From Customer to Brand
"What is a Brand?" by Steven Brown
Your brand then is every word and picture in every business card, sign, brochure, contract, voice mail greeting, and product look and feel. Every marketing and sales conversation. Every support response. And the relationships you form with customers. They all need to convey and reinforce who the right customer is.
There are several aspects to a brand: brand equity, brand identity, brand positioning, the logo, and more. It can be overwhelming to a small business owner to try to address everything at once. The task can be simplified by looking at how your sales and operations send “we want you” messages to good current and prospective customers. An approach that is synergistic with executing your day to day business.
From the BSP (Brand Sales Person) metaphore, here are some core next steps in building the right BSP:
1. Does your sales process target the right decision maker?
2. Does the value message match with that decision makers care abouts?
3. Does the product or service deliver on all the care abouts?
4. Does the support and customer relationship follow-up meet expectations?
Next entry: From Brand to Growth
Monday, June 2, 2008
Chaotic Structures and Success ( III )...
by David Bookout
To follow up on our last installment of Chaotic Structures and Success ( II ) and our original post Chaotic Structures and Success we promised to focus this installment on Scenario E.
Our situation is identical. Strategic alignment is off. The company has a business strategy, no market strategy, no brand strategy, and a chaotic communication strategy. Overall awareness in the community is weak. Interest in the company's offers are low, and management doesn't have a clear vision of the next essential steps needed to increase sales on a broad scale.
A 7 step plan is developed to produce strategic alignment and implementation begins. The company secures a multi million dollar order that had been in the works for some time, and begins hiring.
Part of the strategic implementation plan calls for elevating the company's web presence and beginning to take online orders for products and services. A new site is built.
New hires, experienced in and accountable for other sectors of the business, don't understand the companies market strategy and move to understand the strategy by building a relationship with the Marketing V.P. Together they discuss the market strategy and speculate about how the website might develop in the future.
The C.E.O., intent on increasing recent success, while mindful of the size of the gap by which he missed his revenue projection promise to the board enlists the help of everyone to design the future. In ensuing conversations he encourages his team to stick to commitments they can make within their own domains, while also encouraging them to share their experiences, speculate and make offers of help to others.
Our next installment will focus on the effects of these behaviors.
To follow up on our last installment of Chaotic Structures and Success ( II ) and our original post Chaotic Structures and Success we promised to focus this installment on Scenario E.
Our situation is identical. Strategic alignment is off. The company has a business strategy, no market strategy, no brand strategy, and a chaotic communication strategy. Overall awareness in the community is weak. Interest in the company's offers are low, and management doesn't have a clear vision of the next essential steps needed to increase sales on a broad scale.
A 7 step plan is developed to produce strategic alignment and implementation begins. The company secures a multi million dollar order that had been in the works for some time, and begins hiring.
Part of the strategic implementation plan calls for elevating the company's web presence and beginning to take online orders for products and services. A new site is built.
New hires, experienced in and accountable for other sectors of the business, don't understand the companies market strategy and move to understand the strategy by building a relationship with the Marketing V.P. Together they discuss the market strategy and speculate about how the website might develop in the future.
The C.E.O., intent on increasing recent success, while mindful of the size of the gap by which he missed his revenue projection promise to the board enlists the help of everyone to design the future. In ensuing conversations he encourages his team to stick to commitments they can make within their own domains, while also encouraging them to share their experiences, speculate and make offers of help to others.
Our next installment will focus on the effects of these behaviors.
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