What's in Your Brand?

We hear a lot about branding these days. Everything it seems is branded, including you, if you own a business or market a product or service. So exactly what is your brand? What differentiates you from the competition? Don't know, aren't sure, don't think it's important? It's worth your while to spend some time thinking about your brand, according to branding expert, speaker and author Rick Barrera, whom I heard speak at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce business education breakfast last week, because consumers simply have too many choices for the same product or service out there today. If you're in business, you must know and articulate your brand promise and deliver on it consistently in order to set yourself apart from the competition.


And while Barerra's message is simple, creating a brand is anything but easy. Here are some of the take-aways from Barrera's presentation:

• Develop a radically different "brand promise" along a dimension that matters to your customers. What will you do better or differently, "that matters to your customers"? What matters to your clients or customers that you promise to deliver on a consistent basis? Will your focus be service, speed, low cost, friendliness, efficiency, accuracy, selection. And if you don't know what's most important to your customers, there's a powerful way to find out: ask.
  
  
• You must deliver on your promise (or according to Barrera, "overdeliver") at various "touchpoints" along the way. A touchpoint is any intersection between you and your client or customer. Examples include: your website, your phone answering system, service or receptionist, the "face" of your store, office or location, the appearance of your collateral materials. Think about visiting Amazon.com. When you visit the website, it remembers you (yes, I know it's cookies, but it matters!), it makes recommendations based on your buying and browsing patterns, it makes it simple to order with one-click, it gives you options for shipping, and it offers you a million things besides books. In short, why would I spend gas at $4 a gallon to visit a brick and mortar bookstore when everything, and then some, is available at this "one stop shop?"
  
  
• Manage your touchpoints passionately. A powerful example Barrera offered is the dramatic difference between walking into an Apple computer store and walking into a typical computer or business warehouse store. The Apple store evokes an entirely different emotional experience than the typical computer warehouse. Think clean, spare, beautiful, streamlined vs. cluttered, overwhelming, and visually unappealing. And of course, Apple carries this "emotional experience" through in everything from their advertising to their product design, color choices and technical support. Another example of a company that manages its touchpoints passionately is Starbucks. You're not just paying $4 for a Starbucks cuppa joe, you're buying an experience that runs deep in the Starbucks culture--from the decor to the drink names, to the entertainment, to the promise that if it's not right they'll make it right and give you a free pass on your next trip through.
  
  What kind of experience does your business offer? Are you managing the touchpoints passionately? Do people walk away from your office, store, or a simple phone conversation saying "wow, am I glad I went there or talked to that person!"
  
  
• Your brand, simply put, is how you act on a consistent basis in the marketplace. You can't pay an ad agency or marketing guru to "create" your brand. A brand comes from your business philosophy and culture. It comes from integrating certain principles a mile deep in your organization. If people get turned off, for example by a user "unfriendly" website, you likely won't have another chance to show them what you're capable of. Likewise, if they get turned off by a rude receptionist or poor service it won't matter what your advertising proclaims, it's the customer's experience that creates your brand identity. What are you doing consistently in the marketplace that sets you apart from the competition? Does it matter to your customer or prospect? How do you know?
  
  

Quote of the Week:

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much"

~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Get Clients Now! coming soon!! If you're a professional who is ready to take a quantum step forward in marketing your services and attracting new clients watch for an announcement coming soon about the next Get Clients Now! program I'm offering. In the meantime, visit my website at www.dynamic-coaching.com for a description of Get Clients Now!

"Transforming Your Potential into Performance!"
Betty Mahalik, PCC Life & Business Coach, Trainer bettym@dynamic-coaching.com www.dynamic-coaching.com	Dynamic Solutions 5240 Mustang St. Las Vegas, NV 89130 tel: 702 658-4425 fax: 702 658-5802 mobile: 702 443-0175
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