Do Your Customers Know What You Stand For?

When you hear the word “Brand” if you only think of a physical image, you need to dig deeper. A brand refers to how you connect with your customers, what makes you different, why you stand out over others in your industry and why people want to do business with you. You probably can easily describe the physical traits (colors, fonts, etc.) of your brand but can you clearly explain what your brand stands for? Can you easily communicate what you stand for?

Entrepreneur Richard Branson was once asked about what Virgin stood for and he described it as ‘fun.’ When Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, was asked the same question he said happiness. That’s what their entire corporate culture is about.

Your Brand – What Are You All About?

It’s certainly worth spending some time considering what your company stands for.  It might help to think about it from the perspective of an experience instead of the word brand.  Ask yourself these two questions:

1. What experience is your company looking to provide?
2. What is your company really about?

If you’ve ever been to a Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream, you know you are experiencing something other than just ice cream.  You are having the ultimate ice cream experience, or at least that’s what they want their brand to stand for.  Think about it, have you ever gone anywhere else to get ice cream and had the ice cream clerk sing for a tip?  Probably not.  By the way, if you haven’t been to a Cold Stone Creamery, you should go have the experience – even if you don’t like ice cream (we know – who doesn’t like ice cream?).

In your business, are you providing people with the ultimate experience?

To take it even further, think about the brand from the perspective of you as a person. What are you about? What do you stand for?

You may not be able to quickly and automatically answer that question. Could you answer that question if someone were to shake you awake at 3 am? This is such an important piece of your success, you need to get to that point.

We should all know the answer to those questions.

What the old saying … if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.

By standing for something you will stand out.  We take note of people who stand for things – even when we don’t necessarily agree with them, we take notice.

You don’t need to be controversial (at least not on purpose) to stand out. It just means that you stand up for yourself and your business and represent what’s really important to you. Isn’t that how we’re really able to make a real difference in other people’s lives – by knowing what we stand for and going out and sharing that with others who want a part of it?

Even if you can only think about this from a business perspective, then go forward from today and stop trying to sell products, services, and events to your clients and prospects.  Instead, start offering them and selling them an experience. If you think about your own purchases, wouldn’t you agree that it’s the companies that gave you an experience that you remember?

Start offering experiences, stand for something, and watch your business soar.  This is exactly what will help you stand out in the marketplace and succeed!

If you’re not sure how to integrate what you stand for into your brand, we’d be happy to chat with you.  Call us today at 859-263-9045 and schedule a free marketing strategy consultation.

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