Brand Commentaries, by Chris Ward

For entrepreneurs who only get to eat what they kill, new business hunting is an important corporate activity. Can’t find anything, we go hungry – not a happy state of affairs!

Hunting might mean advertising, sending an email blast or networking. The whole purpose is to identify suspects, whom we can convert into prospects and eventually customers.

Converting suspects to prospects and customers is seldom easy. But it can go a whole lot better if you’ve set your trap – your BrandTrap that is.

Every successful business has a BrandTrap. Don’t worry, it won’t get you into hot water with Ducks Unlimited or any other like-minded group. The trap is baited with the position you’ve staked out in the marketplace. Your brand. The way your organization and the products and services you offer are thought of by the people you’re trying to reel in. That’s the whole reason for proactive branding – to distinguish your organization from others…to become known for something that resonates with suspects and prospects…and to make it absolutely clear what you stand for and why someone should consider doing business with your firm.

Think about Russell Oliver, the Cashman, whose in-your-face ads have helped make him one very wealthy man. You might not like his style, but you have to admire his audacity and tenacity. If you live in Southern Ontario and have some jewellery to sell, Oliver Jewellery is one stop you just have to make.

What are you known for? What position have you staked out in the hearts and minds of those who are important to your success? If that’s not absolutely clear, consider asking a few friends and business associates a simple question, “When you think of me what comes to mind?” This is probably something that should not be done face-to-face. Let’s face it, if someone thinks you’re a schmuck they’re unlikely to own up to it. Do it by email or, better still, enlist the help of a friend or colleague. And include a ‘Not Sure’ category. A bunch of ticks in this box can be just as telling as any other feedback you get.

Remember, positioning is not about who you are. It’s about identifying a space that you can own, something uniquely yours that resonates with prospects and customers, finding out what people think you are, and building a strategy to close the gap between these two points.

When it comes to creating and sustaining a profitable business enterprise, engaging your employees’ interest in building a strong corporate brand isn’t everything – it’s about the only thing that matters. Every employee, regardless of title or department, has the power to influence what customers think of your organization. Each has the power to influence whether prospects buy, and customers buy again. Each can influence referrals and job satisfaction. Some exert their influence directly through their dealings with external customers. Others exert their influence indirectly by serving others in your organization. Why would your employees care about building a strong corporate brand? Greater job security will resonate with some. But the most powerful reasons include opportunities for personal growth and more challenging work.  From a corporate standpoint, employees represent an extremely cost-effective way of establishing customer relationships that will survive the occasional lapse in service or quality. It’s a win-win situation that should be particularly appealing, given the current prospect of a slowing economy or worse.

A former chair of ad agency J. Walter Thompson once said, “Consumers build an image of a brand as birds build nests. From the scraps and straws they chance upon.” Some people have a way with words, don’t they? In just 19 he’s said what others have spent books trying to get across.  The underlying message is very simple: Customers – or people you would like to call “customers” – find clues about what it would be like to do business with you in many different places. They might talk to other customers, see an advertisement or read about you in a newspaper or trade publication. But they’re also influenced by far less obvious clues – like the way your phones are answered, the greeting they get from your receptionist or the ease of navigating your website. What’s important to one person might not be important to another. Which means that you really can’t afford to overlook any possible customer ‘touchpoint.’ One touchpoint – and it’s a bit of a bugaboo with me – is voicemail. I’m not against it. I like the fact I can leave a detailed message that invites a specific response.  What bugs me is hearing someone else inform me that the person I’m calling is not available, although my call is very important to them! For most businesses this is definitely not ‘on brand’ unless, of course, one of their core values is ‘impersonal!’It’s even worse when the company professes to be big on personal service. Ya, right! How personal can it be when a senior person can’t take the time to record their own telephone greeting? For me, this is one of the most telling clues about what it would be like to do business with a particular company. It’s a red flag that might be proven wrong. But that takes time and energy that I, and probably many others, would rather not spend. So, it’s not always what you say. Sometimes it’s more about what you don’t say that has the biggest – and most negative – impact on your business. 

You’ve invested time and money to build a brand that commands attention and compels customers to trust, try and buy. The journey hasn’t been easy. And it’s never over. But your hard work and single-minded focus is paying off.But having a successful brand can be something of a two-edged sword. On the one hand, success can come with bullish demand, higher prices and committed customers – results that make all those late nights, lost weekends and interminable discussions about value proposition and core values seem worthwhile.On the other, it attracts a certain amount of baggage. Expectant stakeholders, for example. More and more they expect a business to live up to the promises it’s made. They expect an unwaivering commitment to ethical practices. They’re holding businesses accountable on the ‘green’ front. And they expect management to ensure the right products, with the right quality at the right prices. In short, they expect a vigilant leadership team that’s on top of any and every performance-impacting variable.Fail to live up to these expectations and there are consequences.Just ask Conrad Black what can happen when shareholders think management has been acting in a manner that runs counter to their interests. Talk to the Forzani Group (that’s Sport Chek, Coast Mountain Sports, National Sports and other retail marques) about the impact of languishing sales on stock price. Or broach the subject of product quality with Menu Foods and, well, run for cover. After recalling more than a million cans of tainted pet food, Menu Foods has been trying to stem a disastrous customer exodus including the loss, in mid-August, of a customer that accounted for over 10 per cent of its annual sales volume.The lesson for senior teams is obvious. Deliver what stakeholders consider important or suffer the consequences. Big brands attract big expectations. We ignore them at our peril.

That was the question I grappled with before committing to publish my Brand Commentaries. Having put out a number of very successful newsletters over the years, including some that actually generated new business leads, I was predisposed to publish yet another. There could still be a newsletter in my future. But blogging makes sense right now.

In the world of branding, every day brings great examples of what to do and what not to do. Chris Ward’s Brand Commentaries provides a vehicle for sharing thoughts and insights while they are still top-of-mind. What’s more I’ll do my best to provide you with timely tips to help keep your brand fresh and ensure your Brand Promise is as compelling as possible.

Remember, brands exist in our minds. Think of your mind as a compact filing cabinet with enormous capacity. Each person, company, association, product, service, experience you come across has a folder. Any information you get is automatically filed away in the appropriate folder or folders. When you’re in the market for, say, laundry detergent you retrieve whatever you’ve got on laundry detergents. If you’ve been using one product, and you’ve been happy with the result, chances are you won’t spend much time on the retrieval process. But if you’re not all that pleased with the way your clothes have been coming from the laundry, you might well ‘request’ information on other products. It’s the original paperless filing system!

To get Brand Commentaries on as many ‘must read’ lists as possible, I’ll be looking for guest contributors – people who can give readers greater insight into what makes a brand great…what traps to avoid…what the most successful brands are doing to stay on top…how to do things better. Brands exist in every part of our business and personal lives, and I’m interested in helping people ‘brand out’ on all fronts.

So, if you have an idea for a post that could be of interest to our readers, I invite you to email me at chris@ChrisWard.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read my first post. Drop back soon!