Brand Value and Business Value: A Two-Sided Coin

If your brand means something to your community, your business is going to be more worthwhile to your buyers. Brand value plays a huge role in the attention that your business is going to get when you’re ready to sell. If you are seen as an integral piece of your community, region, or market, customers are going to pay more for your product or service simply because of who you are as a company.

Think about it this way: Apple computers and PCs widely complete the same functions: running software, accessing the internet, creating documents, etc. Yet, an upper-end gaming PC with 15TB of data storage, lightning-fast processing speeds (4.4 GHz), and the ability to run advanced software sells $600 less than the least expensive Macbook Pro, which only offers 512GB of storage and 4.1 GHz of processing speed. 

So, why do we still see people carrying around Macbooks? Brand value. 

Customers are willing to pay more for the name and logo, despite major differences in price vs. offered hardware value. 

If you’re preparing to transition out of your business in the next 5+ years, now is the time to start increasing customer’s perception of what your brand means to them. Whether it’s an outstanding customer service system or a memorable brick-and-mortar store experience that they can’t find anywhere else, making your business irreplaceable in the eyes of your customers is a massive return on investment.

Here are 3 ways you can boost brand value before you sell your business:

Evoke Positive Emotions

Prize-winning author Maya Angelou once said, “At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or what you did. They will remember how you made them feel.” This quote speaks volumes about the worth of giving your brand a big personality. Whether you make people laugh, make people cry, or make people angry, the emotions that you invoke are going to play a major role in whether or not they decide to buy your product. 

Don’t be afraid to reach out and touch people with your marketing. Some of the most memorable advertising campaigns are the ones that made people tear up just watching them or the ones that made them laugh so much that the slogan from the ad is still used years later. 

While true that most small- to medium-sized businesses don’t have the budget to produce major television advertising campaigns, you don’t need a lot of money to have a big impact on social media. A small pet shelter based in Georgia created a low-budget commercial that has over 5 million views on YouTube. When it comes to brand value, money is less important than creativity. 

Make Your Store an Experience

At the Bass Pro Shop in Memphis, TN, customers can shop, eat, bowl, shoot in the archery range, stop by an aquarium, then cap it all off with a good night’s sleep. As if that weren’t enough to draw in even the most reluctant outdoorsman, the whole shop is an arena-sized brass pyramid! It’s a whole family vacation in one spot! 

Creating an experience for your customers that they can’t find anywhere else is a great way to boost your brand value. Have a little boutique in the downtop shopping district? Build an inexpensive runway complete with lights, then offer customers a 10% discount for a few pictures of them modeling the clothes they’re trying on. Share on social media, and you’ll grab the attention of every fashionista in your area.

Whether you sell insurance or cut hair, you can garner huge brand value by making your brick-and-mortar store the place to get that particular good or service. You can set up shop in a unique building, create a chic atmosphere, or offer a short-term childcare area, allowing parents to get their business done without juggling a cranky baby. Whatever your budget is, you can create a store experience that keeps customers coming back for more. 

Promise and Deliver Unrivaled Service

You probably already know that customer service plays a big role in whether or not customers want to continue doing business with you, but it may surprise you how large the impact is:

• According to American Express, “more than half of Americans have scrapped a planned purchase or transaction because of bad service and 33% say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service.”
• Salesforce notes that 72% of customers are going to share a good experience, which is 10% more than those that will share a negative experience 
• A study by McKinsey & Company shows that “the impact of frontline emotional intelligence on the bottom line is clear… more than 70% [of customers] reduced their commitment [to a particular brand] when things turned sour.”

So, what does it all mean? 

Even if you have a razor-thin budget, zero creativity, and you do business out of a hole in the wall, customers are going to come back if you give them great customer service. In general, when people are upset or frustrated with a business, they just want to be validated. They want to hear the business say, “Yes, that is an issue. What can we do to fix it?”

A customer experiencing a problem will most likely come back to you if you are willing, able, and happy to fix whatever problem it is. Customers know that you are a human, and mistakes happen. What they won’t accept, though, is an unwillingness to admit that on the side of the business. A customer interaction isn’t negative unless they leave the situation still unhappy and without a solution. 

How Will You Increase Brand Value?

At the end of the day, your brand value is the value of your business. When a buyer walks into your business after your transition is over, they want to know that you’ve already put the work into ensuring longevity and viability. The more that people respect and enjoy engaging with you, the longer your business is going to remain profitable. 

It all adds up to more money in your pocket and more peace of mind that your hard work paid off after your transition is complete.