Growing a successful business requires more than just delivering a quality product – it demands strategic brand building and market awareness. Rita Kim, founder of a rapidly expanding donut company with nine stores across Australia, has learned this firsthand. Through conversations with business legends and hands-on experience, she’s discovering what it takes to build a lasting brand in today’s competitive food industry.
The Power of Brand Recognition
For the past six months, Rita has shifted her focus from traditional expansion to building brand awareness. A pivotal conversation with UGG founder Brian Smith reinforced this strategy. “I sat down and had a chat with UGG founder Brian Smith about his brand, how he built awareness because obviously it started in Australia but is now an international brand,” Rita explains. The lesson was clear: recognition often trumps perfection. “It doesn’t matter if you make the best burger in town, but if you’re well known like McDonald’s, you will do better than the best burger in town,” Rita notes. “I’m not saying we just push out a mediocre product – obviously, we still have to get a good quality product. But you cannot take marketing and brand awareness for granted.”
Getting Noticed in a Crowded Market
Even with nine successful stores, Rita discovered that visibility doesn’t guarantee recognition. “One of the big mistakes for people like me, I used to think I have nine stores, everyone must have known about me, but that’s not true – even the people in the area don’t know about me,” she shares. “I have a store in Chatswood right in the middle of Chatswood, it’s a big store and you cannot miss it, but I had a chat with somebody the other day and they were like ‘so where’s your store?’ and I said ‘Chatswood’ and they’re like ‘my house is right there’ but they never really paid attention to me.”
This realization led to creative solutions. “That’s why I started having balloons, handing out things, doing fun things to get people’s attention,” Rita explains. “Kids will see the balloon and say ‘mom, I want one!’ We hand out balloons for free with our logo on it. And then people ask, ‘how long have you been here for?’ And we’re like, ‘We’ve been here for two years.'”
Staying Ahead of Competitors
When faced with imitators, Rita maintains a forward-thinking approach. “People start to follow me and copying me, and the only way to beat them is to always be different, to always jump ahead,” she says. “The best they can do is just copy me from three months ago. They’d just be the old version of me.” Rita focuses on creating unique advantages that can’t be replicated. “A lot of the things I do, they may not be able to copy. For example, they didn’t get to meet Brian Smith. They didn’t get coached by Sir Richard Branson,” she notes, referencing a recent coaching session in LA with the Virgin founder.
Strategic Business Growth
Brian Smith also provided valuable insights about pricing and expansion. When Rita needed to raise prices, she initially worried about customer reaction. “Before I bumped up the price, I was really worried that the next day nobody will buy the donuts. They go to the store, see it’s 50 cents more expensive, and then walk out,” she recalls. However, the reality proved different: “Nobody gave a damn about it. The sales stayed normal, the amount of sales made on the system is still the same, and then on weekends they’re still high sales.”
Smith also emphasized careful consideration of growth metrics. “When you expand too fast, you’ve got to think of your rate of profit,” Rita explains. “If I have a million in revenue and my profit is say 50% to make it simple – if I do 2 million, will it still be 50% or will it be 40%? You have to think about that because if you take on more contracts, there’s more expense coming because you have to hire more people, you have to rent more real estate.”
Through strategic partnerships with platforms like Groupon and ShopBack, each with millions of customers in their databases, Rita continues to expand her brand’s reach. Her focus remains on constant improvement rather than competition. “Keep your head down, focus on your thing, just aim to be better than myself yesterday,” she says. “That would be something that really helps me.”
To learn more about Rita Kim, check out her website.
