Is your brand maturing?

Is your brand maturing?

What brand some of you might be thinking!  

But everyone's business has a brand even if you aren't aware of it.

I had a great example of the power of branding last week.  I needed to buy an external backup drive so I could run the Time Machine on my Mac ..... Yes I am still trying to figure out how I can ride in the time machine but for now I will keep using it to back up my data.  

I was in a strange city and I was looking for either an Officeworks store or JB HiFi - for those of you outside Australia they are big national chain stores who supply stationary and electronics like Office Depot and Radio Shack in the USA.  I had no idea where these stores were but I knew I would find one or both of them easily.

So I firstly drove down the main street looking for their bright blue or bright yellow signs.  Nothing on the main drag so I started to weave in and out of the smaller side streets.  Took about 5 minutes of random driving around before I found both on the same street within two blocks of each other.

Yes a good person would have looked them up on google maps on their mobile phone but shock horror - I don't use a mobile phone!  So I had to use old technology .... My instincts with a little help from branding.

These brands are so strong I could be guaranteed to find their store easily in an unknown regional city and locate it easily without a map or mobile device.  

A brand is a companies story.  In this instance their story says we are brightly colored, we stand out, we are in places that make it easy for you to find, we will have the cheapest prices and we will have lots of choice plus we stock all the brands you will want to buy.

Interestingly I purchased my 2 terabytes of data storage from the one who was $10 dearer, why?  Well because the more expensive one put a higher focus on customer service and clearly instilled the "go the extra mile with customer service" into their brand.  I was one block away from saving the extra $10 but I decided to pay extra because the knowledgeable young staff member was prepared to go in search of someone who was a Mac expert to answer my question.  I considered it a very cheap consulting fee because he told me how to reformat the product from pc to mac and gave me peace of mind I had bought the right product.  

When I come to think of it, I have always received this level of knowledge at JB's but they don't rank in my brain like say the Apple Store do because JB shops are a bit grungy.  They also don't aim to attract middle aged nerds, they aim to attract the youth market who like that grungy feel.  The grunge is part of their brand.

Have you thought about your brand?  Not even sure what a brand is.  Well simply put, your brand describes the personality of your business.   Think of it as a person and describe it.  

This week take a look at everything you read or purchase this week, then think what is the personality here.  Strong brands do it for you for instance Apple ran a great advertising campaign a few years with a picture of a hip young guy standing beside a classic corporate accountant and asked the question, which one would you rather be.  There is no right or wrong answer to the question, they were simply attempting to attract more of their people to buy their product and keep the people they didn't want in their stores away.

But hey wait a minute you might say, don't they want everyone in their store? NO - they only want those hip good groovy people who are easy to sell to.  There in lies the power of a brand.  If your brand is clear you will only attract the people who want to buy from you.

Do you even know who your people are?  If you don't know your people you can't begin to know your brand, therefore your people can't find you.

Branding is a whole new interesting world that the big guns play hard in, but even if you don't have big budgets, your brand can still support your business.

Your brand is a living, breathing identity that grows and matures and ages just like a human does.  We learned in some high end training I did in New York that brands mature.  A sign of a brand coming of age or maturing is when it gets a major revamp.  Facebook and You Tube are great examples of a maturing brand who have recently completely changed the look and feel of their business and the way their customers interact with it.  Now it's hard to even remember life before the timeline version of Facebook.

In layman's terms, they are fixing their mistakes.  So often in business we launch in and learn a lot as we grow.   We make mistakes and self correct and make even more mistakes, then we might go learn from an expert and figure out where we went wrong and fix it.  Then there comes a point at which you have something so jumbled up and unclear that you have to regroup and relaunch the brand.  It throws your customers for a loop when you do it.  But sometimes that is a necessary part of your business growth.  

I am going through a big personal and brand regroup right now as I go off into the wild blue yonder and regroup and rebrand.  My training in New York taught me that I have many of the right puzzle pieces, they are just in the wrong place.  It's not that I even have to do much to put it right, it's simply about sitting down and rethinking where I am going and who I want to work with and how I want to get my message out and then what do I really want to say.

If you aren't doing this on a regular basis you risk your brand stagnating.  You might have guessed your brand is a sooky la-la that always seeks and needs constant attention!

So while I go quiet for a while and pack up my house into a 3x3 lock up garage and hit the world with a lap top and backpack - why don't you spend some time thinking about how you can either create your brand or re-invent your brand.

Funny end to my story.  When I presented my 2 terabyte Seagate external hard drive to Oli my Mac Tech he was very impressed but pointed out I could have given him a hoy and he could have got me one online and bought it cheaper and had it delivered to my door!  Hence why any serious retailer is clambering to include online stores in their branding mix right now.

Where Am I Going To Go?

This is the big question everyone is asking me at present since my shock announcement that my Cute House is sold.

The three word answer:  I don't know 

But that's the point, I don't know and I don't want to know!  I am throwing myself on the mercy of the Universe and building a new story.  I believe I will still be doing the same work, teaching, coaching, mentoring, speaking.  I will just have no fixed abode.

I am truly stepping out to further my dream which has always had a component that says I teach and work in many different and exotic places all round the world.  One of those exotic places can be your computer, I can beam into your inbox and Skype address easier than I can drive to your house.  We are entering a new way of living and working and as usual ...... I'm on the cutting edge of change!

I can tell you the house settles on the 13th July and I move 10 minutes up the road and house sit for a friend in Daylesford for two weeks, then I will probably be in Silicon Valley for more training, but I don't have anywhere to stay there yet.  Then I don't know anymore.  In fact my car has more stability than me, she is going to live in the blue mountains, north of Sydney for a few months = NOICE!

So if you have friends or family anywhere in the world with WiFi who need a house sitter or pet minder, the give me a hoy.

Despite all I have been through, this is my greatest test of trust yet.  

So please support me.  If you have been thinking of doing some one on one coaching or if you see a course you fancy doing online, please don't hesitate or think about it - just do it - it could be difference between me eating that day or not.  

Thank you to those who have supported the dream thus far by doing my courses and being clients, without you the dream would have died, instead it's hitting the next phase and I am very grateful to you all.