting a professional image with your logo, with your colors, with your fonts on your website, on your social media. It's all important. Also telling the world about what makes you get up in the morning and do what you do. And I know during tough times and when sales are slow and revenue is low, maybe you don't feel great about, you know, telling the story, but this is business. This is entrepreneurship. As I always say, entrepreneurship is 5 times harder. So you got to keep going at it, get it, get better at what you do, at what you publish, the way you tell the story about you and your brand and your service. All of that will give you that reputation, that hopefully impeccable reputation that will, that will lead people to come to you and then refer others to you. All right, so a couple more tips here before we wrap up. Specifically on the website, a lot of us will go and just have maybe a LinkedIn page or maybe an Instagram page. That's fine, but I recommend for especially if you're a consultant and you're selling like B2B, having a professional website is important. It's your digital business card, and you can start with a very simple website. A lot of these tools today allow you to create a website very quickly and very easily, and it will come out professional. Maybe not top of the line, but it will be presentable and will do the job. So I would say if you're doing a— you're offering some consulting services, there are 4 pages that are a must, and over time you can add to it. So basically a clear and a compelling homepage, an About Us page, and then a page for your services, and a Contact Us page. This is Simple. Again, you can do it with many, many tools out there— Wix or GoDaddy. If you buy the domain name from them, they allow you to build— there's a website builder there. You don't have to be technical, right? Again, it will come out okay. It's not going to come up— it'll be presentable, professional enough for you to close deals. Over time, as you make more money, as you're more profitable, you can do a custom website and you can enhance it. And over time, if you start to publish content, you can have maybe a blog associated with the site or you can have, um, maybe you can have a newsletter. You can do a lot of things with the website as your business evolves. But initially, my focus here is on making sure you have all the elements you need to project a professional image, because your competitor might be on social media, might be on LinkedIn with a professional profile, might be publishing, you know, their case studies or what have you, but they don't, they don't have a website. They have a website and you don't have a website. That's that's one thing against you. I want to make sure you check on all the things, all the factors, as many of the factors that help people buy, convince people to buy from you. So that's why we're going through all of these elements. Again, you can't— you don't have to do all this day one, but I would definitely recommend you spend some time on these. Maybe every couple of weeks you tackle one of these areas, right? The other thing that also a lot of small businesses I would say underutilized is Google My Business. I think if you're local, it's, you provide local services, it's a must for visibility. And then if, even if you're not local, it doesn't hurt to give Google another signal about your business. So you spend half an hour, an hour, and you can upload your logo. You can upload a little description about what you do, you know, your hours of operations and all that good stuff. But it is, it will help increase local visibility on search. It could also be appearing in Google Maps, and it does have one more element where, again, your competitor might be showing, and if you're not showing, that's a point against you. And again, it takes an hour or so to set up and you're good. So that's something to keep in mind. Now, the last thing here is, um, this whole branding, um, aspect of a business, right? Do I do a, you know, is it a DIY or do I hire? I'll give you some criteria here. When is it that, you know, when do you go DIY for your branding? I think if you're on a budget and just need the basics, that's one thing. If you're comfortable writing your own brand story and your website copy, I think that's fine. That would be another I guess criteria, but if you don't write well and you start to put in things with grammar issues, with stylistic issues, with, you know, typos, people, you are hurting yourself. You're shooting yourself in the foot because these days you can hire a copywriter, someone who would write for you in a very economical way. Again, use any of these platforms I mentioned earlier, Fiverr, Upwork, others, to get a writer to help you if you don't write well. Okay. When do I hire a branding agency or maybe a contractor? I would say if you have a little bit of budget, you don't have to invest in a premium $10,000 branding package. That's later when you're going after Fortune 1000, you need to have different level of branding, but initially, I think invest in a contractor or a small agency that will do this work for you. I think if your business is growing fast and you need some expert positioning, working with a brand expert is a good idea, and then if you're struggling to differentiate yourself in a crowded market, I think working with someone with some branding background will be helpful. And the question that I would also get, how much does branding cost for a small business? My friend, you can range from $100 to thousands of dollars. Literally, you can go on, on these platforms and find someone who can give you maybe a logo and some, some colors and maybe some fonts, and, and that's it. $100 and you're done. I, I would, I would, I would like the way I did it for all of our businesses after the very first business. The very first business, we did things in-house, as I said earlier, did not give us the best image out there. And then we found, we found a graphic designer, Sepida. This is back in 2003, 2004, and she, she helped us do a, in a very economical way, just basic branding elements. And then Sepida is still a good friend, or after 20, 24 years, um, and she's doing, she still does great work in this area. So, so find someone, maybe an up-and-coming designer who would invest, it would give you maybe a discount, and have them develop a nice package for you. And then over time, you can improve, you can, you can go bigger on branding and messaging and all that good stuff. So yeah, that's, that's really, that's it for today. Um, branding builds, builds trust even for a small business. I don't want you to look unpolished. I don't want clients to hesitate to work with you. Branding makes, makes you memorable. That's important. They, they remember, they call you, they refer people to you, and it helps you charge higher rates. Trust me, it does. Perception is important. Perception is reality. So an effective brand makes client attraction easier, and you apply these principles we covered today, you build a business that doesn't just get noticed, it gets chosen. So, uh, let me know if you have any questions. Again, we won't be able to answer these online real time today, because I always do these live, except due to my travel for our annual summit, I'm pre-recording this session. I do want to let you know about our YouTube channel, so if you're liking this content, go to YouTube @StartupWithFeras and hit the like button and subscribe so you don't miss out on the content that we produce. We publish daily shorts and weekly videos. Also, follow us on whichever platform you're listening, share this with your friends, and last but not least, check out blackbeltstartup.com. It's our training and coaching program. We have a complete curriculum on how to vet an idea, how to start a business, how to write a business plan, sales, marketing, HR, accounting, every aspect of the business, 50+ modules, and we have a few options for you, some with access to our business hours with me and one where you just get the curriculum. 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