How Bad Do You Want It?
How many people do you know who long to be in their own business? They have lots of great ideas and yearn to “be my own boss.” They put a lot of energy in dreaming and wondering if this will be their ticket to financial freedom. I had the opportunity (I use this word lightly) to meet one of these dreamers the other day. They had that great idea that was going to do it for them. We shared a conversation over coffee. Essentially it was a web-based business, lots of coding etc. I said I’d investigate and can back with a price for this dream of theirs.
(You probably know where this is going)
When I submitted the fee, the instant reply I got was… “If I had that amount of money, I’d buy a car.”
I’d buy a car. How perfectly telling. No – they wouldn’t finance their dream – invest in themselves – they would buy a car! I guess they figured this would cost very close to nothing. It showed just how valuable their dreams are. I believe you see this all the time with start-ups. They have lots of cash for office equipment and decorating – things that make them “0″ amount of income. Weeks before launch, with their budgets very nearly depleted, they then see “what’s left” to put towards marketing. The very thing that “makes them money.” The sad fact is that in many cases, decorating is fun. It’s dressing up the dream. Marketing somehow feels and looks like air.
The smart ones get it and realize their dream. The rest – well, they’re out buying cars!
If they don’t have faith in themselves, how can they ever expect to succeed? That person I was dealing with, should have considered the fee and found a way to finance the dream just like all of us. Sometimes that financing is time, sometimes its money, and sometimes its perseverance. Whatever it takes. When I started, I put up my house, everything to realize my dream.
How bad do you want it?
Barriers to Branding Success
Everything that touches your brand affects it. How you market it, is the voice of your brand. Positioning is the stand you take. Community involvement is the heart of your brand. Brand perception is reality to your audience. How stake holders describe and talk about you has some impact on your brand standing and the perception factor. With all these influencers (and more that I haven’t mentioned) there are any number of barriers that affect your brand’s success.
Your job ( and a mighty big one) is to minimize any negative impact these influencers may have. Some of these are external and internal barriers. External barriers are situations like compliance issues and not keeping current with technology – this impacts productivity, dragging you down. Uninspired marketing addresses nothing and flies under the radar of your audience. Lousy service and union problems are massive barriers to your brand’s success.
Every day in business something pops up that challenges your brand. How you react to them or not, impacts the brand. Couple the stress of this with personal barriers. One would be your alertness. Depending on how you tackle everything, fatigue has a huge impact on your efforts. Family responsibilities are another influencer. Whether you have a positive or negative point of view is a barrier. Have you noticed that when you dwell on the negative, it seems to attract more negative things to you? Lack of education – upgrading is another barrier.
Barriers are a fact of life. How you plan for them and how you overcome them are the bench marks of a truly great brand. Don’t allow barriers to overwhelm you, and view their challenges as just another way to improve your overall performance. As I hurdle each one, I take pride in knowing I am in control. Surrendering to barriers is just the top of the spiral down.
A good exercise is to list your own external and internal barriers and develop a strategy to overcome and build on them.
Lowest Price Guaranteed – All The Way To The Bottom.
Lowest price guaranteed!
We will not be undersold!
If you find a lower price we will…
Competing on price, not something we all relish. If you’re a discount store, it is part of your brand values. It’s what gets ‘em in your door. For the rest of us, it’s something that can easily drive us out of business. Reducing our business to a commodity, is a horrible place to be. That’s especially true if the other guy is willing to buy the business or sell below their cost in an effort to outlast you. (who has the deeper pockets).
In the graphic design business, designers are repeatedly competing with anyone with a computer. How does a graphic design business compete with others who charge a fraction of their cost? Branding – plain and simple. When a person hires design projects on price they surrender professionalism, expert business advice, experience, communication smarts and ethics. Design professionals repeatedly win projects for several thousand dollars where their competition sells it for a few hundred. When you are aware of how brand works, you stop taking client relationships for granted. You over deliver on service. You keep your brand front and center and you continue to add value. Take the high road with your brand, look as powerful as you can.
The minute a business takes their eye off their brand, they start to slide toward commodity hell. At first glance, you might assume that there isn’t a problem competing on price. But ask yourself, “Where will this strategy take me, if my competitions believes it is the solution as well?” Definitely – it will take the both of you straight to the bottom. Deepest pocket wins!
Some may scoff at this article. Even they have to admit that at times they too have purchased the more expensive product or service, from businesses that on the surface are identical to their competitors. Roofers, hardware and auto parts suppliers for example. But the reason for these more expensive purchases was the value added. The experience of the employees from whom you draw great advice. The fact that they look like they are going to be around next week. All these perceptions are branding advantages. Consistency of image itself breeds familiarity and a sense of comfort.
If you want to avoid commodity hell, find valuable ways to build relationships with your customers. Stay in touch with them. Offer them valuable advice and connect them with resources that make them appreciate their connection to you. Have a positioning strategy that absolutely differentiates your brand and resonates with your audience in a big way.
Sure, every now and then it’s about price. Nothing is absolute. But this doesn’t mean you can’t step your brand up and try to side step the approach, by adding more value. You want to grow the new relationship not based on price but on brand. This involves a sell-up strategy and strong adherence to your brand values. It’s a constant battle – but the good news is that it’s winnable overall.
How Your Brand Values Strengthen Your Business.
How fast do you return a telephone call or an email from a potential lead?
I ask myself this every time a lead remarks to me, how quickly I responded. I wonder if perhaps most businesses do NOT return contacts as fast as they could. I try to respond the moment I get a contact. Even if I am busy, I at least try to respond and inform them that I will return their call when I have time enough to respond properly.
Yesterday I left a message with a store, asking them to give me their store hours. The message said that they would get back to me. It’s been more than 24 hours and nothing. How many businesses do this – make a promise and then fail to act on it. What is the message their brand is saying to me? I believe it’s telling me that I am not important to them. Maybe the next time they complain about how slow business is they could also talk about how they failed to get back to leads who called to inquire about something and they chose to ignore them. Nobody is going to beg your brand to do business with them.
Most small businesses that I speak with, have service as one of their brand values. When a business leaves their customers on hold for extended periods of time, or they fail to return their calls and inquiries, then service is not something that their company takes very seriously. Service when it suits them would be more appropriate. Your simply can’t compromise your brand values if you hope to grow your business based on consistent delivery of quality. The marketplace thrives on authenticity in their brands. Paying lip service looks good on the surface, but when your offer is tested in the marketplace, you will be quickly found out, and your market share will diminish.
A great example of this in today’s marketplace is Toyota. After spending years bragging about their quality, they got greedy and failed to live up to their brand value regarding quality. Now their brand is suffering in the marketplace with lower sales and a renewed confidence in American models. Their arrogance cost them huge, and it will take years to regain their polish. Now I’ll bet those short cuts on quality, don’t look like such a great idea in their boardrooms anymore. They grew so comfortable with their quality reputation that they obviously felt that the brand would carry the day no matter if it were authentic or not.
Don’t make this mistake. Brand Values are essential to your growth and prosperity.
Branding Voodoo That’ll Smoke The Competition
There are lots of ways that you can approach your brand to make it more effective. Some can be
costly, while many are simple and relatively inexpensive. It is the latter that I will outline for you today. They don’t take much thought or effort but can impact your brand in a big way.
1) Sponsor a local adolescent sports team.
This is not so much to get your logo on a jersey but it
is part of giving back to the community. Volunteerism speaks to your brand values. Not to mention that many of the organizers are also leading members of the
business community.
2) Join local networking groups.
Don’t just join groups and wait your turn to say your
elevator speech, but take an active role. Join committees, offer your assistance where ever you see an opening. People are impressed by go getters.
3) Write a short eBook.
You are an expert in your field. Take that valuable knowledge and apply it to a subject your potential customers might find compelling. Offer it up on your website or blog for free. Doing this puts you on
the path to building a niche group to sell to.
4) Consistency of image.
Make sure that all your materials have the same brand image. Any deviation only causes confusion among your audience. I go to great lengths to be sure I stay on track with my brand, so should you.
5) Do you have a new product or service that needs attention?
Do a press release and spread the word in the media. Any pick-up is free advertising for you.
6) Do a color analysis of the competition.
See what colors the competition is doing and choose a color they are NOT using to own that color and differentiate yourself. Of course this is great if you’re willing to re-do your brand image. If not, look at the attitude or tone of their messages and differentiate based on that observation.
7) Go on blogs that your audience is on and purposely leave constructive comments.
These comments will lead customers back to you. This is a great way to get the conversation started. It also works the same way in Linkedin groups, Facebook and Twitter.
Track your online visitors.
Be sure that your websites and blogs have analytic code installed so that you can see what keywords people use to find you. Use those keywords as the basis of links back to you rather than your company name.
9) Record podcasts/videos.
They don’t have to be super professional, just decent so as not to cast any negativity on your brand. A/V adds a distinct tone to your online content and positions you nicely. It helps add a personality to your brand.
10) Lead don’t follow.
How can you lead in your category? Determine a way to take the high ground from your competition. In Branding Voodoo, you MUST have the bigger pins, anything less is just doodoo.
Try This Team Building Outline!
Opportunities come to you in a variety of ways:
Referrals. These are by far the most desirable. These come from people who generally have a great deal of respect for you, and they feel that they can trust you with their contacts.
Advocates. Advocates are people who follow you. Once you discover who they are, it is amazing what the cross-section of talent is.
Colleagues. I consider this group part of my peer group. They are in many ways my competition, but they bring certain specialties to the table that I can draw from. You could call them “strategic competition.”
Friends. We associate generally with people who share our values and interests.
Live Networking
Getting out into your community and meeting people allows you the luxury of sizing up people by how they handle themselves. You’d be surprised at the amount of talent that exists with an hours drive of you. When you’re networking, don’t just mine this resource for new business, BUT talent as well. You know the market you operate in, look for people who could make your services more compelling.
Online Networking
Sites like Linkedin are terrific networks to find talent with which to expand your service network. As you start to see individuals with talents that appeal to you, start the conversation. Look for ways that you can reach out to them. Give first. This is true for any situation, online or off. Showing your willingness to help them, makes you a trusted contact to them.
Blogging
Whether it is my blog and several other blogs that I frequent, you would be surprised at the number of followers you eventually become acquainted to. Over the years respect for one another grows and because you are all essentially in the same community, certain expertise is realized and the opportunity to share in it rises. In several cases I have built a pitch for new business, from the unique expertise that I have acquired from blogging associates. They in return have brought opportunities my way.
I am always on the look out for opportunities that will help grow my circle of influence. So if networking for new business doesn’t appeal to you, then maybe the fit is discovering new resources that you can add to you roster that will enable you to go after business, previously out of reach.
10 Things I Hate About Branding
ONE:
Frankly it takes a lot of work to stay on top of my brand. If only I could just push a button like the Staples “Easy Button” ( which I have on my desk). I hate that I can’t!
TWO:
I hate having to remind businesses that their brand is more than their logo. I have every design shop and ad specialty shop to blame for the mis-information I guess. (I could be painting with big a brush too)
THREE:
I hate companies who don’t realize that branding is a top down initiative. Without the captain on board, who’s piloting the brand?
FOUR:
Just too many great books to read. I’m stuck on historical fiction right now and so slipping in books on branding is a tight fit – I hate that.
FIVE:
I hate those who confuse their brand message with their slogan. There is a difference. I guess since they are both important, I should be happy that they have anything.
SIX:
I hate followers. Why do some businesses still feel they must follow the leader in their category? A commenter to one of my articles recently lamented their displeasure at businesses who copy the leader’s image almost to the letter. Sheesh!
SEVEN:
I also hate people online who make the simple complicated in an attempt to screw a few dollars out of your pocket, only to reveal the obvious. If you see something online you want to get into, email the author – I’m sure they’ll help you.
EIGHT:
I love it when someone says, “Hey, you’re the branding guy!” I hate that it took so long.
NINE:
Sometimes I hate that consistency is worth so much to your brand. I get the itch like many of us to change things up a bit. BUT, my better judgement knows that that would diminish what I have achieved so far.
TEN:
Sometimes I hate focus groups when judging brand image. By their nature they look to criticize regardless if it is even necessary. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. Was your brand built on consensus or instinct?
Thanks for letting me vent a small bit, I hate keeping it bottled up inside.
