Branding for Profits
copyright 2002 Pavel Lenshin

General meaning of the Brand is quite abstract. In short,
brand is the image of your product, if we speak about
product branding and/or the image of your company if we deal
with corporate branding or, in case with one man business,
brand of personality.

Since the majority of online venture start-ups are
represented by small businesses, that are 101% online and
the life cycle of digital products is relatively short, it
is wise to unite these branding terms into one e-business
brand, that reflects market’s viewpoint on your business as
an unique entity.
This viewpoint exists in peoples’ minds whether they are
your competitors, clients, partners, friends or your own
employees. That is why your brand is psychological by its
nature, what creates new challenges as well as additional
potential.

Strong brand in the mind of a person generates honoring
feeling to your company/product or you as a company’s “face”.

Poor brand may represent negative impression about your
product or be the result of an absence of that impression,
and I should say that it is much more advantageous to offer
a new brand to the market, then try to do something with bad
image. Since we are dealing with psychology, it is clear
that good image and reputation is very hard to build, but it
is even harder to restore.

If you want to reach the heart of you customers’ “likes” you
need to:

* Offer maximum quality no matter what you offer or do.
* Deliver pleasure.
* Be innovative.
* Address to people’s emotions.
* Evoke desire and interest.
* Provoke active response.
* Build trust by repeated contacts as a foundation of
long-term relations.

FACTORS that would STIMULATE and REINFORCE
your BRANDING:

—1. Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is number one passive
“brander” for your business, where you go UP (Unique
Proposition) the straight road of successful branding or
making your way through a very deep forest of competing with
other already established brands.

Suppose you have created new proposition, new kind of
service and if you have named it, for instance, “WebSky”,
then all people would call it “WebSky”, not “A service that
offers you 1. … 2. … 3…. and provides 1… 2…. 3….” It would
have a neutral brand from the very beginning, no need to
create, imagine or popularize it among hundreds of others.

Windows is a TM and great Brand for Operation System of
well-know software giant. Don’t you think about what makes
us pronounce “Windows” instead of “Operational system” or
“OS”? The answer is simple – Windows occupies more then 60%
of OS market. Microsoft’s OS in the informational society
plays the same role that would have played some imaginable
Oil Monopoly in the former industrial society. Hopefully
there is no oil monopoly but there is a monopoly of the
software “fuel” which is used by majority of computer
systems.

The idea behind Microsoft is also true with McDonalds, Coca
Cola or Mercedes-Benz and it is on the surface – they are
monopolies or, at least, oligopolies in their respective
markets with their respective strong USPs and therefore
strong brands.

So let us summarize this important fact – the more unique
your market offer is, the more unique, easy to remember and
easy to associate with your brand will be.

—2. The second thing is the size of your business in terms
of financial capacity and market share. Very few people
pointing to that fact, but its effect on your brand shouldn’
t be underestimated. No matter what product you offer to the
online market, it will surely lose the brand war, if your
marketing budget is $00.00 and your whole business is
located on some unknown unstable hosting as a result of
funds deficit.

Everyone speaks about great brands like Coca Cola, but no
one actually says, that it makes absolutely no relation to
an entrepreneur, who wants to start his own small practice
online.

Know your competition and develop the marketing strategy
that would reflect your business capacity, needs and suit a
marketing budget. The smaller your business is, the more
aggressive your branding should be. Branding has a feature
of building itself when your business is rapidly expanding.

—3. Corporate culture is another vital brand creator. The
epicenter of your brand is the company itself; therefore the
more positive and brighter the company “feels” inside, the
more positive, attractive and shiny it will look outside.

If your online venture’s stuff numbers you and your cat :0)
you can easily build a delightful business culture but, to
my regret, it won’t have a big influence on outside world.
What will have an effect is the popularizing of your
business values through partner networks and/or clients.
Friendly atmosphere that welcomes employees’ or partners’
creative initiative with the focus on development of
personality, is exactly what makes a difference and lights a
“fire” in the eyes of every person your company deals with.

—4. Know your market. This small sentence comprises an
understanding of the needs of your market niche,
satisfaction of your market needs via directed promotional
campaigns, adopting the development plan in compliance with
analysis of the strength and weaknesses of your business as
well as closest competitors.

Don’t devaluate your brand through wrong market approach.
People pay much more attention to their own needs as well as
to companies that satisfy their needs. The market offers
should be specific and directed to particular niche with its
unique problems, joys, hopes and needs. Don’t try to shoot
several ducks with one shot.

Your branding campaign should reflect the market you are
working with in a clear and highly beneficial way to your
potential customers.

MAJOR WAYS of online branding:

1. All possible kinds of online promotion: banner
impressions, classified ads, solo ads, articles submission,
web-site traffic building, opt-in email campaigns,
promotional joint ventures, ezine publishing, viral
marketing. All these ways of branding positioning are to be
niche-oriented.
2. Expand your e-business network by running
partner/affiliate programs.
3. Co-branding by means of strategic partnerships, joint
ventures with the established brands in non-competing
markets, for additional market and branding exposure.
4. Unique personal and/or corporate culture.
5. Informational and design representation of your business
Web-site.
6. The product/service itself. It is mainly through them
your clients acquiring positive or negative experience of
dealing with your company.
7. Domain name, design, logo, motto, TMs, SMs are the main
subsidiary representatives of your brand. That is why they
should be clear and supplement each other in conveying your
“message”.
8. Testing and measuring the response rate of your branding
efforts.

Why branding is so important? Because it, firstly, creates a
platform via loyal market surroundings for easy and quick
business growth; secondly, increases perceived value of your
whole company. Do you want your own company to develop
smoothly along with exponential growth of its market value?
I do.

Since that time, I have had to employ a number of consultants, I have been a consultant myself for almost 20 years, and I have worked with many other consultancies both large and small. The following suggestions for selecting a consultant are based on my experience as a manager and in the consultancy field.

What are the three targets that one must hit to successfully select a consultant? (Note; I am using the term “consultant” to refer to either one person or a consultancy firm). Firstly and most obviously, the consultant must be able to actually do the work. Secondly, the consultant must be able to fit in with the people in your organisation and particularly those who will be working on this project. Finally, if the consultant is good, you should always improve your own knowledge as a result of the project.

1. Can the consultant do the work? Seems obvious, but there are some traps. For instance, I remember when starting out as a consultant in partnership with another (who was also new to the role), submitting a tender for a fairly large job and being selected in the final few for interview. Individually, we’d had some experience in the type of work, but not as a partnership, nor had we worked in the prospective client’s industry. We won the job. Why? The client saw in us some creativity and freshness that was not evident in our competitors. However, this was an unusual client. Normally, I would not suggest taking on a consultant (like us) who has not had the depth nor breadth of experience in the project. So, unless one of your criteria is “freshness”, in terms of selecting for experience here are some tips:

• What are your specifications? Be very clear on the outputs you will require in the project. These should always be measured in terms of quality, quantity, time and cost. Use these output criteria to compare consultants.

• Who has recommended this consultant? Check their references – ask for the contact of the last job they did. When checking references, use your above “output criteria” as a guide.

• Are you looking for someone to implement solutions to a problem you have identified, or are you looking for someone to help you identify and clarify the problem? Or both? Sometimes it can be useful to split the project into these two parts.

• In discussion with the prospective consultants, do they really give you the time to say what you want before jumping to conclsuons? If they appear to “have all the answers”, chances are they do not listen very well.

• Does their suggested solution appear to be specifically designed for you or is it a “one size fits all”? Be wary if it is not specifically designed to meet your project criteria.

• Do they explain the things they can’t do as well as those they can? This is always a good test of integrity, truefulness and reliability.

• Is their initial response to your request up to your quality standards, sufficiently detailed (but not overly so) to make a decision, and within your time expectations?

• Does the consultant have depth of expertise in the subject matter and breadth of expertise in its application?

• Ask the consultant what is unique about him or her? What makes them stand out from all the other consultants you might choose?

2. Secondly, will the consultant fit in with the people they will be working with? This is a critical implementation issue, as whilst they might be able to do the work, if they can’t work harmoniously with the people, the results will be less than optimal. For instance, we once worked on a major government project (total budget in excess of M$43) where the client continually kept us at arm’s length (for example, on a residential workshop, we were not encouraged to eat or mix socially with the client project leaders). We met the output requirements for the client, but had we been allowed to work more closely with the client, they would have received a lot more value added service. In this case, the client should have selected another consultant.

The following tips will help ensure you get the right client/consultant match.

• Is the consultant likely to be able to gain the respect and trust of your key stakeholders?

• Could you trust this person (people)?

• What is the process they will use? i.e, How will they work within the organisation? How will they be seen? Try to visualise the consultant working with you and the other people as they complete the project. Will it work? Is it likely to be a good partnership?

• Who specifically (from the consultancy) will be working on the project and what will be their role? For example, will the people you are interviewing be carrying out the work? Be wary of consultancies that have “front people” that win the jobs, then send in less experienced people to do the work.

• Ask the consultant to describe what a “good working relationship” looks like to them. Is the description the consultant gives you of a “good working relationship” likely to be, and to be seen to be, a partnership?

3. Thirdly, will you be able ot learn from this consultant? One of the reasons you hire a consultant is that you (or your organisation) does not have the depth nor breadth of experienece to successfully carry out the project. One of your aims should be to increase your own experience through this project. For example:

• Why did you decide to employ a consultant? What were the gaps you could not fill internally?

• What will you be likely to learn from this consultant?

• Will you increase your knowledge of both process management (how the consultant works) as well as content management (their area of expertise)?

• Will the consultant strengthen and support your role in the organisation?Finally, if all of your criteria have been met and you cannot decide between two apprently equal consultants, consider setting them a small task or part of the project to complete as part of the selection process. For example, some years ago we were in competition with another large consultancy for a sizeable project with an initial budget in excess of M$1. The client could not decide between the two of us, so he asked us each to undertake a small project (for which he paid us both), which would ultimately become part of the larger project. When we each completed the small project, he had an excellent idea of both our capability and the manner in which we worked. After all, isn’t the final selection criterion is actually trying the consultant out?

Oh, yes. In case you’re wondering, we won the job!