Anyone who knows me, knows I am a bit fanatical about branding.

I believe that good, consistent branding is critical to business success.  Unfortunately, in my travels as a marketing consultant it’s often hard to get this message through.  I often find an attitude of “near enough is good enough” or “we don’t want to invest our money in that”.

On Monday this week, I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with a small business owner who gets it.  He doesn’t have any marketing qualifications, or specific marketing experience other than his own business but he is fanatical about his brand. That small business owner was Kelvin Ong, the Managing Director of Beauty Grace, a beauty therapy business in the Sydney CBD.

Kelvin gave me some insights into his business and his views on branding that I thought would be useful to readers of the MarketingHQ blog.  Here are some of his insights:

1.    His brand is everything

Kelvin sees his brand as the most important asset of his business. He protects it, nurtures it and ensures his message is consistent at all times.  He is uncompromising when it comes to his brand and he knows it is a cornerstone to the success of his business.

2.    Near enough is never good enough for his brand.

Kelvin shared with me a story where he paid for some marketing activity, and the agency that designed the piece of marketing material distorted his brand.  Some may have ignored this but not Kelvin.  After a few requests the logo was still not fixed so Kelvin got legal on them.  He demanded his logo be used correctly or he refused to pay.  Now that’s what I call doing everything you can to protect the brand.  Near enough is never good when it comes to branding.

3.    Support your brand with good imagery.

For his business, Kelvin understands the need to market his staff in a professional way.  He uses professional images throughout his marketing to showcase his staff because knows they are critical in growing his brand.  You will find these images at the bottom of his email signature, on his Facebook page and on his website.  He is now taking this  one step further by getting some professional videos taken of his employees talking about some of the services they offer.

So next time you consider your brand, take a leaf out of the book of a savvy business owners such as Kelvin Ong from Beauty Grace.  His brand is everything to his business, as it should be to yours.