A lot of what I read and hear about branding is about how important it is to help you attract your ideal customer – and it is, that’s the whole point – to build an impression that gets your ideal customer thinking, feeling and saying truths about your business because of what you’ve done to instil that in them – and to help them to love your brand so that they will become loyal customers.
But your brand is also something that YOU need to love.
Why?
Building your brand is personal. You’re a self made action taking business person and this is YOUR business. You created it, you’re responsible for it – you are IT – so your business is an extension of you and you are a part of your brand. People will think, feel and say things about you in relation to your business. Scary stuff, but unavoidable. Your brand and you – you can’t really be separated. You may not be Richard Branson – but he has the same problem. So you need to own that.
Owning that you’re a part of your brand and that your actions, words and appearance will affect that means that it’s quite important that you love your brand. That you love what you stand for, how your business looks, what you do, what you say.
When you love your brand then you will develop stronger levels of Brand Bravery.
This is a mix of clarity and confidence. It means that you won’t have brand shame. No more nervousness to hand out your business cards, no worrying because you’re not sure if you’re showing up right. You’ll have so much more confidence in your brand and be excited to show up for it. This is super important because when you’re feeling brave you’ll show up more to represent those brand foundations – your purpose, values and personality – knowing that you’re happy with how your brand identity looks but also safe in the knowledge that what you’re doing is representing your business effectively and contributing to a stronger business impression upon those people who you want to reach.
When you love your brand you have more passion for it. You’re not just braver, you’re excited and the love that you have for your brand shows up in everything that you do.
Think of the big players in your industry or in the business world – what do they ALL have? Passion. Enthusiasm. Oomph. They are all excited about their businesses and this can be really loudly or in much quieter way. Loving your brand doesn’t have to mean that you’re bouncing off the ceiling if you’re not that type of person. Working on your brand and falling in love with it gives you passion and it shows through into everything that you put out. Which is exciting for other people to see and encourages them to find out more and to buy from you.
When you love your brand, and you have bravery and passion – this makes marketing it easier too. You know what your values are and you know what lights up your ideal customer AND yourself. You love your branded social media graphics and your website – it’s exciting and easy to create content because you know the core of your brand and the aspects of it that you need to hit, you know who your ideal customer is and how you can connect with them. These things create so much ease – branding really is easy once you’ve put the work in to make it so and fallen in love with your brand.
Loving your brand makes business more fun, easier and gives you more confidence.
Several years back – maybe 10ish – I had a bit of a slump in my business where I just wasn’t feeling the enthusiasm that I’d had as a start up. So I hired a coach and we worked on my business plan which led to me revisiting my brand myself. Because of that, I fell back in love with my business and that oomph has not wained because I’m keeping on top of what lights me up and staying connected with what truly matters. I rebranded recently to my own name which was something I’d intended to do for a really long time, and nothing really changed except my business name and logo because the brand itself didn’t need it. that made rebranding my business name so much easier!
So I know first hand just how effective loving your brand can be. Restoring joy and confidence and pride and enabling you to be visible because of that brand bravery is important because that way you are able to create more brand awareness, which of course leads to more sales.
If you don’t love your brand, then send me a message and let’s have a chat about how you can change that. My Love Your Brand programme starts on March 7th. Check it out here. It might be just what you need.