Brand vs. Business: What's the difference?

Brand vs. Business: What's the difference?

You’ve started your own brand, but what does that mean? What is your brand? How do you use your brand to make money? How do you turn your brand into a business? The internet is full of all kinds of information about these subjects, but it’s not always easy to figure out which information you need to be paying attention to. Let’s lay it all out.

First of all, we need to acknowledge that the words “brand” and “business” are both vague terms with potentially broad meanings. When we talk about a brand, what are we really talking about? The dictionary definition of a brand is “a trademark or distinctive name identifying a product, service or organization.” Okay, so your brand is your trademark? Your brand is your name? Sort of, but it’s more than that.

Your brand is your story. Your brand isn’t a physical thing, it’s more of an idea, a feeling. Think of your brand as a pizza. The whole pizza is your brand, but there are lots of parts that make up the whole. Dough and sauce and cheese are all separate things, but when you put them together, you have a pizza.

Part of your brand is your trademark. Part of it is your brand name. But part of it is you. It’s the story of how you got here. Why did you start this brand? What do you want people to feel when they interact with your brand? Why did you choose this time and this place to start your brand? How do those elements of your story affect your brand’s look, its feel, its direction? Your brand is your story.

What about your business? The dictionary defines business as “the activity of buying and selling commodities, products, or services.” So if your brand is your story, your business is how you share that story with the world. Your brand is the “who, what, where, when, and why.” Your business is the “how” portion of the equation.

At F4mily Matters, we’re in the storytelling business, and we believe that the world deserves your story.

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