When most of us hear the word “brand”, companies like “Proctor and Gamble” and “Apple’ often come to mind. With large advertising budgets, these companies sell tangible product to us as consumers. And whether it is on the web or in a store, their brands are visible to us it seems every where we turn.

On the other hand, companies that sell professional services, whether B2B or B2C, often stop thinking about their brand beyond business cards, a website and maybe a brochure. Why? Because their branding efforts are largely invisible.

For the professional service provider, It is not the logo, website, or business card that creates the brand. Rather it is the touch points that can’t be seen like keeping promises, exceeding service level requirements, and responsiveness to customer inquiries that build trust and create brands. These invisible touch points are functions of company vision, employee training, pricing strategy and customer relationships.

If you were to put a magnifying glass on your invisible brand, what do you find? Touch points that build trust and increase referrals or maybe not so favorable word of mouth.

You might have seen the following if you were shopping for Coke during your Costco run over the last week or so ” At present we are not carrying Coke products because we cannot provide the value our customers deserve.”

A devoted Diet Coke fan and Gold card carrying member of Costco, it is probably no surprise to you then that I buy my diet coke at Costco.  So imagine my surprise last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, when I couldn’t buy my Diet Coke during my Costco run.

I guess Coke won’t provide Costco the preferred pricing they had in the past citing conflicts with their local bottlers.  As a result, Costco pulled all Coke products from their shelves.

So a stand-off ensued.

I understand Costco’s perspective.  Their value to their members is wholesale or seemingly wholesale prices.  It is the primary reason why people join wholesale clubs.

I understand Coke’s perspective, pricing when you have a complex distribution strategy is always tricky.

The stand-off will come down to who needs who more.  Does Costco cave and not deliver on their brand promise offering Coke products at a price that I can get them at the grocery store?  Or does Coke upset the apple cart with their local bottlers or perhaps make pricing adjustments in other channels in order to eliminate or minimize this channel conflict just so they can keep Costco as a distribution point? From Coke’s perspective, they have almost 100% household penetration in the U.S. across their product lines.    Will losing Costco impact their market share?  As much as I enjoy my Costco membership, I have to think that it won’t.  But with their desire to be ubiquitous, this can’t be an easy decision for them either.

But for Costco to accept pricing no more advantageous than other Coke distribution points (and there are many), means they have to forgo their promise to their members.  Is having Coke products in the stores just as a convenience worth the price of their brand promise?  Making concessions with Coke could put Costco on a slippery slope with other suppliers and cast doubt in the minds of their member about their resolve to deliver on wholesale type pricing.

Despite being a Diet Coke fan who is sensitive to the recent increases in Coke products, I hope that Costco holds it ground because I expect them to provide me products and services at a discount or additional value over other places I shop.

In the meantime, I’ll get better at watching for Diet Coke specials because I don’t think I should pay $4.99 for a twelve pack.  With the new year upon us, perhaps switching to water could be a good New Year’s resolution to add to my list.

What do you think?

You and I and the rest of the world are in the same business – trust building.

A couple who get married builds a relationship of trust (hopefully) while dating.   A manager must earn the trust of those she manages to successfully lead.  Parents teach their babies to trust that their needs will be met.

Trust is the foundation of all relationships regardless of type, personal, professional or business.   No trust, no relationship.  Period.

Why is it then that as business people we often overlook the importance of building trust when we set out to market our products and services?

We focus on measuring the page rank,  number of impressions, click-throughs, email registrations and followers that result from our efforts.   But in the process we often forget that people don’t buy just because they know about or have heard of  our brand or service.  Instead they ultimately buy from who they know, like and trust.  Regardless of what is being bought – a consulting service, cereal or a new cell phone.

A website, newsletter or radio commercial helps people know about the benefits and features of our product or service. But how do we move someone from know (awareness) to like and trust and who or what is responsible for it?   Is it our sales people, reputation, product demonstrations,  free consultations, or video on Youtube?

If we set out to create relationships of trust,  do we approach our marketing strategy, plans and communications differently then if we just focus just on selling our products and services?

I think so.  It is the essence of a brand.

What do you think?

What does being successful at marketing your business mean to you?  An optimized website with lots of traffic, a slick brochure or direct mail piece that generates sales leads?

Outcomes are important in marketing – increased sales, improved profitability, happy customers.  But how do you get those outcomes?  Wouldn’t it be nice if increased sales just magically appeared because our product or service is so wonderful?

Author Brian Tracey says that our habits create our future.  Like everything else, to be successful in the marketing of our products and services, I believe we must practice certain habits.  A fan of Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I recently enjoyed reading a series of posts on Dan Schawbel’s blog from guest blogger, Roger Parker, about the seven habits of the successfully published.  This got me thinking about the critical skills and habits one must acquire and practice to be a highly successful marketer.

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Marketers

1.) Highly Successful Marketers start and end with the customer in mind. They understand that they don’t sell a service; a customers buys it.   They understand what keeps their customer up at night and how their product or service solves a problem.  Most importantly, they understand that the customer experience is paramount so they incorporate activities and processes that ensure the product or service value aligns with the customer’s expectations.

2.) Highly Successful Marketers are in the know about what their competition is doing, the latest trends in their market, the profit margin on their service, where the growth is coming from in their business, etc.

3.) Highly Successful Marketers differentiate. They proactively stake a position in the market for their products and services.  They know that they can’t compete with a “me-too” offer or a “me-too” message.

4.) Highly Successful Marketers focus. They know they can’t be all things to all people so they focus their limited resources on being relevant to their target audience or niche.

5.) Highly Successful Marketers have a plan and work their plan. Things happen and circumstance change so the plan evolves.  But they have a plan that keeps them in front of their target audience.

6.) Highly  Successful Marketers communicate. This is the part that is most easily understood because most people associate Marketing with Marketing Communications (i.e. websites, brochures, direct mail, social media, etc.).  They know where to find their target audience and how to create an offer and deliver a message that is relevant and timely.

7.) Highly Successful Marketers measure. They know that marketing must deliver a return on investment and know that they get what they measure.  They measure cost per sale, cost per lead, website traffic, conversions, close rates, customer satisfaction, number of impressions, etc.

Looking at this list, I know my customer orientation is strong but that I need to work on focus.  Sometimes I get distracted by bright shiny objects.   What about you?

The meaning of her quote goes far beyond the relationships we enjoy with family and close friends.  The emotions we engender in others is as important in business because of a simple truth:  People buy from who they know, like and trust.

We go to networking events so that targeted prospects can get to know us.  We have websites that help potential clients learn about our businesses.  But it is ultimately perceptions (what people believe) and emotions (how they feel) that takes people through the spectrum of knowing us to also liking and trusting us.   And if they don’t like or trust us or the product or service we sell, they won’t buy from us.  Period.

I believe that moving potential customers through the spectrum of know, like and trust is the role of the company brand.   While some think a brand is the logo on a business card, website or brochure, a brand is actually the perceptions and emotions your customers have about their relationship of doing business with you or using your products and services.   Your customers own their perceptions and emotions;  your company doesn’t.

Related to the brand, the role of the company is to create, communicate and deliver a relevant, differentiated value in the minds of customers.   Apple and Southwest Airlines are big brand examples that do a great job of this.  It is easier said then done for sure.  But when done successfully, this positively influences the perceptions and emotions that engender “like” and “trust” and it makes it much easier for your prospects to become customers and your customers to become advocates.  And who wouldn’t want the kind of customer advocates that both Apple and Southwest Airlines enjoy?

Ask yourself this.   What perceptions do your customers and prospects have about your company and its products and services?  And, how do your prospects go from knowing about you to “liking” and “trusting” you?  Or, do they?  Some companies have great awareness (lots of people know about them) but have a difficult time getting their prospects to “like” and “trust” them.    How does your company create trust?

I was reading Seth Godin’s post recently titled “The hierarchy of success” about how most of us bypass setting strategy to jump right into executing tactics.

Godin’s “Hierarchy of Success”

• Attitude
• Approach
• Goals
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Execution

He reminds us about the importance of setting strategy, our plan to achieve a goal, before deciding on tactics,  our activities to achieve the goal, and making sure that strategy ties back to goals and objectives.

This post of Godin’s really made me think about why there is the tendency to jump to tactics at the expense of strategy.  Most of us know better than to take the “spray and pray” approach   Then why don’t we just buckle down and plan our strategy before jumping into tactical decisions that drive website traffic, calls into call centers and customers to our retail stores?

Maybe because taking action feels like we’re getting there faster?   The entrepreneurs I’ve met and worked for do have an action orientation and an admirable willingness to fail forward.   Yet how much farther could they go if they had spent a little time at the top of Godin’s hierarchy instead of starting at the bottom?

Or maybe it is our well-publicized need for immediate gratification?  We start with good intentions but short term goals, like quarterly earnings at larger companies,  supersede the benefit of a strategy change that will better position the company in the longer term.

I think it could be because choosing a strategy, a direction or plan in which to take action, requires discipline.

It is easy to line up your resources, financial, human and time, aim (pick activities) and fire  (execute).  It requires discipline however to put the time and thought into weighing the strategic options for achieving your objective, to step back and see the big picture.    Strategy can be easy if you have only one option.  The hard part in setting strategy comes in weighing and choosing one option over viable alternatives requiring a discipline to pick one while leaving others on the table.

Here is an example of what happens when you don’t exercise the discipline to choose a strategy. A company has two viable targets for their product but only resources to effectively market to one.   If they don’t exercise the discipline to choose a strategy to target only one of the two, they end up watering down their message to try and be relevant to both which means they won’t be relevant to either.  And, their marketing dollars that could effectively reach one target are spread over two targets meaning their message has a less effective reach to either of their targets.

Strategy, in this example, requires that we pick who is the target of our marketing efforts while acknowledging that we can’t be all things to all people.

We all struggle with discipline to some degree but when we exercise our discipline muscle, we get closer to realistically achieving our objectives.

I’ll end by making a case for strategy.  The beauty of it, marketing or otherwise, is that once you decide on a strategy, the tactical decisions fall into place.    If you know where you are going, there is always a way to get there.

The goal for this blog is to share practical, real-world insight and ideas on how a brand and marketing can work.  During my career, I’ve seen how a solid brand and effective marketing can achieve the market share, revenue and profitability targets of a company.  I’ve also seen from the same vantage point, how the failure to exercise discipline in the marketing function, from strategy through execution, can have the exact opposite effect: reduced market share, declining sales, customer turn-over and lower profitability.

I’ll also share my experiences in the journey to small business from Corporate America.  Besides the business lessons, there are also personal lessons.   Many in Corporate America contemplating a move out might not yet appreciate the shift in mindset necessary to succeed in small business.  At the same time, some in small business believe those in Corporate America are out of touch with the customers they serve.  I’ll provide some insight from the lessons I’ve learned to hopefully bridge this gap.

This blog has been a long time in coming.  I’ve put off beginning this blog for two reasons worth sharing.  First, it has never been second nature for me to draw attention to myself.  So the idea of putting my thoughts and ideas out on the world wide web honestly took time to get my head around.   Second, I wondered how I was going to fit a blog into my already very busy life.  I was going to say “work week” instead but right now there is no such thing as a Monday to Friday work week.   My work and my life run seven days a week, sometimes 24X7.

Yes, having a blog is a commitment in time if it is done well.  And, my thoughts are out there for all to see.   The benefits however of adding my voice to the conversation on the subjects of brand and marketing far outweigh the extra discipline and courage I will muster to make this work.     I’ll no doubt make mistakes along the way in addition to the success I find.   My hope is that you will learn from my process of contributing to and managing a blog.

In reading and following blogs the last year, I’ve learned that a blog is not a one-way communication vehicle for a blogger to espouse their thoughts.   Done right, a blog sparks a thought-provoking dialogue and is the reason why it is considered social media.   My objective is to create a dialogue.   So please come back to keep me honest in this process and contribute to the conversation.