When it comes to branding, one of the big stumbling blocks is this question:
What would they say about me?
It is a fundamentally difficult question to answer and, to be frank, itโs a rhetorical one. We donโt know who these people are, and we can only guess what they might, or might not, say.
But the fact that the question has arisen in your mind gives us a pretty good clue about what you guess people would say. And it ainโt going to be positive, is it?
A way to get around this issue is to think in terms of what the question does. What is the effect of a question such as this? It stops us from taking action.
Instead, I urge you to rethink and try to define who โtheyโ are in the context of your branding.
What Iโm suggesting is moving away from the land of vague and moving into the specific.
When you think about โtheyโ, who are those people? If we were to really define who they are, the question of โWhat would they say about meโ can now become a powerful motivator to specify who you really want to attract.
Iโm talking here about the audience for your brand. As I often say, branding is done for other people, and those people are your audience.
We brand for a specific audience because we canโt do branding for everyone – the vague they. Instead, we have to pick some people. Now ask yourself this. What would you like those people to say about your brand?
That is NOT a rhetorical question and it is a question worthy of more careful thinking and planning. This is very different from getting stalled in your branding processes or, worse, dismissing your branding, simply because you fear what the vague โtheyโ might-would-could say about you.
Thatโs why I say โchoose your audienceโ.
Thereโs another statement or question that blocks us. Iโll talk about that in my next email.
Until next time
