What's different about your brand? ??

??Lesson of the Week - Branding

Help customers understand what you offer and how you're unique by establishing your brand.

What does your brand stand for?

Tell your company’s story in a compelling way by answering your “why.”

Branding is all of the ways you establish an image of your company in your customers’ eyes. It’s about the story, the people, the product and the offers. The way you tell your origin story on your website or when your sales and customer service staff interact with customers can make a big difference. The purpose of branding is to help your customers understand what you offer and how you’re different. It’s more than the USP or UVP (unique selling proposition or unique value proposition), it is the combination of all the ways you choose to communicate what you stand for.

Think Patagonia, Starbucks, Disney, Apple, Tesla, Ben & Jerry’s, etc. These brands stand for something! It’s more than what they sell. In addition to your logo, corporate colors, a brand guide you can communicate your brand message.

Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, Paul J. Zak, Ph.D., is the author of a study at Berkeley, where it was found that the brain produces a neurochemical called oxytocin—sometimes referred to as “the love hormone”—when people watch or hear a moving story. Oxytocin creates feelings of empathy and compassion, and higher levels of the hormone are shown to produce generosity and trust. Stories connect us with strangers.

The story you tell becomes the structure upon which your prospects and customers write their own. If people can see themselves in your hardships and triumphs, you’ve effectively cast them a role in the center of your brand’s story. I’ve always been fascinated by silent films. In particular, Mr. Bean and the 3 Stooges are my favorites. But when it comes to modern day stories, I think no one does it better than Marvel. The great Stan Lee started working in the family business, Timely Comics, in 1939. To think that some of the same characters and stories Stan created in that era are still popular with people today is amazing.

What Makes Your Brand Stand Out?

Use this formula:

We offer [PRODUCT/SERVICE] for [TARGET MARKET] to [VALUE PROPOSITION]. Unlike [THE ALTERNATIVE], we [KEY DIFFERENTIATOR].

Check out this free Business Storytelling workshop by our partners at Bizhack.

?? Podcast Episode of the Week

Today on the podcast we talk with Dr. Amanda Barrientez, founder of NFA (No Fucking Around) Money. We discuss how you can get unstuck in your life by creating your own reality personally and professionally. Dr. Barrientez helps women entrepreneurs get into their zone of manifestation. After going from food stamps to building a 6-figure business fast, she's been driven to teach business builders strategies to make more money doing exactly what they love to do.

Listen Now!

?? Opportunity

Have you been Pwned?? What is "Have I Been Pwned"? It's a website that allows Internet users to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches. The service collects and analyzes hundreds of database dumps and pastes containing information about billions of leaked accounts, and allows users to search for their own information by entering their username or email address.

What does "pwned" mean?

The word "pwned" has origins in video game culture and is a leetspeak derivation of the word "owned", due to the proximity of the "o" and "p" keys. It's typically used to imply that someone has been controlled or compromised, for example "I was pwned in the Adobe data breach". Read more about how "pwned" went from hacker slang to the Internet's favorite taunt.

Pwned Passwords are hundreds of millions of real world passwords previously exposed in data breaches. This exposure makes them unsuitable for ongoing use as they're at much greater risk of being used to take over other accounts. Check if your email or phone is in a data breach. ';--have i been pwned?

Generate secure, unique passwords for every account using Firefox.

??Ted Talk I’m Watching

As you know, I’m a huge fan of Ted Talk. I make it a point to discover new talks on a weekly basis. I’m always guaranteed a new idea. The one I want to highlight today is an old one, but as is the case with all types of content, some ideas and stories are timeless.?

In this Ted Talk, David Pogue talks about the Software Update paradox, which means if you update it enough times it’ll be ruined. So much of this still takes place in the world of tech. Developers, Marketers, CEO’s, shareholders and customers are not usually on the same page when it comes to what new features should be included in software updates.

David’s advice for consumers of technology, is to remember that if the tech isn’t working, it’s not necessarily you, ok? It could be the design of the product you are using. Be aware in life of good design and bad design. For example, if your customers are mostly in the United States, when they get to the checkout on your website, ask your developer to make sure that the first country that populates is the US. Don’t make the user work harder! The lesson here is, simplicity sells. Even if you don’t sell technology or software, stop complicating your product and service, and start listening to customers.

?? Making a Difference

@FacesOfCOVID is the creation of Alex Goldstein. On this Twitter page he shares stories of those lost to COVID per news reports, obits & submissions. Goldstein says he created the Twitter page because he felt the people lost to COVID should be more than a statistic. Check it out!? ???

?? Inspirational

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

- Oscar Wilde