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Monthly Archive for: ‘February, 2012’

Being the Connector & Source For Others 0

I try to spend at least 45 minutes every Monday introducing people to one another via email.  I find it so much fun helping people find the products and services that enhance their lives.  I connect clients with services and products. I connect prospects with other service or product providers. I connect clients with other clients who have had a similar problem/need and have found a solution.  I connect my business vendors to one another.  I find people speaking opportunities.  I even help people find good restaurants!

As a personal brand, there is nothing more powerful than being able to hook up people to one another.  Call it Karma or just being helpful and gracious. Do it for no other reason than to help others.

If you reach out to connect people for these reasons, the results are always the same- you get looked upon as helpful, resourceful, collaborative, productive and in a certain way, “all-knowing” or at least able to perceive what others need and provide it.

The point of having an effective personal brand is to be top-of-mind to others and generating powerful and instant recall in others’ minds about who you are/what you do based on your unique qualities.   What else could we ask for when are called upon to bring others together in service?

Make a list of the people you have GENUINELY connected in the past week.  Follow up at some point to see if the connections have worked out and how else you can help.

Posted on: 02-27-2012
Posted in: Behavior, Being Memorable, Business Brand, Networking, Uncategorized

Are You A High-End Personal Brand? 0

Everyone knows about McDonald’s.   If you don’t, I don’t want to know why.  All I have to say to you is come out from under your rock.

But does everyone know the Chipotle brand as well? For example, did you know that McDonald’s owned Chipotle up until a few years ago? For McDonald’s, Chipotle represented another customer segment target market, but that’s not all in my opinion.

McDonald’s did a pretty good job at not connecting the two brands together. Let’s face it, lots of people would not eat Chipotle if they knew McDonald’s owned it.  Even though McDonald’s does well (obviously), the monster of a chain has its fair share of critics. Think: Fast Food Nation.

Therefore, Chipotle was McDonald’s high-end fast-food brand.   High-end branding doesn’t have to mean luxury brand recognition.  Chipotle  certainly isn’t about luxury dining.  High-end dining just means that we associate quality, and an attempt to do better, from a brand.

Over the years since McDonalds sold Chipotle, Chipotle has become even more of a high-end Mexican fast-food chain.  Chipotle offers organic ingredients and now, even brown rice.  They are targeting nutrition-conscious, environmentally responsible, faster food eaters who like Mexican flavors/food.

So are you a high-end personal brand? What does your product or service compete on?  Do you have a unique-ness targeted towards a particular group?  High-end doesn’t mean you wear Gucci and Chanel and drive a Ferrari. It means you’ve developed a well-thought out personal brand for yourself that resonates a certain perception value backed by a genuine and sincere you. A “you” who delivers with integrity and consistency– all the time.

 

Posted on: 02-20-2012
Posted in: Uncategorized

How Unique Are You? Differentiating Your Personal Brand NOT on Price! 0

I think the hardest part of our work with clients is on the topic of unique selling proposition. Clients have a very difficult time believing they are unique.  Sadly, not many people ever really believe they are truly unique and can stand out and be memorable in the sea of sameness of their profession.  Once we convince them they are unique the problem becomes how we communicate that uniqueness to our target market and how we sell that differentiation.

Most people tend to want to differentiate based on price.  Price differentiation rarely works.   People tend to buy a product or service based on price only when there is nothing else to help them make their buying decision- ie, there is no differentiating factor that grabs them emotionally. At that point, they settle for the cheapest. Is that what you want for your personal and business brand- to be settled on because you are the cheapest, but not necessarily the best?  I hope not.

Here’s a good example of this price differentiation at work.  I know of a regional CPA firm.  One of their employees was telling me one day how the CPA firm keeps losing bids for services when they go into meeting to present their proposal.  He said they often lower their prices to come in cheaper and get the business and guess what- they rarely do.  This person was extremely frustrated and upset.

I explained to him that the prospects shopping for CPA firms were not looking at cheaper to be better.  However the CPA firm was coming across in the proposal meetings was not an optimal personal brand. I told him that the CPA firm needed to find their unique-ness when they go into these proposal meetings and stop making it about price. By coming in so cheap, odds are the prospects are thinking the CPA firm is either: a) desperate or b) not very good at what they claim to do.  None of which are good personal brand builders that lead to long lasting relationships with a strong referral base.

So ask yourself- do you really differentiate on your unique-ness or are you just following the crowd by saying something like, “we are prompt” or “we are reliable” or “we are knowledgeable”.  All I have to say about the latter three statements is that every business better be prompt, reliable and knowledgeable….!

 

Posted on: 02-13-2012
Posted in: Business Brand, differentiation, Fees/Pricing, Personal branding, price