Building a brand isn’t a problem because it’s not powerful, it’s a problem because it puts the focus on you and not the people you serve.
A brand, according to me, isn’t the beginning, it’s the end. It’s the byproduct of choosing someone to serve, identifying the problem you want to solve, understanding how your approach makes that solution better, that results in a story you can show and tell that will resonate with that select group of humans.
You don’t build a brand from you to them, you build it from them to you. YOU ARE THE LEAST IMPORTANT PART.
Yes, you can strategize a brand. But at the beginning, that strategy is just a fancy name for guessing. Because no one knows what’s going to work. And if you are hoping that money is going to pop out of the other side of this branding miracle, then maybe it’s a better idea to start from the other side…were the money is?
Nike didn’t “build a brand” out of the gate, they focused on solving a problem: putting shoes on feet. They spent 7 years doing that before they even came up with the name. SEVEN YEARS.
So find some people to help and start getting paid for solving their problems. People who have real problems don’t really need a brand, they just need a solution. And then, when you solve enough problems, when you understand your people more deeply than they understand themselves, when you have enough experience to start seeing things that aren’t obvious about how the business works, then you’re in a much better position to say, THIS IS WHAT I STAND FOR. THIS IS WHAT I’M ABOUT.
My son tells me that the kids these days don’t want to start a business, they want to start a “brand,” which seems to mean they want to be famous on social media and get money for it.
Social media has done an excellent job of brainwashing humanity into believing fame and popularity are now required for success.
If you’ve been in business for a while, you know this is a lie. Or at least only one PIECE of the truth.
If you want to believe it, go ahead. Just don’t get trampled by the millions of people who are all in the rat race with you. The stampede to nowhere is growing.
Being valuable and being popular are two different things. And pursuing FAME and POPULARITY, a result that is far from your control, seems to be a mission with a very low probability of success compared to the possibility of solving a problem for someone.
In your personal life, thinking about YOU all the time is a recipe for misery.
It’s the same in business. The more you think about you, the more miserable you are going to be. The more you think about THEM, the better off you AND your bank account will be.