One of the biggest branding mistakes established businesses make is assuming their customers understand the business as well as they do.

You’ve been doing this for years. You know your industry. You know your services. You know the terminology. You know exactly what you mean when you describe what you do. But your customer might not. And this is where established businesses can accidentally make their brand harder to understand.

This generally happens because the longer you’ve been in business, the more knowledge you build around it, and eventually, that knowledge starts to feel obvious.

So rather than giving you a list of ten branding mistakes, here are three main ones I’d watch for.

Firstly, instead of talking about what you do, try talking about why someone should choose you. Most businesses use terminology like: “We provide…”, “We specialise in…”,“Our services include…” All perfectly reasonable, but they don’t necessarily answer the question your potential customer is actually asking which is – “Why should I care? If your brand is mostly describing the business from the inside, rather than helping customers understand its relevance to them, I’d investigate that.

Secondly, established businesses often have a very strong reputation within their existing network. And that’s brilliant, but reputation doesn’t automatically travel. Someone who has never worked with you doesn’t have the benefit of all those years of experience. They need to understand why you’re credible. Why you’re different, and why you might be the right choice. So ask yourself: “If someone discovered us today, with absolutely no prior knowledge of our business, would they understand why we’re worth considering?” That’s quite a good test.

And finally, try to stop saying everything. Established businesses tend to do more. More services, more expertise, more sectors, more capabilities – and naturally, they want the brand to communicate all of it. But sometimes the more you try to explain, the harder it becomes for someone to understand what you’re particularly good at.

You don’t necessarily need to hide the breadth of your business, but you do need to know what you want people to remember first, because customers don’t experience your business with the same depth that you do. They encounter it in moments, and if those moments require too much work to understand, you’ve introduced friction before the relationship has even started.

So if you’re reviewing your brand, don’t only ask: “Does it look right?”Ask: “Does someone who doesn’t know us understand why we matter?” Because your business might be completely clear to you…and still be surprisingly difficult for everyone else to choose.

See you next time for Squark Design’s Branding Bites.