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Ever wondered what industry giants like Apple, Amazon, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola have in common that lead to their success?
Yes, they’re innovative, have long histories, and built global footprints. But, they also share an often-overlooked characteristic that small businesses can emulate to propel their own growth: consistency.
You see, from the way they serve their customers to how they market themselves, the most successful businesses in the world have created processes and systems that have helped them earn customer loyalty; allowed them to build brand authority; and—ultimately—go from small businesses to big, successful, world-renowned entities.
Now, we aren’t saying you need to become the next McDonald’s or even make your small business a big business. However, when you look at the big businesses we’re all familiar with, it becomes clear that if you want to grow and scale your business, you have to establish, commit to, and create processes that support consistency.
In other words, consistency is the key to scaling your small business. And, there are five areas of your business where you can—and should—establish consistency so that you can better serve your customers, build customer loyalty, establish brand authority, and—ultimately—reach your business goals.
1. Establish consistency in the way you serve your customers.
First and foremost, you need to establish consistency in the way you serve your customers. Let’s talk about McDonald’s. Whether you love a Big Mac or not, you know that whether you order this classic on the West Coast, on the East Coast, or anywhere else in the world, you’re going to get the same burger.
This is important to note because this is arguably one of the biggest reasons McDonald’s has become so successful. You see, people naturally want to know what to expect. They crave consistency. And, as a result, McDonald’s is a no-brainer stop on a road trip or when you need a quick meal.
Just like McDonald’s food is consistent, you can—and should—establish consistency in the way you serve your customers. And, this includes establishing consistency in the quality of your products and services, the way you fulfill transactions, how you communicate with your customers, and every aspect of the client experience you offer.
Because, when your customers know what they can expect from you, they will be thrilled with your work as it’s exactly what they expected. And, they will be much more likely to become repeat customers as well as to refer your business to friends and family.
In order to create this kind of consistency, you have to develop systems. Just like every McDonald’s uses the same Big Mac recipe, you need to develop repeatable steps that you can use for each and every sale.
To do this, map out every step of a customer’s journey with you and determine exactly what needs to be done and when so that you and your team have step-by-step instructions. Then, to consistently serve your customers well, all you need to do is follow these instructions and/or create automations that complete these steps for you.
Again, people crave consistency, and when your customers know what to expect when they work with or purchase from you, they’ll be much more likely to become repeat customers and to rave about your small business to others, which will only aid in business growth.
2. Build a consistent brand.
Another area in your business where you need to develop consistency is within your brand. Let’s look at Coca-Cola. This business is more than 100 years old, and while this company has certainly innovated and added new products over the last century, its brand has largely stayed the same.
For example, Coca-Cola’s visual brand—which features a red-and-white color scheme and distinctive script font—is so consistent that it's recognized across the globe and is arguably one of—if not the—most classic visual brands of all time.
Then, while Coca-Cola’s campaigns may vary from year to year, fostering sharing and togetherness remains at the center of their brand messaging.
This visual brand and messaging consistency has made Coca-Cola a household name and a brand that people remember.
Now, can brands change and innovate? Yes. Has Coca-Cola made updates to its brand throughout its history? It has. But, do you know what you won’t ever see this company do? Release anything that isn’t true to its brand.
And, as a small business, you shouldn’t either. To build a consistent brand, you need to do two—possibly three—things:
1. Create clear, consistent messaging.
First, you need to create clear, consistent messaging. If you’re a regular Priority Pursuit listener/reader, you know the key to effective marketing is clear messaging. However, the key to effective branding is consistent messaging.
While many small businesses fly by the seat of their pants and say what they want when they want, when you have consistent messaging, your audience will hear your messaging again and again, and as a result, they’ll remember it. Thus, having a consistent brand message will help prospects remember you when they need your product or service.
You can create clear, consistent messaging by writing what we call your “Marketing Guiding Statements.” Marketing Guiding Statements are written guidelines that position your brand and business as a trusted partner. And, the process of developing these statements gives you the information you need to write clear, concise, and effective messaging in a story-based framework.
Because small businesses' marketing cannot succeed without clear, consistent messaging, we put together a free mini course that walks you through exactly how to write your small business’s Marketing Guiding Statements: “The First Step to Effective Marketing for Small Businesses: Writing Your Marketing Guiding Statements.”
2. Define your “brand topics.”
Now, if you have a personal brand—which we’d argue that almost every small business owner should—in addition to your messaging, it’s also important to define your “brand topics.”
Studies show that people are most likely to buy from people and brands that they feel like they know. And, as a small business owner, you can use this to your advantage by helping your ideal customers get to know you.
Now, you don’t have to tell your audience everything about your life, and honestly, you shouldn’t. But, defining and using brand topics is a strategic way to help prospects connect with you.
In case you aren’t familiar with this idea, brand topics are simply areas of your life and business that you share and that you want people to think about when they think of you and will be of interest to your ideal customers.
Just to give you an idea, in this episode, Victoria shares that her brand topics are:
- Priorities
- Marriage
- Motherhood (specifically being a working mom)
- Hattie (her dog)
- Supporting small, local businesses
- Self-worth/battling perfectionism
- Small business marketing education
- Small business SEO education
You’ll notice that some of these topics are directly related to her services as a marketer and SEO coach, while others are personal.
Your brand topics will look different than Victoria’s because you want them to help your ideal customers feel connected to YOU. With this in mind, identify five to nine brand topics and make them part of your personal brand strategy—which can be as simple as posting about these things on social media or making mention of them on your podcast if you have one. That said, the key is to make mention of them consistently so that your audience remembers you and associates you with these topics.
You might be thinking, “This step seems like a waste of time. People don’t need to know me. They need to know about my products or services.” However, defining and consistently using brand topics will help your audience connect with you and make them much more likely to think of you when they need your products or services. Because again, people buy from people they know—or at least feel like they know.
3. Establish a consistent visual brand.
Then, last but certainly not least in regards to building a consistent brand, you need to establish a consistent visual brand. Let’s go back to thinking about Coca-Cola and their timeless, classic visual brand.
Whether this company posts an organic graphic on social media or pays millions of dollars to run a Super Bowl commercial, you can just glance at these items or pieces of content and instantly know that you’re seeing something from Coca-Cola—even before you see their logo. This is because the visual brand—the aesthetic—is cohesive and invokes brand recognition.
Now, many small businesses—on the other hand—don’t take the time to establish a visual brand. This results in them creating visuals on a whim and often using whatever template is readily available to them—regardless of colors, fonts, or imagery. This might be convenient, but as a reminder, people crave consistency. As a result, when you don’t have a consistent visual brand, your business comes across as cheap and haphazard, and people will likely unconsciously assume that your products and services are as well.
While you might not be running Super Bowl ads, you can—and should—build a consistent visual brand because this consistency will increase your brand recognition, add credibility, build trust and customer loyalty, and make your small business more likely to be remembered when someone is in need of your products or services.
Plus, when you have a consistent visual brand, you can also increase efficiency as it’s much easier to design marketing materials when your visual brand has already been defined.
3. Market & advertise your business consistently.
The third thing that big businesses do consistently but many small businesses don’t is market and advertise their businesses.
As a marketing agency for small businesses, we regularly hear small business owners and leaders say, “We know marketing is important, but we’re just busy. We market and advertise the business when we have time or when we need more business, but during busy seasons or when we need to make budget cuts, marketing is the first thing to go.”
To be blunt, this is a big mistake that successful businesses don’t make. Take Apple for instance. In the United States, the iPhone is the most popular cell phone. In fact, in 2023, more than half of US consumers owned an iPhone.
While the iPhone has become the most popular cell phone on the market and while Apple arguably has “enough” business, this doesn’t mean that Apple stops marketing this product, and the company’s success doesn’t result in Apple deciding to make marketing less of a priority. Instead, Apple continues to market itself and its products, which only results in further growth.
Now, to be fair, Apple and other big businesses have massive marketing teams, and as a small business owner or leader, you and your team likely have a lot on your plates.
However, if you want to scale and be successful long term, you have to have the capacity to consistently market your small business. To do that, we want to encourage you to do one of two things:
1. Implement the flywheel marketing strategy.
If you and/or your team want to handle your own marketing, implement the flywheel marketing method—which is an effective, time-saving marketing strategy.
We’ve talked about the flywheel marketing strategy and the results we’ve seen it deliver (up to 800%) in past episodes. But, put simply, the flywheel marketing method is a marketing strategy where your website and online marketing efforts are in sync and function as a flywheel to continually produce results.
To learn this strategy and make it your own, download our free guide: “The Most Effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: The Flywheel Marketing Method.”
2. Outsource your marketing.
If you don’t have time to build and implement a marketing strategy, it’s time to consider outsourcing your marketing and the development of your marketing flywheel—whether that be in full or just pieces of it. Because, again, if you want to grow and scale your business, you have to have the capacity to consistently market your business.
If you’re interested in outsourcing your marketing, we want to invite you to explore our flywheel marketing service and to schedule a discovery call. We build and maintain our clients’ flywheels so that they can focus on other important aspects of their businesses and life outside the office.
Whether you handle your own marketing or outsource it, please remember that consistency matters and that the flywheel marketing method will allow you to consistently market your small business.
4. Create standard operating procedures for your team.
In addition to establishing consistency for customer service, branding, and marketing, you also need to create consistency for your team by establishing standard operating procedures (SOPs).
We talk about systems and SOPs on the show regularly, but so we’re clear, when we say “systems,” we’re referring to set protocols and tools that are used in repeatable, consistent ways to achieve a goal. Systems can—and should—be built for each and every element of your business, including the ways you serve your clients, how you market your business, and any and all other tasks that must be completed to run your business.
For example, let’s look at Amazon. Do you think two-day or same-day shipping would be possible if Amazon hadn’t taken the time to build SOPs for its team? Absolutely not.
As a small business, it’s important to develop consistent systems because when you have them, you can increase efficiency. And, when there are set protocols for completing tasks, you and your team can make the most of your time and resources. Plus, you can even take things off of your plate, because when you have instructions for completing a task, you can assign that task to someone else.
5. Establish a means to allow for innovation.
For the record, establishing consistency within your small business doesn’t mean things should always stay exactly the same. In fact, innovation is another area of your business where consistency matters.
From your products and services to the tools you use behind the scenes, there is always going to be room for improvement. And, like big businesses, if you want your small business to stay competitive, you have to prioritize innovation.
To be clear, we aren’t saying that you need to create something that revolutionizes the world. We’re simply saying that you need to make time to focus on innovation.
For example, at Treefrog, once a month, our entire team dedicates two hours to research. This isn’t the only time we do research, but from 10 am to 12 pm on the second Wednesday of the month, we stop doing client work and use those blocked two hours to further research something in our industry or a tool or tactic that would allow us to better serve small businesses. Then, the following Wednesday, we report our findings and determine if we need to make any changes to our services or systems.
Again, you don’t have to create or build something that changes life as we know it. But, if you want your small business to be successful long term, you need to consistently seek better ways to serve your customers and to do what you do—even if that simply means blocking out a few hours every month to do research, attending a conference or two a year, or investing in some kind of education.
Consistency is the key to scaling your small business & long-term success.
As we wrap up this episode, we want to acknowledge that most small business owners become small business owners because they want freedom. They want to be able to call the shots and make decisions as they see fit.
However, having freedom doesn’t mean you should fly by the seat of your pants or chase every new idea that excites you. When you do this, you and your team will spend too much of your valuable time putting out fires; your customers likely won’t be served well; your business won’t be able to earn brand authority or customer loyalty; and—ultimately—you won’t be able to scale and grow your small business.
However, when you choose consistency, you can set your business up for long-term success—in the same way that some of the most well-known brands in the world have. So, whether you’ve been in business for five minutes or you opened your doors decades ago, if you want to scale your small business, commit to consistency. It's a cornerstone of building a successful business of any size.
Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Take “The First Step to Effective Marketing for Small Businesses: Writing Your Marketing Guiding Statements” Mini Course
- Episode 122: Design for Success: 7 Graphic Design Mistakes Small Businesses Make
- “Download “The Most Effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: The Flywheel Marketing Method”
- Learn More About Treefrog Marketing’s Flywheel Marketing Service
- “Episode 118: Four Systems Every Small Business Must Have to Increase Efficiency & Growth”
- Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook
- Save $20 on Your First order from InstaCart of $35 or More
- Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services
- Join the Priority Pursuit Facebook Community
- Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
- Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
- Follow or DM Victoria Rayburn on Instagram
The Priority Pursuit Podcast is a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
You can find The Priority Pursuit Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
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