Pre-Party :: Branding Qs and Clarity 2016Planathon.com

Hey, planethoners. My name is Lisa Haggis. I'm a brand strategist, and I'm so excited to be here popping into your day as part of the Plan A thon pre party. I'm sitting here in front of my red maple tree. Hopefully the traffic in the background isn't too loud, but I thought it would be pretty and a lot very Canadian. So there you go. My goal today is to help those of you who are feeling like there are still some pieces of your brand that are missing or that are not quite. Haven't quite fallen into place for you yet. Because I know that for most, most of my clients and people that I see that are struggling with their brand, when you don't have that, it causes you to hold back in all of the other areas of your business too. And that's just not going to work. Because throughout this Plan A thon, you're going to be setting big, audacious, and exciting goals. And you need the strong brand foundation that will enable you to go for it. And so let's get those branding questions and discomfort out of the way right off the bat so that you can then soar into your business goals for the year. Now, there are essentially four parts of your brand. Two of them I'm just gonna breeze through, because the truth is, most of the branding advice that you see out there relates to these two pieces, and I'm gonna guess they're not where you're struggling. The first is your purpose. So, yes, your business needs to have a bigger reason for being. It keeps you focused, it keeps you motivated, and it is a core piece of your brand, but it's probably not where you're struggling. The second is character. You do need to have some personality in your brand. You do need to connect with people on an emotional level. And the trick to doing that is usually being yourself. So I'm gonna guess that's not where you're struggling either. You might have some minor struggles in that area, but it's not what you're missing. If you feel that there's fundamentally something missing with your brand, it's probably from the other two pieces. So the first piece. The first piece is a big, relevant, resounding promise to your customers. And the biggest issue that I see here is fear. Particularly, you know, if you're in a service industry where your promise is some kind of life transformation that when you're early on in your business in particular, you feel kind of like you have no business promising. I went through it. I totally know where it comes from. And so what you do instead is you stay on the fence. You try to stay safe with your messaging. And instead of promising what people want because it scares you, you're not sure you can deliver on it, you promise what you can give. Promising what you can give usually means you're promising some kind of a solution. So, you know, coaches fall into this all of the time. Instead of promising people that they'll lose weight or that they'll make money or that they'll have better relationships, they promise other things, like will uncover your personal blocks. That's part of the solution. And ultimately, it's not actually what people are after. So you need to get to know what your people are after, and then you need to find the nerve to actually promise it. And here's the trick, okay? The trick is finding the promise you can stand behind. So you need to get to know what people want, but then you have to dig deep inside and align the promise with something that you can do. Something ideally, something that you naturally have a capacity for. And so that's where it stops to feel scared, stops feeling scary, and starts to feel doable. But there's another thing. Identifying your brand. Promise is an aspirational, idealistic process. You're not. You don't have to already be there when you identify it. So the process of identifying what's your big promise means that you're aligning a promise that people actually want with something that you do have a natural capacity or experience or background for. But you're also, in that moment, claiming your pursuit of mastery. So I call this big shoes branding. In order to fully deliver on that promise, your work isn't done. You identify the promise, and you've identified a focus area that you need to invest in. You need to get better and better delivering on that promise by strengthening those natural capabilities that you've already identified. And so think of it as something to grow into, but aligned with honest, authentic results that you do believe that you can deliver on. And so let's use Amber as an example here, because I did scour her website prior to starting this video. When you come to her site, she doesn't hold back. She has right at the top, rule your empire, sweeten your bottom line. And so she's meeting you with your desires right in the forefront so that you know that you're in the right place, that this person, this brand actually can deliver on something that you want. The second piece is identifying your perspective. And so your promise is where you meet people, where they're at you pique their interest, but you haven't yet convinced them why you're the one. Your perspective is the catalyst for deciding why you're the one. So how you see your industry different, how you see life differently, your worldview, your outlook, these are your raw ingredients, your beliefs, they're your raw ingredients for developing what makes you different. And so getting clear on how you see things differently is probably the number one thing that people are missing as they're trying to go through this branding process. Because everybody, everybody has a unique point of view. You only need to pinpoint those defining beliefs that are specifically related to delivering on your promise and delivering on your purpose. So ask yourself, what is my purpose and what do I think needs to happen in order for that purpose to come into into reality? What is my promise and what do I think needs to happen in order to deliver on that promise? And when you ask yourself that question, you're going to start to uncover insights and perspective the way that you see things that other people don't see it. And that's the starting point. Those beliefs are the starting point for true points of differentiation in your brand. It's not about sounding different, it's about being different. It's about seeing things differently and acting differently because of that perspective. So going back to Amber, how does she see things differently? Well, just from being in her community for a while, I know that she repositions the way that her audience thinks of themselves, from being simple entrepreneurs or solopreneurs to CEOs. So just that statement, you can see all of the power in it. You can see the potential in how she could set herself apart because of that perspective. The other thing is, of course, nice. So she has this nice approach to business, which is it's a philosophy, it's a way of seeing the world and seeing business that is not at all like the stereotypes of more vicious, rigid business practices and approaches out there. And so that's just two pieces. So the truth is, you're going to have a few defining beliefs, not just one. You don't have to just land on one. You have to find a few core beliefs, defining beliefs that you feel really strongly about are the way to do your business. And so when you arrive on those, it's that combination of your perspective and how you do things with a promise that is aligned with what you can actually deliver on and that you're committed to getting better and better at delivering on, that is what makes you unique. That is how you stand out. Those are probably the key pieces of your brand that you might be missing if you're feeling right now like your brand foundation is still quite shaky. So I think that's all I have to say for now. I would love to hear from you in the comments below. I know that this is a lot, but I'm hoping that those two key takeaways are going to help unlock wherever you've been stuck in your brand. And any additional questions you have we can work through in the comments below. Thank you and have a great plan a thon.