When trying to build a business with a strong brand you can kind of get lost in the tactics.
Trust me. In our courses, there are over 500 lessons based solely on tactics that help you implement the System of Business. It can be overwhelming to the point where people don’t get anywhere with their business.
It makes sense.
When people talk about building a business they usually talk about the tactics.
I was able to get 10,000 email subscribers in one month by posting these videos on YouTube.
Tactics are understandable.
You can’t really measure how well you’re doing with building a transformative brand. There are no analytics that you can use.
However, you can measure your pageviews, subscribers, and money so that tends to get all of the attention.
This becomes a problem because then you start to do things that are optimized around those numbers.
You write more list posts because you want more pageviews or you create more trendy videos because you think that will drive attention.
You do more one-page PDFs as opt-ins because you want more subscribers.
You increase the number of ads and sales emails to increase your revenue.
While doing all of this you start to drift away from that wonderful vision you had of creating a brand that people love.
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be doing those tactics. You should. It’s just that if you don’t develop the soul of your brand first, many of those tactics will fall flat.
This is where people get stuck because they tend to think that you can only have one or the other. You can either spend time working on an awesome brand or you can spend time making money.
The thing is, they are not mutually exclusive. They only seem that way because so many people just talk about the tactics.
How to get 10,000 pageviews from Pinterest today.
How I got 20,000 subscribers this month.
How I made $700 in my first month blogging.
None of these articles ever talk about the brand aspect of things. They always talk about the strategy so that is what people get caught up in. It’s why you think the tactic is what will make or break your business in the long run.
But let’s remember the system that all businesses live within:
- Get them to notice you
- Get them to pay attention to you
- Get them to trust you
- Convert that trust into money
If you keep that system in mind then you know your strategy. Your strategy is to walk a person through all 4 of those things.
How do you do that? That’s when you can start to figure out the right tactics.
Disney, Apple, Oprah, Taylor Swift and 1000s of other brands do just fine creating solid brands while also making buttloads of money. That alone should show you it isn’t impossible to thrive within the business system above.
You just have to understand what you’re doing.
Service
If you go to a restaurant and the food is the best food you’ve ever had, but the service is terrible, how do you feel about the restaurant?
In contrast, what if you go to a restaurant and the food is mediocre but the wait staff are hilarious, friendly, and do a great job of serving you?
How do you feel about that place?
A strong brand ensures that every touchpoint with a person is solid. It’s never just one thing that makes the brand stand out.
Just because that post you wrote is 3,000 words that doesn’t mean the person will stick around or sign up for anything.
Just because you majored in English that doesn’t mean the person wants to read what you wrote.
You can’t place all of the importance on a single aspect of your business. Your brand has to seep through everything.
Your Brand is the DNA of everything that you do.
You can’t separate one aspect of your business and pretend it’s not related to the rest.
Everything that you do relates back to your brand.
When I don’t respond to someone over email it looks bad on my brand, even if I just don’t have the time. The best thing that I can do is find a way to let people know that I might not have time to respond, but if they need help I can direct them to someplace they can get it.
I can’t say that I’m all about helping people attain the life that they want and I only end up helping some people that try to interact with me.
Our brand is everything that we do.
We’ll see how to put all of these pieces together as we go through the handbook but before that, we need to think about what your brand is about.