Many small business owners think that branding is a futile exercise because they don’t have Coke’s ad budget, Nike’s connection to famous athletes, or Starbucks’ real estate. Here's the secret to building a powerful brand:

"You are the brand, act like it."

Your brand is how you dress, It’s how you greet customers, ship them products, send them invoices, and respond to complaints. The size of your advertising budget pales in importance next to your ability to recognize that your brand is the sum of everything you do.

By “you,” I mean everyone in your company, from the owner to the intern.

Not long ago, I asked my team whether there was anyone who had something on Facebook that could embarrass our company or our brand. Everyone said no. Then I asked about the Facebook comment that I can’t repeat here. “Oh, that,” was the reply.

Yes, that. Stuff like that will drag your brand down.

Social media is so pervasive. You can set out to be a certain type of person or brand, but you don’t realize that everything you do and say is part of your brand. You can’t wall off your Official Marketing Messages from the flippant comments your team posts on their personal Twitter account, which has your name in the description. You can’t hide the way a hungover employee keeps a customer waiting for three minutes in your store.

In my mind, branding goes back to the days when ranchers literally stamped their brand on the back of a cow. That brand said, "This is me, this is what I stand for, and this is how I feed my family."

A few days ago, a TV service man visited my new home to install my TVs. He had a marvelous brand. He was on time, extremely polite, paid attention to details, and made certain I understood my new system before he left.

Whether you have two employees or 200,000, all branding leads up to the moment of touch. This occurs after a customer has found you, interacted with your offerings, decided to purchase your products, and finally experiences your product or service. The moment of touch is the sum of everything you did to serve that customer.

Even if your ad budget is zero, every day you wake up and make vital branding decisions.
If your brand is, "we’re the cheapest, crappiest company in the world" then that’s what it is. If you want to settle for that, so be it.

If your brand is, "we are consistently professional, responsive and caring," then I bet you will succeed beyond all expectations as long as you follow your vision.

One last observation, branding is equally important when dealing with your suppliers. At my company, we have a rule: no one is rude to our people and we are never rude to anyone else. If a customer is rude to my people, we’re done with them. If we are rude to a supplier, we cannot fault the supplier for wanting to be done with working with us.

The truth is, you ARE your brand. Live that way.

Martin Varley has been an entrepreneur since age 15 and has built a steady succession of successful and profitable companies.