Be Your Brand

We’re surrounded by brands everyday… the pen with your bank’s logo, the designer handbag, the cross-trainers with a tell-tale swoop on the side, the McDonald’s wrappers in your backseat. We see brands, we respond to brands, we buy brands - but how well do we excel at creating a brand for ourselves or our companies?

In business today branding is everything. If you are a small business owner your products, services, ads, promotional materials, facility and staff all have to project a uniform image that speaks to a target audience. If you are a career woman and want to climb the corporate ladder, you have to master the art of personal branding and learn to view yourself not as an employee, but rather as the President of Me, Inc.

What is a brand? A brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or an organization. People experience a brand through every point of contact with the product, service, company or person in question. People translate their experiences, expectations and sensory perceptions into a psychological, symbolic framework that becomes the brand’s image in their mind. I won’t kid you, developing a strong and appealing brand takes time, money and effort. And once a consumer has formed an opinion about a brand it’s incredibly difficult to change it – so devise your brand wisely and adhere to it religiously.

Why does branding matter? I get this question all the time from entrepreneurs who feel that investing in branding strategies is a waste of time since they don’t aspire to achieve iconic Nike, Coke or Wal-Mart status anyway. I’ll tell you why. Branding builds trust. And without trust a business can’t succeed. A brand is simply a promise of the value that customers will infallibly receive from you.

On a corporate level, consider the power of branding as we make buying decisions. Right now I own a VW Beetle convertible and I love my car. I’ve already decided that in a few years I will pass on my current car to my teenage daughter and purchase a new vehicle for myself. What car will I buy? That’s right… another VW Beetle convertible! Why will I re-purchase a Beetle? Because Volkswagen is a strong brand that represents top-quality German engineering, affordability, reliability and fuel efficiency, as well as a car that’s fun to drive. I trust that if a buy another Beetle I will have the same great experience that I have had with my current car. Volkswagen’s brand image, customer loyalty and profitability are dependent upon on upholding the company’s promise on a daily basis.

On a personal level, consider email. Everybody has email and anybody can send you a message, so when you scan your Inbox in the morning how do you decide whose messages you're going to read and respond to first? Whose messages are you going to send to the Trash unopened? The answer relates directly to personal branding. The name of the email sender represents a personal brand. It's a promise of the value you'll receive for taking the time to read the message. If you have a friend who forwards every silly chain letter and cartoon they receive, you probably won’t regard messages from them very highly, but if a business associate regularly contacts you with leads, referrals or relevant news you will regard messages from them as extremely important.

What can branding do for you? People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience with the thing being sold, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain characteristics that make it unique and desirable. A brand is one of the most valuable elements in an advertising campaign, because it demonstrates what the product or service being sold is able to offer in the marketplace. In a job search, your personal brand is often more valuable than your resume or references, because it showcases the actual capabilities, power and presence you will bring to the workplace.
Good branding offers several benefits:

1. Premium prices. Careful brand management, supported by a clever marketing campaign, can be highly successful in convincing consumers to pay high prices for products which are extremely cheap to make. By manipulating the projected image of your product or service, you can move customers beyond a logical valuation of the cost. This is why t-shirts at Madonna concerts are $50 when they only cost .50 to make – good branding!

2. Trust and loyalty. When people have a positive experience with a brand, they're more likely to buy that product or service again. People who closely bond with a brand are not only more likely to re-purchase, but also to buy related items, to recommend the brand to others and to resist the lure of a competitor's low price. ‘Harley Davidson’ is tattooed on more bodies than any other brand – can you earn and anchor such loyalty in your own customers?

3. Memorability. A brand serves as a container for your reputation and good will. It's hard for customers to go back to "that store on 28th street" or to refer business to "some plumber named Dan." Memorability can come from using and sticking with an unusual color combination/logo (Target), distinctive behavior (Home Depot’s greeters), a catchy name (Google, anyone?), or with an individual, even a style of clothing (Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits). Develop your own identifiers and nail them to your name in the minds of the public.

4. Lower expenses. It takes money, time and passion to create a brand, but once it's created you can maintain it without having to tell the whole story about your product or service over and over again. For instance, a jingle people get stuck in their head continues to promote the company when it’s not on the air. Levi’s jeans continue to fly off the shelves even though you seldom see them advertised on TV anymore – that’s because generations of people love Levi’s and the company can afford to relax a little.

I certainly can’t go into all the nuances of how to engage in branding in a short article, but I hope that you have developed a deep respect for the process of branding, and that you understand how the strength of your professional or personal brand will impact your success.

Align your entire business behind a strong brand that resonates with potential customers, and commit yourself to delivering on your promises, and sales will naturally rise.

All Systems Grow!

I wrote this article last month for Victory Woman magazine (view at http://www.victorycircles.com/victory-woman-magazine.asp) to examine the process of growing a company from minuscule to massive...

Now, you might say 'I don't want to be MASSIVE, just medium!' Well, that's fine too. But the bottom line is that you follow the same steps and apply the same principles when you go from a sole proprietorship to a staff of five, as when you make the leap from a staff of 100 to a staff of 1000. The scale is certainly different, but several simple keys will open the doors.

Let's look at the 10 keys that will take your systems from slow to 'grow':

1. Have clarity of vision. Why are you in business? What is so great about what you do or make? Why will people want to give you money? If you can't answer these simple questions, you have a huge problem. Clarity = power. If you don't have a vision and a sense of destiny about your company, you won't grow.

2. Think BIGGER than you are. This is a tough one for small business owners. It's very difficult to hold an imaginary image of your company as a thriving conglomerate in your head everyday, but that is what it takes to design processes that accommodate other people and make long view decisions that will take you to the top.

3. Remember that your business is sales. Your business is not the product you manufacture. Your business is not the service you provide. Your real business is marketing and creating the internal capacity to successfully sell and deliver your products and services to a multitude of consumers.

4. Build a strong brand image. Branding is everything. Your products, services, ads, promotional materials, facility and staff all have to project a uniform image that speaks to your target audience. Align your entire business behind a strong brand that resonates with potential customers, and sales will naturally rise.

5. Determine key metrics. You can't move your company forward if you don't know what criteria really matter. Figure out what activities and metrics drive your business and track them with a vengeance. For some it might be weekly client meetings, for others it might be unit sales, for you it might be inventory turn... whatever matters, pay attention to that.

6. Study your finances. All businesses exist to make money. That means that you have to become a financial guru: researching, tracking, studying, sharing and using financial data to guide every decision. Every financial activity (borrowing, investor offerings, budgets, sales targets, ratios, etc.) should be in your head every second of the day.

7. Know your customers. Customers are king. If you don't have any, you won't have a business for long – much less grow. Know who the people are that you are trying to reach and why they will want to invest their hard-earned dollars with you. Design your entire company to meet their needs and please them. Gather their feedback and make customer service a top priority.

8. Become the threat. Many business advisors will tell you to study your competitors, play off their every strategic move and mimic their successes. I disagree. And my advice to you is BECOME THE THREAT. While every smart business owner knows what differentiates him and keeps an eye on the market, the most successful organizations step away from the pack and make their competition worry about them!

9. Create a culture of leadership and accountability. Eventually a growing company will expand beyond your ability to reach into every corner and crevice. In order to grow a business you have to build systems and mentor leaders, so that you can maintain focus on the bigger picture. Create an organizational culture that raises up great leaders, rewards results, and makes it easy for people to do their jobs.

10. WOW people! 'Customer satisfaction' is not my favorite term. It implies that your goal is for people to walk away feeling 'OK', but not amazed... Satisfied, but not so excited they want to tell all their friends. If you really want to take a leap to the next level I urge you to go for the 'wow factor' and look beyond simple satisfaction.

Holiday Email Tips

Help Shoppers Save Time.
Research shows that time saving and convenience are the #1 holiday shopping motivators. Try promoting something that will save your customers time while shopping.

Use a 30 Second Rule.
Holiday email promotions abound, but time does not. Make sure your message can be digested in less than 30 seconds. Use a minimum of copy and images and focus on concise headlines and links. Give them just enough information to get them into the store or onto your website.

Offer Alternatives to "Buy Now."
50% of online purchases are for an item other than the one in the promotion. If you promote a single item, offer alternatives and incentives in addition to 'but it now' in order to draw people in to browse online or in your store.

Categorize Your Offers.
Remember that its gift giving season, so try categorizing offers by gift-giving group instead of by product line. Examples could include "for the chef in your home," "gifts that teens love," "stocking stuffers," etc.

Be Branded but Different.
Using holiday colors is a good idea, but make sure you keep a consistent brand by using the same format, logos, text style, and personality that your customers are used to seeing. If they don't recognize your emails, they may be perceived as unwanted junk. Also be sure your subject lines and from lines are clear, consistent, and include the immediate benefits of opening your email.