Whether your business offers a product or a service, your success depends on your target customer’s desire to choose you over the competition. Stoking this desire in prospective customers has always been a challenge, but it’s even tougher in these tight economic times. That’s because everyone has become even more intentional about the way they spend their money. Everything is negotiable. Brand loyalty seems low. Products and services are being evaluated almost daily before customers make a selection.
So here’s the question that begs an answer: how can I make sure my Brand gets picked? How can I ensure that my Brand is attractive?
Before I answer this question, here is the good news: you can take advantage of this seemingly gloomy economic situation by spending some much needed time to clarify your Brand’s offering, your Brand’s promise. If in the process you become clearer about your point of difference and where your Brand shines, this year could possibly be the most beneficial year ever for your business. You can then continue to deliver the same improved Brand promise year after year, thus building a type of equity in your business that goes beyond cash flow and hard assets; it’s an equity called “Brand Loyalty”, and it’s nearly priceless.
To help you do this, let me point out that customers usually pick the products and service providers they feel attracted to. Unfortunately, Brands cannot determine whether they are attractive or not; customers do! Brands however, do choose what they stand for. They choose the set of qualities they display consistently. Some customers will find those qualities attractive, and when they do so, they will purchase the product/service.
Fortunately, people differ in what they find attractive. Let me illustrate.
About a month ago I did some research on the Internet to find out what others thought makes a person attractive. Amazingly enough, all of the results suggested various physical qualities in people, with striking details regarding the features of the most coveted models, actors and athletes. However, when I took the same question to a room full of business professionals in various industries, I found quite different results. Here is a partial list of the qualities that were mentioned when I asked the question: “What makes a person attractive, in your opinion?”
Each person came up with one attribute they deemed attractive in another person: Logical, Good Attitude, Fun, Sense of Humor, Likes Helping People Succeed, Positive Experience, Reliable, Compassionate, Stable, Honest, Respects the Same Values, Authentic, Resourceful, Humble, Has Integrity, and others.
Judging by this list, any of us can be attractive to someone. In the same way, your Brand can be attractive to a certain customer. Your challenge as a Brand is not necessarily to be liked, but to be clear. Smart business owners do not worry whether everyone loves them; they only focus on those who do.
So what does all of this teach you about how to make your Brand attractive? Simply this: It is important that you know the few key attributes of your Brand that appeal to your target customers, that you consistently display those qualities and that your target customers can clearly perceive that set of qualities. When that is clear, it will be easier for them to determine if these qualities make your Brand attractive to them or not, and whether they make that coveted decision to “buy You.”
If you feel you are a bit unclear about the qualities that are true and unique to you and your Brand, contact me and let’s chat.
