Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, services firms wanted more customers.
Without time or skills they wasted money on websites, collateral, and marketing in general, actually repelling prospects and making sales people’s jobs harder.
Like sand in an hourglass, opportunities passed. One day they found the lost wisdom of Peter Drucker, who said: “business is about two things and two things only; marketing and innovation”, but marketing and selling were becoming increasingly complex due to media fragmentation, increased competition and clients with A.D.D.
Copywriters, designers, SEO experts were engaged, budgets spent, yet they still weren’t getting results. They were missing out on “big picture” strategy and creative. Well meaning specialists lived in silos without the necessary skills to teach them that their brand was their biggest asset; not a logo, or their look and feel. They heard of Coco Chanel who coined a phrase “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different”, and learned that their brand was what their customers thought, felt and said about them and this made sense.
Told to go to a “professional” advertising agency to develop their brand, they heard that awareness is key, from the Account Director who walked out the door to attend a long lunch with blue chip clients, never to be heard from again. Serviced by juniors who had little experience but a great desire to work on a more glamorous account, our heroes, from I.T., HR, accounting and law, to name a few, were still busy and stressed, and now confused by the jargon used to “impress” them. Meetings with pretty young things, free tickets to events, cool parties came and went.
When they took charge of their own brand and understood the basic principles of branding, they discovered what made them truly unique, learned how to communicate effectively and within 6 months had increased sales. They focused on what they did best and made their customers happy, increasing their profits and enjoying life. But that’s the end of the story and we are only at the beginning…
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