Does your business look good?

Too many small and medium-sized companies neglect their brand and focus solely on what they do. This is a huge mistake. Your customers don't just make decisions based on performance and pricing, but also on how they feel. The better your company looks, the better the feeling it leaves prospective buyers.

Legendary marketing professor Phillip Kotler says: "does anybody really believe that people can turn themselves into unemotional and utterly rational machines when at work?"

The aesthetics of your business matters, no matter the sector you serve. A well-crafted brand creates a professional image that underscores all the "soft stuff" that ultimately determines a deal, such as trust, expertise, attention to detail, modernity and a point of difference.

Does your business look good to the outside world?

By focusing on both what you do as a business, and how you look, you can stand out from the crowd and take charge of your customer relationships by showing them you are more than just another supplier. In fact, one could argue that your profit sits in the relationship you build with your customer and that your brand image plays a big part in this. Admit it, the pure "performance-driven" stuff has long since become table stakes.

You can never simply have a functional presence in the market. You must have an emotional one too, even if you are the most industrial of companies, in the worst part of town.

Take a look at your business from the outside in and ask yourself, does it look good? Even better, ask a few outsiders what they think. It could be the start of a journey to more profit.