Business owners, managers, and decision makers, lend me your eyes. Your business could be doing better, but your branding strategies may have been ignoring the little things. First I’m hopefully going to convince you it’s important. At the end will be a step by step list on how to identify those important details.
‘For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the man was lost.’
Ancient Proverb
This ancient proverb has been used throughout the centuries for a reason. In layman’s terms, by ignoring the minute details you sabotage the big details.
Every business has a laundry list of needs, to do’s, goals and deadlines. From a new office move, to vetting a new CRM, to changing vendors and hiring new staff, these are big, important, success-altering decisions that must be made.
Now what happens once you handle those items? You catch your breath…and then start all over again, nose to the grindstone, just getting through the week, the month, the quarter, the year.
Your Branding Strategies Deserve A Deep Dive
What if you spent time on a deeper dive in what appears to be shallow water? The kiddie pool of finer details that busy business folks prefer to ignore? The ones that whisper in your ear, ‘pay attention to me,’ but you don’t because of the tyranny of the urgent? Saying no to the projects that get all the attention and instead hyper-focusing on the small but critically important needs of your company will separate you from all the others.
It’s the difference between the brands that can charge $10,000 for their products and the ones that charge $1,000. Sure, at $1,000 you make a decent profit to cover your margins, your overhead, and sustain your revenue. But the devil is in the details — and so is the hidden revenue you’ll be gaining by re-tooling, massaging, and refining processes and perspectives that make your brand stand out, externally and internally.
‘A handful of men have become very rich by paying attention to details that most others ignored.’
Henry Ford
One of those men is Italian-Argentinian supercar manufacturer Horacio Pagani. Look at the photo of two bolts. They’re made out of grade-7 titanium and you’ll notice that “Pagani” is etched into the head. There are over 1400 bolts on the Pagani Huayra in total, and at $80 a piece I can’t imagine what the cost of goods sold looks like on the income statement.
That being said, I also can’t imagine what the revenue figure looks like either. Pagani is allowed to charge millions of dollars for their cars. This brand values their customer enough to give attention to even the most minute detail, and they’re clearly reaping the financial benefits. Does your brand do the same?
…executing details perfectly is far from incidental to the success of a brand but actually central to it.”
Forbes Magazine
Some simple add-ons to your branding strategies:
Hiring someone to do your music and messages on hold so that callers hear fresh new content and promotions rather than boring hold music, hiring an interior or website designer to improve your image, giving your customers hit overhead music in your lobby, developing testimonial and case study documents you can send to prospects, building in extra product features for added convenience, adding personalized thank you cards with products, referring to buyers as clients rather than customers, the list goes on.
How do I focus my efforts? 5 ideas.
- Pick ONE detail, and do it so well that it begins to reshape your brand image and communicate excellence as the standard. It will instantly increase the trust that customers have with your company as well as your ability to charge what you want and deserve.
- What should your brand represent? It helps figuring out how to go about the details if you have a clear goal as to how you want your brand represented. What are the things that are important to your target customers? Make sure your efforts moving forward align with your customer’s values.
- Think about the entire customer experience. What are all of the things your customer sees in relation to your business? Logo, website, brick-and-mortar store, google reviews, interior design, social media pages. How about communication? Email, text, chat bot, phone (on hold, call que, voicemail), social media, reviews. Just in this list are many items that can be handled in one day. Everyone loves an effective and aesthetically pleasing email signature, and while a great one may not win prospects, a cluttered ugly one will certainly turn prospects away.
- What things are customers not asking for but would like? A great example of this is something I read online about Cuisinart’s food processor. There were many additional features that made its use ideal for home cooks, but they also added a retractable power cord. It’s not anything people complained about not having, but it makes storage easier and elicits a feeling of . Find additional needs and address them without the customer ever even asking for it. You will be highly regarded for doing so.
- Do what the competition isn’t. This is a great way to gain the attention of people who aren’t currently your customers. Mixing it up and doing something unique, even on a small scale, provides consumers with memorable quirks and that adds character to your brand. Brands with character are likable and memorable, so do something creative and thoughtful (doesn’t have to be expensive) to see what difference it makes.
Implement a few little ideas into your branding strategies.
Your business is a complex machine. A lot of thought that goes into how to best serve your customers. That’s the whole point of paying attention to details. While the big stuff is expected, it’s those small things that aren’t. That is what causes customers to do a double take and really be impressed with what you offer. Good luck out there and start putting this into action.
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