You probably wouldn’t dress like this to meet your hero OR a prospect, right?!?
Imagine you’ve been invited to dinner with one of your heroes. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
Can’t wait, right?
The night arrives and you throw on your best sweatpants, you know, the comfy ones with the holes in it and your favorite sweat-stained t-shirt from high school and head out the door, ready for the big night!
Screeeecchhhh.
Wait a minute, you’re wearing what… to meet whom?!?
I’d like to think that it’s highly unlikely that you’d allow the above scenario to occur. I doubt that your appearance would communicate your desired message to your hero. Rather, you’d more likely find you best outfit, perhaps even buy a special one, make sure it’s clean and pressed and take great care in preparing for the evening. Right?!?
Now let’s apply this thought process to your company. You want to entice prospects to do business with you, right? If your company looks sloppy and unkempt (aka sweatpants and stained t-shirt) what kind of message does that communicate to your audience?
Visual Business Identity (VBI) is anything that anyone sees that represents your company. Depending on your business, it could be your logo, website, business card or sales material. It could also be your business forms and invoices, email signature, PowerPoint slides, give-aways, videos and email marketing.
So in preparation for that all-important interaction with your prospect, you want to take great care in preparing your company’s appearance.
If I could pretend to be a mind reader, I might hear your say, “Really, is it THAT important?” And I would contend yes, absolutely. Still skeptical?
This company wanted a postcard to entice plumbers to refer their water clean-up services. The first design uses pixelated clip art, several different fonts and everything is a similar size. It communicates to the reader a confused, unprofessional, lackluster impression of the company. The second design is polished and clean and communicates boldness and strength while giving the reader a feeling of being the hero AND it tells the plumbers that they can make money just for referring the company.
