First impressions. Last impressions.

Your business’ reputation takes years to build. Yet every potential new customer will have formed an opinion about you and your business within seconds.

If the introduction was face to face then that opinion will have been informed by their impression of you, your knowledge, your professionalism, your surroundings, your language - even your clothes and hair.

Subconsciously, imperceptibly, everything you say, everything you do and everything you are will be absorbed by a potential customer. Each piece of data will be broken down into tiny parcels of information and processed. And at the end of the processing time, that potential customer will have made a decision as to whether they would like work with you. Or not. And that whole process could have lasted as long as 30 minutes – or as little as the time it took you to shake hands and say ‘hello’.

First impressions don’t just count. First impressions are everything. In business, first impressions are all there is.

Corporate design: the surrogate you.

When the introduction doesn’t come face to face then you can’t rely on your sparkling banter and witty repartee to hook a potential customer. You need another way of communicating your values: who you are, what you do, what’s important to you. Your brand, your corporate identity will act on your behalf – so you’d better make sure it’s on message.

What does your brand say about you? Do you even have a brand? Does it fit the image you wish to project? Does it sit uncomfortably with what you are and what you do? Is it confused or confusing?

In short, what first impression are you creating?

Mixed messages?

A strong, unified corporate design sends a powerful message about you, your business and your approach to your customers. It stands to reason that a lack of a single, evocative, effective corporate design does the opposite.

You can avoid the corporate design pitfalls by assessing your business against the following checklist:

1. What do you want to say? Consider what you do. What is your business? Who is it aimed at? What do you offer that your competitors’ don’t? What is it that makes you you? Does your brand reflect that? Do you have a design that chimes with your business or works against it? The best corporate designer can take your thoughts and weave them into a strong design that embodies your business; a design that will hook customers and make them think of you whenever they see it.
2. Originality? Perhaps you do have a corporate identity; a brand that you feel says everything you need to say. But how are you saying it? Is the design fuelled by an unnerving addiction to clipart? Is the language you use hackneyed and clichéd? What does the font you use say about you? A talented designer can craft original fonts and artwork without resorting to tired old standards.
3. Incongruous? The image you craft needs to fit your business, your customers and your ambitions. Get it right and the two will work together to confirm that you are who and what you say you are. Your customers will feel comfortable with you. Get it wrong and your image and message will jar with the reality. It will be the design equivalent of turning up for a board meeting in loon pants and a kaftan. Everyone will notice. Everyone will feel slightly embarrassed for you.
4. Confused? You may have dallied with corporate design in the past. Did you commission a logo but go no further? Later, did you commission someone else to redesign your business cards?
   The net effect is that your design is now all over the place. You have three different logos, signage bought off the shelf at a local hardware store, and stationery that traces the history of your business’ stabs at design - your invoices created in 1983, your business cards just last year.
   
   The impression this gives is that you have no single unifying strategy, no single identity – you may not be working on the hoof or winging it, but the image you project says different. You need a single message, not a schizophrenic smorgasbord of ideas and identities. Your designer will be able to craft something perfectly, uniquely you – and they won’t send mixed messages.

If your business suffers from one or more of the above conditions then you need the help of a corporate design specialist. They can cut through the mass of competing factors to find the very heart of what your business is, and they can create a bold, appropriate and effective identity that reflects it.

You can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t always be there to make that first impression. But your corporate identity, your brand, your logo can. Make sure they say something good about you.

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