Are you starting the year Brand ON! or Brand OFF? This is a question you need to ask yourself from two different perspectives; personal and business.
Personal Assessment
Personally, you might consider kicking-off the new year by assessing your current life position. Review your core values and beliefs to make sure you haven’t gotten off-track. Analyze your current habits and review your key relationships.
I like to start my year off in reflective prayer, asking God for His guidance in the new year. Ask fervently, then be quiet. I find if I am still long enough to really listen, I will most certainly hear His plan for the new season ahead.
Ensure that you’re also focusing on your personal well-being. A healthy work-life balance, exercising, and other self-care practices are vital to sustaining energy and inspiration throughout the year.
Starting with a fresh, inspired personal outlook can help propel your business forward, fostering innovation and reinvigorating your passion.
Business Assessment
I encourage you to also begin the year by taking stock in your business. Start out by taking inventory of your entire customer journey. Walk in their shoes, trace their digital clicks, experience what your customers go through when they do business with you and your enterprise. Take the extra time to make certain you are seeing things from their perspective.
This will sound selfish, but I promise you a great way to start your new year is to read my book, Brand ON! It will not only give you key consulting insights into the power of aligned brands, but it will provide you with a definitive way to assess your own business from your customer’s perspective. The book also includes two powerful tools to help you in your quest to know your business better.
Free Tools Included
I put five decades of alignment success into two very easy to use tools to help you in determining your own current brand alignment. They are available to you for free when you buy Brand ON! You simply scan the bar code, download them and get to work.
First is the BrainDrain℠
A current master list of the 200 questions I use at the front end of every brand alignment engagement. It is 50 years of cumulative expertise that will get you on the road to better understanding your own brand alignment opportunities. And if you are planning on using a high powered brand alignment consultant, The BrainDrain℠ will provide you both a valuable foundation from which to get started.
Second is the Brand Alignment Checklist
After completing The BrainDrain℠, you will want to download this master checklist of the items you believe are Brand ON! or Brand OFF! in your enterprise. Simply walk the checklist through your business and begin your own assessment of areas for improvement. Better yet, have a couple of customers walk through your business with the same checklist and compare notes.
Wrapping Up Your Assessment
In addition to completing The BrainDrain, the Brand Alignment Checklist, and the list of observations you compiled in your walk-through, consider the other items you’ve had on your mind for quite some time. What are the things you know aren’t right? Are there any hidden opportunities? You inherently know if your brand is in alignment or not. If anything is telling you it is not, then it’s not. Make sure you add all of those items to your master list.
Have you identified your point of alignment? Do you know what your one thing is? If you aren’t certain, ask. Talk about it with customers, friends, and family. Go through it with your team. If there is any confusion or disagreement, get a pro in there to give you honest and direct feedback, even if you don’t want to hear it. If you do bring in outside counsel, I propose your biggest challenge will be not wanting to—or being able to—hear it. That’s because, much of the time, the opportunity is not what the leader thinks it is.
When you wrap up your assessment, you will have taken the first major step to becoming Brand ON!
Next Steps
As you might imagine, this depends a lot on what you learn in the assessment. After you evaluate your findings, prepare a solid set of objectives. If your results provide you a clear path and direction for improvement, follow it. No matter how large, or small, your team is, share your findings and help them understand your desire to have a more aligned brand and what that means to each of them.
Have them read my book, Brand ON! To insure you are all singing out of the same hymnal. Share what the journey may look like and where improvements need to be made. Bring them all on board.
IF following your assessment, you are more confused than when you started, seek professional guidance. You are welcome to reach out to me via email at bcj@brandoncolemanjr.com and I will gladly try to guide you to competent consulting groups that can be of help. Achieving brand alignment is too critical to leave to chance and you don’t have the time to take a couple of ill-fated swipes at it. Missteps can be costly so you need to get it right the first time.
Most importantly, commit. Discipline yourself to keep leading your brand alignment initiative until you achieve your goals.
Why It’s Important to be Brand ON!
In essence, brand alignment is about creating a cohesive and compelling business narrative and delivery, that aligns with your entrepreneurial vision and life direction. This alignment not only helps your business grow but also ensures that you’re building a legacy that reflects your passion and the impact you want to have in the world.
Being Brand ON! Insures you develop:
Consistency: Brand alignment helps maintain consistency across all customer touchpoints, which builds trust and credibility with your audience. When customers know what to expect, they feel more confident in doing business with you.
Differentiation: It allows you to stand out in a crowded market. By clearly communicating what makes your brand unique, you can attract your ideal clients and differentiate yourself from competitors.
Loyalty and Advocacy: When your brand resonates with your audience, it fosters loyalty. Loyal customers are more likely to become advocates, spreading positive word-of-mouth and referring others to your business.
Strategic Decision-Making: With a strong brand alignment, decisions about marketing, partnerships, and product development become clearer. This ensures that all business activities support the overarching brand strategy.
Enhanced Experience: A well-aligned brand enhances the overall customer experience. From the visual identity to customer service, every interaction should reinforce the brand promise and values.
What to Expect in the New Year
Great things will happen once you have aligned your brand for success. Done right, you should anticipate a more natural flow in your business, an inspired workforce, increased sales, and a more engaged customer base. Referrals should increase while complaints decrease.
Your full range of stakeholders will feel the buzz that alignment creates. You will experience a better return on your social and advertising spends. Your message retention and brand awareness should go up, and customer loyalty ought to go through the roof. The entire culture around your organization will compel team members to engage with your brand on a more meaningful level. At the end of the day, everyone will feel better about your business, except your competitors.
Happy New Year!
Make this your best year ever. Get your life, and your brand, in alignment and enjoy the natural momentum it creates. Start the new year off right, no matter what month it is, by becoming Brand ON!
