BRANDING ISSUE NO. 1
JULY 2018
"Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart" Joe Chernov
BRANDING
Branding - A Short Introduction "A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well" - Jeff Bezos
Why would I write an article about branding ? The real question is why not? We are not taught in school how to brand, how to market ourselves. It even feels wrong to do it. The thing is, to survive and to thrive in the current economy, you need all the skills you can get. This is not meant to be an exhaustive article about branding. Not at all.
As the title suggests, it should only introduce yourself to a few common knowledge about branding. You might already know it. You may have already put them into practice. But you didn’t have a name for it. Branding. Not enough amazing and hard working entrepreneurs know how to brand themselves. But the “art” of branding can be learned as any other skill. Step by step, one lesson at a time.
As Walter Landor used to say “ Products are made in a factory; brands are created in the mind”. You already have the brand in your mind. You just don’t know it yet. A brand is not built over night. So take your time to build yours. Your brand is a vision that you share with the world. You want everyone to see you the way you see yourself. That is what branding does. The way you look, act, talk, listen defines you; tells a story about who you are. And stories sell. Ever noticed how some people are just very good storytellers? Even if they are telling a story about the most common of things, people always seem to want to be around them. So take some time. To be by yourself. And then think of how you want to be perceived. What makes you different? What makes you who you are. For branding is a sum: visual identity, advertising, perception and many more. To brand yourself efficiently, you need to know the marketplace first, to establish your niche, second, and third to know yourself. Everything else falls into place. So go grab that piece of paper and write down how you envision yourself and your business. Write as much as you can, as writing helps you think better and realize some things you never knew. Don’t worry anyone would see this note and judge it. It’s just you. You are your best friend and your worst enemy. Start writing a strategy to go from point A to point B. Try not to think that you know nothing about branding. Concentrate as if it were your sons’ math homework. Again, write as much as you can even if afterwards you have to come back to refine all that you have written. The point is to generate lots and lots of ideas. Don’t judge. There are no bad or good ones. They have the value you attribute to them. So for now, remain neuter. After you’ve finished writing the possible strategies, write down the goal of all this. This is an exercise meant to reveal how much/little you know about yourself. And then put the pencil down. You will come back to these notes in a few days. Meanwhile, your mind will keep working on this project. I bet by now you are thinking “Branding myself. Sounds complicated”. But is it? MASTERMIND | 10