Building Brand Wealth Part One

In this segment we will establish the basis of your branding and why it is so important for your long-term objectives. But you must first answer a very simple question for yourself, is it your desire to create a job for yourself, or a business? This is fundamentally one of the most important questions you must answer for yourself before you move on. If you’re just working to create a job for yourself, let me save you some time, this piece is not for you. This is intended for those that wish to create a business of value, which will run under its own power while you not directly involved. A business that builds its brand value in a way people will buy as a part of your exit strategy. This in a nutshell is what we are talking about for you; creating such value in your brand you will have a need for lawyers and advisers that are always available to provide you services for a fee. I do not understand why people overlook their most important adviser, which is their brand adviser.

The concept of branding is really very simple; the practice of branding is where the breakdowns occur. It’s really easy to sit around the conference table and discuss with your colleagues the goals and objectives of your marketing campaigns as a part of your overall brand development.
 

After you have established your business plan and you design your “Sales and Marketing” budget, there are two things that need to be established. First disconnect YOUR emotion from the process, you cannot allow emotional feelings and sentimentality to enter into this process. Your objectivity is essential in your business, most especially your marketing process. Too many times the process gets derailed due to the emotional ties associated in your day to day business. Learn the process of stepping back, understand the plan and stick with it.
 

After you have successfully removed the emotion from this process, the next step is equally as important, OPEN your mind. Look past the traditional, look into the process of Multi-Media or Multi-Channel presentation. The standards of marketing even ten years ago are much more involved today. This process of reaching out to your market in this “information age” reaches a level of attentive management that has never been necessary in the past.
 

It’s easy to understand television today remains very expensive, and will always be that. Yet the average business can hardly afford this media channel while newsprint, radio and direct mail have become the backbone for the smaller business and their marketing. How do you squeeze better performance from your marketing budget with shrinking resources and diminished returns?
 

Simply put, your individual activities, such as a direct mail piece to drive sales revenue one time, and a radio campaign the next time, ask yourself if you are getting any residual value from those efforts. This is where you define your marketing from your sales efforts. This requires process management to build your brand value. It is not possible to build brand value without a process of “PERSISTENT-CONSISTENCEY”. Lacking this will only reduce your brand value, cost you more money in the long-term and can create an even bigger issue of cash-flow, or lack thereof.
 

So understanding the basics let me ask you, what does Brand Value mean to you? How would you define it? Stop and consider this before you move on:
 

“The Public value or perception of your company’s product or services”
 

What is your BRAND value? The most valued consideration in your exit strategy, Your Image Is Everything!

Case In Point…

• Sold in 2003 for $57 Billion

• Purchased by P & G

• The “BRAND FIT”

Warren’s personal net worth grew $640 million

Plans are only as good as the execution, but the execution can only be as good as the plan!
 

So we will end this segment by asking if you have a business.  Have you sat down, put pen to paper and developed the road map for you to follow two or three years down the road? Please do not consider this a wasted exercise and something that you’ll never look back on. If you never look at it again, that tells you the plan needs work and improvement.
 

In our next segment, we will drill into this process. In the meantime, you can review for yourself the reason for your business, the business plan for your business and most importantly, what you want to get out of your business at the end of the day. After this has been established, the rest of this becomes much easier to personalize in the same way you do your compensation plan.
 

If you need help or clarification about this, please contact me at Joseph.Moore@CLKSearch.com