NOW is the time to…BUILD YOUR BRAND

Given our current set of circumstances in business, this NOW series is designed to help you take a leadership role in your industry…regardless of what your industry may be. This series doesn’t sell anything…it simply HELPS your business stand out and rise above your competitors. These are practical, actionable, quick-acting, and proven ways to elevate your business above others and make you “top of mind” to your customers. I guarantee they will make a difference in your business. I hope you will find this helpful. I hope you will share them with your fellow business owners and leaders. And I look forward to hearing about how they helped you in some way. If you missed any of the previous articles in the NOW Series, here they are for your reference…

·        NOW is the time to…DIFFERENTIATE

·        NOW is the time to…BUILD TRUST

·        NOW is the time to…ELIMINATE ANXIETY

·        NOW is the time to…HELP OTHERS IMPROVE THEIR LIFE AND/OR BUSINESS

BUILDING YOUR BRAND…is absolutely, positively critical today in our noisy, crowded, and commoditized world. A differentiated Brand that stands out to your audience is worth gold.

Do you have a Brand that is clearly differentiated from your competitors? Do you have a “Brand Message” that is easy to understand? Does your audience talk about your Brand in a way that is what you want and consistent with your Brand Message? Do your employees communicate a consistent Brand Message in both their words and their actions?

In today’s commoditized economy, everyone “looks the same” to the customer. Customers have a hard time distinguishing between companies other than through commodity items such as price. And it is much harder to communicate a consistent Brand Message in a commoditized world.

I don’t have to tell you that having a consistent Brand Message is more difficult today than it has ever been in history…you’re living it. Audiences are more confused than ever. And to make things worse, everyone in our audience (customers included) has a “microphone” today and can say whatever they want about us. All this has led to one major issue for just about every business…BRAND CONFUSION.

Let’s step back a bit and see how all this happened. Life was easier in the Industrial Revolution…before the Internet. Companies had control of just about everything, including their Brand Message. What they said was what people heard about them. And they repeated it a lot so it was burned into our memory. I’m probably giving away my age, but I still remember some of the jingles that these behemoth companies put out to get us to remember their products and services. It was all we had.

Then the Internet came along and all of a sudden, we could hear what “other people were saying” about these same products and services. Almost overnight we had many more voices telling us about these same products and services. And they were trusted and credible voices because they were customers who were actually using them. They were believable and we listened. We still listen…more today than ever before. The world has changed…we are squarely in the Customer Economy (according to Forrester Research). The customer is firmly and completely in control of the messages in the market.

Building Brand today is more difficult than ever…or is it?

There are millions (if not billions) of dollars being spent by businesses today to build their Brand. Is it worth it? I believe the money should be spent…but not on building Brand the way most believe it should be built. I disagree that your Brand is built by pumping more ads, social media posts, and other propaganda into the market with the intent of trying to shape how your audience views your company. This doesn’t work. I’m sure I’ll get some hate mail from the “branding experts” on this one, but I think you might just agree with me.

Brand today is WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE SAYS ABOUT YOU, not what you say about yourself.

Here’s a simple test you can try for yourself to prove my point. Randomly pick 20 customers that would represent your ideal audience(s). Then simply ask them one simple question, “What do you believe is the “Brand” of our company and our “Brand Message”? My guess is you will get close to 20 different and varied responses…maybe no two the same. And when you do get these responses, how close are they to what YOU believe your Brand and Brand Message to be? I think you will find a great deal of misalignment.

Which one is right? Are any of these Brand Messages right? The surprising answer is, all of them!! That’s right, they are all the right Brand Message to the person who believes it to be the Brand Message. To them, it is accurate. To them, this is what you stand for, your purpose, what you do, and how they would label your company. It might not be what you want them to say, but to your audience, it is truth.

Your Brand and Brand Message are your ACTIONS, not your WORDS.

Let me cut to the chase…Branding is simple. Creating your Brand is nothing more than “what you do,” not “what you say.” If you tell everyone you always deliver the best product on time and you don’t have the best products or you don’t deliver on time, it won’t ever be your Brand Message, no matter how hard you try. It is what you “demonstrate” consistently to your audience that creates and builds your Brand Message. Nothing complex about it…it’s your actions that determine your true Brand.

Your audience tells thousands (or more) people about your Brand…the Brand they understand.

Brand is all about leverage. You demonstrate something to one member of the audience and they tell a thousand people. That’s leverage. You do something over and over again (consistency rules) and your audience tells others this is who you are and how you operate…your Brand Message. Your audience is your “hidden marketing force” that works for you or against you. If they are telling everyone the Brand Message you want, you win. If they tell others a Brand Message that isn’t what you want, you lose. The key is to get your Brand Message in alignment with your audience.

Here’s how to quickly build your Brand and Brand Message in the market…5 Steps.

As I promise with all these articles in the “NOW Series”, I want to give you something you can do quickly, like in 30 days or maybe a little more. You can change your Brand quickly with some focused efforts. Here are 5 steps you can take to transform your Brand and Brand Message quickly…

1.      Analyze your Audience – Start with the exercise I described above. Get 20 customers and find out what they are saying in the market about you. Know what messages are currently in the market so you understand what you are currently “demonstrating” with your actions.

2.      Decide Who You Are – Hold a planning session with your leaders to specifically identify (or determine) who you are, your purpose, why you do what you do, and why you believe you are different. This will be a tough meeting. Give yourself a few days for this one or get a facilitator to help you through it. You will truly understand what your Brand and Brand Message should be.

3.      Identify Aligned Actions – Take an in-depth look around your organization at the processes and your customer-facing activities and see which actions actually support your purpose, what you identified in step 2. At the same time, identify the actions that don’t support your purpose.

4.      Identify your Promises – As with step 3, identify what Promises you are making to your audience and see if they are in alignment with your purpose (and ultimately your Brand Message). At the same time, identify the Promises you are making that work against your designed purpose and the ones that support your purpose. Write all these down…they will come in handy for helping you change the processes that fight against delivering your purpose.

5.      Change your Actions – This is the biggest and hardest step of all…changing the way you act and talk. If you truly did your homework in the first 4 steps, you have all the information and ammunition you need to change what you are doing. I won’t lie, it isn’t easy…but nothing incredibly rewarding ever is easy. You will be changing the processes, interactions, and Promises to be in alignment with what you want your Brand Message to be in the market. You will be eliminating the Promises that detract from this Message and emphasizing the ones that support the Brand Message. In essence, you will be changing your “actions” to be in alignment with who you are and your purpose. Then you show your audience, through your actions, who you really are and they will (rather quickly) see you differently and change the Brand Message they had in their mind. They will make the transformation based on your changed actions.

Your audience is a quick learner. If they see you doing something consistently different and throughout the organization, they will believe you are something different. If they see if often enough, they will believe you are something different. You will have changed your Brand Message because of your Actions. Now, if you asked your audience again to tell you what they believe your message to be, you will get a different answer. And your audience is the only one that matters when it comes to your Brand Message. What they say goes and it is what they will tell others.

I talk about helping organizations become “REMARK”able all the time. It is all about getting your audience to do your marketing for you…tell others (remark) about how incredibly awesome and amazing you are. To make this work, you want to arm them with the “right” Brand Message so they can tell everyone what it is you want them to say. This is how you leverage your audience to tell thousands of others who you really are and back it up with action. This will change your Brand and Brand Message in a much shorter time than any ad campaign or new messaging in the market. Show your audience who you really are. And they will reward you with massive marketing on your behalf…in the right direction…for free.

My Goal for you…

As with this series, my goal is always the same…help you be more CUSTOMER OBSESSED so you can become “REMARK”able, where your customers (and others) are doing your marketing for you and acting as your “Advocates and Marketing Agents?.” Everything I share with you has this underlying purpose and goal attached…I want you to “light up” your audiences so they can become your Advocates and Marketing Agents. That’s it. If you want the same, keep reading this series. Thank you…

My NEW BOOK…

I referenced earlier that I have a new book coming out. It is in the final editing stages right now so you should hopefully see it as early as August but most likely in September. It will change your business…forever…guaranteed. This series of “NOW is the time to…” focuses on some of the components that I will talk about in-depth in the book. And, unlike I can do here is a brief article, I share specific ways for HOW to make it happen in your organization. It’s transformative. Keep your eye open for the announcements of its upcoming release. If you want to be on a list to know about it exactly when it comes out, shoot me an email at [email protected] and I’ll make sure you get on the early announcement list.