Keep your BRAND Relevant
It is one thing to build your Brand, its an entirely different thing to maintain it and still another thing to Maintain Brand Relevancy. When you build your BRAND, you must decide what you want it to look like, and determine what it is going to stand for. Your BRAND is as much about your mission, values and purpose as it is about your Products and Services. You want to maintain it to the highest level you deem important. I choose a Brand that is of excellence (or as close as I can come to it). But lets talk about BRAND RELEVANCE.
Building your BRAND without relevance is like climbing the ladder on the wrong building. You are going to get to the top, but it makes no sense why you are there. When I was a kid we had a game that was a ball with shapes cut out of it and the object was to try to place the shapes inside the ball, it was impossible to put the square into the round hole. Just like it is impossible to have a BRAND that is no longer relevant.
How do you keep your BRAND relevant. Here are four (4) ideas to help you do so.
1. Write your MISSION STATEMENT- Chuck Goetschel wrote a book a few years back called “Simon Says,” in the book he talks about Living your Life Purpose…Not Just Following the Crowd. This is key, people are going to try to stop you from building your BRAND. They are going to try and stop you from seeing it through, but if you have a clearly defined PERSONAL Mission Statement your Brand will be relevant.
2. Make Course Corrections- Your BRAND just will change slightly throughout your life. This is want I like to envision as course correction. When a plane is on Autopilot, it veers off course but the GPS keeps bringing it back to the right line. Your BRAND will veer off course, it is your responsibility to follow your purpose and bring it back. These corrections should be slight adjustments, so you don’t go to far off course the other way.
3. Create Checkpoints- You have check lists for all kinds of stuff, why not have one for your BRAND. You need to set small goals on what you want your BRAND to look like at a particular point. You have your ultimate goal, you know you need to make corrections along the way, but if you do not have set Checkpoints you may go weeks or years without making a correction. This is tragic, when you sit down to make a correction you are sitting in Los Angeles rather than New York. You wasted a lot of time.
4. Have a Mentor- Branding is just like everything else you do. You must learn how to do it, through trial and error. I am all about learning from mistakes, but I prefer to learn from someone elses not mine. Its much less painful that way. You have mentors in your life rather you know it or not. Just like you have a BRAND rather you know it or not. Utilize these folks, find someone who what you want and emulate them, learn from them, gain insight to build your BRAND.
Next week I will discuss more details on maintaining BRAND Relevance. I would suggest you take sometime to ponder these four ideas and as always let me know how I can help.
Your BRAND Depends on It.
Shawn Western
