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Don’t ask a life coach about a company brand name

April 5, 20122012-04-05T13:00:31ZF j, Y / Beatrice / 3 comments

I’ve been flying foot loose and fancy free and I realized I just need to download my knowledge in the moment. Yesterday I was listening to a live webstream event and one of the participants stepped to the mic to ask about a new name for her business.

Right away, I knew… this was not going to happen as she expected it to.

One of the coaches chimed in and said “I already know what your name should be”

Another said “What are the results you deliver (not bad)” and in the end told her to write out 100 results that she gets for her clients.

She walked away with an assignment and no deeper insight into how to name her company. What you really need to know to name your company is this:

  1. You need to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses
  2. Do a brain storm/brain dump of keywords (this is where one coach got it right)
  3. Perform a phonetic test
  4. Check for trademark infringement and domain availability
  5. Check global connotations

Without these 5 key steps you’ll be hard pressed to brand for growth and expansion. If you want to launch and grow, do your homework. To get a full course showing you how check out my Bankable Branding Blueprint at http://www.BankableBrandingBootcamp.com

I have nothing against life coaches, of course, but everyone has their expertise. Choose wisely and be sure you have the right core in place for your business from the start.

Have you struggled to name your company? Have you had to change your name because someone else had a trademark on it or it just wasn’t working for you? Share with a comment below.

Category: Branding /

Healthy Branding Habits #1

April 4, 20122012-04-04T13:00:54ZF j, Y / Beatrice / No comments

Ok, so I’ve decided to start a new series called healthy branding habits. There are some routines in my business that I pick up on that “I” think other businesses should do. I’ve got some weaknesses. I’m sure I’ve got some bad habits. And I’ve got some really smart habits that no one taught me. I implemented them into my business as a result of awareness and growth.

I’m going to start sharing those habits with you right now and the first one has to do with tracking your numbers. If you’ve been part of the Brand Excitement community for a while now, or if you’re on our newsletter list you know I use Aweber to deliver my mass email notifications. One of Aweber’s weaknesses is in giving me a snapshot of unique results of my campaigns. I manually record the unique open rates of each campaign but started to get discouraged by the numbers.

So… I sat back and thought about this. What are my true numbers? do numbers even matter? In all transparency… My list is about 300 people, I have 8-12 active clients at  any given time and from that I have a low six-figure revenue stream. Not too bad. So do I really need to stress when my “unique” number — that is, the number of people who opened the email vs. the number of times they open it — is less than desired?

I was discouraged… caught in that “number trap” and then I decided to do a little experiment. I downloaded the spreadsheets for the prior month of activity, grouped all of the people from each week into one column in excel, and then removed duplicates from the list. My rationale was, perhaps (or surely) some people open it only once every few weeks. So the actual number of people that I’m toiling to communicate with may actually be higher.

I did that… and I was right. Though my Aweber unique metric is only at about 20% of my list, that number, over the course of a month, is actually 42%! That’s twice what Aweber reveals.

So here’s the healthy habit I’ve incorporated into my number tracking: Each month pull your data and discover the number of people that responded to your campaigns. THEN, look at that list, engage with them on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Linkedin. You’ll be surprised how much more fulfilled you’ll be and how much your business will grow by focusing on the connection instead of the accumulation. So many people are focused on “growing the list” when people that actually do care to connect are in the palm of your hand.

Do you track your numbers? What have you discovered? Do please share with me so that I can develop some more healthy branding habits.

Category: Branding / Tags: , , , , ,

Fear-based marketing: Spend your money or you might miss something

April 3, 20122012-04-03T13:00:05ZF j, Y / Beatrice / 2 comments

Ahhh, the “miss something” syndrome. I’ve come to call this the marketer’s gold. Everyone is selling something because “if you can get just one golden nugget it can turn your business around…”

Isn’t that something. Statistics show that we mostly buy on emotion, and I find that more often than it should be, that emotion is fear… at least, I find that when it comes to business growth the buzz emotion most often is fear. I experienced this just this weekend when a trial membership that came with one of the products I bought expired.

The client services rep reached out to me to notify me and gave me a great offer to stay involved as a monthly subscriber at a discount rate. I seriously considered it:

  • even though I had not hopped on a call to ask a question in that forum for months…
  • even though I only used the private Facebook group to give free expert advice to the other members (asking nothing in return)
  • even though I still have many fundamental marketing plans in place for my own business for growth and,
  • even though I’d rather spend $100/month on a more trackable and lead-generating activity.

I thought about it despite the lack of use in the past several months because as the rep listed out the benefits of the program that lingering thought remained… “you might miss something.”

How many times have you remained a member of something based on the “just in case” or the “exclusive rewards” or the “what if” scenario? I’ve done that too many times to count so I took a cue from my past experiences and in the end declined the discounted invitation to continue.

Did I do the right thing? In this moment, where I am now in my business and for the plans I have in my business… absolutely. Will I miss some insight that could have been a golden nugget for my business? Almost definitely. Will I miss something that could have made me millions… or thousands… or hundreds… who knows! I have no regrets about it and I’m learning to trust my instinct and expertise MORE and rely less on the possibility of others.

Does that mean I don’t belong to membership groups or networks or associations, etc? Not at all. But I choose them much more carefully now and I trust that business still requires my discernment in my ignorance just as much as it does in my enlightenment. What have been some of the luring concepts that have roped you into business decisions that you know are not the ideal fit for you? Please share them below…

Category: Branding / Tags: , ,

Three Necessary Ingredients in Personal Branding

March 30, 20122012-03-30T16:39:15ZF j, Y / Beatrice / No comments

I don’t talk about this much, but personal branding can be the most influential tool for success in your self-marketing toolkit. You can identify, package and sell who you are to build a personal brand that results in business growth, influence, and income.

Here are three key things you need to develop a strong personal brand:
1. Get clear on your personal strengths, talents, values and unique expertise. Understand how you connect best with people. Consider what your target audience needs and wants, and then identify the value and the experience that you can deliver to meet them. Communicate in ways that reach into the hearts and minds of your target audience and connect with their core values and deepest desires.

2. Make a statement! Your branding statement must provide a clear, concise view of your unique set of strengths and tell why you can do it better than anyone else. You need to be able to state clearly and unequivocally why you are different than everyone else, and what services you offer that make you unique and set you ahead of your competition.
3.  Be consistent in every interaction that you have, whether you are saying something or doing something. Establishing a professional brand is absolutely critical to long term, sustainable business growth. In an overcrowded marketplace, if you’re not standing out, then you’re invisible. Branding your products and services will give you an edge over your competition and enhance your value to your target market.

Category: Branding / Tags: , , , , ,
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