Kinonez

War Room Enthusiast

Is branding overrated?

Selling products is really straight forward and most of us are making cold calls anyway where most of the time none have ever heard of our brand or company unless you are with a giant like Apple or Coca Cola.

When a company says they want to enhance their brand or build brand equity it just means that want to improve their reputation, however most small businesses don’t even have one, they have to create it, and cold calls don’t help.

What are your thoughts on this? Should branding be a thing of the past or is it still essential to this day? Does cold calling interfere?

🔎 Prospecting

👑 Sales Strategy

📞 Cold Calling

58 comments

Sort by:

AlphaCharlie

Arsonist

Account executive

Branding is a must! Yes, most people you call are too busy to have heard of you, but the idea is that eventually all your efforts make sense and you get that one person who has and makes the transition to a sale a whole lot easier. I also don't believe cold calling is negative, it is annoying on the prospect side but in some regards, it's actually part of branding. If done right you might even get referrals!

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

You are right good cold calling brings more business to the family! I would also agree that branding does improve your odds of success if they know where you are talking from!

NoSuperhero

Politicker

BDR LEAD

Coming from the graphic design world I couldn't agree more. Good branding makes all the difference between an easy and hard sell on a good product.

Lenca

Politicker

BDR

I think companies spend too much on branding, does it help? yes. as much as they think it does? probably not. half of that money could be used on reps salary. I'm sure motivated and well paid reps would generate come income to the company than branding itself. I wouldn’t eliminate it though, just reduce it.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

I also believe most companies spend to much, Coca Cola spends 50% (or used to) of their total net income on branding and marketing. Then again who hasn't heard of them? I think reducing the money on branding could help smaller companies if they follow your plan!

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

It ties in to your overall company presence. You could have the most kickass product ever, but if nobody knows about you then it will be much harder to initially get going.
The overall approach generally being to hold or grow market share. Looks different in every industry though.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

The thing is for most small companies, no matter how much they invest the average prospect has never heard of them. Should they spend even more money?

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

Absolutely essential. You want to be known as “the person to go to for x”.

See also: Liquid Death.

Perfect example of how branding can drive success

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Oh yeah, Liquid Death indeed. Enough said!

Mr.Pickles

Arsonist

Sr. Customer Success Manager

Branding is what makes you go for the 999 USD newest iPhone instead of the newest 200 USD equality powerful Xiaomi. Is the adn of your company when it comes to selling. At some point, you rather paid the brand than a product. It can be translated in many ways - call it status, power, fashion, whatever it is - the brand is what takes you from zero to hero.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

I agree, however you are talking about a giant, who everyone has heard of, should small companies invest so much in branding? Can they compete with the giants?

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

What are you considering a small business? If a restaurant has a reputation for great service, wouldn't that be branding?

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Smaller than 50 seats. It would! it's just harder for smaller business to be top of mind. Since they have to compete with huge entreprises and their brandings.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Yeah, branding doesn't mean throwing out superbowl ads. For something like that competing against the goliaths, it's about carving out a niche and growing from there.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Of course, you don't need fancy ads to generate brand awareness, but having extra cash to put your brand in front of more people sure helps.

JC10X

Politicker

Senior Sales Manager

Branding is key and if cold calling is done right, it should also be a positive element to branding!

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Cold calling could be part of branding, after all it might be the first time a prospect hears about your company.

CaneWolf

Politicker

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

Branding matters a shitload. I've worked for super well known companies in their spaces and companies with zero name ID. It is so, SO much easier cold calling companies when people have at least heard the name of your employer. It gives you more credibility when selling. People are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say you can do something.

mollybloomstanaccount

Politicker

AE (Account Executive)

I don't think branding is overrated. Fyre Festival is a great example of how just through branding something can build up a hype and sell without even when there is nothing to back up the hype.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Made for a couple of really good documentaries too 🍿

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

I've never heard of the Fyre Festival. I'll look it up!

Tres

Politicker

Account Executive

Branding still helps, I would not say it's dead. It also depends on what level - globally it may be hard to increase your brand awareness, but you can definitely improve it within certain markets regionally and that will make a difference between no one has ever heard of you and at least some people knowing about your company.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Of course, branding's true purpose is so your customers or potential customers can have on their top of mind, so when you need a service or product you think of them!

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Yeah. Everyone has that top player in their space and they become the measuring stick. Branding makes you the measuring stick

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

How does Branding make you the measuring stick?

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Every CRM prospecting call probably references salesforce.

All of Gong's competitors are "like gong"

It's not purely marketing driven, but once a brand is established it's carries a lot of familiarity and you don't have to do much educating on the prospecting side

FromaBlankPerspective

Politicker

District Manager

This is a great point. "No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft" comes to mind with this too.

RedLightning

Politicker

Mid-Market AE

Exactly!

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

That's a solid point for sureIt's like a post-it note, the company is called post-it not the product, but you still think of the company's name even when buying other brands.

alecabral

Arsonist

Director - Digital Sales Transformation

It's absolutely needed.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I think it all depends on the size of your category and how many competitors you run into in common sales cycles. If your category is small, and you are constantly seeing the same 3-5 competitors, then your brand is going to play a major factor in your differentiation--especially from an inbound/marketing perspective.

The work you do when you're small will often compound in dividends as you grow. Big effort when your 10 people and establishing yourself in the market may only take small effort when you're maintaining/iterating down the road. Something to think about based on the lifecycle stage of a company.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Would it still be relevant if most of your competitors are way bigger than you? To paint this picture better, our competitors have the extra cash to put any message in front of the whole world. Our solution is surprisingly getting close to their league in features and quality, expect for one specific feature which would take us millions to implement.

That being said, it's hard to win customers over since they are always the top of mind. After a few years of branding most of the prospects don't recognize the brand since we are overshadowed by our competitors. Should we still focus on making branding our top priority or focus our attention on something else?

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I feel that you should switch your branding from "look at these features" to "we are authentic".

Authenticism at a smaller scale will make your prospects and customers feel like they are connected to your org. There is value in that, as most companies want to feel like they influence your roadmap and general product decisions. They may even overlook feature shortcomings if they feel like they belong to something.

While you can't compete with deep pockets, you can compete with the sentiment you create.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Love it! Authentic! We don't actually focus too much on features, just wanted to illustrate that we are catching up!

We try to portray being modern, which I don't think sells it. However, our platform is more robust, it's not a selling point for most.

Appreciate the 2 cents!

Kanyebut4sales

WR Lieutenant

Account Executive

Yes! Two extremely comparable products one is called gong the other is called Chorus. One is valued at 7.8 billion and the other just sold for 500 million I would say 90% of the reason here is brand. Gong fuckin killed it and wins 4 out of 5 deals. Both products are great

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Solid point, can Chorus compete with Gong on the branding side? If Gong has a los more cash flow and can invest waay more than Chorus, how can Chorus get ahead of the game?

Swarthymovie

Arsonist

SDR

I personally don't like cold calls, and normally when I get one out pf the blue no matter what they sell I already hate it, I'm young so my opinion may not be the best or more likeable but I rather do branding trough social media, friends and posts

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Yeah, I used to hate getting cold calls, now that I'm on the other side of the phone I enjoy them. The trill of the game when I'm calling and also to check someone else's skill when I'm reciving them!

bamageorge

Celebrated Contributor

International Sales Director

Branding is extremely essential... shows your values as a company, what you stand for, it's as important as the product/service itself.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

What if close to none of your prospects are aware of your branding? Is it still essential?

EH20

Politicker

Manager

I think if there can be a communication of quality of purpose then the branding is more of an icon for what that product is. As long as the company doesn't become complacent.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

Interesting point of view, what would it take for the company to become complacent?

EH20

Politicker

Manager

They would stop trying to meet the needs of their customers. Say there was a customer who was gluten free and wanted an option for them. Or a customer wished they used higher quality materials. A failure to address their growing base would lead to customers seeking new products from a different company.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

I see where you are comming from. It's important to undersatnd those cases and if a lot of customers whant something we don't have, let's change that!

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

I think a good brand can humanize the product and sales process a bit. A good example of this is Gong.IO - their brand is approachable and human, they have done a good job there.

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

The brand of an individual can be more important than the brand of a company. Especially these days.

Kinonez

Celebrated Contributor

War Room Enthusiast

There are some influencers who are better known than some small companies for sure. That being said it’s hard to out-shadow giants like Amazon.

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

Oh yeah. Coca Cola is always going to be bigger than the individual. But with a lesser-known company, people will buy from you.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

As someone who works for a company has an insanely polarizing brand in our space I cant express how important branding is. Its impossible to be #1 in your space if you arent at least moderately liked and known by your target market.

You can accomplish that without branding. One on our biggest issues is that half of our prospects hate us for shit that happened 10 years ago. That is now our brand in their eyes and it makes it so much more challenging to win.

Had we corrected these issues we would be #1 in our space by a mile.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

Brand recognition can help you to get a foot in the door and book a meeting.

All the rest is sales imo.

Jbeans

Opinionated

Director of Sales

Branding to me is led by marketing but driven by sales. If the sales team
cant leverage the brand to sell? What’s the point . Branding has to be consistent and recognizable - down to fonts - colours - company community presence and reputation. All that jazz. Takes time to get the word out for smaller companies - our team has to lead each demo/ meeting with a 5 min Corp overview to teach the consumers who we are and what we do. Showing big picture even if the demo is focused on one area - as can lead to more sales for other departments. Cold calling will never be easy - but the goal is to have our brand recognized as a major industry player so those calls might get somewhat easier down the line. I’ll prob be dead or in a home by then, but I’m helping pave the way for the new kids 😂😂

SaaSyBee

Politicker

Founder

Branding is crucial. But I feel like the comments have it covered here.

My favorite question here is "Does cold calling interfere?" and I'd say "It depends on how you're cold calling."

Because I've had the same thought before. (Most) people don't like receiving cold calls so how does that impact my company and my personal brand? But thankfully, in B2B SaaS, most people get that cold calling is part of the grind. And as long as you're doing a good job prospecting and not straying too far outside your ICP, you should be good.

MaximumRaizer

Politicker

Sales Manager

Branding is key and if cold calling is done right, it should also be a positive element to branding!

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

It ties in to your overall company presence. You could have the most kickass product ever, but if nobody knows about you then it will be much harder to initially get going.

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

ISR

I think companies spend too much on branding, does it help?

Flippinghubs

Opinionated

Account Executive

Branding is a must!

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

Kinonez

Is branding overrated?

58 comments

Related posts

Personal Branding: Yay or Nay?? (As a sales person)

Personal branding has become a thing in LD.

Gong's New Branding