TL;DR, branding is what others say about you when you’re not in the room.

Branding isn’t a logo, website, social media, service, or even your products; it's the experience people that engage with you get.

Branding is the combined result of how people perceive you at every touchpoint where they interact with you and your offer.

Successful branding is built on a foundation of clarity, consistency, and authenticity.

With that in mind, how do you want to be perceived?

We’re touching on your brand voice.

Are you serious, silly, elegant, or trashy?

By setting this brand tone early on, you set the foundations for how you want to build your brand.

What do you stand for?

What do you stand against?

What’s important to you?

How do you help others?

Vision: What is an ideal future beyond yourself? In what universe do you want to live?

Mission: What is your purpose? What do you consistently do to get closer to that ideal universe?

Values: What are your guiding principles that allow you to fight for your mission?

Example 1: Think about Nike. Nike sells sports equipment and athletic wear. However, that’s not what Nike is about. Nike is about action: Just Do It. Nike is about challenging yourself to become the champion of your life’s achievements. It’s about the teamwork of bringing others along.

Example 2: Now let’s move on to Apple. Apple wasn’t the first to sell computers; Apple wasn’t the first to sell phones. But Apple has dominated the tech industry because it's about simplicity.

When Microsoft would market their products with all the tech jargon of everything their devices could do to impress their audience, it only confused the average consumer. Nobody cared.

Then Apple came along with their iPod (I’m exposing my age here) and simply said, “8 hours of your favorite music in your pocket.”

BOOM!

Action Item

Don’t overthink it. This isn’t a deep-dive master course. I’m simply trying to anchor your position in the market to let you organize your thoughts as to why people should care about the difference you want to make in this world.

If you don’t already have a Gmail account, go ahead and create one so we can use Google Drive to collect and grow your action items throughout the course and create your own branding blueprint.

It doesn’t have to be Google Drive, but create a folder labeled “Branding Blueprint” where you’ll save your work.

Click the link and make a copy for yourself on gDrive to write it down.