Building a Desired Brand Fingerprint
Your brand is not “what you see is what you get.”
It’s “what they see is what you get.”
Ultimately, your brand is a combination of what people think of when they envision your business and the message that you want to convey.
There are two basic questions that you can ask yourself to begin to determine what your brand is all about. The answers aren’t always obvious, and it’s easy to overthink this; however, the prompts I give you below will give you a starting point.
These two prompts are critical to building a brand that not only gets seen and heard, but gets people to purchase your products, programs, services, books etc.
Before you read on, I recommend you have a journal or your tablet ready to record your answers to these prompts. Taking your brand seriously and doing the work creates the meaning and money you’re desiring.
Prompt #1 – What do people say about your business?
Or, what would they say about your business if you asked them? What are the benefits and advantages to using your business? What adjectives would they use to describe your business?
For example, are you savvy or fun? Are you authoritative or reliable or unpredictable? Make a list of benefits and adjectives that you hear from your customers and people you are wooing (nurturing/targeting/speaking to). Keep in mind that you and/or your team may think different things about your business than the people you want to target, and the people you are wooing may think differently than paying customers.
What matters most: that your brand perception + experience is unified between all groups.
Answer Prompt #1 honestly in your journal before you move to Prompt #2.
Prompt #2 – What do you want people to say about your business?
Keywords here: THEY WANT.
What do you want them to think when they hear your name?
The brand perception + experience that you have and the one that you want may be different. This is why it’s important to understand your current reality clearly and manage perceptions as best you can by creating epic client experiences based on what they want. Then get known for THAT.
Journal time.
List the words that you want people to think about your business. Begin aligning those words with your perceived advantages and benefits. This step leads to your definition of the position you want to have in your audience’s mind.
You’ve now created what I call your “Desired Brand Fingerprint.”
Now compare your Prompt #1 list to your Prompt #2 list. Is your Desired Brand Fingerprint what you want it to be? If not, it’s time to get going on evolving your brand to reflect what they want.
Then, deliver epically.
Are you living fully in your Desired Brand Fingerprint? Tell us how your two lists compared below and help a fellow ‘preneur out.
P.S. We try to build things around here based on YOU. If you’re new to these parts, welcome! If you haven’t received your copy of The Brand Map yet, it’s a great place to start in our tribe.
Build your brand and your business, with all of
the fun and none of the fluff.
