Brand: be counted for business growth.
It’s one thing to stand up for something. It’s another thing entirely to actively express it and associate it with your business if you want business growth.
Be brave in business. Hold or form an opinion; be strategic, be divisive, be bold, be controversial. Expressing a distinct point of view can be a very powerful brand positioning and marketing strategy to consider, but it’s one strategy few businesses entertain. Fortune favours the brave of course.
If you do decide to adopt a strong brand belief you’ll certainly stand out and be memorable – which is one of the simple secrets to business growth from a messaging and a positioning perspective. Ask yourself how is your business or brand different from other suppliers who offer the same product or service? A brand formed on a strong belief can help you communicate and be the difference in the market.
Winston Churchill once said: ‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something.’
In the same way, standing up for a belief with your brand can (and most likely will) attract negative attention – yes, you may even make enemies – and that’s ok, you can’t please everyone, nor should you aim to. Be reassured that those people aren’t and never will be your customer (and they have issues too so, in one way, you’re actually doing them a favour by highlighting their issue.)
Expressing your beliefs or values can be tricky for some businesses who want or feel the need to be popular, compliant, neutral or safe. To fit in is to be accepted right? But then, I’d advise, how are you going to stand out in a crowd if the prevailing colour is vanilla and you’re looking and sounding just like them?
The psychology and core fear here is about being perceived as different, alien or ‘outside the herd’. Understandable perhaps, but why are you in business again? To simply fit in?
Other businesses may choose to remain politically correct or non-offensive for fear of offending established clients or deflecting new prospects away. Fair enough, that’s your choice, its your business. This is where a brand personality can be of value to help determine and underpin the brand strategy. The brand strategy serves to create a distinct platform and positioning for your business that customers can identify with – with or without the controversy.
This brings to mind a core brand truism – ‘most businesses strive to be the ‘best’, when the goal for business growth is really just to ‘be different.’ Ego has a lot to answer for! Being ‘the best’ in truth has the opposite desired effect – counter-intuitively you simply fit into the status quo or established order and that’s precisely when you lose your uniqueness or difference.
Here’s the ultimate brand paradox insight: most ‘successful’ brands strive to be part of the mainstream when establishing themselves and then struggle to distinguish or create distinction from the mainstream, once they’re established.
There are lessons to be learnt here.
Be brave.
Be divisive.
Be different.
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The Brand Experts blogs’ purpose is to inspire, educate and impart brand knowledge and insights that help businesses see themselves and the world differently.
We hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.
At The Brand Experts, we believe that perception is everything. Its why people recommend you, why people know, like and trust you and why people buy you. This drives us to help professional services build a ‘brand blueprint’ for business growth. We do this through a series of brand workshops designed to help professionals realise what drives their ‘Why?’, identify their true identity, and what matters to them and their customers most. The ultimate reason? To make their difference in the world.