Sensible Branding

Sadly, most businesses these days seem to suffer from ‘short-termism’. We are much more concerned about where the next crust is coming from, than laying foundations that change customers from ‘crumbs’ to long-lasting loaves.

When I started the business over thirty years ago now, I had no clue how it would grow, what the challenges would be, what challenges would arise when I took on staff, and how those would multiply as the company took on more and more people. Like most business leaders I worked tactically from day-to-day. As the business began to grow, I still worked tactically achieving monthly targets, annual results. Now I’m not saying these things are unimportant. They are vital to success, but over the years I learned I needed a bigger picture as well.

The time came when I needed to step back from the actual ‘doing’ and hand it over to others I could trust to deliver. I remember the time when I was chasing all over the UK, then going back to the office and getting involved in the actual work. Trying to understand how to grow the business was an add on! I didn’t have the luxury of a proven business mentor, and most of the ‘consultants’ didn’t have a clue how the business worked, or how I could expand it. Fortunately I did gain an excellent business partner who had a keen eye for detail of ‘doing’ and we have now worked successfully together for over twenty seven years.

The point is, that I had to learn the hard way how to avoid mistakes. I had to discover for myself the advantages of working to a long-term strategy rather than being consumed by the nitty-gritty.

However, I think the biggest bonus actually came ‘built-in’ from my own character and mindset, and not from something I learned. Having started the business, I wanted everyone in it, and every aspect of it to be great. ‘Good enough’, was never our norm. We wanted to be ‘flavour of the month, every month’. This desire permeated everything we did and as a result, we held the Volkswagen account for twenty three years. In a marketing world, that’s light years!

If you have that innate sense of wanting to build a great business, or even if you know your business could be improved, then read on. If not, then staying in business for thirty years will be a bigger challenge than you can handle.

• So how does the brandtest fit into all this?
• Why work with a long-term brand strategy?
• What benefits will accrue?
• Will it improve profitability?

In order to get somewhere, it’s self-evident that you have to know where you’re going. No-one starts on a journey without a destination or a goal in mind, and neither should a business. But you also have to start from somewhere, and that’s always where you are now! You may not have any employees yet, or you may have some you wish you didn’t have! You may think your reputation is good or you know it could be better. But whatever state your business is in, whatever challenges you face, or don’t face, or whether you have been up and running for a month or ten years is not the issue. The issue is determining to start the journey from where you are. And in order to do that, it behoves us to actually take stock of our situation.

This is where I went wrong for several years – there were always more pressing things that needed my attention, I had no-one to tell me how to do it, and money for external consultants fees was always an issue. How could I afford to take time out and actually sit down and take stock? I didn’t even realise I needed to take stock!