BRANDING, IT’S YOUR REPUTATION!
Whether you’re talking about your personal brand or your business, your brand is your reputation. It’s often unspoken and not something your consumers consciously decide on. Your brand is made up of your core values and your commitment to those values in all that you do. How you present yourself and your business, what you stand for and believe in and how you action those beliefs.
A great quote from Scott Orsh sums it up nicely.
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is, it’s what the consumers tell each other”.
People buy from people and people decide where to buy from people too. Think about it, whenever you need to make an expensive purchase or use a personal service such as a beautician, what is the first thing you do? You turn to your friends and family for brand and business recommendations. Who they recommend will be a brand or business they value highly. It may be for their customer service excellence or the quality of the end result, or perhaps they just really enjoyed their interaction with you. Regardless of why they are making the recommendation, they are doing so because you left a great impression on them.
Everything you do and say to your customers is a reflection of your brand. This includes what you write on your website and social media channels, how you respond to customer emails, what and how you speak to them in person and over the phone and even in how you market your business.
To do it well and gain the trust of your consumers, your business brand needs to be a genuine reflection of you and your core values and beliefs. Given that everything you do and say will be consciously and unconsciously processed by your consumers, if you’re trying to be something you’re not, you will likely trip up at some point. And of course, a negative brand reputation is always going to be much harder to overcome.
So, when it comes to building your brand it’s important to really get to the heart of what you believe in and what you stand for and build your brand based on your core values. No-one likes a pretender, and it will only backfire on you. Sit down and take the time to really work on your brand. Determine your vision for your business, your values and how they align to what you want to achieve and most importantly your purpose beyond making a profit. When you know all that and you keep it front of mind, you can create a strong and positive brand reputation you can build on to gain trust and loyalty.
Need help understanding your core values and how to express them within your business, talk to us about our in-depth brand discovery sessions. We can work 1-1 with you to help you identify your true brand essence and how best to communicate that to the world.