Are you a Brand?

Image is everything

In an enterprising and competitive world like ours, your success or failure depends on your ability to clearly distinguish yourself from others. When you understand and distinguish yourself as a brand, with time, your lifestyle becomes a standard. Most successful businesses that are leaders in their sectors are now standards in their industries. They set the pace for others to follow, and this is achieved mostly through branding.

Branding is a concept in business that is as important to a business as it is to anyone who wants to be successful and remain that way in life. It is simply the use of any name, term, symbol, sign, design or a combination of these to identify yourself or help others associate you with something. It is actually a representation of what you do, believe or associate yourself with. It is a summary of what you want people to know you for.

In life, successful people distinguish themselves in something and than establish in it. When they get established in something worthwhile, they become associated with that. For instance, if you think of safety in a car, you talk of Volvo, if you think of fuel economy and availability of spare parts, you think of Toyota. These Cars have been branded using distinctive features, and you associate with them based on what you are looking for.

As an individual, what distinguishing feature do you have? You can never standout if it is difficult to separate you from the lot. You need to brand yourself if people must identify you from the crowd.  Unfortunately, most people are yet to understand who they really are and what they can do. I consider such people as having a ‘GENERIC PERSONALITY.’ They are just like every other average person that has got nothing unique to offer. It is dangerous being with such people, just like fake products, they can easily drag your high earned reputation into the mud. They have no brand and no brand name. They have nothing at stake, and so can afford to live life anyhow. You can’t afford to be like every other person; you need to brand yourself. No good product goes into the market unbranded, and no brand can succeed without a good brand name, so also every quality life. This is because being a brand speaks more for you than you can speak for yourself; it identifies you from the crowd, gives you a high sense of responsibility and improved self worth, it is your reputation.

Another side to it is that people can brand you. This is the most dangerous aspect of branding. Nobody can tell your story exactly the way you want it told, and better like you will do. Low quality and fake products are not bordered about image and esteem, so also those who have nothing to offer, but branded products do. You need to brand yourself with the exact features that truly represent you.

Let people know you for something good and worthwhile such as keeping to your promises, craving for excellence in your duties, being trustworthy, effective and efficient, diligent, caring, positive etc. whatever you choose to brand yourself with, let it be one that truly represent you, and will positively influence people around to say something good about you.

Being customer focus doesn’t sell anymore pt 2

When businesses decide to be customer focus, their objective is simple: Control. They want to control the customer to do what they want – buy. Today, consumers no longer want to be controlled. They want products and services that add more value to their lives, and meet their needs – both stated and unstated needs.

In a people focus business, your aim is not to control or satisfy your business interest but to meet the need of the ‘person’ not just the customer. It means making your product or service do more by allowing the users maximize the resources invested - time, money, emotion etc. It involves integrating all the values that makes an individual more effective and efficient in life. For instance, you have a mobile phone, your need as a consumer of that hand-set is to make calls or communicate. But as a person, your need is that of living a comfortable and peaceful life. Hence, phone manufacturers add more services to your phone to meet your life needs not just the need to make calls. Thus, you can buy and sell through your phone, surf the web, store tons of information etc.

Is this the same as Corporate Social Responsibility? No. CSR is a tool mainly for building brand equity/business image. You can do anything good to build your brand equity, but it doesn’t make you people focus. In a people focused business, your target is to see the individual get all the desired benefits from the product in a commercially viable way.

Do you think you have met all the requirements that will make your offer to a person irresistible?

Being customer focus doesn’t sell anymore

In most business seminars or schools, you will be told that being a customer centric business will help you earn more market shares. Whether that still holds today, is left for scholars to tell us. Every business you can think of tries to define its business and marketing activities around the customer. You hear phrases like - know your customers’ need and provide it for them, understand your customer, get closer to your customers etc. 

If business is as easy as being customer focus, every entrepreneur will be smiling to the bank everyday. The fact that not all businesses that are customer centric succeed means that that strategy is now old; you need a broader definition of your market. Even the customers know that your business is not about them; rather it’s more about you.

Today, business has moved from being customer centric to being people centric. Successful businesses have discovered that focusing on your customers is such a myopic way to do business in the 21^st Century considering that needs change with time. When Philip Kotler discussed about the holistic kind of marketing, he was talking about doing business in such a way that both your customers and non customers benefit from your activities directly or indirectly. This type of business mindset recognizes that everything matters – not just your customers alone.

The key to engaging more people in your business is to go beyond designing your product and all your marketing campaign around your customers. Think of the value an individual will experience through your business or product.

Do you value your customers?

I recently outsourced some services to a small business owner, though not established, the service provided was a big relieve, and I hoped the transaction will create a lasting relationship between us. Since our first meeting, we have done our transactions mainly through phone successfully on four different occasions, and in all our discussions, I discovered I had to introduce myself whenever I call because he did not store my number on his phone.

Well, I felt I was not taken serious even though both of us were profiting from the transaction; I had to end the business relationship, and looked for another company to provide me with the same service.

                                Any relationship you cannot cherish, you cannot profit from it.

The starting point of any business is to build relationships and values around people. People make up a business and any business that will not take people seriously doesn’t deserve patronage. Until you begin to see your customers beyond the transactions and the amount you will earn from them, you will never take them serious. Forget about the customer being king, we all know it is hypocritical. Every decision we make, we make for the success of the business and not the customer.

Having value for your customers as much as you have for your business, is what keeps customer centric businesses growing. No matter how small the amount of the transaction, as long as you are profiting from it, respect it.

Some of the mistakes we make include:

1.      Failure to keep individual data or record

Some small businesses fail to have a database of their customers. They don’t know what their buying behavior is, they cannot tell at what point they are likely to buy more or less. Having information of your customers and their needs helps you serve them better.

2.      Not dealing with customer complain

This is quite obvious when there is a sudden upsurge of patronage. When there are complains, business owners tend to ignore it, sometimes, not deliberately. If this is allowed to continue, the result will be so many customers withdrawing from patronizing you.

3.      Focusing more on current customers

It is good to make new customers, but better to care for the old customers. The old customers will always be there when things go wrong. They have become loyal unlike the new ones. Finding a balance is very important as well as an attempt to convert the new customers into loyal customers.