I love consistency. It’s one of my favourite words, I’m always blabbering about how important it is. And it is. Consistency is brilliant because it shows that you are reliable, always the same, always being the thing you say you are – being consistent shows that your business is trustworthy, it helps you to look professional, it gives other people confidence in you, it makes you memorable. When you show you up at the same time every week, when you use the same colours over and over, always using the same style of imagery, the same colours, the same fonts, the same layout, the same illustrations and icons, the same words…
Consistency sounds rather boring doesn’t it? And it’s not easy to be boring. Because you’re a fascinating, interesting person and of course you want to ring the changes, paint the town green instead of red for a change, do something different to help you stand out.
But you know what helps you to stand out? To always show up and be memorable in a room of indecisive businesses who interchange red with orange when they feel like it? To jog a memory when someone sees your image on their Instagram feed, To be KNOWN. To be remembered. To have people go “O I’ve seen your stuff”. To be trusted.
It’s consistency.
Because if you are consistent you get good results.
If you use those same templates over and over on social media then people will start to associate them with you. You just change out the text. Swap the image. Change the colour to another in your palette. “O I’ve seen your stuff” – “I know what YOU do.
If you show up at the same time every week then people will come to expect it. You’ve caught peoples attention, you’ve reached a place inside their minds that says you’ll be live at 11am and they should turn up too. Just like when you want to If you’re using the same image style then they start by recognising what you look like- “I’ve seen that before” and then remembering you – and then referring you.
Consistency. Doing the same things over and over.
Sounds so dull. Sounds so easy.
It’s not easy.
You’ll be tempted to create a graphic in blue. It looks nothing like your other images, but it’ll stand out won’t it?
It might, if it was only your image. But with everything else on Facebook, in the trade show, in the magazine… you’re just going to blend in and no-one will realise that you’ve used the wrong imagery.
Consistency isn’t just about using your brand imagery correctly. It’s about the way you speak to people, the times you show you and do – always going live at 10am, always wearing sunglasses, always wearing a hat, always starting off with the same words …
Being consistent isn’t always a walk in the park. But you can make it a lot easier by setting some rules for yourself before you start. Only using certain fonts and colour codes, using the logo but it always appears top left, starting a show at 1pm on Wednesday and Sunday – and blocking that time in your diary. Making sure that you do the same things over and over again.
Like the Google Doodle. It’s there every day and every day it looks similar. The same colours in the same order – and yet each day it celebrates something new. Like apple. Always clean and white and minimalist. Like Lush – black with that energetic writing and the sticker that states who made the item. Consistent each time. The jingles that you hear on the adverts – the reason my eight year old daughter will advise me to try Vanish Gold or buy a Shark when she has no idea of the other options available – consistency.
Getting in front of people in the same way, time and time again. Fixing in their minds.Instilling trust and knowledge. Becoming not only memorable, but recommendable.
Being consistent is a super power. It’s one we can all hone. It makes a difference, it saves our businesses and it means that we don’t have to go hungry.
Go set some rules. Do your thing the same way over and over and see what happens.
Do you need help working out what you need to do and then actually BEING consistent? Why not enter the giveaway to win a place on my five step programme Love Your Brand where you can become an expert in consistency whilst building your brand your way?