Brandcurve - branding and marketing

Sometimes the Best Brand is You

by Susan Gunelius on May 8th, 2008

I’m very happy to announce that today we have a guest post on Brandcurve by Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller, the authors of Gravitational Marketing, which I just reviewed here on Brandcurve.  You can read more about Jimmy and Travis at the end of this post.  Without further ado, here is their guest post, “Sometimes the Best Brand is You.”

Many entrepreneurs struggle with the concept of branding their companies. We teach our small business clients to avoid getting caught up in the traditional idea of branding. The concept of brand advertising is all about spending advertising dollars (often large sums) to keep a business (brand) on your target audiences’ radar. This is what’s referred to in the biz as TOMA or Top Of Mind Awareness.

Here’s the question we usually start with when a client asks us about branding. “Is everyone in your target audience already very familiar with you or your company?” The answer is always NO. That’s just the reality for most small businesses and entrepreneurs. If your brand isn’t already on their radar, you can’t keep it there.

When this is the case, by definition you aren’t branding. What you are really doing is building a brand. But unfortunately most small businesses and entrepreneurs don’t have the time or the dollars to truly build a brand that ever reaches top of mind status.

So, what can a small business or entrepreneur do? We teach our clients to do what we call Brandscending. By Brandscending, you transcend traditional branding by engaging in marketing that delivers customers immediately, with a positive ROI and long term relationship potential while at the same time creating a small scale brand presence.

This is both more economical for most businesses and more realistic. We’ve found that when using a Brandscending strategy the best brand to put out into the marketplace is one that’s centered on you.

Personally becoming your brand is an enormously powerful strategy for any entrepreneur, executive or sales professional. One of the most beautiful things about a personal brand strategy is that it’s portable. You never have to abandon it, change it or recreate it. It’s always there. You own it forever and ever.

There’s more too. Another extremely powerful thing about a personal brand is that it’s significantly more emotionally engaging than anything else you can come up with. People do business with people. Not companies. They connect with people, not corporate entities. And people buy from people they know, like and trust. In any given sales scenario people would first choose to do business with family or friends. Even the best corporate brand can’t be viewed as family or friend but a personal brand (you) can be.

 Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller are the nation’s leading experts on attracting customers and specialize in helping business owners, executives and sales professionals with an entrepreneurial spirit double their customer base and become a recognized leader in their industry in 12 months or less. They believe that every business should be ESP–Enjoyable, Simple and Prosperous. Vee and Miller are the co-authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers (Wiley) . Get their free Customer Attraction Starter Pack and start learning how to attract more customers today. It’s a $99 value absolutely free. Get yours at http://www.GravitationalMarketing.com/free.

Photo Source: Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller

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POSTED IN: Guest Post, Personal Branding