19 May Storytelling, Great Companies, and Modern Branding
In this article, we’ll continue to explore Allie Weaver’s recent BBP webinar “Developing Your Brand.”, which was co-hosted by Ron West. Weaver is the co-founder and creative director at Allie Weaver Productions. During this presentation, she shared her thoughts on how business brokers should be tackling modern branding. Branding, as Weaver points out, is just as important for business brokers as it is for those running any kind of business.
Thinking About the Greats
During the webinar, Weaver discussed the work of Bernadette Jiwa, who noted that great companies all have something in common. Great companies win by mattering. The people who build great companies know what they stand for, and then act on those beliefs in a consistent fashion. Weaver points to two great companies, Apple and Nike, that have been highly successful in the utilization of modern branding.
Following Your Compass
Building a great brand starts with you, the business broker or M&A advisor. You must understand your vision and be able to answer the question, “Why Me?” Why do you exist? How are you working towards keeping a consistent brand promise? In the end, your brand needs to be your compass.
Successfully sending your branding message out to the world is in a large part about storytelling. For Weaver, storytelling isn’t about “creating fantasies,” but instead is “about transformation and connecting others via storytelling…you take your customers on a journey and help them go from where they are now to where they want to be…they see themselves in the story.”
Help Others Be Victorious
She also referenced marketer and businessowner Donald Miller who points out that businessowners need to be able to see themselves as being victorious by working with you. Achieve that goal, and your storytelling has been successful.
Weaver also included an insightful quote from Seth Godin, who wrote “Brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” With this in mind, you must ask yourself what you are doing to successfully cultivate and promote your brand in the marketplace.
Building Trust
There is much that we can learn from great companies and how they interact with their customers. Weaver quotes Jiwa once more, “Great companies rise to our expectations by being who they said they will be.” In short, creating a coherent message and then consistently doing what is necessary to provide a customer with what they need is how to build trust.
According to Weaver, trust is the true new currency of our age. Consider how you will help the rest of the world achieve their desires and needs. The process of creating customer loyalty can be distilled down to answering the question, “Why you?”
When honing in on your brand strategy, Weaver believes that you should ask yourself five key questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- Who do you do it for?
- How do you do it?
- Why does it matter?
If you can answer those five questions, you’ll be well on your way to utilizing modern branding in a powerful and effective way.
