Movin' On – Brazen Style

November 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

motorcycle iboy daniel on flickrThe time has come to finally leap squarely – brazenly – into my new brand! I am so excited to finally be implementing in my own business the very thing I work so hard to create for my clients: a powerful brand that reflects my passion and soul.

Side Door Branding

One could ask themselves how I could have had a brand that did not do this from the beginning. After all, this is precisely what I get paid to do with others!

My only answer is this: I was afraid and I lacked clarity. (Gasp!)  When I finally officially started this business about two years ago after many years of doing pieces and parts of this work in various forms – and after dreaming all along about creating a business just like this – I came in the side door. I thought I would do this “part-time” while teaching at the college and taking care of our very young daughters. I rushed through the branding process, thinking that the services I offered were the really important element of my business. I knew branding mattered and I invested in quality design and marketing materials accordingly, but I just didn’t know how much the actual look and feel of the brand would matter, for my business building – and equally importantly, to ME.

It’s NOT About Eloquence

Slowly, comments from others as well as my own feelings of incongruity began to emerge. “Your brand is so beautiful!” they’d say, and while I loved hearing that they were noticing my brand in a positive way, it just didn’t sound right to me. I like beauty at least as much as the next person, but what I really believe in is powerful, authentic, soul-revealing communication used in business to attract your best clients. It just wasn’t quite getting there with the “beautiful” thing. Then people began referring to me as “the eloquent speaker” and making other very complimentary remarks about my eloquence – but all comments about their own communication were decidedly NOT about being eloquent. “I don’t want Eloquence per se, I just want it to sound really good so people want to buy my stuff.” Um, light bulb moment! My clients aren’t looking for eloquence. In fact, that feels lofty and too fancy.

It’s About Powerful Soulful Business

So, what are my clients looking for? They are looking for a successful business built around their passion and strengths. They want self-expression inside of their business so that they are making the most powerful Contribution in the world that is possible for them. They want to be fully themselves inside of their businesses and mix that style with the language and offering that truly magnetizes their clients and customers to their door. This is a courageous way to do business, this soul-bearing approach. It takes bold, audacious risk – and has huge payoff in satisfaction and financial reward, if you really hone in on your true market.

This is only possible if you are a Brazen Soul.

And thus, here we go… Join me at my new (temporary) web home and let’s carry on our conversation over there, where the place is currently being decorated much more to our tastes, yours and mine.

Image thanks to iboy daniel on flickr.

Filed Under: authenticity, branding, branding clarity, business planning, re-branding, small business marketing, style Tagged With: , , ,

Three Essential Brand Message Questions

October 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I recently did a very short talk at The Network of Entrepreneurial Women monthly meeting on ways to power up your Essential Brand Message. I only had five minutes (yes – ANOTHER five minute talk opportunity/stressor) to bring real value to this group. So many people sought me out to tell me how much the appreciated the three tips I shared that I decided to share them with you all, too. Maybe you’ll also find them handy.

Here’s the audio, in case you prefer to listen to my five minute talk instead of read this post.

Your Brand Message is THE most essential part of your marketing program. It is even more essential than your logo (gasp! How can that be?!) because it DRIVES your whole logo creation process, as well as all other marketing efforts. Unfortunately, the actual brand message is often overlooked by small businesses who don’t have a marketing team to handle that process. Not so for you now! Here is your Quick Guide to building a great brand message, broken down into two parts: Dig Deep and Say It.

I’m always talking about digging deep. That’s because a soulful inquiry brings about the most powerful message. You simply can’t get to really powerful messaging without a deep inquiry (the intensity can vary, depending on your “deep digging” prowess.)

Digging Deep involves three essential questions: 1. What do you stand for?, 2. What do you solve? and 3. What is your brilliance? If you can answer all three of those questions in your brand message (the internal version and your external version), you will absolutely magnetize your target market.

Let’s explore them a bit.

1. What do you stand for?

Are you committed to leaving a minimal carbon footprint? How can you show this commitment in your messaging and business decisions? Are you all about family? How can you make it easier for me to bring my kids into your restaurant – and infuse that value into your marketing messages?

2. What do you solve?

Your customers don’t care nearly as much about what you do as they do about how you make their life better. It’s simply true (and as a consumer, that’s true for you, too, I am certain) and you’ll craft a way better message if you focus on telling them directly how their life will improve by doing business with you.

A local printer business where I live has the tagline, “Anger management for printers”. Brilliant.

3. What is your brilliance?

I am positive that you have excellent customer service and a high quality product. I am so sure of this that you can leave those phrases out of your marketing materials altogether. Use that freed up messaging space to tell me what makes you distinctive from all the other [fill in your business/title here] out there. If you are the home staging professional who knows how to use Feng Shui principles to improve home sales, make sure you let us know that!

Once you articulate to yourself what you stand for, what you solve and state your specific brilliance, craft yourself a very clear message. At this point, think of this as “for internal business use only” brand message. Use this message as a reference for everything you do in your  marketing planning. Then, once you have it refined by using that message in planning, craft yourself a clever brand message made for your target market (much to say about defining your target market – for another post) letting them know the answer to these questions.

“We are your neighborhood grocery store.” (Trader Joe’s)

“Injury recovery treatment as part of your health care team” (Professional Massage Therapy)

“Creating positive change in people’s lives through simple shifts in their space.” (Eco-Deco Designs)

Right now, buyers want to know they are getting two high-level things from the companies they support: Value and Values. Don’t make them have to think too hard to see those things in your business. When I go to Trader Joe’s, I am hit over the head every time with their Value and Values. I get good food – often gourmet food – at really good prices (Value.) Plus, my daughters get stickers, balloons, little tiny super-cute shopping carts and a kid-size bench for coloring pictures while I stand in line (Clearly, TJ’s Values a family shopping experience – and boy, so do I!)

How can you revise your brand message to reflect your Value and Values more powerfully?

Filed Under: branding, branding clarity, business planning, marketing, re-branding, small business marketing Tagged With: , ,

Style Statement by Carrie McCarthy & Danielle LaPort

November 12, 2008 By Leave a Comment

In my last post on Branding Clarity, I said I would share some of the tools we use to help our clients get very clear on who they are, what they must say, and how to express themselves most powerfully. So, I’ll tell you about one of the coolest finds ever for clarifying your personal style and your business style – Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design by Carrie McCarthy & Danielle LaPort.

I saw Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design on one of those bump-your-hip tables in the center aisle at Barnes and Noble on a date night with my husband. The cover is lovely and the name intriguing, so I added it to my ridiculous pile of books to look through while I drink my non-fat, half-caf, two pump, extra hot white mocha (yea, I’m one of those coffee orderers). I had just enough time to flip through the Style Statement book by the time we had to head home and relieve our babysitter. The book is filled with photos of beautiful things. There are stories about real people and how they define themselves with two simple words and change their lives as a result. I was intrigued enough, in my quick flip-through, to order the book online the next day.

Since then, I’ve been increasingly astonished at the value of the concepts I learned in this book. First off, I didn’t love the layout of the book. It was confusing for me. I chalk that up to a low tolerance for high art. I don’t understand many things that others consider brilliant artistically. I also didn’t do the exercises just the way they suggest them. I found it cumbersome. That could be because I have spent a lifetime contemplating my proverbial naval so a number of the questions seemed obvious to me and felt like I’d be getting off-track. Anyway, all that said – I am deeply grateful to Carrie & Danielle (they have formed a company with this name – Carrie and Danielle – through which they do Style Statement consultations) for the ideas they have given me in my work. I use a process that has many similar elements to the questions and suggestions that Carrie & Danielle make in their Style Statement book in my Branding Clarity sessions with clients. And, while I have a number of other question streams and explorations that I mix in, we do land on a two-word phrase much like the ones in Style Statement to drive branding in my client’s business that is based on “foundation words” and “creative edge” words from the Style Statement book. Check out the book to learn more about those. It’s too technical to explain each term for a blog post. If you’re intrigued, you’ll want the book. So get it.

The most important thing is that your phrase (just as for a Style Statement) feels accurate and uplifting. It should inspire you to work better, brighter, more powerfully. If it doesn’t, it’s not the right phrase. Try again.

So, what do we do with this phrase in Branding Clarity? We use it as a reference. We look at all expressions of your business: marketing materials, internal documents, presentations, logo and colors, language and word choices, key phrases… and ask whether they match this fundamental, distilled description of the client’s brand (personality…style…)

Here’s an example. Allison Hull, owner and designer at Lemon Halo in Bend, Oregon, went through the Branding Clarity process with me and we landed on Bold Fanciful as her branding phrase. It’s not easy, landing on the right phrase, but when you do land on it, you know pretty quickly. It feels right. It makes perfect sense. You think to yourself, “Of course!”, while an underlying feeling of giddiness lingers in your belly. Especially after a few days of sitting with the phrase, it simply either works or it doesn’t. Bold Fanciful works for Allison. She felt revived, energized, pumped up to take her business to the next level once she claimed her phrase. Images came to mind, and colors and ideas. So inspired, she called her graphic designer and had a new logo and all new marketing materials created and began the process of redesigning her website! It’s been at least two months and if you ask Allison today about the Branding Clarity process and the value of her branding phrase and she’ll light up and tell you it rocked her whole business!

Filed Under: branding, branding clarity, must say, Style Statement

Branding Clarity, in general

November 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Quick – what is your brilliance? What makes you irresistable and memorable to people?

Are you funny and earthy? Are you intense and artistic? Are you loving and adventurous? Are you terse and distant?

And your business? How is your business experienced by clients, potential clients, vendors, and friends? Is it fun to work with you? Is it easy? Do people feel safe and grounded? Do they feel stretched and satiated by their experience with you? Does interaction with your business add zest and flair to their life or does it bring peace of mind and a sense of comfort?

Your brand is the personality of your business. It is not your product. It is not your logo. It is not your marketing program. All of these things should be full of or drive your brand, but your brand is a separate thing in itself.

It really is just like personality in a person. If you are happy-go-lucky in personality, it is likely that you choose to do things that are fun and playful (at least part of the time), you live a lifestyle that has a happy-go-lucky quality and you probably even dress in ways that reflect this personality characteristic.

Similarly, if you are serious and introverted in personality, there’s a good chance that you do things that engage that serious part of you more often (reading, maybe… research, contemplation… you get the idea). You likely dress and speak in ways that are consistent with this personality trait. Your personality is consistent with your style overall.

People get to know you, respond to you and remember you based on these qualities.

The same things happens with your business. This is your brand; the personality of your business. People remember your brand when they remember your business.

So, be intentional about your branding. Be sure that you articulate your brand and make your business decisions with the conscious goal of reflecting that brand.

This is easy to say, as are most things theoretical. The application is the hard part. Articulating your brand is no trivial matter and most of us struggle to first identify the current characteristics of our brand then name them. Then it gets even more complex as we look at those characteristics and decide if they make up the personality we want associated with our business.

Alas – there are ways to get there, however! A guided, deep inquiry with specific tools designed to draw out a succinct description of your business’ personality can give you a reference point to use when deciding on logos, colors, language, and even product ideas.

In the next few weeks, we’ll talk more about some of these tools for branding clarity. Stay tuned.

Filed Under: branding, branding clarity, marketing, personality