Colour Psychology for Business

Hello and welcome to the show. Today I'd like to talk about colours that sell. Now, of course, if you've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that this is not the kind of thing I typically talk about. So today, why am I talking about colours If and talking about colours to see if there's any way that it can help you sell and improve your business. Well, the reason why is because on my timeline I've been seeing lots of LinkedIn chatter.

One post in particular had the main thesis that you need the right colours. You read the you need the right colours for your visuals because colours evoke emotions. And the examples that the individual gave was how red signals danger, how green signals growth and success, and how blue signals trust and stability. And because of that, you can use these colours in your visuals to evoke these sorts of emotions. And I think it was kind of implied that if you use the right colours, eventually you should be able to have much more successful advertising and marketing and branding and then grow your business.

OK, on the show I have always said that this should not be our starting point when we're trying to improve our businesses. And hopefully I'll be able to convince you guys so that you won't spend so much time obsessing about these sorts of things. Because I have come across folks, I have known one person spend 3 months like I haven't started blah, blah, blah, Why? What's up? All the graphic designer hasn't gotten back to me.

This is that I want the brand and blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to rebrand. I want to do this. I want to do this for three months. I'm not kidding, three months. That's on logo and brand and all that. Then I've also known someone, I think that was maybe was it 2 weeks, 2 weeks or three weeks? Not that long. Where was about these sorts of things, this color versus that color. So some of you might say, so you spent three months you didn't start or OK, you spent three weeks, you didn't start.

So why was that a big deal? The truth of the matter is when we're trying to grow our business, there's lots of stuff that we do that compounds over time. So maybe in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't matter if you started in January of 2025 and you started in April. But truth of matter is if you had started in January instead of April, you would have gotten some learnings, some traction, some feedback, some XYZ.

Fill in the blank that would help your business to be in a better spot by the time we come round to April. So my own opinion, we're always better starting sooner than later. And I found that when you start getting into this kind of thing, this kind of mindset, you want to spend a long time quibbling over all kinds of stuff and trying to aim for some sort of perfection, whether you have the perfect colour or the perfect font or the perfect whatever.

Now, one of the reasons why I say we should shy away from these sorts of things is some of these things are culturally nuanced. Well, then we're reading American books or listening to American influencers and then trying to make decisions based off of that. So, for instance, red danger, green growth and success, blue trust and stability, while the blue trust and stability, I guess it's obvious looking at Western countries, you know,

IBM, let's see what else? Like accounting firms, you know, we have a bunch of blue in it and, you know, on and on and maybe like blue being the colour of consultants. So yeah, there's some of that going on. But then there's some cultural nuance that goes into these sorts of things. For instance, the Asian countries, you know, China and, you know, our people in the Orient, for them, red is often the colour of good luck, not of danger.

Now, even if someone didn't tell me, I would have picked that up as a hint because I spend a lot of time now watching lots of Korean movies. As in Korean movies are absolutely like, they're the best. They're the bomb. Like, Korean people may have gone far. They've left us when it comes to, you know, movies and all that, all that jazz. So you watch Netflix, give it a go. As in Korean movies, they're correct on point. Chinese movies, Chinese people also on points.

What else? That was a while when I, I was also watching Vietnamese movies as well. You know, Vietnamese ROM coms also on point, as in those guys, they do well. So I'm watching all those movies. It becomes clear now for them, red is obviously not the sign of danger because red adorns everything. You're remembering your ancestors. It's adorned in red. It's a wedding. Everybody's decked in red something, you know, celebrations, blah blah blah.

So red. So even if we want to put a lot of time and emotional stock into these sorts of things, can we at least realize that these things are culturally nuanced? Let's stop this whole thing of red always equals danger, green always equals growth, blue always equals trust and stability. So it depends. Although there was one useful tape there about avoiding the combinations of red and green because of colour blindness. And for those people who have,

well, colour blindness, first of all is a range, a different spectrum where people can't see select colours in the spectrum. And so yes, I have heard on a documentary, because I have two inquisitive boys, so they always have questions. The questions I can answer, I answer and where I need resources, I look for resources. So yes, red and green colour blindness, that is the most popular 10 By the way, if any of you suffers from colour blindness, let me know.

I'd like to have a conversation with with you guys. I'm just curious. I just want to know how it works and how you guys see the world. So yes, there was one useful tip there. Avoid red and green because of colour. Colour blindness conversations, sorry. Colour blindness considerations, sorry, forgive me. So all this talk, the goal is you know, you should improve the clarity of your business communications and then also get more engagement when you use the right colours for your visuals.

So that is the whole idea. Anyway, let me see what else. OK, let me just go through a couple of tips that the author recommended before I continue on my rant. So she also gave more tips. She said that we should pick two to five colours for consistency. That seems to be good practice because I have worked with some brand folks before and then just looking around, it's hard to see businesses that have a splash of colors in their in their visuals.

And then she also advocated that we use contrasting colors. So, you know, all of this is really, really good. And then from my photography background, she said one thing that I agree with, that we have to be mindful when it comes to color reproduction because some things look different in digital than they do in print. This is something that I've seen live because you take a picture, it looks on your mobile phone, It looks wonderful on the iPad.

But then you print out the photo book, and all of a sudden, that blue that you thought was popping didn't quite pop, or that red that you thought was catchy didn't quite catch. So it happens. Yeah. So just be mindful of these sorts of things. A logo might look fantastic on the phone and on the computer, but then on your letterhead it might look flat. So I guess This is why I should always have professional, professional help when we're trying to sort out these sorts of things.

So let me continue with my rat or continue with my take. My take is that yes, I agree, those people are correct. Colors can inform your sales because crappy colors, crappy logos, crappy branding, crappy every every. Yes, you can negatively impact your sales, but the main reason why your business is offering, if your business is offering is not because of the colours or the branding or the all this other stuff. It'll be nice if we can tidy up all these things, but we all know businesses that have the wrong name or a wonky brand or colour or whatever, but they still sell.

I mean like who would expect that these cars, Great Wall, Great Wall cars, Chinese, Chinese brand, who would expect that Great Wall will still be selling? I mean, their logo looks like a crappy Trident and the font is, I don't even know what the font is called. But for some reason, Nigerians are still buying Great Wall cars. So that's my take, that these things are important. Sorry, one moment. OK, I'm back. Sorry about that.

For those of you who are using very, very good earphones to listen to this podcast, I'm sure you already figured out what happened. You know, based on the knocking on the door. My, my little one, the baby, well, not quite a baby because he's a little over 5 now. Anyway, they made a mess in the room so I told him to go and tidy up and he came and knocked on the door. Progress report and all that. Certainly that's why I had to cut away.

So now I'm back and for those of you who are sticklers about audio quality, don't worry, eventually the kids will grow up and leave. Or when they make a bit more money and I'll actually hire a production team around these sorts of things so that we can make the audio much more cleaner and cut out all the interruptions and things like that. What was I now? Yeah, I was in the middle of giving you guys my take, which is our colours are important and colours can inform sales, but it's not the main reason why your business is suffering.

It's not as safe. If you change your colour from blue to green or from red to blue, or from blue to cyan, or from cyan to magenta, you know your profits are going to automatically triple or double. And that, my dear friends, was the reason why I say this is where we should spend the least amount of our time in the beginning, because making tweaks one way here or there to the logo, to the color, to the font, to the this, to the that is, is not going to give you the boost that you think.

And trust me, speaking about this from experience, because remember, my first foray into business is wedding photography. And back in the day, I don't know about now, it's like every two, two years, boys, just they rebrand as any small thing, rebranding, rebranding, relaunch, rebranding. That's what people used to do back in the day. And of course, it would do absolutely nothing for their business. If you don't believe me, you're an Instagram user, take your favorite photographer, go and sit on his page, continue to click, continue to scroll.

If the guy's been in business, let's say six years, I can assure you the guys done rebranding like three times. Check it, you'll see the different logos. And that my dear friends, the rebrand, the recolor, the refresh, the relaunch, the RE, whatever, more often than not does absolutely nothing to move the business forward. The reason why your business is failing, for those of you who have businesses that are struggling is because of a failure and outreach.

That means blasting the message out, This is me, this is who I am, this is what I can do. This is how my product or my service can help you or one-on-one, going from person to person either physically or online and initiating conversation with people. The reason why our business is struggling is because of a failure of product market fit. What that means is we haven't been able to establish that for this product or this service or this idea that there is a demand for this sort of thing.

Because if there's no product market for you, believe me, this whole thing is not going to move, doesn't matter whatever it is you're doing. So a couple of years ago, there's some just about some people who are trying to do this business of what was it called vegan something, something like people who want to eat, who want to eat stuff with the texture of meat, but it's not meat. So I heard of tofu and a couple of these sorts of things, you know, meat alternatives.

And I just thought, look, this thing is a joke. You never fly. Look where in Nigeria, like you know what meat eaters, people either eat meat or they don't. This halfway thing of let me be vegan and eat something that is kind of meaty, but it's not meat. This thing is not going to fly well. Surprisingly, I heard that these people have a foothold in Lagos, so their Instagram handles and their establishments where if that is your kind of thing, you can go and find tofu and meat substitutes and blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. So these people have been able to establish product market fit despite the odds. They have found that there's a market of Nigerians who like that kind of stuff, who are vegan or vegetarian, who don't want to eat meat but who want to eat something that is textured like meat. Another reason why I thought this thing is not going to fly is because these things are usually usually usually more expensive than the meat or the vegetables or the whatever itself.

And so I always wondered from an economic angle like why would people engage in this kind of behaviour? Now, I don't understand this market, but the thing seems to work that is brought up market fit. Is there a demand for this product or this service? Are people willing to pay for this thing? The other thing of such a smashing business idea that is product market fit. If you haven't been able to achieve that, that's the reason why a business is struggling.

Another reason why people's businesses struggle is because they've not taught themselves the art of having persuasive conversations and they've not been able to come up with a framework for handling persuasive conversations. So of course, there are lots of reasons why a business can be suffering. Well, these are the main reason why I think lots of us in Nigeria right now, businesses are suffering now. I mean, let's forget the whole thing of yeah, fuel price has gone up again.

I think in Abuja now are currently buying. I bought 920 something. I bought 940 something. Mumsy was telling me that Imakudi is now 1200 and I'm thinking man, that's crap because of his 1200 per litre in Imakudi. That means that my uncles in Boku, I'll probably buy like 1516 per litre and who knows what all those countries, sorry, not countries the, you know, those local governments, those villages that, you know, like close to the border, I mean, you know, up north, who knows how much those people will be paying.

So yeah, all these sorts of things, you know, heavily, they will always be there. But failure of outreach, failure of product market fate and an inability to have persuasive conversations or a lack of a framework to handle persuasive conversations, that's the reason why people's businesses are suffering. And that is the reason why I say we should spend most of our time here. Because if you do get better at outreach, if you are able to establish product market fit,

and if you come up with a framework for handling persuasive conversations, it is then that you can move your business from, let's say you're doing, I don't know, 60K every month. It's then that you can move from 60K to 67 or 67 to 100. It's not by tweaking the colour or by changing the logo or you know, whatever it is that people do. So this is where we should be spending most of our time and that's the reason behind the podcast.

Let us learn how to become better at outreach. Let us quickly be able to establish product market fit so that if this thing is not working, we know that let's just kill this thing now and move on to another business idea. And let us learn how to help us receive conversations. And let's come up with frameworks for doing it. So that when the business grows small and you need some help and you tell your younger brother, come and join me.

Or you hire one or two people or wifey says, looks like this thing is moving me, man. Let me join the business. You'll be able to teach them the framework so that they can continue the good work that you have started. So summary, the colors sell. Yeah, they can sell. Sure. I mean, every little bit helps. So whether it's blue or it's red does make a difference. Especially in the online space. People have been able to increase conversions on advertising campaign by, you know, you change the button from red to blue and you see an increase in point something or whatever.

And then of course, since it's the online space and you're dealing with thousands and millions of people, an increase in conversion from 1% to 1.6% or 1.3% actually means something because they're, they're talking, typically they're talking thousands, hundreds of thousands, 10s of thousands of people. But until you get into that space, worrying about whether your logo should be red or green or blue or cyan or magenta or sky blue or onion red or cockroach brown or whatever is not going to move the needle.

Outreach, put your mind there. Put up market fit, crack your brain on that one persuasive conversations, go and learn because there's an art to it. And then establish the framework so you can teach your people, your sales boys, your sales girls, whoever. So should you worry about colors? My own opinion, colors work. But now the answer is capital NO when it comes to this single color and branding. Please start with some common sense.

So if you're on a cleaning outfit, I think you'll be somehow if your logo has lots of yellow and brown and muddy colours, I don't think that will make sense. So I'm saying because I'm saying no, it's not going to work, doesn't mean we should. Now get rid of common sense. Please, if you're a cleaning outfit, don't go and do yellow, brown and muddy colours. And you know, yellow, brown, red, something, some it. Use common sense, apply wisdom,

but don't obsess over it. Pick the colour if you've picked it. Begin. Just start outreach. What kind of outreach are we doing? How can we quickly establish that people want this product or service? How am I going to handle conversations effectively? Begin with that as you are doing that, especially for those of you who are obsessed about these kinds of things, colours, branding, everything. Your primary assignment would be to refine your ICP.

That's your ideal customer profile. Who are the people you're supposed to be chasing after? You're also trying to refine your unique value proposition. What is the main reason why people buy from you? The reason why is because eventually you will get to the point where now it is time to sit down and call a professional in and decide on whether your logo color is going to be onion red or cockroach brown. When you get to that point, your brand specialist, your PR

specialist or whoever you've engaged would want to know a couple of things about which customers are you targeting and what is the value that you deliver. Why do people buy from you? That is what will influence which color you will use or how the logo will look. So you actually are going to function better if you just take my advice and hit the ground running first and get all the Intel. Then later on, you can now have that fantastic logo and the fantastic colours that you've always wanted because these people talk about colour and talk about legibility and then stuff like that.

So OK, let's go to this one of font and legibility. If your ideal target, the people that you run after typically are senior citizens in Nigeria, then of course you can see now that legibility and font style and colour would be something entirely different than if your target audience was, you know, young handsome men like me, you know. So just hit the ground running. Make sure you have a plan, Outreach, product, market fit,

persuasive conversations, selling frameworks. Solve these big ones first. Once you solve it, you get all the information that you need. So sort out branding, sort out colours, sort out fonts, sort out blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that is my own comment. All those are my thoughts on colours and whether they can sell. The answer is yes, they can sell, but tweaking the colour and tweaking the brand and tweaking the font is no way to make that much improvement that you hope it will.

Yeah. So that's it. That's all for today. And if you know anybody who doesn't quite agree and you can't quite pass out, pass across the information here, share the podcast episode with them. And yeah, hopefully we'll be able to convince them and not confuse them that if you stop obsessing this whole thing with colours. And I'm curious about one thing though, for those of you who obsess over colours and logos and fonts, why does it take you guys so many weeks to just begin?

Like why can't you chose like meet with the branding person on Monday. They give you some options. Discuss with your husband, wife, uncle, brother, sister, whatever on Tuesday and then get back there, get back to the girl on Friday so that by next week Monday, you're good to go. Done, dusted mostly. Thing always take two weeks, 3 weeks, three months. Anyway, that's enough for my rant. So please connect with me on WhatsApp.

The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, then connect with me on LinkedIn. The name to look for is Establishima Ayede. You can get the spelling of my name from the link. We are currently listening to this episode. So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording and, and please stop obsessing over the colour. Whatever colour you have picked is fine for now.

Go ahead, sort out the major issues that I spoke about. Eventually you will get enough. You get more information about the audience you should be chasing, the problems that you solve and all the other contextual stuff so that you can now use that to come up with your permanent logo and your colours. And I've seen you on the podcast before. I'm going to say it again. Check your favorite brand. The colour thing was not one and done.

So for Nike their colours haven't always been black and white. The logo has changed from time to time even though it has always been the tick mark. Coca-Cola, Sony, what else? OK, Disney seems to have been fairly standard as it, but check your favorite brand. You'll see that whatever it is that you love about that con and their logo today hasn't always been the case. It has evolved and it has grown over time. So don't obsess, just begin.

I'll catch you guys in the next episode.