It seems everywhere you look now, brand names, logos and colors are trying to grab your attention. They’re scattered on billboards, magazine pages, television ads and pretty much anywhere else you can imagine.
To most, these are the brands we’ve become familiar with. We associate the golden arches with McDonalds, the slanted “E” with Dell and the colorful peacock feathers with NBC.
However, these things are not the brand. Far from it.
In fact, these logos and colors are merely representatives of the brand, visual cues meant to remind you of what the brand really is: a story.
My brand is not a logo. It’s not a font type. And it surely isn’t a tagline. It is the story about my journey in sales. My story is about who I am, what I am and why you should trust me. It gives my experience relevance and helps build an emotional connection.
This is the brand you need to create: a timeline of anecdotes that a customer (or employer) can relate to.
Your brand isn’t about the certifications on your resume or the schools you received degrees from. And it’s definitely not about the letters behind your name. Not everyone went to Stanford or has an MBA.
Your brand is the story about how you got here. It’s the epic tale of trial and error you endured to achieve where you are today. It’s the line-by-line description of the risk-and-reward roulette game we call life.
How to Build Your Brand Story
Building your story will not be easy. At least not the first time around. Like most, you’re probably thinking, “How do I take my story and appeal to the masses?”
Stop right there!
Your goal is not to appeal to everyone. Your goal is to connect with one person — that one person who can feel your pain and relate with you. You need to use laser focus here.
And remember, it’s much easier to tell a story to one person face to face then it is to a room full of people.
Although your brand story will make you unique, it will be similar enough for the masses to connect with. But first, focus on the one. Connect with that one.
Think about telling your story to a friend, not giving a speech at a political event. From there, you can break the story development into three parts:
- Understand
- Develop
- Trim
We’ll go into each step below.
Understanding Your Epic Tale
At first, telling your story can be a challenge. Where to start, how you got there and where to take it aren’t always easy to articulate.
When telling your story, it’s best to start from before the beginning. When you were younger, before you started your professional career, there must have been a catalyst for why you are who you are.
As an example, I was very talkative and outgoing in my youth (still am). So much so that elementary school teachers would often reprimand me for talking too much. I was a natural extrovert and social butterfly.
That led very well into my martial arts career. I have a true passion for it that evolved from “I want to do those cool kicks I see in the movies” to “I want to help people defend themselves, have self-confidence and be physically fit and healthy.”
Because of the hard work that resulted from that passion, I was promoted to head instructor. In that role, I was responsible for many events where I was front and center to student classes, parents and the whole school at times. This is where I learned that hard work and perseverance pays off.
Through a connection I made there, I was introduced to my first professional job out of college, a sales support role for a property management company. I applied the same perseverance I had used while earning my black belt to that new role and was soon promoted to a sales associate.
From there, I held many other sales roles, including business development, inside sales and, of course, outside sales. During this time, I ran into every trial and tribulation a sales professional will run into during a career.
But all of that built me up as someone who loves what they do. I am successful in my current role and have taken my experience to my own sales blog.
My story doesn’t talk about my degrees. It doesn’t tell my awards, or how many kicks I can do in a minute. It tells the story of where my passion and skill set for sales came from. It tells how I developed those skills. And it tells what I am doing with them now.
Develop Your Brand Story
Now that you have an example of my story and you’ve started thinking of your own, it’s time to put the pieces together.
Tell your story with the same emotions you felt at the time, as if you were reliving it. Try to describe the events as if they were a natural next step — like there was a higher power driving you towards every step along the way. Make it a logical progression of events.
And don’t forget to include as much emotion into the story as you can. Were you suffering, or merely frustrated? Was it pain or annoyance? Hope or fear? Dread or excitement?
Use emotionally descriptive words when you can. That’s the whole point of telling your brand story: to bring out emotions and build a connection with everyone who hears it.
You want them to think, “Yes, I’ve felt the same way before!” You want them to relate to you. Once they relate to you, they’re hooked. They trust you and they will buy the product of you. (Tweet this thought.)
Trim the Fat
The last step to creating your brand’s story is to make it into an easily digestible bit.
There’s a lot that goes into a brand story, but not all of it needs to be used. Remember, you’re still dealing with people and their short attention spans.
The best example of when you would use this trimmed-down version is when someone asks you, “So what do you do?” at a networking event. When I was a new professional, I would have said, “I’m in sales,” and the conversation would have been over as quickly as it started.
By using the above methods and a having story to tell, I would have a very different conversation. I might say something like:
“I wake up every day knowing how blessed I am for doing something I’m extremely passionate about and have been doing for as long as I’ve been working.”
Normally, I would stop right there and wait for a response. Because usually, the response is, “Well, what do you do?”
I’ve hooked them. They’re curious about what I do and wondering if it’s something they could do one day. Next, I might say:
“Well, I started my sales career over 10 years ago with a property management company and just fell in love with it. I had a few hiccups along the way, but I always felt drawn to real estate. Those hiccups allowed me to be a better salesperson and a better partner to my industry. I now work with real estate investors looking to better manage their operation with enterprise-level software. I’ve helped a lot of people fix major problems within their organization and have made some real friends along the way. ”
Tells a different story than “I’m in sales,” doesn’t it?
Take a moment today to sit down and develop your brand story. Use it and test it out on clients and prospects. See how they react, make changes were needed, and rinse and repeat.
Good luck!
How can you tell your brand story?
Image: Flickr
