Aspire to be an Important Brand

The next slide from my series of offbeat startup ideas deck.

Try placing a heap of a child’s favorite sweets in front of them, ask him or her to not touch it while you are away and then leave the room for a few minutes. Sounds like torture, and it kind of is, but apparently this delayed gratification test is a great way to tell how successful the child is likely to be at thrifty spending and saving. This idea got me thinking.?

In business, the conventional practice has been for the company to close as many sales as fast as possible, with the least amount of effort and at the highest price the market allows. This has been common practice but in case you have not noticed, just about everything around us has changed and the old school Fortune 500 companies are falling off the peak of the mountain in droves.

When a brand generously gives away loads of useful value does that leave it empty or does the value rather accrue like pressure in a pressure cooker?

Products, services, people, sports teams, countries, churches, governments, it doesn’t matter. Anything and everything can be a brand. Our personal favorites represent or align with the ideals and values we aspire to.

There are big brands and there are important brands. Big brands focus on their offering and the transaction. Important brands are concerned with delivering useful free value and espousing their values. Important brands affirm our potential and help us keep our hopes and dreams alive. They help us show off our values. The provider of that affirmation of our value and potential is granted our loyalty because we believe they “get us”. We are happy to pay a premium for the feeling, opportunity and faith. Beyond a product or service, important brands give us contentment in our situation, effort, and potential.?

Delayed commercial gratification

Most companies start off convincing us of the convenience they can offer. When ease of access, opportunity and insight were in short supply the value of expedience was high. Now, in a world of endless micro gratifications, convenience has lost value. We yearn to be connected to our greater purpose.

The products and services we acquire and subscribe to are the mascots of our ideals and values.

There is a continuous shift in the value we attach to these intangible feelings. In times of fast-changing and confusing social dynamics that question our fundamental values, we need more than a more comfortable pair of running shoes from a Nike or more megapixels in our iPhone camera. The incremental performance improvements are, although well-hyped, mostly negligible.

As the new kings of commerce, discerning customers know that the decisions they make are more than just a monetary transaction. They need to know that they are supporting the survival of an idea and opinion that they agree with. With so many nuanced perspectives on almost every topic you can think of, we find comfort in knowing that our hard-earned money is going into like-minded pockets.

Apparently, the motivation and source of our objects of progress and achievement matter.?We carry them along with us in any form we can. The products and services we acquire are the mascots of our ideals and values. They help shape our character, remind and inspire us to be persistent in the pursuit of our calling. Whether it is the picture of your mother, a bumper sticker of your old school, or the running shoes that stands for what you believe in. They matter as much for what they represent as the role they play in our lives. This is the elite group of perpetual physical reminders of origin, outlook and intention that a brand can become a part of.?

Goodwill compounds faster than revenue

Building that relationship takes time. A lot of time. It means giving and giving and giving some more. The longer you delay the ‘ask’ the bigger the ask can be. Brand is an amazing arbitrage opportunity for maximizing value. The brand we build helps reinforce the values and stories people tell about our products and services. Building an important brand requires reinforcing stories rather than asking for actions.

Brands that invest heavily in these stories are essentially saying if you believe what we believe, vote with your wallet and invest in these values. When branding works very well what you say about your brand clarifies the values in the stories that your audience already knows about your brand. Not enough companies understand that it is the consumer who creates your brand, not the company. It is what your users say about you that becomes your brand, not the advertising that you put out.

Branding done well becomes a higher ROI activity than direct response marketing. It is a buildup of kindness, goodwill and admiration. The problem is that many companies do not have the patience, discipline, or interest in building that long-term relationship with customers.

How much are you willing to give and how long are you willing to wait before asking for some form of reciprocation. Are you just paying lip service to your customers or are you actually living those values? Is there any sacrifice in the values you claim or are you just going with the flow? Is the free value you provide deep, meaningful and useful or are you throwing crumbs out and withholding till the transaction? The longer you can wait and the more you give the greater the ‘payload’ so consider showing character and exercising some generosity and patience.

Oprah raised a generation to be vulnerable and confident. We made her the richest woman on the planet. Joe Rogan is being richly rewarded for his curiosity shared with no other agenda than truth-seeking. Red Bull has risen to elite brand status by elevating extreme sports and making the athletic freaks who practice those sports heroes. Disney is more of a nostalgic dream factory than a media house for a reason. YouTube is low-cost knowledge, news, experience and story-sharing phenomenon with almost instant mind-blowing reach, for free. There are countless examples of giving, giving, and giving some more. In the confusing, overloaded, fragmented and angst-filled world we live in what is it that you or your company can offer to bring order, peace and meaning to some aspect of life and make our shared exitance and experience better?

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If you are an entrepreneur, business or startup and want to explore how to grow loyal and value-packed communities, reach out to [email protected]?

Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. A diamond is just a chunk of coal that did well under pressure. #WeAreCole