Words Reuben Butterfield, mbrand
Building a memorable business, finding your spark and doing what you love.
Maybe you’ve felt it too: the sense that things are moving just a bit faster these days. Social media feeds are full of conflicting advice. Do this. Do that. Pivot here. Scale there. If you’re not doing this (trend of the week), you’ll be left behind. It’s enough to make your head spin, and some days it feels like we’re sprinting just to stay in place.
For small business leaders, the pressure can be magnified. We often wear all the hats. We carry the weight of every decision. And in a world that keeps getting faster, it can be tempting to try to keep up at all costs. To chase trends. To copy what larger businesses are doing. To attempt to compete on speed, price, scale, or advertising reach.
But all that is often a race to the bottom. It can pull us away from what really matters: building an exceptional business, doing what we love. We need to remember why we went into business. For most of us, the money comes a few rungs down the ladder. Of course it matters, but there’s something else at the top: a spark to bring something meaningful to the world around you. That spark holds something remarkable – your gift, and the thing that only you can bring.
It’s also your business differentiator. It’s your unique story, method or experience that no one else can replicate. It’s your secret sauce; it’s the thing people can’t quite name but keep coming back for. The magic happens when you remember what this is, name it, lean into it and build everything around it.
This is the essence of brand strategy: knowing what makes you different and making that difference impossible to miss.
For some businesses, that difference is the founder showing up with full personality, being the face, the voice, the storyteller – the curator of the experience. For others, it’s a product so good, served up in an experience that people line up for. Maybe it’s a ritual customers plan their mornings or weeks around. Maybe it’s the way your team makes people feel the moment they walk through the door.
This is how you create “a category of one.” This is how you make your business unforgettable. Because people aren’t just buying what you sell; they could get it elsewhere. They’re buying an experience. They’re buying the story. They’re buying the feeling they get. They’re buying to be part of something. And when you give them that, they do more than shop: they share your name, they bring their friends and they become part of your journey.
This is what it means to craft the exceptional, and exceptional small businesses are alive and vibrating with this energy. They know what makes them special. They evolve around that. They intentionally add little moments of magic.
It means noticing the small details and making them better, and asking for feedback and really listening. It means trying new ideas, testing them, keeping what works and letting go of what doesn’t. Train teams that care. Design spaces that inspire, uplift and bring joy to customers. Create tiny, meaningful moments in other people’s days.
When we do this, we build more than businesses; we build streets that feel alive. We create jobs that mean something. We provide connection and depth. We keep the spark alive for ourselves and those around us. All of it creates a ripple effect that travels further than we imagine.
As small business leaders, that’s the world we get to build together. One memorable moment at a time. It starts here: (Re)discover your spark. Build around it. Tend to it.
Take a moment to reflect: have you drifted away from why you started? Where could you add one new small, genuine moment of delight for your customers? What would it take to make people talk about your business on the way home? Raise the bar. Make things memorable. Craft the exceptional.
www.mbrand.ca
