What's Your Brand?

Here is an interesting article about brand. It's an interesting

follow-on to the post I offered yesterday about my impressions about

business hotels. What do you think - does each customer define your

brand and might you have very different brands based on the customer?

Your Brand Is Everything
By Joe Calloway, author of Work Like You're Showing Off: The Joy, Jazz, and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today.

Your brand is everything. Don’t think that just because you’re not Nike or Coke that you don’t have a brand. You ARE a brand.

Your brand is not your advertising. Your brand is not your logo.

Your brand is not your company name. Your brand is not your product.

Your brand may not be at all what you think it is. Your brand may not

be what you intend for it to be. You do not own your brand.

Your brand is owned by your customers, the people you work with, and

anyone else who has an impression of you. Your brand is other people’s

perception of what it’s like to do business with you, work with you, or

be with you.

Nothing is more important than your brand, because it’s what defines

you, regardless of the work you do. It has equal importance whether you

are one employee of a worldwide company or a one person business

working out of your home. It should be your top priority to build,

protect, and represent your brand to the best of your ability in every

interaction you have with others. The essence of building a strong

brand is simply this: keeping your promises and creating great

experiences for others.

You want customers to love you, not just know who you are. You

literally have as many brands as you have customers and people who have

an impression of you. If those impressions are bad, or if you don’t

keep your promises, then your brand is weak. Consider all the brands

that you may have created without even knowing it:

·         You transfer a customer four

times to different departments and she never has her problem solved.

That’s your brand.

·         You charge a customer extra

for something they thought was included in the original price. That’s

your brand.

·         You replace a defective

product but no one apologizes to the customer for his trouble. That’s

your brand.

·         You put a telephone customer on hold for over a minute. That’s your brand.

·         Your web site is confusing and hard to navigate. That’s your brand.

·         A repeat customer for many

years comes into your store and no one greets her by name. That’s your

brand.

Most feelings about brands are based on comparison. You may think

that your competitors are the other companies that do what you do, but

customers don’t limit their comparisons like that. All customers may

know is that someone else in a business completely different from yours

did something great for them that you, in their opinion, were unwilling

to do. You may not think it’s a fair comparison, but who cares? It’s

the customer’s call. Anything that another company does for your

customer can have a strong influence on how she rates your brand.

• The other company returns my calls within a couple of hours. You usually take at least twenty-four hours.
• Everyone at the dry cleaners knows my name. I spend about thirty

  dollars a week with them. My company spends tens of thousands of

  dollars every year with you and yet I feel like you have no idea who I

  am.

• My stockbroker calls me to see how I’m doing or if I have any

  questions about how my stocks are performing. You only call me when you

  want to sell me something.

• The owner of the service station came out to the self-service gas

  pump the other day to tell me how much he appreciates my business.

  You’ve never made that kind of gesture of appreciation to me.

Experiences like these are what make up an individual’s impression

of you, which then becomes your brand. The lesson that the market

teaches is that every single encounter that anyone has with you is what

ultimately makes up your brand.

It takes an on-going commitment to take your personal brand to the

“Category of One” level. It doesn’t happen by accident. Once brand

takes hold, however, with proper attention it becomes the essence of

who you are and what you do. It transcends policy, which enables you to

transcend commodity. Brand becomes the way you do everything, almost

without thinking.

Brand is everything. One more time -- it should be your top priority

to build, protect, and represent your brand to the best of your ability

with everyone you meet. And remember, it’s all about keeping promises

and creating great experiences.

Author
Joe Calloway is a business author, performance

consultant, and restaurant owner whose client list reads like a “Who’s

Who” in business. From Saks Fifth Avenue and BMW to American Express

and IBM, a wide range of companies depend on Joe for insight into

today’s marketplace.

Joe is on the faculty of The Center for Professional Development at

Belmont University, and is a partner in Mirror, an award-winning

restaurant in Nashville, which was recently featured on television’s

Food Network.

Sales and Marketing Management magazine called Joe “an expert on

developing customer focused teams,” and a National Customer Services

Advisory Board called Joe “one of the most innovative and compelling

people in customer service.”

Joe is the best-selling author of Becoming a Category of One, which

received rave reviews from the New York Times, Retailing Today and many

others. He is also the author of Indispensable: How to Become the

Company Your Customers Can’t Live Without.

Joe’s newest book is Work Like You’re Showing Off! -- The Joy, Jazz, and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today.