In today's interconnected world, the premise of brand-building gets increasingly broader and more hazy. You may be familiar with the term "brand," but do you know what it takes to build one?

Building a brand is a journey of self-awareness, conviction, and finding yourself in your business. Whether you're a CEO, a marketing expert, a freelancer, or even a regular joe, if you want to make an impact, you need to get your branding right.

Every business name and logo you see today is a product of labor-intensive branding.

The business card you received at that executive function didn’t just appear out of thin air. Someone put immense thought and heart into its design before deciding to hand it out for the world to see.

As an entrepreneur, building a brand for your business is a never-ending effort. But know this: The companies that invest in establishing great brands have a substantial competitive edge.

While the rewards are sweet, the journey to get there rarely is. But we want to change that.

Branding can be fun, quick, and easy with #BrandInMinutes

With our Brand Plan, it’s simpler than ever to #BrandInMinutes with our collection of professional branding templates and tools to help you launch the brand you’ve dreamt of for so long.

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The only way to understand the impact of having a #BrandInMinutes is to take a dive into the stories of entrepreneurs who have had to make it happen on their own.

And Amy Bos of MediumChat is the perfect example of this.

We spoke to Amy about her journey in building her brand for MediumChat.

Hopefully, her inspiring story can motivate new entrepreneurs, such as you, to take the leap and get your businesses out there.

1. Tell us about your business.

I have always had a strong passion for psychic and spiritual contact and felt an overwhelming need to use these gifts to help people.

People operating in this field have a limited audience base, which is determined by their location.

Launching a digital platform to help them expand their reach and enable them to share their gifts with a wider audience seemed like a natural progression. I am very much a planner and am cautious when taking on new challenges.

Personally, I found taking the step from planning to execution difficult. It really is a leap of faith in your abilities, your strategy, and your belief that your project will succeed.

Having surrounded myself with talented people who had a broad range of abilities gave me the confidence to take that leap.

2. How did you go about building a brand for your business?

Starting out, I was working with a limited budget, and I did a lot of the design work in-house. As a doodler, I had sketched out the logo design too many times to count, and it was a case of just having it polished before using it. Having the name and logo ready meant I had already overcome an enormous hurdle.

That said, creating the overall branding strategy was incredibly time-consuming.

We tested out a lot of brand colors and designs before we settled on one. Your branding needs to appeal to your audience in both design and tone. We built out from the foundations we had in place, tested continually, and as the business grew, we consulted with branding experts. Finally, we found what worked for us and our audience.

3. In your opinion, how important is it for a business to build a credible brand?

As an online platform, branding is one of the most important steps. We took everything at our own pace, taking care not to make any rushed decisions that could have had a negative impact on our brand.

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We documented our branding every step of the way, creating a manual that details colors, fonts, tones, and more. So we really took the process seriously, which paid off in the long run.

With our branding manual in place, it was simple for us to create collateral, giveaways, and ads. If one day we want to tweak our branding, it will simply be a case of updating our manual and then applying the changes across our platforms.

I am confident that being hands-on with branding, taking your time, and testing out ideas before making any decisions is the wisest strategy. Having a clear branding strategy has helped us set ourselves apart from our competitors.

4. How did you get your first customers?

Getting your first customer is truly exhilarating. It validates your efforts and motivates you to push forward with your business. I attribute securing our first client to the time we took honing our branding and marketing strategies.

As an online platform, our branding and marketing strategies are equally important to offer a great product.

Using clear branding, building our audience, and following our marketing strategy allowed us to inform our target audience that we provide a safe space with access to vetted professionals.

Entrepreneurs and leaders should understand how important branding and their overall marketing strategy are. This is even more so when facing issues in the economy. Many businesses choose to cut their marketing budget to reduce their overheads, but during difficult times, spending in this area should be amped up.

Often, during difficult times, there is an opportunity to expand your client base as other businesses advertise less.

5. What are your future plans with respect to building your business?

During the coming year, we plan to expand our social presence and are currently looking at new platforms to market our brand.

Over To You

Branding has no exact formula to it, but we do know there are a few key characteristics impactful brands have in common.

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And it might be tempting to look at the successful businesses and say, “I’ll take that brand, please!” But what makes a brand work is how it speaks to you.

What makes your business authentically you? Businesses that manage to be true to who they are, what they do, and why they do it are able to create lasting, evolving connections with their audiences. This authenticity is the core of your branding.

What are you waiting for? Shine bright and #BrandInMinutes today!