Minimum Lovable Brands

Minimum Lovable Brands

David YardeSevenality

www.sevenality.com

@dsmy

BrandingVerb

To do, execute on a foundation, to leave a mark or legacy.

It isn’t your logo, or your website.

It isn’t something you create in a brainstorm.

It’s a reflection of an existing set of facts about your company, your audience, your

values and about…

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You and your ability to execute on what you said

you would do.

When it comes to branding, there is no room for complaining about being self-funded or not having

resources.

Why isn’t everyone doing it?

It takes time, equity, experience and the determination to see things through.

Customers don’t care.

They expect you to be ready to meet their needs.

It isn’t their fault. They’ve been taught to make comparisons based on who can do that best and then

make a choice.

Within that moment your branding fails to execute, your competitor will win.

How do we build a Minimum Lovable Brand?

What’s your story? Why do you exist? Why should I care?

What’s in it for me?

Building a minimum lovable brand requires an understanding of both sides

of the coin.

Heads: The Personal Brand

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Old ThinkingPersonal branding is the

practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as

brands.

Your personal brand is who you are as an individual and how that is reflected within your

demeanor.

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Core PurposeTest

If someone were to offer to buy you at a generous price, guarantee that you would

have all your needs met, but that the buying individual would destroy who you are as a person, causing you to no longer exist as who you are, would you accept the offer?

Why, or why not?

Developing your personal brand is essential for the advancement of your career and development as a

leader.

Managing your personal brand requires you to be a great role model, mentor, and / or a voice that others

can depend upon.

If you have a social media presence to think carefully about their intentions and objectives before opening

an account.

View your personal brand as an asset that you must protect while it continuously evolves. Your personal brand is an asset that must be managed with the intention of helping others benefit from having a relationship with you and / or by being associated with your work and

the industry you serve.

The biggest mistake people make when developing their personal brand is not creating a narrative.

Often, people will assume others understand why they're making a transition, or they think others will immediately grasp how their skills

are transferable.

It's our responsibility to create a clear, coherent narrative that explains why we're moving from Point A to Point B, and how our

past experience adds value to the what we’re venturing to do now.

Without that, people will come up with their own assumptions, and they may be random, inaccurate or unflattering. Dooming your new

venture before it even begins.

Lifestyle Branding

Pinpoint which lifestyle aspirations your brand would fulfill, and market accordingly.

It’s all about telling a customer what they want to be, and how your product/or service will help them

get there.

Benefits of a strong Personal Brand

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A strongpersonal brand can..

Allow you to control the perception.

Personal branding is about cultivating the pieces of who you are that tell your story. You

build your personal brand with your willingness to share your knowledge and expertise.

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Show your uniqueness

Investing time and effort in your personal brand is crucial to your success in any field. Consider your personal brand as your digital reputation, resume, platform and an extension of your business card.

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Build a ecosystem

Each outlet or interaction your brand has offers you the opportunity to build a following by generously

sharing your time. Before putting in your time, make sure you take time to think of the goals.

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Leverage your personal Brand

When you invest time in building your personal brand, you can leverage it in

various ways. It can be a gateway for other entrepreneurial pursuits, books, services and revenue streams. Look at leveraging

your brand as an opportunity builder.

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Learn from your ecosystemPersonal branding helps your current and

potential audience understand who you are and what your value proposition is so they can make an informed conversion

decision. As you build a following, you will be creating your ideal audience --

individuals interested in what you have to say and interested in buying from you.

You in turn can learn about them, about what they like and need.

It's easier to screw up a personal brand than a business brand--and harder to

make amends.

Hypothesis & Experimentation

Launching to an audience that already knows your personal brand, that follows you, that interacts with you, and that’s

ROOTING for you is one of the most powerful forces in gaining early

traction.

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Leveraging SocialMedia

Leveraging Facebook There is the chance that one of my

connections lies within the target audience of my application, or even more likely, that

they know someone else who does.

The key here is to not talk too much about your business within your Facebook timeline,

but don’t ignore that it exists either.

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Leveraging TwitterTwitter is a great way to interact with

people that you normally wouldn’t get the chance to interact with.

Twitter lists are the most undervalued portion of twitter that can provide an

immense amount of value.

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Leveraging LinkedInWhen people browse LinkedIn, typically they

are in “professional mode”. They are researching updates with their contacts, how they know someone, who they can invite to connect with or reading a business-related

article in Pulse.

LinkedIn also allows you to post articles within their network.

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Leveraging QuoraQuora is a great site for

establishing yourself as a trusted authority. This, in turn, leads to

people checking out who you are and what you may offer.

Show off your thought leadership.

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Leveraging InstagramWe are a visual society. Everything is

digested with the eyes before it moves on to the other emotional receptors.

Instagram allows us to tap into this emotional gateway by providing things

of value while not shoving products down peoples throats.

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Personal Vision Statement

• Cover - Time Magazine• Headline - News headline About who

you are• Sidebar - Interesting facts about you• Quotes - What people are saying about

you• Images - That depict the future state. E.g Time Magazine calls David Yarde a modern-day renaissance man with a gift for helping others succeed.

What are your skills?

What are you known for?

Where can you provide the most value?

Once you feel it on the inside,you’ll show

it on the outside.

Tails: The Business Brand

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It’s more than just making money. Having a business is about building something that has value.

Brands that have value are considered assets.

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Assets are built over time by ignoring short term distractions in favor of a much

bigger long term vision and strategy.

Culture Building

When you feel confident in your brand, the more you’ll attract your target audience. When you, or your team is

passionate about what they are doing, and they feel confident in the culture and company, they provide their

best work.

When your customers see this, they want to know more, they become drawn into the positive environment that you’ve created, because you’ve shown them that your brand, whether business or

personal can take care of them and they don’t have to worry.

We believe [this set of people/the business] will [care / be passionate about us(the prospect/consumer)] for / because

[this reason].

EMOTIONAL–VALUE HYPOTHESIS

Brand Positioning

The action of exploring opportunities without diluting the primary brand.

Show the issues that you are addressing for your customers, show them how you are uniquely solving these problems. Make sure at every step everything

aligns.

Give them a chance to get to know who you are, because the more a person gets emotionally invested is

the better the chance of you having them as a customer.

Forward

To measure growth, look at the emotional value metrics.

• Participation (Brand Ambassadors)

• Engagement (Are they talking back?)

• Interaction (Are they paying attention?)

• Conversion

Product/Market/Brand Fit

• Can we win ONE passionate advocate?

• and turn it into at least TEN passionate

advocates?

• or a Market of passionate customers?

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Business Mission Statement

Example Company serves (constituent groups), by (definition of the business). Example Company is different from (competitor) because of (point of differentiation).

The more value you build, the more people will be willing to pay for what you

offer.

Having both a personal and corporate brand can be the best of both worlds. This allows you to let people know who's

behind the company while also building product awareness.

But be careful not to dilute your message, visibility and personal brand-

building efforts.

• Be sure you have a reason and strategy prepared when using

both.

• Be sure to have unique content and resources to share on

each.

• Don’t try to establish personal and business brands at the

same time.

• Let business brand be business and your personal brand be

personal.

• Never post personal brand content on the business brand.

Mission statement (this is a reminder)

Trademarks (these are legal properties)

Logo/Identity (these are signatures)

Products/Services (these are tangible)

Advertising/Marketing (this is the

vehicle/medium)

Don’t be afraid to fail.

Onward!

Twitter: @dsmy or @sevenality

www.sevenality.com

http://www.sevenality.com/

Minimum Lovable Brands

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