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Improving Your Consulting Brand: No More Excuses!

By Sam Zipursky
4 Comments

It really amazes me.

In fact I’m actually quite surprised.

Once you have a good logo it can be the base for your visual identity.

At the amount of consulting “professionals” I deal with and come across that don’t have a nice looking and professional logo or visual identity to represent their brand.

It’s not that they don’t run a successful business or aren’t good at what they do.

In fact it’s most often the opposite. They are experts and great at what they do.

The problem I often see is that their logo and overall visual identity really haven’t been designed properly and that gives a mixed message to potential clients.

What is a visual identity?

Let’s take a step back for a moment and just make sure we’re all on the same page here when I talk about having a professional logo and visual identity.

Your visual identity is a small but important part of your overall business or personal brand. It’s the visual side of things. It’s the way you present yourself to the world.

At the forefront of this you have your logo, and then the colors you use, your website, the fonts you use, any print material like business cards and brochures, etc.

Why is it important?

In this day and age it’s more important than ever.

We are visual people and receive thousands of messages each day.

In order to stand out among all the “noise” out there we need have a visually appealing brand.

Not only that, whether we like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover, it’s just human nature.

Ask yourself the question. When you go to a website or receive a business card at an event don’t you take notice and show more interest in the person or company that “looks” professional through their design and way they present themselves?

Of course you do, we all do!

Your Logo as a Starting Point

Today I want to focus on one key thing that can help get your consulting brand moving in the right direction and that is making sure you have a professional looking logo to represent your brand.

Once you have a good logo it can be the base for your visual identity.

Lots of people I come across have make shift logos and then just use what they have. When I ask them why they don’t invest in a solid design they say things like:

  • I’m not a designer and I did it myself, it’s fine for now
  • It’s way too expensive to hire a professional graphic design firm
  • We’ve never had the time to get around to it
  • I had my 14 years old grandson design it. He does some design at school (I’ve seriously heard this at least 2 times).

Well today I want to throw all these reasons out the window and recommend an affordable, online service where you can easily get a professional and unique custom logo and/or visual identity designed.

Introducing 99designs.com

The well-known website 99designs.com is what people call a design contest marketplace.

It’s a large community of talented graphic designers from all around the world just waiting to design great stuff for you at a great price.

If you want to step up your business game this is one area you shouldn’t be sleeping on, just do yourself and your business the favor and get it done!

As 99designs puts it, you get “Professional Quality Design at a Fraction of the Price”

We have used and recommended this service to many clients that want to take their consulting brand to the next level and get proper logos or visual identity designs.

It’s a simple 4 step process actually:

  1. Visit 99designs.com and choose “get started now”
  2. Tell the community about what you want – this is where you fill in their simple design brief and choose how much you want to pay for your project.
  3. Your project begins and you get back dozens of design options – Designers start getting initial designs back to you and you have a chance to give them some feedback.
  4. Choose the design you want – You then have 1 week to look at all the designs that were submitted for your contest and choose the one you like the most. There’s even a money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the design options, how good is that?

So what are you waiting for?

If you want to step up your business game this is one area you shouldn’t be sleeping on, just do yourself and your business the favor and get it done!

A good logo and visual identity is definitely an important part of any successful business out there and now with a service like 99designs there’s no reason not to take care of this in your business!

If you have any comments or thoughts I’d love to hear below.

Sam-Zipursky-Bio-PicThis article was written by Sam Zipursky who is the branding and design director of ConsultingSuccess.com.


4 thoughts on “Improving Your Consulting Brand: No More Excuses!

  1. Kirk Bridger says:

    These kinds of “marketplace” services make me cringe as a consultant who has a valuable service to offer. The sites encourage professionals and freelancers to de-value their services by submitting their expertise for free, possibly with no compensation. As a customer you see many options to choose from, but imagine if you were participating in trying to sell your branding or graphic design services. Comb the marketplace for something that might be profitable, and do the work with a high likelihood you won’t be paid.

    I get the value from the customer’s point of view, but hesitate to support the service in support of a healthy freelance community.

    How many RFP responses or consulting proposals would you chase when the compensation is below your usual price and you have to deliver most of the potential contract’s value as part of the submission?

    • That’s a very good point, Kirk. When “freelancing” as a web & graphic designer for a while, I always hesitated to participate in any crowdsourcing platforms exactly for the same reason. My work has no value unless I receive some “stars” from the project owner.

      For consultants the best alternative is to find & attract trusted partners that are willing to sit with them and learn about their business.

      • Thanks for checking out the article Daniel and joining the conversation!

    • Hi there Kirk,

      Thanks for jumping into the conversation. Being a trained graphic designer myself and selling design services and custom websites through this site I know exactly what you are saying and agree in many ways.

      But I do think that when it comes down to it, the market dictates what they really want and need and there is a reason a service like this has exploded.

      I definitely think that if a consultant can afford it and really wants a serious logo and visual identity they should find and hire a professional design firm as they most likely will get the best results from that but it will definitely cost a lot more.

      Nice comment!

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