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Brand Matters
Written by: Linda MattacksArticle Overview: How is your company different from your competition? Why should anyone choose to do business with you rather than any of your competitors?
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Brand Matters
The way you position your brand is fundamental to your ultimate success so it's vital that you get it right.
It’s very difficult nowadays to come up with a product, service or solution that is totally new, truly unique and perceived by the prospect or customer to be the only solution to his or her problem. If you do manage to, you can bet your boots it won’t be long before the nub of your idea is copied and the competition is up and running and possibly undercutting your price too.
So how can you protect your business and profitably win, grow and keep your customers when, to all intents and purposes, it’s a jungle out there?
We are not going to get all tied up in fancy marketing speak, there are plenty of books and courses around on the subject already, but you would have to be living well and truly in the dark ages not to have heard terms such as "mission", "vision", "brand value" and the like.
Big corporations pay huge amounts of money developing the "brand" and equally vast amounts to lawyers if they think someone is infringing on it.
The fact that you are not in the same league as BP, General Electric, IBM, Vodafone, Cisco et al shouldn’t put you off investigating what could be in this for you. It’s worth taking some time to think about what makes your business offer different from any other.
Core values.
In order for your business brand to mean anything you have to endow it with core values.
So first stand back and clarify your own personal values. Then write your personal mission statement, incorporating your core values, in the present tense. Then apply those values to your business.
You can build genuine, enduring differentiation of your business brand by giving it explicit core values, and endowing it with a distinctive and attractive personality that makes your customers think, for example, "I like these people. I know where I stand with them and they deliver their promise. They treat me like an intelligent individual, not some moron. They understand and care about my (business) needs and I can trust them."
An important point here: We’ve all heard the phrase "singing from the same hymn sheet" or similar and, trite though it often sounds, it’s vital to ensure that anyone who works for or with you also believes in, and is committed to these core values.
I wonder how many lower echelon employees of corporations know, understand and work to the core values of their companies. You may think it’s not so important, provided they are not customer facing. But if a customer is let down as a result of something one of your employees does or does not do, it reflects badly on the whole organisation and you.
Mission statement
Now you’re ready to write your business mission statement. It’s worthwhile taking time to get this absolutely right as it doubles very nicely as an elevator pitch (a succinct and descriptive account of what your company does).
The key to how valuable this exercise can be ultimately rests on:
1) How much you really believe in your company’s core values and mission statement.
2) How closely you will stick to them when conducting business with your clients or customers.
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Article Tags: BP General Electric IBM Vodafone Cisco, Core values, mission statement, mission statement
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Thank you for these words. It is already changing me.
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