I just finished a guest post for CareerAttraction.com about selling your brand. During the creative process it dawned on me that your brand is not an inanimate object. It can change, it can contract and expand, it can even do a complete reversal.
A brand is a concept; not a thing that you can hold in your hand. It’s not a symbol, it’s a feeling. And believe it or not you can even have multiple brands. Although most people have a hard enough time just focusing on one.
Sometimes these changes are between groups and happen multiple times a day, and sometimes the changes are much more subtle and take longer to happen.
The fact remains that our brand changes to reflect the face or attitude we want to portray to whom ever we’re with a the time.
Let me give you a few examples of when a brand changes.
Politics: Do you think you’ll vote the same way as a young unmarried adult versus a close to retirement head of household for a 5 person family? Probably not.
Business: Do you act the same way in front of prospects as you do with long term clients? Or are you a little more formal with prospects?
Social: Do you act differently with your college buddies compared to your family members? What about how you act in front of your parents versus your in-laws?
Clothing/Style: How you dress has an impact on your brand. When you’re exercising do you wear old tattered t-shirts from your college fraternity (like I do) or do you wear cute, colorful Victoria Secrets outfits (like my wife does). When you meet out with co-workers, do you change your clothes or do you wear what you wore to work that day?
Depending on the situation you naturally switch brands to help you best fit in. There’s nothing wrong with this but you can use it to your advantage.
What Are They Expecting?
In a sales atmosphere you go into every meeting expecting something.
- Expecting a hostile prospect or a loving one.
- Expecting to be up against one competitor or another.
- Expecting to get an order or not.
- Expecting a next meeting or to split ways.
It’s human nature to have expectations. That’s why you want to understand that they (clients and prospects) have expectations of their own.
Some of their expectations might include:
- Expecting you to be the lowest price
- Expecting you to have the best product
- Expecting you to be willing to negotiate on the business terms
- Expecting you to help them solve a problem
If you walk into a meeting knowing what their expectations are you are in a great position to become a lasting partner to that company. You do this by adjusting your brand to fit their needs.
If they are expecting you to have the best product, focus your conversations on why your product is the best on the market.
If they are expecting the lowest price, and you aren’t the lowest, adjust your brand to showcase the value of your offering and how much money it will save them.
If they invited you in to solve a problem then you better make damn sure you are able to do that and tell them exactly how you will help them.
You’re Not Being Two Faced
Even though your brand changes that doesn’t mean that you are being two faced. You are not being a hypocrite, you are simply offering up the best you have in different ways to different people.
As a software sales executive I have about three dozen products that are available for me to sell. For any one client I can offer up at least a dozen of them if not more.
But between each client I always offer up something different. Why is this? Well becuase no business is alike. Each has it’s own needs and has it’s own requests of me and my products.
If I didn’t change my brand, and I didn’t adjust my offerings to their needs I would not be selling, I’d be talking. And wasting a lot of their time and my companies money. That is not something I want to do.
The next time you worry about doing something that is not 100% consistent with your brand consider why you’re making that change. Are you doing it to meet the expectations of a prospect? That’s not always a bad thing.
So what do you think? Is it normal to change your brand? Is it good or bad to do so? Let me know in the comments below.
~ Johnny Bravo
Image courtesy of Jeroen van Oostrom / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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