Selling when YOU are the Brand
Selling when YOU are the Brand
Branding is a vital component for many organisations in terms of gaining awareness while being supported by their advertising campaigns. An extremely important aspect of Branding is to increase market share and sales. For many organisations this is a comprehensive and expensive exercise. For a number of organisations a single individual’s image incorporates that organisations Brand.
Budgetary constraints for the most part appear to be the biggest hindrance to embarking on a Branding exercise. The amazing thing is that most organisations can do a great deal for their Branding without breaking the bank.
Living your Brand is an effective yet inexpensive way in which to boost your Brand and sales. By addressing your Unique Selling Proposition you can improve your Brand positioning and your Sales.
If you do not consciously create a brand a brand tends to develop by itself, and that may not be ideal. Building on a series of Unique Propositions is one way of building a brand – by design.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
For some time now organisations have been hard at work building their Unique Selling Propositions. The bad news is that what may have been considered unique last week is not that unique this week. We spend so much time and effort separating ourselves from our competition only to have all our efforts replicated and duplicated in 48 hours. So how do we stay ahead of the race?
The catch is that while we dare not - not have Unique Selling Propositions, we also need to be going beyond just another “not-so-unique”, Unique Selling Proposition.
It is, however, still possible to have a Unique Selling Proposition that does set you apart from your competition. For the individual Sales Professional within an organisation; what sets you apart from your colleagues? Your Unique Selling Proposition begins to be truly unique and beyond your competition when your emphasis is on:
Turning consumers into customers. While many claim they do this, not all their key leverage factors support it. For definition purposes lets assume that a consumer is someone who walks in and purchases your products and or services, while a customer or a client is someone who consistently comes back to you to purchase your products and or services because there is just something about the way you do business that is compelling and likable.
Here is an example; my wife and I have purchased 4 new cars from the same salesperson, why? One could argue that it is because it is a fantastic motor car, which is true. Is that the reason we drive from one city to another the buy that car? – No, I can drive down the road for that. There is only one reason a drive to the next city to buy a car I can buy down the road… the salesperson. He just does something we don’t get anywhere else! When I tell this story I ask people what they think this particular salesperson “looks” like. I usually get – young, dynamic, fast, on the ball, well dressed. The truth is he could have retired years ago – he is a real grandpa, he is not in a hurry, he even looks like a farmer, the last person you would expect on a luxury car showroom floor. So what makes him so unique that you want to go back? I can sum it up in something he told me. He told me a story… from the good old days, when he worked for a different motor distributor, when he was selling a very small yet popular entry level motor vehicle. He said it did not matter what car his customer bought … “I just made him feel so good about his purchase that he felt like he had just bought a Rolls Royce”. Now that works for me. How do you make your customers feel when they have just bought something from you? What works for them? Just by the way he is still the number one salesperson at that dealership.
Turning transactions into relationships. This separates the Sales Professional from the order takers. Allow me some latitude here… not even undertakers should be order takers. Get to know your customers, it is amazing how many opportunities you can see when your get to know the people you are dealing with. People start to trust you more. You customers are not left with a hit and run complex after you have finished with them.
Develop a Brand Memory. Whatever it is that you sell make the experience a memorable one for your customer. Leave your customers with a story they want to tell their friends and colleagues, and that story is you.
Aligning your Unique Selling Proposition and Brand with your corporate and brand behaviour. Walk the talk. If you are in fast food then be fast. If you are in quality, then deliver quality and do not compromise on the quality. One way to check if you are what you sell is to check your tag line. Do you live your slogan? If you are not living your slogan, you are not unique.
Your Unique Selling Proposition becomes out of reach of the competition and even your colleagues when you have aligned:
Your processes
Your people (behaviour)
Your products
Most importantly is that you do all this in a way that is “you”. The old expression of “fake it till you make it” does not work with your Unique Selling Proposition. We are talking about the real ‘you’ that real people buy. Your outcome here is to have your name used synonymously with the name of the company you work for or the Brand you represent.
Selling when YOU are the Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Clark's Website.
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Selling - when YOU are the Brand.
Branding is a vital component for many organisations in terms of gaining awareness while being supported by their advertising campaigns. An extremely important aspect of Branding is to increase market share and sales. For many organisations this is a comprehensive and expensive exercise. For a number of organisations a single individual’s image incorporates that organisations Brand.
Budgetary constraints for the most part appear to be the biggest hindrance to embarking on a Branding exercise. The amazing thing is that most organisations can do a great deal for their Branding without breaking the bank.
Living your Brand is an effective yet inexpensive way in which to boost your Brand and sales. By addressing your Unique Selling Proposition you can improve your Brand positioning and your Sales.
If you do not consciously create a brand a brand tends to develop by itself, and that may not be ideal. Building on a series of Unique Propositions is one way of building a brand – by design.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
For some time now organisations have been hard at work building their Unique Selling Propositions. The bad news is that what may have been considered unique last week is not that unique this week. We spend so much time and effort separating ourselves from our competition only to have all our efforts replicated and duplicated in 48 hours. So how do we stay ahead of the race?
The catch is that while we dare not - not have Unique Selling Propositions, we also need to be going beyond just another “not-so-unique”, Unique Selling Proposition.
It is, however, still possible to have a Unique Selling Proposition that does set you apart from your competition. For the individual Sales Professional within an organisation; what sets you apart from your colleagues? Your Unique Selling Proposition begins to be truly unique and beyond your competition when your emphasis is on:
Turning consumers into customers. While many claim they do this, not all their key leverage factors support it. For definition purposes lets assume that a consumer is someone who walks in and purchases your products and or services, while a customer or a client is someone who consistently comes back to you to purchase your products and or services because there is just something about the way you do business that is compelling and likable.
Here is an example; my wife and I have purchased 4 new cars from the same salesperson, why? One could argue that it is because it is a fantastic motor car, which is true. Is that the reason we drive from one city to another the buy that car? – No, I can drive down the road for that. There is only one reason a drive to the next city to buy a car I can buy down the road… the salesperson. He just does something we don’t get anywhere else! When I tell this story I ask people what they think this particular salesperson “looks” like. I usually get – young, dynamic, fast, on the ball, well dressed. The truth is he could have retired years ago – he is a real grandpa, he is not in a hurry, he even looks like a farmer, the last person you would expect on a luxury car showroom floor. So what makes him so unique that you want to go back? I can sum it up in something he told me. He told me a story… from the good old days, when he worked for a different motor distributor, when he was selling a very small yet popular entry level motor vehicle. He said it did not matter what car his customer bought … “I just made him feel so good about his purchase that he felt like he had just bought a Rolls Royce”. Now that works for me. How do you make your customers feel when they have just bought something from you? What works for them? Just by the way he is still the number one salesperson at that dealership.
Turning transactions into relationships. This separates the Sales Professional from the order takers. Allow me some latitude here… not even undertakers should be order takers. Get to know your customers, it is amazing how many opportunities you can see when your get to know the people you are dealing with. People start to trust you more. You customers are not left with a hit and run complex after you have finished with them.
Develop a Brand Memory. Whatever it is that you sell make the experience a memorable one for your customer. Leave your customers with a story they want to tell their friends and colleagues, and that story is you.
Aligning your Unique Selling Proposition and Brand with your corporate and brand behaviour. Walk the talk. If you are in fast food then be fast. If you are in quality, then deliver quality and do not compromise on the quality. One way to check if you are what you sell is to check your tag line. Do you live your slogan? If you are not living your slogan, you are not unique.
Your Unique Selling Proposition becomes out of reach of the competition and even your colleagues when you have aligned:
Your processes
Your people (behaviour)
Your products
Most importantly is that you do all this in a way that is “you”. The old expression of “fake it till you make it” does not work with your Unique Selling Proposition. We are talking about the real ‘you’ that real people buy. Your outcome here is to have your name used synonymously with the name of the company you work for or the Brand you represent.
Selling when YOU are the Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Kevin Clark's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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