How to Become a Brand in 2011 (And How Not To)

Your customers may have temporarily restricted their spending, and they may have less patience with a badly run business. But one thing will never change: The most dependable indicator of customer loyalty is to become branded. When you are truly branded you transfer sustainability of your company to your customers. Customers advertise and sell for you and step up to save you if you stumble or get attacked.

Branding is a rare achievement, but it is achievable by any company, including yours. It has nothing to do with size — if big was all it takes to be branded, Siberia would be a brand. To be become branded in 2011, you must answer a fundamental question for your customers: “How can I trust you when you tell me you care?” Brands achieve more than trust around this issue; they achieve faith, the highest level of trust possible. Faith is, “I believe but I don’t know.” A brand is an extension of faith from customers to a company.

IT’S ABOUT WHY, NOT WHAT

You have to be branded for something you can control, and it’s hard to have a unique and dependable market lock on a high demand product. The passion in a branded company is around why, not what. Beyond its business argument, brands are conceived as the delivery vehicle to build a better world: how does our organization impact, what is right with the world that must be protected and what is wrong with the world that must be corrected?

To be a brand in 2011, you must build your employee and customer experiences upon this non-negotiable foundation. If decisions support the passion, they’re right; if they donít, they’re wrong, end of discussion. This isn’t soft stuff; it’s the stuff of hardcore results. When your only passion is to make money, the cost of that money will always prove more difficult and expensive than it needs to be; your customers are not infatuated with your revenue concerns. If your passion has deeper meaning for them, youíll not only rule the world; people will want you to.

AND IT’S ABOUT HOW, NOT WHAT

As with any organization, your company sells two things: a product and a process that someone goes through to buy and use the product. Every product is a souvenir of the experience of buying it, and it’s the quality of that process that does most to determine your customer’s decision to purchase, repurchase and recommend to others. To become a brand you must be branded not only for what you sell but also for how you sell it.

A brandable customer experience is spectacular. Not just ordinary, polite or reactionary but blow-your-customers-right-out-of-their-socks-wonderful. A brandable experience is a signature. There have to be aspects of your customer experience that can only be received by being your customer. A brandable customer experience is sustainable. It has to be manageable and affordable on the inside to be consistent on the outside.

There is nothing your company sells that a customer canít easily buy somewhere else or choose to do without – except an intimate, values-based relationship. That relationship is created, nurtured and maintained on the process side of your business, not the product. Whatever claims you make about the characteristics and qualities of your product must be represented in the process of buying it.

YOU CAN’T SELL IT OUTSIDE IF YOU CAN’T SELL IT INSIDE

Who could argue with the logic of a brand strategy? In a perfect world, your employees would immediately embrace this logic and devote themselves wholeheartedly to achieving it. Wake up, wipe the drool from your desk and say “hi” to reality.

In the real world, neither logic, nor management authority, nor any compelling competitive urgency will convince an employee culture to adopt a corporate cause as if it were its own. You want your employees to buy your branding strategy? Then you have to know how to sell it to them. This isn’t a matter of informing the culture; itís a matter of inspiring it. It’s not a matter of PowerPointTM or bonus programs; itís a matter of vision and values. It’s not a matter of logic; it’s a matter of logical methods for stirring deep response.

MOVING PAST THE VALUE PROPOSITION

Traditional business thinking says the better your value proposition is the more successful you’ll be. In our time of multiple buying choices and greatly enhanced customer intelligence, relying on value alone risks commoditizing your product. The companies that become brands go beyond value to also make their case on relevance.

These companies prove themselves relevant to customers by thinking seriously and with purity on their behalf — delivering urgent business improvement support that sometimes even reduces the short-term incentive to buy. This isn’t as reckless as it sounds; it’s what will cause your customers to make sure you stay around long enough for them to repay the favor.

As much an improvement as this is, it’s only part of the relevance required. The world is a complex and confusing place. There’s a lot happening in it and it’s happening to your customers, not just as companies but as people. But if in 2011 you choose to only be relevant to your customers when you’re trying to sell them something, you’re choosing to be irrelevant to them most of the time.

YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS IN 2011

The only people who believe advertising and branding are the same thing are those who are trying to sell advertising. Branding is not about communicating your intent to the world; it’s about why the world should care. It’s not an action – what you do. It’s a reaction – what happens when you do it.

Branding means asking for faith from your employee and customer cultures. Make sure in 2011 you’re ready to deliver before you ask for it. To default on this level of trust with the two groups who decide the success of your business is the most harmful thing you could possibly do to the organization.