Is your brand worthy of the price you want to charge?
Think that brand is just your logo and colour scheme? Daniel Moore of Iron Dragon Design says that brand value is undervalued because it is the part of your business that immediately defines what customers will expect to pay you. Learn what parts of the business to check to understand if your brand is selling you short.
During ONLE Central, our monthly education discussion session, Daniel Moore of Iron Dragon Design asked a profound question that made us think about buyer perception: is your brand worthy of the business you are building?
Dan's starting point was simple. You can be brilliant at what you do, with years of experience and excellent work behind you. While your website, messaging or visual identity tells a very different story.
As Dan put it, “Clients do not buy your skill directly. They buy their perception of your skill.” If your branding makes a premium service look cheap, dated or uncertain, customers may struggle to reconcile that with the price you’re charging. His warning was sharp: “If your brand undersells your work, the market prices the brand, not the work itself.”
One of the clearest examples is a visual mismatch. If your work is premium but your website or wider brand feels “cheap and cheerful”, people can start doubting the price before they've properly understood what you offer. But Dan also cautioned against simply making everything look as expensive as possible. The aim is alignment: your brand should feel right for the customers you want to attract, the quality you deliver and the price you want to charge.
The same applies to the way your business sounds. Dan asked whether your messaging communicates expertise or makes you sound more like a nervous freelancer. “This isn't only about what you say. It's also about who you sound like when you say it.” A strong brand has a recognisable character and that character should carry through your website, emails, social media, networking conversations and the way you talk about price.
The problem for many small businesses is that brands are built in stages. A website might be three years old, while the LinkedIn profile was rewritten last month and your current messaging reflects a business that has evolved - often multiple times. Dan's advice was to audit your channels (website, social platforms, networking messages) to make sure the messaging is current and aligned.
He left our members with a test: “If a stranger landed on your website with zero context, would your visual identity and messaging alone justify the price you charge? Or would it justify the price you want to charge?”
That doesn't necessarily mean redesigning everything. Start with the place most customers are likely to encounter you - perhaps your website or LinkedIn profile - and ask whether it reflects the value of the business you are now.
Want to explore the core of your own brand? Daniel has created a free Brand Adventurer guidebook to help businesses build a brand their ideal clients connect with while standing out from the crowd.
What is ONLE Central?
This article is based on Daniel Moore's member spotlight at ONLE Central - one of the monthly all-member events included in our membership
It's one of nine optional member events available alongside our regional networking groups, giving members from across the UK, Ireland and the United States more opportunities to meet, learn from and build relationships with each other. Not an ONLE member yet? You can visit one of our regional meetings for just £5 using the code ONLEHELLO. Find a meeting that suits your schedule.