I got a packet today, from someone who is trying to sell me a service that I’m probably interested in. We’ll call me a lukewarm buyer. I don’t know enough to be a hot buyer, but the potential is there.

I had asked the rep to send me some information. I received a very nice folder/brochure, a DVD and a cover letter. The cover letter says:

“Blah, blah, blah…. In addition, there is a DVD enclosed that will tell you all about the products in about the first 20 minutes.”

What? The FIRST 20 minutes? Are you kidding me? What in the world makes them think I am going to watch their promotional material for almost a half hour? It is never going to happen. And now, because I didn’t get the information I needed, I’ve become a much less interested buyer.

Consumers today have a USA Today mentality and attention span. Give it to me short and sweet. Or I don’t want it. Technology has given us the tools to skip, skim or just ignore marketing messages if they aren’t delivered in a palatable way.

How are you doing in this arena? Are you being mindful of your potential customers’ attention spans or are you cramming as much information at them as possible?

Are you being skipped, skimmed or ignored?

Using a combination of complex hardware and data analysis, eye tracking maps a tester’s eye movements across a computer screen and assesses the amount of mental strain exerted at any given moment. It does this by recording scanning patterns of the eye, measuring pupil dilation (which correlates to cognitive effort) and taking over 250 observations of each eye per second.

• A minuscule percentage of the subjects scrolled down to see what was being offered below the browser’s bottom border. Clearly, home pages are viewed as portals to get where the visitor wants to go…not lengthy destination pages.
• Web visitors look to the upper middle of the home page first. Putting your navigation tools there allow them to get where they want to go fast. Over 20% of their attention was focused here.
• Text heavy sites are more difficult to use. Most visitors only read the first two lines before moving on unless there’s white space and eye rests.
• Clean, non-cluttered sites produced higher success rates. Users didn’t have to filter through as much unnecessary information.
• Buttons/Icons with 1-3 word descriptions got the most use. Wordy button labels got the least.
• Banner ads, on average, earned about 13% of the viewer’s time and interest.

Before you design your web page…keep in mind that just like any other visual medium, you have to have a flow pattern for your viewer’s eyes to follow. Don’t make them work to get the message.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

“Measure twice, cut once.”

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

While you are nodding at the wisdom, ponder this: why don’t you have a marketing plan? Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. And don’t try to count the “to do” list or the “if I had more time, I would…” ticker in your head.

95+% of you do not have a written marketing plan. Does that mean your business will fail? Probably not. But it does mean you’ll:

• Spend more money
• Reach fewer of the right people
• Be swayed by persuasive sales people rather than staying the course
• Be less efficient
• Grow your business more slowly, it at all

Think of it this way. If I told you I was going to pay you to drive to Salt Lake City and that your compensation was going to be based on how quickly you could get there, would you use a map or would you wing it?

Same thinking applies to marketing plans. Could you be successful without one? Sure. But it’s going to cost you more and take you longer. So why not just use the map?

After all, isn’t running a business like a journey? You have finite resources and you’re trying to get as far as you can while using them as wisely as possible. A plan gives you a leg up on 95% of the businesses out there. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that sort of competitive advantage?

If you don’t have a written marketing plan — answer this for me and for you. What is your substitute for having the map that will conserve your resources and extend your reach?

I get it. Numbers aren’t fun or sexy. They aren’t interacting with the customers, creating new product offerings or coaching the employees. But, without an understanding of the numbers - those opportunities go away pretty quickly.

Think of it this way. If you were going to build a house, how would you know how much lumber to buy if you didn’t have a blueprint? Before we can craft a marketing plan or create marketing tools, you need to know what you’re trying to build.

I’m not suggesting that you spend hours every day pouring over the numbers. But, if you track just a few of the key indicators, you’ll always have your finger on the health of your business.

Do you know the answer to these questions?

• What is your sales goal for the rest of the year?
• How will you measure/track that goal?
• What percentage of those sales should come from current customers?
• From new business?
• What is your ratio of gross sales to cost of goods sold? (What percentage of your GS is left for you to spend = Adjusted gross income or AGI)
• What’s your monthly overhead cost?
• What’s your monthly salary/benefits cost?
• By client, how profitable are you?
• By product line/service, how profitable are you?
• How have your business sales trended over the past 3 years?

If you already know the answers to these questions - excellent. But, if you are like most business people, these are not something that just trips off your tongue. And yet you make decisions every day that really need this sort of insight.

Isn’t it time to know for sure?

By the end of THIS week, identify the one thing you could do that would have the most significant long-term impact on your business in 2008. Is it finally defining and knowing your brand? Is it creating a customer retention program? It is launching a new initiative? Whatever it is — commit to getting it done.

• Write a very simple outline of what steps needs to get done
• Create a calendar that corresponds to your outline
• Be accountable. Tell your team your boss, your customers…whoever you know will hold you accountable to getting it done.

Then, roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Do not ignore this one. You’ll be amazed at how good you feel once you get this major goal accomplished!

Why not take accountability to a whole new level? Tell all of us what you’re going to do and who knows, maybe we can help!

All of that is well and good. And important. But there is a serious danger that you can get paralyzed in your planning. Smart is good. Perfect is paralysis.

Marketing is a healthy mix of art and science. Exacting precision is for engineers and surgeons, not marketers. We have to settle for darn close. The reality is we don’t have the luxury of operating in a sterile space…

We have to function in the nitty-gritty of the real world. We can’t control all the variables and factors. So at a certain point in the process, we have to walk away from theory and leap off the edge into reality.

It feels safe to stay in planning mode. After all, the plan looks so pristine and right. There’s nothing tainting the purity of it. Once you step out and actually launch a new initiative, things get muddy in a hurry.

While we can be pretty smart and quite right during the planning process, it’s in the fray of the action, that we get even smarter. We can observe reactions, listen to customers, make little tweaks and then re-evaluate all over again. Unlike an operating room, the marketplace brings nuances, unpredictable truths and quirks of human nature.

If you need one more nudge to get you unstuck and out from behind the planning mode, just remember, no one ever bought a product or service from a gantt chart.

Some sell high-ticket or very specialized items and services. They only need a handful of new clients to meet their goals. Others are all about volume. They have a large ability to deliver quantities of their offerings and they want the pipeline full.

This is where the “one size fits all” marketing theories fall apart.

The high-ticket/specialty client can and should spend more money per client acquisition. Their efforts need to be about honing in on exactly the right prospects. They are likely to spend more money on profiling prospects to make sure they don’t waste a lot of time talking to buyers who have no interest or no ability to buy their wares.

Once they’ve identified “the who,” they can get down to telling their story. Because the numbers are small, the marketing tactics that most often make sense for them are ones that allow them to speak directly to those potential buyers and no one else. Direct mail, opt-in e-zines, topic specific blogs, niche newspapers or TV shows and peer-to-peer referrals are all effective options.

On the flip side, the volume-focused client’s goal is to reach a much wider audience. They’re willing to catch a few undesirables in their net, as long as they can harvest a lot of prospects all at once.

Because a wider group of people fit their target parameters, they don’t need to invest in a lot of prospect profiling. They’re looking for a wide reach and frequency to encourage that initial trial. Tactics that might fit the bill for these marketers include couponing, mass media (newspaper, radio, TV, outdoor) advertising, product placement and sampling.

Which set of tactics fits what you really need?

And yet you think the consumers you want to talk to are going to filter through over 3,000 messages a day – just to find yours. And because this task alone is not daunting enough, most businesses decide to make it harder by hiding their messages. If you are not consistent in ALL your marketing materials, you are wasting thousands of dollars and losing potential customers every day.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself to check your brand’s consistency.

•   Are you using just one logo? Is it always in the same color?
•  Are you consistent with paper stock – color, texture and weight?
•  Is the tone of all your communications pieces the same – is it in one voice?
•  Does that one voice match the personality and soul of your company?
•  Do your sales, recruiting, internal documents, and other communications match your marketing materials?
•  Do your ads reflect the same look, feel and voice?
•  When you do your radio/TV ads – do you use the same talent for the voice of your company? Is he/she also on your answering system?

Two final thoughts. These are the basics. You can’t spend time and money on more sophisticated methods until you have these nailed.

But the good news for your business is that most of your competitors are not even getting these right. You can claim a significant advantage even if you just do these simple things. There’s a huge opportunity. Are you going to seize it?

Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital just shared snippets of a study that will be released in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study finds that kids aged 3 to 5, when presented with identical foods — one in a McDonald’s wrapper and the other without — overwhelmingly rated the branded one as tasting better.

Proof of the Happy Meal in action.

Nic Jones at BrandChannel.com explores if it is the brand or the hype around the brand that ignites a child’s interest and ultimately, loyalty. Jones goes on to explore some of the different ways to slice the brand pie in the fickle kids marketplace.

Martin Lindstrom picks up the discussion, saying that the 8-12 year-old crowd is demanding 24/7 access to the brands that matter to them. He cites an example from Kellogg’s.

Kids across one local market were asked to send a text message to Kellogg’s voting on their favorite song. Hundreds of SMS messages arrived during the day. But what took them by total surprise was that the peak response time was logged in at 3:00 am. Yes, that’s right, 3:00 am.

Lindstrom echos the sentiments of Jones, saying that the key to successful branding within the kids marketplace is being able to jig and jag as the kids’ attention spans shift from one product to another.

Kid brand giant Nickelodeon even hosts an event, The Nickelodeon Brand Equity Marketing Forum to discuss the trends and power of aiming your marketing/branding arrow at 8-14 year-olds.

I don’t think anyone can deny the influence of branding on children. Whether you see it as sin or salvation — its been proven too many times to deny.

So here’s my question. What, if any, responsibility do we have as marketers, if we are targeting children? Is McDonalds evil for pushing its fattening foods to 3-year olds? Is it irresponsible for Nickelodeon to teach others how to influence the watching and buying decisions of the tweens?

Or does caveat emptor apply, no matter the buyer’s age or sensibility?

Many businesses don’t want to miss out on any sales opportunity, so they say they can do everything. They don’t want to define themselves and risk losing a customer. So the poor customers are out there trying to comparison shop and everyone looks the same. So they take a stab at it and sometimes they guess wrong. Which means you have a bad customer on your hands.

Think of all the jewelry stores you can. Now, think of their advertising and positioning. Pretty much the same, aren’t they? Love, romance, tell her how much you love her…etc. etc. etc.

Now picture their actual stores. They blend together, don’t they? The merchandise is about the same; the clerks are about the same. They don’t make a point of standing out.

So how can a consumer tell if they’re a good fit? They can’t. Hello bad customer.

But there are a few who actually have the courage to stand out from the pack.

Let’s look at Tiffany & Co. first. The infamous blue box. And the staggering price tags.

Do you think some people opt not to shop at Tiffany because of their brand? You bet. Is that Tiffany’s loss? I don’t think so. They have saved themselves a lot of staff time and effort, all to end up with either an unhappy customer or someone who walks away, thinking they had a bad experience.

Change the channel and let’s look at Steven Singer Jewelry in Philly. (It’s worth it to let the whole page load…wait for the change.) Singer asked himself what do 21-30 year old guys want? How about lingerie-clad women wading through bubbles?

He’s betting that he’s right. Their promotions include in store bubble bath parties (yes, complete with scantily-clad women), chicken wing eating contests and giveaways on Howard Stern’s radio show.

Steven Singer Jewelers is proving that you don’t have to look or sound like a Harlequin novel to sell diamonds.

He started out with the billboards “I hate Steven Singer” throughout the metro. That drove people to the website, where they read stories from men who hated Steven Singer because they had to give up their great bachelor lives and now they’re married.

Same product category. Two very distinct brands in a sea of generic competitors. Do you think that helps sales? Does it filter out the wrong customers?

Can you imagine a Tiffany customer in Singer’s store? Of course not. That’s the point. They just shortcut right to the store that fits them and have a buying experience that met their needs.

How many bad customers could you avoid if your brand shouted loud and clear above your generic competitors?

On TV, the radio and in print a sound byte tagline will probably fool most of the people most of the time. In 30 seconds, you are in and out. There’s not enough time for you to trip over yourself. You can toss out words like “customer care” or “quality” and because by the time they register, we’re off to the next ad-you’re safe.

You are not afforded that same luxury on a blog.

A blog is you, all you. 24/7. And it is a running record of your thoughts, opinions, level of expertise and knowledge. Imagine the difference between reading a single print ad versus reading someone’s last 100 posts.

Which one do you think would give you a better sense of that business?

Chris Brown over at Branding & Marketing explores how a blog can be a powerful marketing tool. And she’s right. A significant portion of that power comes from the branding of your company via your blog.

Now here’s the part that matters. Your blog is going to reflect your brand, whether you mean it to or not. While companies can fake their brand in a tagline or slogan, they cannot maintain the falsehood over a long period of time.

So if you haven’t started a blog yet, you will be well served to invest the time necessary to define and understand your brand long before you write your first post. That way, from the very beginning, you can seed your blog with your brand promise.

If you already have a fledgling blog up and aren’t sure of your brand, why not explore it for/with your readers? Sure, that might be a little scary, but can you imagine the loyalty it would breed.

If you have been blogging for a while and have built your readership up, ask yourself what brand messages you are sending. If you can’t articulate your brand, read through your posts with a fresh eye. It is probably there among your best posts. If you do have an established brand, review your blog posts to make sure you’re staying true to that message. Don’t let yourself get too far off center.

Your blog is a reflection of your brand. Whether you recognize it or not. Why not use that to your advantage?

1. Quality is job #1
2. The difference is our people
3. Your success is our success
4. Customer service is our pleasure
5. Great value for your dollar

(Or variations of the same)

These are probably the five most common “tagline” positions in the marketplace. And not one of them has any meaning to consumers.

Why?

They’re common, use bland language, make vague promises and are absolutely ordinary. In the end, they are simply the promises every business should make to their customers.

Shouldn’t we all provide quality products and services?
Don’t most businesses have well-meaning employees who care about the customers?
Isn’t the point of our business to help our customers be successful?
Doesn’t every business strive for good customer service?
And, shouldn’t we provide value for our compensation?

How does any of that make your business special? Or different?

So if they are meaningless, why would a business adopt one of these? They are businesses who:

• Can’t figure out how they are different from their competitors
• Aren’t different from their competitors
• Aren’t willing to make the effort to figure out how they are different
• Don’t care to be different from their competitors

Be honest with yourself. Are you clinging to one of these five “non-brands” and pretending that you’re actually communicating a meaningful difference?

If your answer was yes, then the most important question to ask is why?

If I said to you that we were re-branding your company, what is the first thing you’d think of? In most cases, you’d think - “we need a new logo then.” And then, you’d quickly add, “and a graphic standards manual.”

Both observations are true. But not enough.

One of the most powerful and overlooked aspects of your brand is your brand’s voice. Just like consistency in your brand’s visual presentation (logo, color palette, fonts etc.) is critical to building brand awareness and understanding, the same can be said of the voice.

Not sure what a brand voice is? Think of Apple. If you saw an ad for a Mac computer and the copy was very technical and dry, would it feel right?

Of course not, because that’s not Apple’s voice.

If you saw a brochure for the United Nations that was filled with hip-hop slang, would it feel right?

Again, of course not.

The same is true of your organization. Whether you’ve ever thought about it or not, you do have an authentic brand voice. When you use it, it feels comfortable and genuine. When you don’t - it sounds and feels artificial.

Many companies try to put on a more formal or authoritative voice in their marketing materials because they think it makes them more “official.” But really, it makes them sound fake.

The greatest brand compliment you can receive is to meet someone for the first time and have them tell you that you “feel” just like your website or collateral materials. That means you are being consistent - you are speaking in the same voice, regardless of the medium.

So how do you discover your brand voice? One of our agency’s favorite ways to help clients articulate the characteristics of their brand voice is to do a series of comparisons.

• Is your brand voice a man or a woman?
• Is your brand voice more like Spike Lee or General Lee?
• Is your brand voice more like Bugs Bunny or a Playboy Bunny?
• Is your brand voice more like a white paper or a high school term paper?

You get the idea. Make up your own contrasts and keep at it until you refine your view of the voice.

Another way to articulate your brand’s voice is to personify your company. If your organization was a person - what would he or she be like? How would he dress? What would she do for a living? Be as specific as you can. The more you can picture the person in your head, the better you’ll be able to assume their voice.

Regardless of how you uncover and define your company’s voice, the most important element of identifying your brand’s voice is to create a way to share the definition with all your organization’s employees. Just like you want everyone to honor the graphic standards and present a consistent look, you want the same to be true of your voice.

Remember, good branding relies on consistency. In all aspects of your brand.

I’m sure they were created to improve bike safety, but they quickly became the biker’s expression of self. You might be drawn to your favorite sports team or color. Other bikers went to cool designs or size. The bigger the flag the better.

And you didn’t fly a flag that didn’t fit you. No guy would be caught dead with a pink or Barbie flag. You knew, if he was on a bike with one of those flags - it was his sister’s bike! The flags were more than decoration. They were a declaration. “This is what I’m about.”

Part of what made them cool was that you could spot your friends from a far distance. You knew where they were and could decide if you wanted to join them or not.

Although we didn’t know it, we were learning some very important lessons about branding as we selected and flew our bike flags.

Your brand is your flag. No matter what kind of a storm your organization endures or how quickly you are changing directions - your flag is visible to everyone. Your employees, your customers, your potential customers. And they’re going to keep an eye on that flag. To see if it stays put.

If you just put on a superficial brand or make a declaration because it sounds good rather than because it’s genuine - the storms and curves will knock it down. People are going to know you aren’t on your own bike, so to speak.

But if your brand is authentic and built from the core of your company - it will be bolted firmly and no matter how bad the storm or how dramatic the shift in direction - the flag will stay put.

If your flag proves to be genuine, people will come to rely on it as a signal of what you’re all about. And just like we used to use our friends’ flags as kids, others will be able to identify you and your brand promise from a distance.

Your potential customers will be able to spot your brand and decide if they want to come to where you are. There’s no reason for them to engage with you if you’re flag is neon orange and they’re really more of a beige buyer.

For your customers, your brand flag reassures them that you’re honoring your brand. They can come to you with confidence, knowing that they’re going to get that consistent experience they’ve come to expect.

So as you think about your brand, remember that it is going to wave high over your organization. So choose your flag carefully.

To review, the three legs are:

1. The company’s vision of the brand
2. The consumers’ vision of the brand
3. Where your brand sits in the marketplace

In last week’s post we explored the second leg of the stool - the consumer’s vision of the brand.

This week, let’s wrap up this series with a conversation about how to evaluate where your brand sits in the marketplace.

Unless you do business on Mars, odds are very good that you have competitors. Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same things by defining who your competitors might be.

When asked to list their competitors, most people list the other companies that sell the same product or services. That’s certainly part of the equation. But what about those companies who sell alternatives to your offerings?

Let me give you a concrete example.

When I say who is Coke’s competitor, most people would answer Pepsi. But what about sports drinks, juices or bottled water?

A third category of competitors is a decision to go in a completely different direction. Say buying coffee instead or not buying a drink at all.

So, the first step in understanding this leg of the stool is defining who your competitors are. Next, you need to determine what plot of land they’ve already claimed. Because you don’t want to be there too.

Think of it this way. If you were a settler in a new land and were promised two acres of land for your family homestead, would you begin to build your new home on a plot of land where someone else has already built their family home?

Of course not. The same is true for your brand. If one of your competitors already owns it, you need to find a different plot of land. Remember, a brand is the shorthand that the universe uses to differentiate you from your competitors. So why spend any effort, time or money trying to convince them that you’re just like someone else?

Not sure how to create a new or fresh plot of land? Joe Calloway’s book Becoming a Category of One is an excellent resource. Be mindful, as you work through this question, that this third leg of the stool needs to balance with the other two – how you see your brand and how your consumer’s see your brand.

Branding is a small business’ most powerful weapon. Be sure that your branding stool is well-balanced so you can climb on top of it to build your business.

Check out the earlier entries in this series:

Do you have a 360 degree view of your brand?

Your brand from your perspective

Your brand from your customer’s point of view

To review, the three legs are:

1. The company’s vision of the brand
2. The consumers’ vision of the brand
3. Where your brand sits in the marketplace

In last week’s post we explored the first leg of the stool - the company’s vision of the brand.

This week, let’s think about your company from your consumer’s point of view.

This is all theirs. What do they know and think they know about your organization? How consistent is that mental picture with their actual experiences with your company?

Remember that in its simplest form - a brand is your promise to the world. To your employees, your vendors and your customers. It is you standing up, hand on heart and pledging something.

And then keeping that pledge.

We all know what happens when someone doesn’t keep their promise. Trust is shaken and eventually broken. Today’s consumers are wary and quick to dismiss a brand or company if they don’t live up to their word. Worse, with today’s technology those disgruntled customers do not just go gently into that good night. But instead, they hop online and tell everyone about your transgression. All because their expectations weren’t met.

The easiest way to meet (and hopefully exceed) a customer’s expectation is to be the one who sets them. But to do that, you need to see your business from their point of view. You have to walk a mile in their shoes. You need to understand what they’re looking for before you can promise them that you can deliver it.

I can hear you now - “I know what my customers think (want, experience, need).” With all due respect - you really don’t. Too often, business people make the fatal mistake of assuming that all customers think/feel the way they do. Be smart and be objective.

So what do you need to discover your brand from your consumer’s point of view? There are three key elements to this. The differences, the need/want and the fear.

The differences:

You don’t have just one consumer. You don’t even have just one type of consumer. Most businesses are complex enough to serve several different audiences. You can’t lump them all together. Make a list of your top three customer “types” and study them carefully. Think about engaging in some market research, so you can trust the results and conclusions of your studies. Find out what attracted each audience type to your business. What were they looking for? What makes them stay? What would make them switch to one of your competitors?

The need/want:

I don’t care how cheap something is, if a consumer does not perceive that they need or want it, they aren’t going to buy. Nor, over time, will they pay you much attention. For each of your key audiences, you need to understand what they need and/or want from you. What do they want to buy? By the way, the answer isn’t the “thing” you sell. It’s what that thing does for them.

The fear:

Here’s a truth most consumers are loathe to tell you. They’re afraid. What they’re afraid of is going to vary based on what you sell. They might be afraid of making a bad choice. Or their fear might be that they’re paying too much. Another fear may be that they are buying the wrong solution or that it won’t work the way you promise that it will. So if they decided to do business with you, something about your company soothed their fear. If you can figure out how you did that - it’s a powerful element of your brand and should be replicated for other consumers.

Don’t shy away from research. In most cases, when done with a reputable company, what you learn is going to far outweigh what you pay. However you decide to learn about your customers’ perspective - don’t make the mistake of thinking that you know best.

Next time…the 3rd leg of the stool. Where your brand sits in the marketplace.

To review, the three legs are:

1. The company’s vision of the brand
2. The consumers’ vision of the brand
3. Where your brand sits in the marketplace

As promised, in this post we’re going to explore the first leg of the stool - the company’s vision of the brand.

This is your take. How do you perceive the organization today? What do you want it to become?

If you don’t get this right, you’re sunk. In the simplest form - a brand is your promise to the world. To your employees, your vendors and your customers. It is you standing up, hand on heart and pledging something.

And then keeping that pledge.

But if you aren’t sure what you should pledge then you probably stumble around like most companies, changing taglines and strategies on a whim (or the cycles of the sales seasons). What’s the end result? Confusion. Mistrust. Skepticism. High turn over (internal and external) and shaky relationships.

On the flip side, when you get this part right, you’ll be amazed at the results. Decisions become easier. Employees know which direction you want them to pull. Your messages and behavior align.

So what do you need to discover your brand? There are three key elements to this. The who, the when and the catalyst.

The who:

First you recognize that there are many different perspectives and you need those voices around the table. This is not something to be decided on a senior management retreat. You have to include the many viewpoints throughout your company. A good way to do that is to assemble a branding team that includes your entire senior management team and representation from each department.

The when:

To understand your brand and to grow into the company you have the potential to be, you need to see yourself as you are today. And you need to have a vision for where you want to take the company in the future.

The catalyst:

You cannot accurately describe the outside of the bottle from the inside. You, your senior management team nor your employees can be objective about your own company. You need an outsider to help you navigate the waters, ask the hard questions, point out the elephants in the middle of the room and challenge your assumptions. Find someone who has a branding pedigree - meaning they’ve successfully done it for others.

Answering questions about what you love to do, what kind of work energizes your team, where you can provide the most value, why you do the work you do, and what values you are not willing to compromise on are all good conversation starters. The answers will begin to build the cornerstone to your brand. At least from your perspective.

Next time…the 2nd leg of the stool. Your consumer’s vision of your brand.

All of them were right. Sort of.

That’s a dangerous position. To be blind to the whole truth. It’s also the position I believe most business owners and managers are in when it comes to their brand. They only see a small portion of their brand. They forget that they don’t own or control it 100%.

A brand is like a three-legged stool. The three legs are:

1. The company’s vision of the brand
2. The consumers’ vision of the brand
3. Where your brand sits in the marketplace

How you view your brand:

This is your take. What do you believe the brand values are? What promise are you making to the consumer? How does that promise also weave through your dealings with employees and vendors? What are you willing or not willing to compromise on? Based on your brand, which customers are a good fit for you? Bad?

How your consumers view your brand:

This is their experience. Do you say/promise one thing and then do another? Do your employees consistently deliver the same brand promise? Do your marketing communications pieces (ads, website, direct mail etc.) paint a different picture than an actual buying experience? Do you behave in the same brand-centric way every time?

How you fit into the marketplace:

This is the 30,000-foot view. When you look over the competitive landscape, where does your brand sit? If you are a local coffee shop, how do you compare to Starbucks? If you’re a phone/internet provider how are your materials and sales people different from the last three I talked to? What does your brand promise say that makes you different from your competitors? Or are you like most companies and it doesn’t?

As a business owner, you need to make sure that you understand all three legs of the branding stool. You also need to make sure they square up. In other words - they match.

Over the course of my next few articles, we’ll explore each leg of the stool and how you can make sure it’s sturdy and supported the stool in every way it can.

But for now, let me ask you this question. Do you believe you understand and can articulate all three legs of your brand’s stool? Can you describe each one in a sentence or two?