Word Marketing Blog

Brand Credibility

One of the things I talk to my clients and prospects about when building a brand is "who are you"?

Just as in a human's DNA structure, inside a brand's double helix lies complicated strands of pieces and parts, and one of those is credibility.

Credibility is made up of two parts.

Part 1-Trustworthiness

• When I do business with your brand, will I get what you promised?
• When I do business with your brand, will I get what I expected?
• Will your brand deliver it within the price quoted or budget discussed?

Part 2-Expertise

• When I do business with your brand, do it possess the skill required to deliver the results?
• When I do business with your brand, will you deliver the value I expect?
• When I do business with your brand, will the results you deliver be the best possible?

These are just a very few of the questions to pose when analyzing the credibility portion of brand building potential.

Building Brand Requires Focus

What is at the absolute core of your business?

The prevailing cause of "brand rot" in a lot of businesses and organizations is a lack of focus. Focus on the true core of the DNA of that business. Jim Collins calls this "The Hedgehog Concept" in his book, Good to Great. This is made up of three questions:

1. What are you deeply passionate about?
2. What can you be the best in the world at? (and what you cannot)
3. What drives your economic engine?

For small business owners, I also like to ask them:

• What feelings do you experience (or would like to experience) connected with your business? and..
• How do you feel now at the end of every day?

These are just some of the questions connected with the razor focus or lack of razor focus that your business might be getting from you.

Several business problems lie at the heart of a lack of focus:

• Spread too thin
• No prospective customer can actually describe what you provide or who you are
• Too long throwing a lot of things at the wall to see what sticks
• Too much generalist and not enough specialist

In most businesses and organizations, the lack of focus cure can be painful to face, painful to execute, but for the long haul, profitable for sure.

Building Brand Problems for Small & Large Organizations

The benefits of long-term brand building are very similar for both small and large organizations, however some of the most common problems related to brand building are very different.

Most likely brand problems in small organizations:

• No background or skill level in developing a plan for the brand
• Lack of time
• No or little understanding of who is buying their products and services and for what reasons
• Lack of funds
• Little or no marketplace awareness of the brand

Most likely brand problems in large organizations:

• Market/Advertising position is no longer relevant, distinctive or compelling
• Marketing (and other dept) functions are not integrated
• The brand structure (if present) has become too complicated and unclear
• Current leadership doesn't have a clear and accurate view of what the brand position should be
• The brand identity standards and systems have fallen in use or are not measured and inspected anymore
• Organizational structure and bureaucracy work against an invigorated new brand position

Although these are the most common brand building problems, they are certainly not insurmountable. Building brand is an ingredient to staying in the balanced and predictable growth mode for organizations and business.

Moon Landing

I went to the refrigerator the other night to get something to put in my mouth since I was feeling a little stale. Ever feel that way? You are watching TV or reading a book and you just need something to break the monotony in your mouth?

So, I go to the fridge and spy a bag of fresh cherries from a recent shopping excursion. Water on, after washing them..pop a few in. Immediately upon bursting the first one, my mind immediately regurgitates a memory of the cherry tree I used to play on in my parent's back yard forty years ago.

We lived in this particular house from the time I was 4 until 14. We had several apple trees, a maple, a pecan tree and one cherry tree. It always had nice red ripe cherries every single year and my Dad used to diligently prune it's limbs and branches.

My mind also raced back 40 years to the summer of 69 (not a Bryan Adams reference) where that cherry tree was a regular playspot. That summer 40 years ago, just a few weeks earlier, I had sat in the living room floor of my Uncle Russell's house in Salem, KY and watched Neil Armstrong become the first man on the moon. As I watched him come out of the lunar vehicle and descend the ladder of the vehicle to the lunar surface, my uncle grabbed my leg and yelled "gotcha". I leaped and screamed.

Many a summer day in '69, I was Neil Armstrong descending to a new world and exploring new adventures. I climbed down slowly from the cherry tree's pruned branches as if it were the lunar lander and I took what seemed to be the same jump off the ladder as I had watched Neil do.

Isn't it funny the imagination we had as kids. We dreamed and acted out all the things we wanted to do and all the adventures we wanted to take. The movie UP is about the older guy who dreamed of adventure as a boy and never acted on it until his later years.

I've heard it said that "we are the solution to the problem". Let's never stop dreaming and using our imagination. Let's not let the day to day of life steal our ability to dream and our excitement for what tomorrow will bring. Can we get that excitement back?

I think we can.

Follow Your Heart

Success is doing what's right in your heart despite public opinion.

Action

Action is the antidote to apathy.

Success Measurement

Success can be measured by how far you've come and not always how far you have to go. Reflect and appreciate today.

Report Card

Remember how nervous most of us were when the day report cards were coming out arrived?

Images of previous study nights (or not), positive or negative reactions of our parents, make up classes or tests. Some were nervous in a different way, could that one glitch cost me that 4.0 avg?

Business is no different.

Everything in your business should be quantified. Quantification gives objectivity. Without quantification, you make your decisions and judgments based on what you see and hear. It could turn out to be limiting and biased.

I typically had more fear than faith when my report card showed up. I didn't have a lot of confidence in what was coming back because I had forgotten all the circumstances and work which led to the results my report card was to reflect.

When you quantify your business, trends materialize much quicker than they did in the old school report card.

Set up your report card to reflect what you need to know, set it up so you can see problems before they materialize, set it up so you know what areas need your personal attention.

What are you quantifying in your business?

Taking Care of Pigeons

When I was four, I loved the song "Taking Care of Pigeons" by B.T.O.  You know the one... "Taking care of pigeons, everyday!  Taking care of pigeons, every way."  Yeah, well... I know each of you has some song you sang wrong, too.

So, on the topic of Taking Care of Business...  did you know that your most important client, is YOU?

Sounds strange to some, I'm sure.  But I would be willing to bet that the majority of business owners are so swamped taking care of their customers and clients that they rarely have time to focus within, and spend the time they should growing their own business.

It's a tough balance.  On the one hand, we need to take the utmost care of our clients to ensure that our reputaton grows through their positive Personal Experience Factor.  On the other hand, if we're not making time to work on our own business, we not only miss the opportunity for growth, but we might also be neglecting some business maintenance that can negatively affect our customers' Personal Experience Factor.  It can be a vicious cycle.

So how do you make time?

1) Never take any spare moment for granted.  We use this a lot in our company.  Recently, our key team members traveled to Kentucky to visit one of our clients.  That meant five hours in the car - each way.  Everyone brought their notes, their lists of things that needed to be discussed and their brain power.  We got so much accomplished!

2) Lunch together.  Everyone has to eat, right? And although expecting your employees to work through their lunch all the time might cause a bit of resentment, very few people mind giving up a lunch hour now and then for the good of the cause.  Especially when it means free food!  (Order in or pick up the check).  You'll be surprised how much can be accomplished in these periodic hour-long meetings.

3) Plan a retreat day and treat it like a vacation day.  Once a quarter, make plans to get everyone our of the office and focus entirely on your company.  Plan this day way in advance.  Make sure everyone knows that there will be no appointments, no checking email and no cell phones.  Tell them to treat it like a vacation day.  Most people will make arrangements to have everything handled before leaving on vacation, and will ensure that clients know when they are going to be gone ane when they will return.  DO THIS for this day - it IS that important!

These are just a few suggestions to help you make time to focus on your company.  Be creative! Not only will your business improve, your revenue increase and your company grow, but the process will invigorate all that participate, and the passion that drove you to start your business in the first place will be reignited!

The Road Less Traveled part 2

Back in January, I wrote a post called the road less traveled.

It caused a semi-stir of people sending me emails and calling asking about it. I still haven't talked about it much.

But just to pique some more interest, here's some terrific writing for you to consider:

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.