Do you have a SMART Brand? ...and Sales

Posted by Jack Derby, Head Coach on Tue, Sep 10, 2013
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SMART brandsLiving on the beach and in Boston, I see a fair amount of Mercedes' SMART cars. Cute, clean, fun, and head- turning, many SMART owners go on to accessorize their cars with their personal brands through vanity plates.

  • "Lemon" is a plate for a bright yellow one up the road 
  • "Enystin" is on a blue one owned by a friend of mine
  • "Beach" belongs to a woman on Wallis Sands Beach
  • "Itfits"  is labeled by a friend living in Boston's Back Bay
     
Interestingly enough, decades ago, NH was the first state to adopt vanity plates.  BTW, always the conservative New Englanders looking for alternative sources of revenue, NH was also the first state to create a lottery.
Our choice of cars, the way we dress and look, vanity plates, our speech patterns and similar external "postings" all identify our personal brands of who we are or who we want to be.   Over the years, "Schuss", "Strattn", and now "MTNRIDR" have declared my love for being on the snow and addiction to snowboarding.  

All brands are emotional

Every fall, as I begin my annual quest for a new car, my desire for a brand emotionally will swing me to search online for the best deals on the new 2014 Stingray Corvette that was announced two weeks ago and that red Porsche 911 Cabriolet I passed on last fall.   

As I swing back and forth between the emotional highs of sports cars and the logic of the fact that I drive 50,000 miles a year on the tough winter roads of New England, ultimately, I will "settle" in November for one more black Subaru Outback (3 now) or one more black Jeep Grand Cherokee (10 now)
How to brand
My gifted friend, Chris Colbert, co-founder of the well known Holland Mark agency, graphically describes above this roller coaster between emotions and logic as the swing between rational buying decisions (Subaru) justified by proof statements and solid factual value propositions and emotional desires (Porsche) which is where I always begin my annual quest.   Who knows, maybe this year!...but probably not when I think about those two foot drifts on my unplowed Vermont dirt road.


 

So, What's Your Brand?

The question then for today consists of the very simple words of "What's Your Brand?", but very complex answer since it involves...
  • What's your personal brand?  What do you want to say about you?
  • What's your personal selling brand? How do you want to be seen?
  • What's your company branding since that also reflects your brand?
  • What's your product brand?   What's the real value it provides?
Bring this question up in your next sales meeting with the team and commit yourself to coming up with an answer to the question of branding you and your teammates as the professionals that you are...and that you want to be seen as by your prospects and customers.
  • What's the emotional badge that you want to carry?
  • What's the emotional tug that you want to leave?
  • What are the core values that you want to impart?
Then...how do we do make that happen?  More on that in my next blog!
Good Selling...  

 Jack Derby 
 Head Coach

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