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Building your brand into a brand leader isn’t easy. There are 2 areas that can really help you grow your brand, passion and consistency. Passion is incredibly important. You have to understand that even if you are a start up or a one-man operation, or are well on your way, you are still a brand. You have to care passionately about the way your brand is nurtured, developed and presented to your target audience. Everything that leaves your building, every impression that your staff and your company make, is lasting. Take advantage of this opportunity to get your customers and potential customers to remember you in the way that you want them too!

Passion is something that you have to feel deep down inside; you have to be driven by the belief that your brand should be the #1 in its category. I can’t give you the passion, but I will ask you to think about this! For example, one of the greatest investors of all time is Warren Buffet. Mr. Buffet invests only in brands, or products that he really understands. He once wrote in one of his annual reports “A brand is like a moat around your business”. This point is significant! A brand can protect you against competitive attacks, it can protect you from market fluctuations, it can protect you from having to get into a price war, and it can protect your premium price positioning. When all things are equal, consumers will usually buy the brand leader!

Consistency is probably the easiest part of the marketing communications to control, but frankly most companies fail in this area. What you should do is ensure that everything that comes out of your company looks like it should. Every piece of communication should be part of a “look” that you have agreed on. I really do not care what it is; it should always look like it’s part of a family, part of an ongoing series of communications. There should be no difference. If it’s a letter, they should all look the same. No different typefaces, different margins etc. This is an area that should not be a request in your company; it should be a mandate.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

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“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir your blood… MAKE BIG PLANS. Aim high in hope and work.” So wrote Daniel H. Burnham in the last century. The big plans are important. They capture your vision. The next step is to break them down into “do-able” chunks, chunks that can be done in even one day. That is what gives you a definite sense of accomplishment, isn’t it? The big plans are necessary, the baby steps, imperative!

An associate shared a marketing tip with me the other day. She said, “Go big, or go home”. I thought about this quite a bit as it seemed so brash and arrogant. Great slogan, but what about the little guy? Then, it all made sense. Each person has the opportunity to define ‘big’ for herself. If we are to live our dreams and visions about how we want our lives to be, how we want to be remembered, what our contribution to our daily world could be, it IS true. Go big or go home!

Have a vision. Have a master plan for your whole life as you presently see it. What would you like to be doing, experiencing, being or having in your life, sometime in your life? What are the things that are most important, significant and valuable to you? That’s big!

After you have created the “big picture” then you can decide what you would like to create immediately and pay attention to that. Timing is only one difference between short and long term goals. Another important difference is that short term goals lead directly to long term goals which fit perfectly into the master plan. And the good news is….you are in charge! You can change your master plan, and your approach to it, as your interests and priorities shift and grow. You are not locked in. A master plan is a plan for joy and passion, not a plan for duty and obligation.

It is useful to break your goals down into three categories: current, near future and far future. Once you have put your future goals into your subconscious mind, they are begun. It is not only action that is required. Keeping your goals in the forefront of your mind is key. Thoughtfully craft your current goals. Know how you will measure your success and plan for it.
Think big! Think limitlessly. Think “out of the box”. People are often limited by their minds unwillingness to stretch. Remember what Napoleon Hill said: “…if you can conceive it, and believe it, you can achieve it!”

If you find yourself surrounded by people who are ‘thinking little’ it might be difficult to find support and acceptance for your big plans. You may have to include some new associates who want to play ‘big’, too! You have probably heard that, if you want to run with the big dogs, you have to get off the porch! Jump off that porch and get running!

Reflect on the biggest view of your life–your master plan. Is it big enough for you? Does it cause you to stretch to get your arms around it? If not, think a little bigger and see where it takes you. If it does, be sure you have planned the route that will get you there. Then, follow it. As you embark on each task today, ask yourself, “Am I on the road to my vision by doing this?” If not, make a correction.

Go big or go home! That one little phrase keeps me on my toes.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

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New designer uniforms could be the gold charm McDonald’s needs to connect their new hip marketing campaign to their fast-food restaurants. This possible gold charm for the fast-food chain has the ability to let the actual fast-food restaurants reflect the image they are portraying in their advertisement campaign. The new “I’m lovin’ it” marketing campaign has attracted a youthful audience to the fast-food chain. However, when this trendy younger crowd comes to McDonald’s, they do not see the same fashionable place that they saw in the commercial. Instead, they see the same thing that they would see at just about any fast-food restaurant. McDonald’s hopes to further entice this target market into their restaurants by updating their restaurants with new employee uniforms.

This gold charm could definitely be the factor that distinguishes McDonald’s from other fast food chains. Instead of having their young workers dreading to wear their uniform to work, the goal is to have a uniform that actually appeals to the employees, something that they would wear even if they didn’t have to. With over 300,000 workers, this will not be an easy change but almost certainly a change that will be worth it for McDonald’s.

For the last five years McDonald’s has been struggling to revamp themselves in order to appeal to a younger audience. In quest to become more “cool,” McDonald’s introduced the “I’m lovin’ it” campaign with pop favorites Justin Timberlake and Beyonce Knowles of Destiny’s Child singing the jingle for the commercials. These superstars help give validity that McDonald’s must be a good place to eat if Justin Timberlake and Beyonce Knowles of Destiny’s Child will go there. Along with this, McDonald’s has also improved their menu to meet the needs of this younger, en vogue consumer (this includes low-carb options to match the current rage of the Atkins’ Diet). This new marketing campaign has proved to be very successful for the fast-food chain, improving sales in their targeted audience.

As new and hip as these commercials, radio ads, and billboards maybe, little change has occurred in the appearance of the restaurant itself since its beginning. While the company has changed its branding strategy away from children and families by no longer using Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar in their commercials and advertisements, they still have not done much to bring their facilities up with the times. These new designer uniforms could possibly be just what they need to begin the improvement of the McDonald’s actual restaurant facility.

Yet, what maybe a gold charm for the golden arches, could possibly be a horrible disaster to a clothing line. Something that certain clothing designers need to worry about is whether or not they will look like a “sell out” if they decide to do a fast-food restaurant’s uniform. Labels like Abercrombie and Fitch have worked hard to be the top of their line and not something that is worn by fast food employees and covered in grease. This could definitely be a risky move as far as branding goes for some clothing companies.

However, these designers could possibly be motivated if the price was right. It is estimated that these gold charm uniforms can cost up to $80 million for McDonald’s. These uniforms are certainly not cheap for McDonald’s. While a designer for the new uniforms has no been chosen, the golden arches are looking at designers such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and even from Sean P. Diddy Combs. Although these new uniforms may seem like an unnecessary expense it might just be precisely what they need to connect their restaurants to the image they are portraying in their ads.

Kaitlin Carruth is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing - More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. To learn more about other types of gold charms, please visit Harris Michael Jewelry.

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Early Logo Beginnings

The history of logo design and logos dates back to ancient Greece. The word “logo” means a name, symbol or trademark designed for easy recognition. The use of logos as trademarks has existed as long as there have been traders and merchants. They can be traced back to the thirteenth century. They include masons marks, goldsmiths marks, paper makers’ watermarks and watermarks for the nobility, and printers’ marks.

Why Do Logos Change?

Many factors drive advertising or logo trends. The most powerful force that shapes and drives design is “human culture.” You might say advertising, even logo design, reflect the signs of out times.

From the early 1800’s to 1940’s, most logos were elegant hand illustrations and lettering. A logo for an electric company during this period was not much more than the company name with a lightning bolt. Some companies have retained part of their original design in their present day logo. In 1920 the Victor Talking Machine Company had a logo of a dog named “Nipper” sitting in front of a phonograph and listening very intently. Today RCA still uses Nipper in its advertising campaigns.

Enter Avant Garde Design

In the early 60’s the creative works of Andy Warhol presented a unique look at the world. His works came to be known as Pop-Art. This movement permeated the ranks of commercial television, movies and main stream advertising. Logo shapes and design became more “iconic” in nature. McDonalds dropped the little burger guy popping out of the golden arches in favor of the stand-alone golden arches.

In the late 1990’s the Silicon Valley revolution lead to a flurry of techie-type designed logos incorporating some sort of Nike swoosh that is ever present in current logo designs.

Logo Formulation

A logo communicates your identity. The mark of a good logo is legibility and strong brand recognition. How do you create a powerful logo for your business?

Good question. Let’s get started.

Let’s say you are an attorney who specializes in immigration. A great creative place to start is with a paper clip. That’s right, a paper clip. The idea here is to free your mind of all the typical symbolism, like a gavel or court building, that one would associate with an attorney or a lawyer. Try to think outside your brain. Throw out all your pre-convinced creative notions.

Thinking about how a non-associative object might be applied to your logo design takes your concept in a unique direction. Give it a try. Think of any odd item like an iron or a clothes-pin, then list ten concepts of how this item or shape would apply to your new logo.

Research Your Logo

You should market research your logo. If you are designing a logo for a turbine motor company then get on the Web and collect every logo from every company that builds or sells turbine motors. Ask yourself, which of the logos do a good job of communicating. Compare color palettes and the fonts used. Learn from the successes and mistakes by analyzing what works and what doesn’t.

Sketch Your Ideas

Before you open Illustrator or Photoshop, grab some paper and doodle a few designs. This is how many professional designers develop their concepts. When developing the icon or Nike swoosh portion of your logo, don’t worry about typography at this point. Concentrate on the icon. Try looking at logo finished samples. Some great sources of inspiration for exceptional logo design include; misipile.com, iconfish.com, halcyonlogodesign.com logoworks.com and atlantis57.com.

Incorporating the Company Mission or Motto

Your client may have a company phrase or tagline. For example, a recent Church client of ours had the tagline, “Changing Hearts, by Keeping it Real.” By using this tagline as a focal point I was able to develop logo concepts outside the usual “Calvery cross or praying hands.” By incorporating an iconic heart, I was able to create a logo that branded the message of my client.

Listen to Your Client

After having labored and submitted multiple designs for an allergy, asthma medical practice, they requested additional designs and re-dos. They asked for something with a dandelion being blown in the wind. I had thought my circled spores logo concept would have surely won their hearts and minds. But alas it was back to the drawing board.
You’re bound to hit the mark on the first try or the hundredth try. But, that’s ok. You grow a thicker skin and press on.

About the Author
Rick Vidallon is President of Visionefx, a Web
design company based in Virginia Beach, Va. They provide services to national companies as well as small to medium businesses throughout the United States. Rick can be reached at (757) 619-6456 or rick@visionefx.net.

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The importance of branding cannot be underestimated in any line of business. Add to that fact the fiercely competitive nature of the Real Estate industry and it becomes obvious that establishing a brand is vital in the endless push to stay ahead of your competitors.

Real Estate businesses can easily fall behind their competitors if the agents fail to see that the business is more than a just a job. A professional attitude is required across the board, and this can be encompassed in Real Estate just as in other businesses through branding.

We’re not talking about fancy names and swish logos here by the way. Branding is proven to have immense benefits for a vast variety of businesses and organizations, including those in the Real Estate industry.

Branding as a concept is a simple one: establishing a positive image for your business in order to distinguish you from your competitors. When a person thinks of cola, we usually think of Coca-Cola; this type of brand recognition has been around for years in other industries.

So for a Real Estate business, a positive image of being able to sell properties and give outstanding customer service are just two aspects of developing a brand. You should consider your strengths and targets, as well as previous successes and build on these when developing your business’s image.

Typically, a brand would include the Real Estate business name, logo and perhaps an image or symbol. This brand would encompass the values and aims of the business in the minds of both the employees, competitors and ultimately the customers. Once the brand is established, you should look at coordinating and maintaining it via the traditional means such as advertising, business cards, as well as email signatures and a web presence.

Branding has many benefits, ranging from lower marketing costs and the ability to attract and keep better customers and employees to excellent customer benefits like reducing uncertainty and risk, simplifying their choice and saving time. As the task of choosing a Real Estate company is usually a difficult one, these benefits are obviously worth the time and effort required in revising your business image as a new brand.

For instance, imagine the impact of being the first choice Real Estate Company in your area! Not only are you at the top of people’s list, you are also attracting customer loyalty which is an increasingly valuable commodity. With loyalty comes word-of-mouth publicity.

Remember; in creating a brand for your business you have the opportunity to develop your Real Estate job into a Real Estate business with a whole new set of values and exciting prospects!

© 2005, Hamric Enterprise

About the Author
Kandra Hamric is the President of Hamric Enterprise. Her areas of expertise include real estate, marketing, and real estate virtual assistance. For more information visit http://www.AssistantForRealEstate.com

This article can be reprinted as long as it is kept intact, about the author is used in its entirety (with hyperlinks) and an email notification is sent to Kandra@AssistantForRealEstate.com

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Branding Today

Have you ever had a good brand experience? How about a bad brand experience? Is there a difference in your mind? How many people do you tell about a positive brand experience? How about for a poor brand experience?

One poor brand experience will not destroy a firm. One poor brand experience per day, however, can ruin a company in the long run for sure. It’s really easy math. If one person receives a poor experience with a brand, they might tell 10 people. At 365 days a year that’s over 4000 people per year. Yikes! Not good at all.

So, how can your employees protect your brand everyday?

It all depends on delivering your internal brand and training. Not only do you have to train employees on customer service issues but also they must know how to deal with a customer that is upset or has a problem.

Let me give you an example. I purchased some artwork on a Carnival Cruise. Upon purchase from the vendor (not from Carnival Cruise itself) I requested custom frames. The vendor, Park West took my order and informed me that it would be 6-8 weeks for delivery.

10 weeks later I called Park West. They told me it shipped. I received my artwork 3 weeks late. I was so excited and I ripped the packaging away only to find they did not put on the custom frames. I waited 10 weeks for nothing.

I called Park West immediately. Guess what? I was going to have to wait another 6-8 weeks for the correct replacement. I asked for a refund and a pick up of the incorrect artwork. They denied me and said it was a final sale.

I called my credit card company. Guess what? The charge went through my Carnival Cruise account. I called them. Guess what? They would not help me, as it’s a third party vendor. This is a third party vendor that Carnival Cruise has partnered with.

Did I mention that this was my 19th Carnival Cruise?

Long story short I had to pay to ship my artwork back and my credit card company took care of me.

I will never take another Carnival Cruise again.

How could Carnival save itself from losing me as a customer? It’s really quite simple. Ultimately because the charge went through Carnival they needed to take responsibility. They should have said you’re a valued guest and we will credit you immediately. At that point I’m thinking wow, Carnival is even better than I thought. But instead I’m writing this article and never ever going on another cruise with them.

Carnival could have saved the brand. If they had gone the extra mile to put themselves in my shoes, I would have had a positive brand experience. I would have used Carnival again, and I would have probably told everyone I know how great there service was.
Developing a proper internal brand strategy and training is the key to delivering a positive brand experience. Don’t make stupid mistakes with your brand.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

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Ask your self this question, In which business are we really in? And stay far from the dark world of commodities…

I am astonished!!! I just witness how in three days a clan of marketers - brand managers, advertisers, researchers - drove a brand into the huge world of commodities, these people approach the brand building process as a conjunction of ideas- do not matter if the ideas were good or bad- and were clearly afraid to innovate and challenge the rules of their game.

If you are planning to maintain your brand as far as you can from the dark world of commodities, why not innovate by reconsider the category in which you compete and create your own rules.

As Theodor Levits from Harvard business school once exemplified it: “The once- powerful railroads were blindsided first by automobiles and then by airlines. This happens because railroad companies define them selves too narrowly as being in the railroad business rather than the transportation business.”

But redefining your industry does not mean hiring a new ad agency to think a fancy new slogan ad and spend millions of dollars communicating it.. To make it work, you have to approach your brand building process strategically and communicate it each day in every interaction with your consumer, offering high-quality products and services that your customers rally want and that will reinforce the values offered by your brand and expand the emotional connections your customers fell with it.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple with the mission of bringing back the brand from the darkness the first thing he did was redefine his business. “What Apple is about, is not making boxes for people to get their jobs done, although we do that very well. Apple is about more than that. What Apple is about, its core value is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That is what we believe.” Excerpt form Steve Jobs’ speech to software developers

That day Apple created its own game, and became something more, since then Apple has launched products like the i-Mac and G4, and most recently has become the center of the digital music world with the iPod and i-Tunes store.

James Dyson invented his own game when he created the Dyson vacuum cleaner, a vacuum with a unique shape and a clear collector bin, so you can watch the dirt cycloning around. He made fun the vacuum cleaning experience.

If you speak to Richard Branson he would tell you that his business is to create FUNKY business, I wonder who competes with Virgin in this business

Yes, you can think this could be risky if you already are by far the #1 in your industry, but Howard Shultz is trying to transform Starbucks into the largest digital music retailer in the world, he most be crazy.

But maybe brand building is about being rationally crazy.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

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If you think only big corporate names need to think about things like brand names, think again. Your brand says a lot about you and your business, and that’s as true for a one person home-based operation as it is for a multinational conglomerate. In this article we look at how creating a strong brand for your business can help you set yourself apart from the pack and lay the right foundation for the future growth of your business.

WHAT IS A BRAND?

Your brand is more than just the logo on your letterhead and business cards or your business name. It is your corporate identity. An effective brand tells the world who you are, what you do and how you do it, while at the same time establishing your relevance to and credibility with your prospective customers.

Your brand is also something more ethereal. It is how your business is perceived by its customers. If your brand has a high perceived value, you enjoy many advantages over your competition, especially when it comes to pricing. Why do you think people are prepared to pay stupid money for items of clothing with the initials “CK” on them? Perceived value. Perceived value as a result of very effective brand promotion resulting in very high brand awareness.

Now, I’m not saying we all need to rush out and start creating brands that are going to be recognized the world over. Most of us simply don’t have the time or other resources necessary. What I am suggesting, however, is that it is possible for your brand to dominate your niche.

WHY DO I NEED TO CREATE MY OWN BRAND?

=> Differentiation

We touched on this in the previous section when we looked at what a brand is and how it can be used to increase the perceived value of your products and services. The main reason for creating your own brand is to differentiate yourself from your competition. New websites are a dime a dozen. So are home-based businesses. You need to constantly be looking for ways to set yourself apart from your competition. Your brand can do that for you.

=> More Effective, Efficient Marketing

Another good reason for creating your own brand is to make your sales force (even if that’s a sales force of one - you) more effective and efficient.

Imagine if you didn’t have to spend the first 50% of your time with a new prospect explaining who you are, what you do and how you do it. What if your brand had already communicated that for you? You can spend 100% of your time focusing on sales rather than educating your prospects about your business

Another benefit of branding is that the efforts you expend increasing your brand awareness through promoting and marketing your brand to your target market automatically transfers to your products and services. So, even when you’re advertising your brand, you’re indirectly also marketing your products and services.

HOW DO I CREATE MY OWN BRAND?

OK, so you’re convinced you need to create your own brand. Where on earth do you start?

We saw earlier that your brand needs to say who you are, what you do and how you do it. It needs to do all these things at the same time as establishing your relevance to and building credibilty with your prospective customers. Needless to say, it is absolutely essential, if you are to build your own brand, that *you yourself* have a firm grasp of who you are, what you do and how you do it. If not, you’re going to have the devil’s own time getting that message across to anyone else, let alone establishing your relevance and credibility.

=> Write A Mission Statement

So, let’s start by creating a mission statement. What is the mission of your business? Obviously you’re in business to make a profit. But making a profit is a byproduct of a successful business. Focus instead on how you choose to achieve that profit. What are your core values?

A good place to begin thinking about your mission is to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Put yourself in their target market. Let’s say your business is web hosting. If you’re in the market for a web host, what things are important to you? Different people will be looking for different benefits but you can bet that they want their website to be accessible to site visitors so reliability will be high on their list. Price is also likely to be high on the list as is 24/7 technical support. What about add-on features such as unlimited email aliases, cgi support and what-not? These things will be highly important to some and less important to others. So focus on the benefits that are likely to be highly relevant to the majority of your target market. Let’s settle for our purposes on reliability, price and technical support.

Your mission statement might read something like this: “I strive to earn a fair return on my investment of time and money by providing affordable webhosting with guaranteed 99% uptime and 24/7 telephone technical support”. That’s a pretty general statement and if you decide to focus on a particular niche of the webhosting market, such as small business, you may want to more narrowly focus on that group in your mission statement.Now that you’ve written your mission statement, you can begin thinking about creating a brand that reinforces and supports your mission. So, getting back to the fundamental questions of who you are, what you do and how you do it, you can now begin to think of your business in these terms. You’re a webhosting provider, you host websites of small businesses and you do that by offering cost-effective webhosting solutions, guaranteed 99% uptime and 24/7 telephone technical support.

When you create your brand, you need to keep the who, what and how firmly in mind but also use the brand to establish your relevance to your target market and build credibility with that market.

Let’s turn now to the nuts and bolts of creating your brand.

=> Describe What You Are Branding

List out your business’s key features and characteristics, your competitive advantages and anything else that sets you apart from your competition.

Using our webhosting example, you’ll focus primarily on the objectives from your mission statement namely, reliable, cost-effective webhosting solutions supported by 24/7 technical support.

=> Identify and Describe Your Target Market

Decide whether you want to target lthe entire webhosting community or only a segment of it such as small business websites. Describe your market.

=> List Names that Suggest the Key Elements from Your Mission Statement

The key elements from your mission statement were reliability, cost-effectiveness and customer service. List names that are suggestive of these elements. Let’s use Reliable Webhosting for our example. (I don’t claim to be a creative genius.)

Don’t limit yourself to real words, though. A coined name with no obvious meaning is a perfectly legitimate name provided it conveys something about your business. You will find coined names easier to trademark and secure domain names for too - a definite plus!

=> List Tag Lines that Reinforce Your Mission Statement

We’ll use: “Outstanding reliability and technical support at a price your small business can afford”. I know, I know. You can do much better, I’m sure.

HOW SHOULD I USE MY BRAND?

=> Create a Logo for Your Brand

Your logo is NOT your brand but your logo should allow your brand to be instantly recognized by those familiar with it. To this extent, your logo helps create and reinforce brand awareness.

The logo you create should be able to be used consistently in a variety of different media. It should be suitable for corporate letterhead and business cards, as well as for your website and corporate signage (if any). You do NOT want a confusing mishmash of logos and banners and heaven knows what else. Everything you produce needs to use the same, consistent style of logo so that, over time, your logo becomes synonymous with your brand. Instant recognition is what you’re going for here, so don’t dilute it by using several different logos for different purposes.

=> Consistent Usage of Company Name, Logo and Tag Line

Going back to our webhosting example, putting the brand name and tagline together, the physical manifestation of your brand will be:

RELIABLE WEBHOSTING

Outstanding reliability and technical support at a price

your small business can afford.

To establish brand awareness, this branding needs to be used consistently and frequently in everything your produce, whether that be letters to clients, business cards, brochures, quotations, invoices, advertising, promotion, on your website, on the front door of your principal place of business and on your products. And don’t forget to be consistent in your use of color schemes. These can be powerful brand reinforcers.

=> Marketing and Promotion of Your Brand

Once you’ve created your brand, you need to market and promote it, in addition to your products and services. This is how you establish your credibility and relevance to your target market. You can hopefully see why your brand needs to be suggestive of your mission statement. If, at the same time as you’re selling your products and services you also push your brand, your brand becomes synonymous with your products and services. And vice versa.

A properly descriptive brand and high brand awareness amongst your target market will allow you to more easily introduce a wider range of products and services when they’re developed without having to start by again selling who you are, what you do and how you do it first. Your brand has already presold YOU. Your job then is to sell your products and services.

About The Author

Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning A Home-Based Business Online … practical home business ideas, resources and strategies for the work-from-home entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com

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Who holds a conference in December anyway? But, since it was a
paid speaking engagement, I decided what the heck.

I should have had a clue as to how things would go when I sat on
the runway with an engine light malfunction for two hours.
Consequently, I missed my dinner engagement when that turned a
90-minute flight into one that lasted four hours. Remember when
airlines distributed snacks? Forget it. We got free head phones
for a flight too short for a movie. Who can eat headphones
anyway?

That’s another reason missing the dinner engagement was
problematic. I was starving. No matter how dog-tired or otherwise out of sorts are when you arrive, you should maximize your travel schedule every night with appointments. Here are some tips to help you do that.

1) Remember, you are supposed to fly into an event the night
before so you can be there first thing for the registration
networking.

2) This is the time you can catch speakers who are only there for a day or an hour or two to give their presentation. Almost
everyone appears for their free breakfast (in my case there
wasn’t one).

3) In most events, there are scheduled breaks to catch up to
people you want to meet but if someone is on a tight schedule,
leave the room and catch them on the way out. This is not the
time for lengthy conversations. Use your elevator speech,
exchange cards and tell them you will follow up.

After a few speeches, we finally had lunch.

4) Plan to sit with someone different at every meal and don’t
monopolize any one person’s attention. If you are ambitious,
suggest introductions at the table, a 30-second sound bite
introduction and a card exchange. That way even if you don’t get
to speak with that person you can use the luncheon as a point of
reference later.

5) Make notes on the back of every business card about what you
discussed. It helps to have a non-business point of reference
when you contact this person later.

6) Don’t spend your time selling. Discussions should include a
little business but your real objective is to establish a
personal bond with this person, so that they remember you and
will respond when you contact them later on.

7) Make it your goal to meet every speaker and attendee. I know
this is a lofty challenge especially if you can’t really see a
connection, but you never know how someone could refer you to
exactly the RIGHT person.

Always introduce yourself to the staff and meeting personnel
even if you are not a speaker. They can be important people
influencing the decisions on when to suggest new speakers for
future events. IMPORTANT: Fill out the evaluation forms and
mention that you are willing to be quoted or contacted in the
future. Again, this bond building good will thing you are trying
to establish.

9) If you really liked a speaker’s presentation, offer to write a testimonial. No sucking up here. This needs to be legitimate.
Conversely, if you are speaker and someone likes your stuff ask
them to write you a testimonial. Trade Secret: Offer to write it
for them and then send it to them for approval. This always
works! If you wait for them to do it, you will probably never get it.

10) Another trade secret is never to send in your speech ahead of time. Always offer it free to attendees before you begin. Just ask them to leave you a card with their email address. Get It? Now they know you and you know them as opposed to waiting for someone to contact you.

To get back to my speech: I was scheduled for last on the second
day of the conference. This is notoriously the worst spot, but in this case attendees were waiting to hear “If You Package It, Will She Buy?” by yours truly. Everyone stayed to the end even though we all scrambled to get to outgoing flights on time.

NOTE:
How to create an elevator speech;
How to make most of those first 30 seconds or less;
How to use networking to build your business;
How to speak your way to fame and fortune;
are all included in the Packaging Yourself Workbook
Order now @
http://www.packaginguniversity.com/pkgustorefront.htm

To subscribe to the personal branding e-zine “Packaging Yourself” email me @ pkgcoach@aol.com

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What makes a company brand magnetic — one that effortlessly attracts customers,
revenue, media attention and employees alike? A quick examination of the laws of
nature will reveal the answers. Forces such as magnetism and gravity, while
seemingly subtle, have a powerful and constant influence on our lives. They govern
us without our awareness of their presence. Their “pull” is not overt and goes
largely unnoticed, yet they govern so much of what we do. They are natural vs.
mechanical, powerful vs. forceful and attractive vs. coercive.

Magnetism occurs when charged electrons align themselves in the same direction.
As in nature, magnetic companies and brands are ones that are aligned and
“pulling” together toward a common goal. Once that alignment takes place, the rest
comes naturally. Target customers are no longer “targets”, since they will gravitate
towards your message and products. The emphasis shifts from artificially capturing
customers to naturally attracting them.

Magnetism then comes from a distilled and powerful sense of purpose. This
purpose reverberates throughout the organization and intuitively guides the
organization’s members to act and behave in ways that promote this vision. The
cost of top-down internal messaging is greatly reduced. The process becomes
more natural, more fluid and instinctive.

So is this purpose the same as a mission statement or brand strategy?

Yes and no.

Most mission statements are written in boardrooms and sit nicely on the lobby wall.
Purpose is something that comes from the heart, and it needs to come from the
heart of top management, not the ad agency. Again, this is about alignment, and if
top management is all about maximizing the bottom line, it cannot create a
magnetic company whose mission statement expounds the virtues of altruistic, self
sacrificing service.
It just won’t vibrate, resonate and ultimately attract the desired
customer. So it can also be said that magnetic companies are genuine in nature.
Their values are consistent at all levels of the organization. Profit then becomes a
natural byproduct of doing what the company believes in, whether it’s delivering on
price, quality or service.

How does a company find its purpose? It’s already there, waiting to be
acknowledged and promoted. For example, many business owners I deal with feel
passionate about the quality of their products and services, but also feel compelled
and pressured to compete based on price. They are brainwashed by their sales force
and outside influences to believe they can only
compete by selling for less. Once they gain a true sense and understanding of their
core purpose, they become emboldened, and that energy translates throughout the
company- energizing everyone. Soon “the talk” is about product quality and
innovations, new customers appear, and old (time consuming,
complaining, incongruent) ones begin to leave. The company, the brand, the image,
begin to align and “pull” in a quiet but powerful way.

An Optometrist came to me years ago, desperate to create an image of quick
service, in order to combat the one-hour vision centers that were devouring the
market. When I asked him how long it took him to provide the same service, his
reply was “one week, but I think I can get it down to three days.” A customer
needing glasses in one hour won’t wait three days. So I designed a campaign with a
headline that read “We Take Time.” It went on to extol the vital role of vision in our
lives and why it’s important to wait to make sure an eyeglass prescription is done
right by a professional.

The doctor felt I had completely missed his point, but he trusted my judgment and
ran the campaign. The phone began to ring and one lady said “I haven’t had my
prescription filled because I was waiting to find someone who took
more than one hour to ‘grind’ my glasses”. He has run the ad for over fifteen years
and “taking the time” has now become his position in the market. His revenue,
share and bottom line all increased when he became comfortable and congruent
with who he was and what he did best — regardless of the market.

Transforming a company or brand from mediocre to magnetic requires refocusing
on the passion that created it (or now drives it) and aligning everything around it.
Rather than finding the right market, the right market will find you.

A good example of a company that re-invented/re-positioned itself is British
Petroleum. BP recently launched a new look, but more importantly, a new focus —
one that re-engineered the BP acronym to now stand for “Beyond Petroleum”. (In
fact, I could not find one reference to the original name on its web site). In much the
same way that KFC moved away from proclaiming itself “Kentucky Fried Chicken”,
BP moved away from the image of a profit driven, European oil conglomerate to a
globally involved, environmentally friendly organization working to explore new
energy sources vs. exploiting old ones.

How congruent is your company? Are your goals, marketing, name, image and
mission all aligned? Do they all communicate the same message? Are you easy to
summarize and describe. To see just how “magnetic” your company is, ask yourself
the following questions…

*What are your core competencies? (What does your company do well/best?)

*Is that reflected in the name, tag line, logo and marketing materials?

*Which of these attributes best describes your company and it’s products — quality,
price or service?

*Does your marketing match your attributes (i.e. do you preach quality but sell
based on best price?)

*What do your customers most value about you?

*What do your employees value most about you?

*What does management hold as their top priority?

*Do all these match up? If not, why?

Taking the time to align your company with its core competencies can greatly
increase the momentum and effectiveness of any organization. The intuitive, self-
guiding nature of a highly congruent company makes it powerful and memorable.
Apply some of these principles yourself. Rather than chasing indifferent people, you
will begin attracting perfect customers. After all, it’s only natrual.

Phil’s life goal of “creating environments where people thrive” reflects his desire to
help others succeed. Phil has named and branded numerous regional, national and
international firms. He resides with wife Michelle and four energetic offspring outside
Asheville, North Carolina. His website can be viewed at http://PureTungsten.com.

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