Remember in the last message we talked about your directional pipeline and how sometimes you'll be approached by prospects who just don't fit with what you want to achieve? We looked at the different types of prospect - Desperate, Curious, and Inspired.
Well, now we're going to have a think about what might happen if you realise you have some of the desperate or curious people as your clients. Oh, the shame!
One of the tools we use is called the Brand Power Wheel - not got one of these? Then you know the drill, send a blank email to: leanbrandwheel@aweber.com with "Send Me The Brand Power Wheel - I'm Missing Out - Again!" in the subject line!
The Brand Power Wheel really helps you to identify what's important to you and the way you work, so you can see whether prospects (people who haven't bought yet) and clients (those who have) fit with your values and beliefs.
What we find is that for many companies, doing this at an advanced stage in their Business lives, they get a bit of a shock. I know we did! You might find that some elements in your brand power wheel are probably out of line. The good news is once you've lined everything up, you'll have far more power and magnetism than your competitors and they'll struggle to ever really comprehend the reasons why.
The Brand Power Wheel consists of layers (Belief, Capability, Action & Image, Externalities)- each layer, makes up an important part of your overall brand and communication. Working from the inside out will generally have a more dramatic effect on your final Brand communication than working from the outside in. You really need to see it - send a blank email to: leanbrandwheel@aweber.com with "Send Me The Brand Power Wheel - I'm Missing Out - Again!" in the subject line!
So, the first thing you need to do is set about lining everything up so that you can project a potent and congruent brand to your target.
I would just like to say that there is no right or wrong way to get everything in alignment. Some people may favour working on their own beliefs while others address capability with training. Some people will realise that their only blockage is in a sloppy image that doesn't reflect the quality of themselves or their customers.
However you approach the challenge, you should do it based upon your beliefs, goals, and unique challenges.
There is, however, usually a hard way and an easy way...
Occam's Razor
William Occam (William of Ockham) was a mediaeval philosopher credited with emparting the following wisdom...
'Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitas' (Plurality should not be posited without necessity)
Now this sounds a little bit too pompous and academic for my liking so here's my simplification...
If you have to choose between two actions, models or plans that are both likely to create the same outcome then choose the simpler one.
If you apply this principle to your brand power and the rest of your marketing - you'll quickly discover it's effectiveness.
Applying Occam's Razor and Sacking Customers
When we were faced with a Brand Power problem a few years ago, we went through this exercise again and discovered that nearly all of our beliefs, capabilities, action and image were lined up, but somehow we just weren't getting through powerfully to our customers.
At this time we were working with and targeting large, multinational firms. We were being paid very well but:
* Our customers were happy to pay for our advice but rarely followed it through far enough to get results
* We had occasional skirmishes with middle managers in marketing, IT and HR - so every project felt like a battle
* We became bored, tired and uninspired in our work and as a result began to feel that we weren't giving our clients our best shot.
We looked into this more fully and realised that we were actually targeting and working with the wrong types of companies for us.
We'd taken part in occasional projects with smaller, more inspired and hungry firms and had really enjoyed the sense of achievement and the celebration of their success.
Small people in big firms really didn't appreciate our approaches for a number of reasons. The biggest one being that people in large firms are battling for power within. They generally (there are bound to be exceptions) aren't as interested in the firm's success as they are in their own.
Marketing Managers wanted to spend more on
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