Building a Strong Brand

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Last time I talked about how you, as the small businessman or woman, are the brand. You make the big decisions, you write the checks and it is you that ultimately has to stand behind your product or service. So now that you understand that you are the brand how do you brand yourself.

The first step, much to everyone’s surprise, is not going to be a great location or a nicely designed logo. These are very important and I’ll address that in other articles, but first you have to multiply you, the brand.

What I mean by that is that who you are as your brand must now be the religion throughout your organization. If you have many employees or just one you must train each and everyone no matter what their position to the ins and outs concerning your brand. They must live and breathe and be completely inline with your philosophy. If you greet each and every customer (as you should) with a warm smile and sincere greeting then you need to be sure all your employees do like wise. Whether in person or on the phone that warmth must come through. It must be consistent. You can’t allow there to be slips or holidays among your employees or yourself. Each must believe that by following your methods they will be contributing to your business’ success impacting their own situation positively.

Being a leader and setting the example is not just recommended it’s mandatory if you are to be successful. You can’t expect your employees to do what you won’t. Hypocrisy has no place in the business arena though we see it everyday. Fortunately our free enterprise system weeds out the bad eggs in time. Sometimes that can be decades but evidentially the insincerity is exposed.

If an employee refuses after proper training and mentoring to put into practice your brand then it is probably time to help that person find a new line of work. Your brand will not work and be successful without full compliance by your staff. Rewarding your staff for implementation is always a good idea but the bottom line is that if you, yourself are a good brand your employees will gladly adopt it and in doing so will share in the success.

So far building a successful brand is about first internalizing what it is you want your brand to be and understanding that you are that brand. Second its about making sure that all of your staff from the salespeople to the janitor share and understand that vision. Many is the time that I have seen a brand or rebranding fail because they failed to work from the inside out and only glossed over the flaws with a new coat of paint (logo) or whitewash (marketing program). No well-constructed building can stand for long on a foundation of sand. Making sure you are building your business on a well thought out and well executed personal brand will ensure that you attract loyal repeat customers resulting in success.

Next time: The nuts and bolts of brand building

Michael Irvin
Creative Project Manager
913.677.7060 cell: 913.530.7030
mirvin1129@yahoo.com

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