Sparking Transformation Beyond Boundaries

How do you know where you are going if you do not have your path mapped out? How do you promote and sell your products and services if you do not know why you are doing what you? Do you have a purpose beyond making money, a purpose that matters to your customers? Are you able to tell your story?

Every leader dreams of an engaged and happy team. Building that team is hard, but it begins with creating a strong culture, and activating what you stand for and against. When your culture is broken or toxic, your customers see it, trust is lost, and they walk away. For every business decision you make, you need to know your purpose and values, which are built into in your business culture. This helps you to attract and retain the right employees and partners to your business, and have loyal and engaged customers who become brand advocates.

Brand is the connector that works with your business strategy and informs your short term activities, like marketing, logo design and PR. Trust is the key, but trust is an emotion, and not something tangible or data based. How do you build that trust with your audience? Do you know who that audience is? Trust is built in the subconscious mind of your audience. By finding your authentic purpose to connect to your ideal audience, you build trust through the creation of value and meaning. 

Consistency in behaviours, voice, character, and in the visual expression of your business, is the key to connect your value and meaning to your audience. Consistency helps you to tell your brand story to your audience. Much of the perception happens in their subconscious mind. Our subconscious is where thoughts and feeling live. It takes nano seconds for these thoughts and feelings to bubble up to the conscious brain, where they become beliefs. By being consistent, you are repeating your value and meaning in the customers brain so that they attach what you can do for them to that consistent expression of your brand. 

Trust is an emotion, and every communication and interaction with customers is a step towards building trust. As soon as you do or say something that deviates from what you stand for, your audience will reprimand you for it, and potentially walk away to your opposition. Staying on brand in every business decision is key to controlling the perception of your brand and building trust.

You need to show your audience what you can do for them, and why it matters to them. There will always be opposition and challengers in the market, but the important piece is, to make your business uncopyable, and move to a place where there is white space to play and stay relevant to your audience. Find your differentiation, and you will leave your opposition in your wake.

Do you know if your sales team are communicating in the same voice to your audience as your marketing team is doing on social media? Are your teams able to interact with customers autonomously in a way that creates advocates? If your messages and interactions are inconsistent you are confusing your audience. Before you amplify your business by marketing it, you should look to gain clarity of purpose and develop your brand first, so that, your marketing can then amplify your truth in an authentic and engaging way to add value to the right audience.