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So, you want to talk about branding

Written by: Leanne Bucaro

Article Overview: A brief overview of what a brand is and how you can go about building your own company brand.

So, you want to talk about branding

So you want to talk about Branding?

Does every company have a brand? Does every company need a brand? What do you think of when you hear the name of a company? Does it conjure up positive feelings or negative ones? What is a brand? What makes a good brand? How do I get a good brand name when I don’t have the resources of a Tim Hortons or Bell? Let us explore a few of these areas to demystify the world of branding.

Firstly, let’s define a brand. Brand is what people think about when they hear your name – it is the perception of your company in the market. Brand is more than a logo, it is more than a tag line, it is more than a well crafted advertising campaign. A brand is what you stand for and it is how you are perceived in the marketplace. You do not really own your brand. You own the logos, the copyright etc... Your brand is what the market thinks of you based on your brand and related activities. It is ultimately how you are perceived.

Does every company need a brand? Every company is a brand whether you are an auto body shop or a Twenty-Million dollar enterprise. You may never have focused on your brand; you may have spent your time on building a solid reliable business with excellent service and great clients. But now you have to grow. What do you do to get to the world outside your immediate customer base? How do you differentiate your offering? Of course you need great strategies and solid tactical approach to executing on those objectives, but how do you facilitate that effort? This is where your brand becomes extremely valuable. Still not convinced? Think about these three questions:

1. Did you ever lose an account where you had the better value proposition?

Maybe you were beaten by a better brand?

2. Do your sales executives tell you “no one knows who we are”?

Maybe they spend a lot of time on ineffective prospecting.

3. You rarely get leads “because the prospect has heard of you”.

The brand can sell for you when you have an integrated approach to building your brand.

Brand can shorten the sales cycle because your credibility is established early which saves time during the prospecting phase. Your sales people can actually increase their productivity with an investment in your brand. In our view “the Brand” or your brand is affected positively or negatively at every “touch point” you have with your prospects, suppliers, customers, potential recruits – every point you reach outside of your organization. In other words, everything you communicate with the marketplace impacts on your brand.

We believe that in order to “Live your Brand” you need to have an Integrated Thinking approach to your brand strategy. It does not start and stop with Marketing. It involves every employee, supplier, partner (and so on…) with whom your business comes into contact. It can be as simple as ensuring your receptionist
communicates your core messages accurately and passionately.

So what are some of the branding items you should consider?

1. Make sure your Key Messages are simple and accurately describe what you do.
2. These messages need to be embedded in all your marketing collateral, advertising copy, web site etc..
3. The messages need to be communicated internally so that all staff has a comfort level with what makes you unique. If you don’t know what that is look harder, your clients buy from you for a reason, find out what that is.
4. If you plan to get some media exposure you need to have your spokespeople trained on the basics of Media Relations and interview strategies.
5. Your spokespeople also need to be trained in effective speaking to ensure that they enhance your company brand when public speaking in front of your prospects and clients.
6. Your sales team needs to internalize these messages without improvisation. Your feet on the street communicate with hundreds if not thousands of prospects in a given year; they need to be on message.

These are just a few simple steps every company can do to begin to build their brand. There are of course many others that would likely require the use of PR agencies, but in fact that investment can have a great long term ROI. Generally, the cost of PR can be close to the salary of one mid level employee annually. Clearly, branding is tough to measure as PR is tough to measure, but we always know when we get good PR because our clients and prospects tell us so.

Branding makes the company relevant. When you are known, it facilitates all other sales and related activities.

Everyone that “touches” your organization in any way must come away with a good positive feeling. This enhances the essence of your brand.

“Live your Brand every day, after all – it is who you are…”

Related Articles
  The Secret Behind Successful Branding (and No, It's Not About a Logo)
  How to Use Personal Branding for a Competitive Edge
  The definition of branding
  Building A Better Brand in the New Year
  Personal Branding Tip

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Related Forum Posts
Re: The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - I suppose it depends on what type of business you are in. If you are in a business such as MLM or affiliate marketing I would think that branding yourself would be better. That way whatever you decide to sell, people are buying mainly because of you. On the other hand if you have a unique product or service then maybe branding that is better. MichelleJ
Re: Branding On A Budget - Several of the things that I promote to clients are elements of their branding and credibility is a big thing that I talk with clients about - especially non fiction authors and other business people. Credibility and reputation are critical in any business venture, but especially with online businesses because we need to build trust. Shri
Re: The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - The original post in this thread got my mind spinning in so many different directions. Typically when we think of branding we think of large company branding. It's interesting how many large companies have taken seemingly made up words and created a brand around those words. For example, what does the word "kleenex" mean? When you hear or read that word you automatically think of a facial tissue. How about the word "Google"? Google has come to mean an internet search engine. Having used those two examples though it leads me to what I think is most important about branding whether you are an individual, small business, or conglomerate. The purpose of your brand is to create a unique space or position in the marketplace that you and you alone own. In many cases people create a personal brand through there persona. Frank Kern is the good old boy strikes it big in internet marketing persona. Zig Ziglar is the good boy does good motivational speaker persona. When you hear there names you immediately associate that name with there unique space in the market. So coming back to personal branding and whether you should allow your personal flaws to show I would say you absolutely must because that's who you are and you can't fake you. Whether people like you or don't like you they have to know exactly who they are liking or disliking. Bottom line when it comes to branding or personal branding I think the critical question is... Does your brand create a unique place in the world that people are already looking for?
Brand Babble - I recently read another great book called "Brand Babble" The book debunks a bunch of branding 'myths' that have seem to get passed around as conventional branding wisdom. The authors are Don E Schultz & Heidi F Schultz. ISBN 0-538-72714-4
The Flaw In Personal Branding...? - To what extent do you use personal branding to build your business and your business image? To build an effective personal brand, the image you convey needs to be authentic, not phoney ... so to what extent do you, or would you, allow your personal flaws to be part of your personal brand image?? We could be talking about the physical side, including physical condition and fashion, or it could be in the area of personal behaviour and characteristics or habits, or it could be in the area of lifestyle... Don't you think it might be better to have a flaw or two on display, to appear more human, and perhaps therefore more like someone people could do business with? Or is there a flaw in the whole idea of personal branding. Shouldn't we just concentrate on branding our products??


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