As the owner of a small business, when we develop the brand of our business, it is important to consider not only the visual vocabulary or corporate identity. Our brand is far more than our logo, business cards and materials.
Get one hundred marketeers in a room and they will all have a slightly different definition of what a brand is. However most will refer to a brand as being the emotional connection our clients and prospects have with our business. They will often refer to a brand being a “promise”.
For me a brand is far more than a promise – it is what people come to expect that we deliver. Brands are tangible assets. Just take a look at the balance sheets of any large consumer products company.
Having been engaged in many disposals, mergers and acquisitions over the years, I remember one of the key elements of the negotiations was always what the financial advisors to the transaction valued not only in tangible assets such bricks and mortar. They also valued the brand or brands owned by the company being acquired or disposed of as an asset.
As Jonathan Schwartz refers to in a recent article, for him, delivering a service based business, the brand becomes the asset.
However, most often we consider the brand only in the context of the corporate brand or the product brand.
There are two other aspects that we need to consider when building a strong brand:
- our employer brand – clearly defined it will enable us to attract and retain the talent we need in today’s increasingly competitive market place to deliver our strategy and goals.
- our personal brand – what makes us stand out from other business leaders.
Our personal brand is particularly important in a small business. You see our personal brand can also be considered as our personal reputation. In other words why people would do business with us.
And often our personal reputation goes before us. People we meet often have a perception of what we will be like to work with even before they meet us – from what they have heard from others, what they read about us or heard about us in the media and what they have read about us online.
In fact, almost 50% of the measure of corporate reputation is based on the reputation of the CEO. And the CEO’s reputation is based on their credibility – in other words their personal brand.
Both our employer brand and personal brand as a business leader already exist. What is important is to understand whether our view and perspective is the same as our key stakeholders – be they investors, prospects, clients, customers, employees or business partners.
Remember our perception is our reality. And the perception of others is their reality – what they experience and believe about us.
So the next time you are reviewing the strength and equity in your brand, you just might want to consider the strength of your employer brand and personal brand not only in the context of what you believe it to be, but how it is perceived and valued by others.
