Jan
23
To Solopreneurs Who Want to Improve Their Branding
Below is a simple exercise you can use to evaluate and improve the strength of your small business’s branding. It is adapted from Adam Morgan’s highly regarded book, “Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders.”
First, put on the wall every piece of your marketing activity from the past two years (or less than two years, if your business is less than two years old), plus anything that’s planned for the future.
Divide the activity into three groups:
1. Which activity strongly communicates your solo-business brand?
2. Which activity is consistent with the brand but doesn’t strongly promote it?
3. Which activity is not consistent with your brand?
Discard anything that falls into categories 2 and 3. How much is left on the wall? Which are the areas and activities from those you have taken down into which you should be devoting your creativity and energy, in order to communicate your brand?
Remember: consistency with branding is not enough. Always look for ways to project strongly who you are and what you stand for.
“Eating the Big Fish” is available in The Solopreneur Life’s Amazon Store.
How Do You Sharpen Your Branding?
Please share your thoughts in the comment below.
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Comments
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Larry, this is an excellent exercise. I’m currently evaluating exactly what I’m doing with my business and what I’ll focus on for the next year and beyond, and you’ve given me a good analysis tool.
Hi John:
I’m glad the idea is helpful. We can all thank Adam Morgan for developing it!
Larry
Two really quick and useful exercises are “Negative values” and “Reasons to do business or reason to win business”
If you looked at the brand values that purport to underpin many corporate brands, irrespective of size, you’ll see the same tired adjectives appearing again and again, “innovative”, “high-quality”, “customer-focussed”. Excuse me while I fall asleep.
Now let’s wake up our brains. What are the mirror images of these values. Flip them over and see what you get. What brand would really want to be derivative, low-quality and customer-blinkered? In order to create a sustainable position, the flipside of what you think you want to be should also be positive. It should be a position that a competitor might justifiably choose. Conservative vs flamboyant. Serious vs fun. There’s room for both in most markets.
This kind of segues into the next exercise. Write down the characteristics of your brand– these could be values, behavioral traits, or physical attributes. Then do the same for your direct and indirect competitors. I bet there will be a considerable amount of similarity.
All independent financial advisors would want to be seen as trustworthy and thorough for example. You need to be those things just to get your feet under the table. No-one wants an IFA that can’t be trusted and isn’t good on the details.
Compare the lists of your brand and those of your competitors. Cross out any words that repeat – especially if they repeat more than once. These repeated words are the “Reasons to do business” – the hygiene factors that need to be met for a brand to be taken seriously in its chosen field of operation.
Now look at the words that are left. These are the golden nuggets of differentiation. Focus on these and make them sing through every expression of your brand.
If there are no words left, don’t worry. You’re looking at your platform for brand development. Are there any left in any of your competitors? Run the flipside exercise again. Does this point to a position that you could occupy?
I hope these are helpful.
Larry, thanks for a consistently inspirational blog. To all you solopreneurs, keep it up. The world needs you.
Regards
Shaughn
Hi Shaughn:
Thank you for your comment — the exercise you describe is very intriguing and I am going to give it a try this week!
Larry
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