[Issue 18] Establishing Your Brand Identity
Doing the foundational work that supports everything else
[Photo by Vojtěch Bulant on Unsplash]
The Odysseus Files, Issue 18
Build a Castle, Not a Village, Part 10
Moving Inside
[Note: this is Part 10 of a miniseries within the broader Odysseus Files called “Build a Castle, Not a Village.” These miniseries will group broad topics thematically, helping you connect the dots between them more easily.]
In our tour through the process of building your castle brand so far, we’ve covered positioning (Issue 13), competitive advantage (Issue 14), how you get attention to your brand (Issue 15), and how you bring people into your world (Issue 16).
Now, it’s time to turn our attention inwards.
This is where it starts to get exciting. Everything you’ve created so far has faced some level of external constraints:
Your brand positioning is shaped by your competitors and how your audience perceives them (and you).
Your competitive advantage is partly shaped by your own strengths and weaknesses, but also by the market; and your capabilities can be a limiting constraint in and of themselves.
Similar to your competitive advantage, your unique point of view or unique mechanism you use to stand out and attract attention is rooted in something already established about you and your brand.
Your email list (plus the content funnel you use to get people onto your list; together, the gatehouse into your acropolis) obviously offers you the ability to create whatever experience you want for your readers, but you’re still limited by the format.
But inside your acropolis, you can unleash your creativity to build exactly what you want. You can break the “rules,” go against what everyone else is doing, and more.
Chances are, the more fun you have designing a unique experience for your customers, the more intrigued and excited they will be to spend time in your world.
(And remember, the point of building this world in the first place is that you’re creating a space where you can continue to serve your ideal customers over and over. Through the regular interactions you’ll have and the relationships you’ll build, you’ll uncover new opportunities to facilitate your most loyal customers achieving the transformation you set out to deliver. And the better you can deliver on that transformation, the more likely those customers will be to talk about you, leading to new customers, and so the cycle grows. By shifting the bulk of your focus inside rather than outside your acropolis, you create the foundation for a more sustainable, impactful brand.)
The first component of the inside of your acropolis that we’ll turn to is the palace (or government buildings).
The Beating Heart of Your Acropolis
As the center of governance, the palace or other government quarters within the acropolis is your place of residence. In other words, your brand identity.
This includes your values, strengths, mission, beliefs, voice, and personality. (These elements will inform your positioning and competitive advantage - just like the location and defensive position of the acropolis stems from the decision-making of the leader who founded/rules the settlement.)
These will likely evolve over time; allow them to. Your brand will “settle” into its identity with time, as you identify what feels right and aligns with where you are in life. (Much like how a foundation gradually settles into position over the first couple of years of a new building being built.)
Even so, it’s worth taking the time to write them out. These items will shape how you communicate your positioning, as well as help you make decisions throughout your business building experience (for instance, picking which marketing tactics you’ll use based on how they align with your values, strengths, and personality).
Birthing a Brand
How do you develop these components of your brand?
This is where most people confuse “brand” with “branding.” They look to elements like their logo, color palette, tagline, and tone to define their brand, but these are just the packaging. It’s what’s underneath that counts.
And what’s underneath begins with you.
In a small business especially, even if the intention is to keep a clear distinction between the business brand and the personal brand, there has to be alignment between how you define the brand and who you are. Think about it: imagine trying to run a business that operates from a different personality or set of values than you. There’s going to be a lack of congruency that’s going to come through in your interactions with people.
Naturally, this isn’t to say that your brand IS exactly you, just that it begins there.
As you go through the process of defining your brand identity, double check for alignment:
Are the values you espouse in your business ones that are genuinely important in your own life?
Do the beliefs that will shape your unique point of view come from what you actually think about whatever field you’re in?
Is your brand’s personality close enough to yours that you can reasonably and naturally step into your brand’s “character” as needed, without it feeling forced? (If you have to force it, you probably won’t be able to authentically live it out for very long.)
For some of these things, if you’ve done the work of establishing your positioning, competitive, advantage, etc., you’ll already have a good sense of what they should be. If not, take the time to map them out in a Google doc. Once you’ve done so, share them with someone who knows you and your business well. Maybe that’s a spouse, business partner, or a close friend. Someone who can give you honest feedback about how well aligned your stated brand identity is with who you are as a person and entrepreneur.
If your business has been operational long enough to have established customers, take this a step further: put yourself out on a limb and talk to your customers about their perception of your brand. Ask questions like:
Why do you buy from me rather than one of my competitors? (Identifies your strengths and weaknesses, at least as your customers perceive them.)
What stands out to you about the way I do business? (What values they see expressed through their interaction with you.)
Based on what you’ve seen from my communication (whether website, emails, social media, sales calls, or any other format), what three adjectives would you use to describe my company? (Highlights the tone and personality that comes across to your customers.)
If you had to describe to a friend why my product/service can get them better results than someone else’s, how would you do so? (Touches on strengths again, while helping you determine which, if any, of your unique beliefs/points of view come across in your communication.)
As you go through this process of listing out your values, beliefs, strengths and weaknesses, etc., give yourself the space to write freely. Doing so can in itself be an exercise in clarity, helping you sort through and commit to what elements you want to define your brand.
I did this exercise recently (again…) for my own brand. Here’s a brief outline, to give you an idea of what this might look like:
Who I am - my brand “character” (defined from a future perspective)
My character identity (“the intellectual entrepreneur”)
What I’m known for
How I uniquely add value to the world
What kind of work environment I thrive in (therefore defining the role I want to build for myself within my business as it grows)
Any other identity statements that might be relevant (for example: “I use the past to better understand the present and where we might be heading, enabling us to prepare for & adapt to whatever comes next.”)
A USP statement - how I’m different from everyone else in the entrepreneurship/small business coaching space
Conviction statements - a series of statements that define how I view the world (these ultimately come together into an overarching narrative that underlies everything my business does and represents)
Message - converting that narrative into a powerful statement about what my brand stands for and the unique transformation it can help my best customers achieve
(This is reinforced elsewhere by a list of values I want my brand to embody and a clear statement of my brand’s mission - i.e., my “end game.”)
If you do this exercise, reply and share what you come up with. I’d love to see it.
And if you’d like help bringing all the ideas swirling around in your mind down into a single, concrete form, like I did for myself above, let me know. I’ve recently helped one client go through this exercise, and am currently helping another “kill off” a brand identity she’s had for over a decade in order to take her personal brand in a whole new direction. I’d love to be a part of helping you craft your own brand identity.