Susan Wilson Solovic: Hello and welcome to SBTV.com, I’m Susan Wilson Solovic and our subject today is branding. My guests are Suzanne Tulien and Carol Chapman and they are the co Principals and brand culture creative of the Brand Ascension Group. They also have two E-books. One is the “The Six Myths of Branding” and the other “Getting Your Employees on the Brand Wagon.” Welcome to the program ladies.
Suzanne Tulien: Thanks Susan.
Carol Chapman: Thank you.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Now I know that a lot of small businesses, when they think about branding, their eyes lays over and well, I’ve even heard someone say that they think of branding in terms of how. Suzanne, how do you respond to that?
Suzanne Tulien: That’s pretty funny. That’s a great question too. We get a lot of that. In fact, when we first started our workshops, we decorated the environment with branding irons and hay bells and really kind of got people little freaked out because they didn’t know what they are getting into but branding is really very similar to the process that the cow ranchers use in the commercial environment. When they branded the cow, they had a specific mark that meant something specific so we defines branding as a way of developing a perception, a perception that eventually leaves in the minds of its market and its employees. So the company is, when they do something we call branding or branding process. They are working at creating a specific perception and controlling that perception and managing it. So the same way the commercial enters it, do you know you got a black angus branding iron on the side of the cow, you know that black angus just is the meat that you want because of a specific experience with that meat.
Carol Chapman: And that particular perception is dictated by the customer’s experience. The experience that you meet with them so the more that you can create a strong emotional connection, created trust with your brand, with your customers, create a memorable experience, that’s the branding is really all about. A lot of people think of it as just a logo or branding as marketing but it really is creating an owning a distinct perception in the minds of your market.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Carol, what’s the difference between branding and marketing.
Carol Chapman: That’s a great question and you know, at the Brand Ascension Group, a lot of our client have confused that issue and branding, let’s talk about marketing first. Marketing is really about getting the message out there; spreading that message is all the creative external vehicles, your advertising, your marketing, your website or newsletter, promotional activities, PR Activities whereas branding, it really starts from the inside out. It’s creating the message and it’s leaving the message. So it’s showing up according to what you’re messaging is all about and it’s about creating a distinctive experience internally first with your employees so that that translates outward to your customers as well in positive memorable experiences.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Suzanne, I think when a lot of us think of branding, we think of really big companies and consumer products, is this branding really important for a small business?
Suzanne Tulien: Well I’ve got to tell you Susan, every business has a brand whether they want one or not. They have a perception, it’s the human elements, really that creates a judgment on every thing that they purchase, right? So whether you want to have a brand or not, you’ve got one. The question is, is do you want to control your brand or do you want the customers to control it. So whether you’re big or small, you’re dealing with that human element because nobody is out there selling to dogs and cats and monkeys and anything other than human beings, right? So because we’re selling to the human element, we have to create the experience that people that have the experience or customers will take in the information and it create a judgment or a perception based on that transaction of that experience and that’s what branding is all about.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Carol, you mentioned something about branding exercise. First of all, what is that and why is it important to a small business?
Carol Chapman: Well the number one reason; customers don’t stay with the brand is indifferent. 94% of customers want to be loyal. Businesses give them reasons not to so that’s why it’s extremely important for small businesses to really undertake a branding, a process so that they can, will be begin to create that experience, create that bond, keep the customer coming back for more. A lot of people just think of it as just merely an extra size. Once they’ve done the marketing, they have their marketing plan in place, their advertising, hey, they are done with it but that’s the farthest thing from really what branding is all about.
Suzanne Tulien: We have a client that is in the media business and it’s a national client and they were working on doing a brand building exercise internally for their culture because they wanted to create some spirit and really define who they were as a brand internally. They ended up developing a brand shape, what they call a brand shape and now they go on as based on what we call their brand platform that’s out of the methodology called the Brand DNA that we take our customers through. And now they are going through their offices and doing these unique brand shape based on their E3 print platform really creates some culture and some spirit about the brand. People who start thinking more about, what are they doing in the business and how are they showing up and being re-conscious about who they are.
Carol Chapman: And we’re now doing events across the country with these particular client experiential events because live experiences are so powerful. There are a lot of research out there that says, employees want live experiences and if they get those live experiences, how they, they become more passionate, they understand, trust and believe in the brand so that’s very, very important.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Suzanne, what are some of the expected outcomes from a good branding effort and what kind of metrics should a company use to measure their success.
Suzanne Tulien: Well I’ll start with, definitely more referral based business because you’re building brand champions from your customers. They are going to tell their friends and their friends tell their friends. So definitely more referral business and we all want that because then we don’t have to have a real marketing budget, right? Because our brand champions become our internal sales force.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Carol?
Carol Chapman: Well you know, in place of satisfactions another metric. The more that you can build employees satisfaction, I mean there are a lot studies out there, recent study done by Watson’s and Wyeth, from major consulting firm, basically indicated that those companies that do a great job of inspiring their employees and understand. Trust and believe in their brand that translates to real live performance in terms of overall performance in terms of bringing a shareholder returns by as much as a 186% compared to those companies who don’t do a very good job of inspiring their employees to really understand on the brand.
Suzanne Tulien: Another great metric is the price sensitivity issue, you know, you can raise your prices but are your customers going to continue buying from you. There’s a great quote from this book called the “Experience Economy” by James Gilmore, right?
Carol Chapman: Right.
Suzanne Tulien: And Joseph Pine. It says in the absence of a distinctive brand experience, price becomes the default in your customers purchase decision. That is huge when it comes to, what is my experience and where is the indifference. If you create that well experience, then they are willing to pay that extra amount of price or price point to get your product because they love the experience.
Carol Chapman: And if you can get them beyond that, then you’re going to keep those customers coming back for more and a mere 5% increase in customer recessions can translate anywhere to 25% or 100% to your bottom line.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Do you really think that small businesses see the value in branding today?
Carol Chapman: Well those that want a quick fix, probably not because they don’t really understand the essence of what branding is all about but those that are diligent, that are persistent, that are patient, they are committed to investing the time and the resources and those are the ones that understand that it’s a continuous process. It’s not a one shot deal so it really depends on the mind set. If you think about someone like Howard Schultz with Starbucks, I mean, basically in the first 12 years that he’d acquired Starbucks, he spent less than 1% annually in marketing. They put all of their dollars into the branding process, hiring the right people, training the right people, making sure that they’ve breezed the brand, breath life into the brand. So it really depends on your mind set.
Susan Wilson Solovic: What’s the biggest challenge for a small business to get a branding effort off the ground?
Suzanne Tulien: Again, I think it’s, touching on what Carol is talking about is the long term aspect of branding. It’s not an immediate quick fix or thunder of a business like a marketing campaign can be but long term marketing campaigns can not sustain the growth of the company if the experience of the final transaction with the customer is not achieved. So it’s the long term aspect, it’s doing the do diligence and work that it takes to understand who you are, what you stand for, what you’re passionate about, what are your differentiators and then get your arms around your staff to live and being embody the brand, to show up consistently that in the whole transactional experience. So it’s a little bit long term or process but the sustainability and the ability to get to that brand value positioning in the market place, right? And market share is very much worth the effort and that’s how good companies become great companies. They take the time to integrate themselves into this branding process.
Susan Wilson Solovic: How does a small business get started with the branding effort?
Carol Chapman: Well they will need to start educating themselves. It’s so important to study what other highly successful brands are doing. Bring in a group of experts that they can ask your opinion on, I mean, they’ll going to need to take a look at their brand holistically and they really need to be patient. They need to keep it fun. They shouldn’t take on, trying to do everything all at once
Suzanne Tulien: Involve their voice.
Carol Chapman: Yes. Engage your employees. Get your employees excited and let them be creative with the brand and most of all, keep it fun. If you lose fun, then you’re going to lose interest.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Suzanne how does a small business with often-small marketing budgets, how do they differentiate their brand from their competitors?
Suzanne Tulien: Well there are a couple of different ways and these are very small ways. They can take a, what we call multi sensory approach, where they think about all of the touch points that they have within the transactional process with the client, even their employees can never forget about that internal infrastructure. So you take a multi sensory approach and you think what does this brand smell like? Let’s invent a smell, right? And how can we create that smell in this environment, on our packaging or whatever product or service that you offer. What do we visually look like and how can we maintain consistency in every single thing we do. What do we sound like? Is there music associated? Is there loud noises? Is there soft noises? These are bells. What is it associated? So it’s a fun exercise to do and especially to include your staff in inventing these different areas of a multi sensory approach.
Carol Chapman: And you know most often, businesses focus on all the hard stuff which is their products and services, their price points; the competitors can copy all that but what they can not copy is all these multi sensory stuff basically and behavior, the soft staff, how your employees, how you deliver on your brand promise. That’s the key differentiator in today’s market.
Suzanne Tulien: Perfect example that if I can just insert this real quick is, GM, a couple of years ago came out with these employee discount, right? Remember that? Within two weeks, their major competitors copied their price points, their advertising campaign, everything was all of a sudden, a commodity, it wasn’t an offer anymore because everybody else is doing it, right? So what makes those companies different than in the transactional process and when we think about Saturn and you walk into Saturn and they’ve hired a lot of women as the representatives to sell to women because women make 80% of the buying decisions on a household across America? So those are the little things that they’ve done to create that continuation in the while experience.
Carol Chapman: So if they could just remember that it’s not about the product, it’s not about the marketing; it’s about the experience, that’s what keeps your customers coming back for more.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Okay, final question and I’m going to ask, start with Carol but I’d like both of you to respond. Is the branding efforts ever over?
Carol Chapman: Well unfortunately, never. And we need an effort until we never because if you got to be persistent, you got to be patient, it’s a continuous process because your brand is evolving. If at some point you take your eye off the ball, then you’re going to lose market share, you’re going to lose customer retrenching, you’ve got to really focus on creating that internal experience first and as you create the internal branding experience that’s naturally going to flow outward to your customers in the market.
Suzanne Tulien: As long as your business is up and running and has a life to it then you have a brand and you’re responsible from managing and controlling that brand. The tighter you create that control, the more consistent you’re going to be. We have another great saying called, it says, ‘consistency builds trust, trust creates history, history forms traditions and traditions make rituals.’ And when your brand get s to that ritualistic state with your customers, you’ve made it.
Susan Wilson Solovic: Well Suzanne and Carol, thank you so much for being here, great information on branding and I hope that you’ll come and join us again sometime in the future.
Suzanne Tulien: We’d love to, great.
Carol Chapman: Thanks so much, great.
Susan Wilson Solovic: And thanks to all of you for watching once again, my guests have been Suzanne Tulien and Carol Chapman of the Brand Ascension Group. We appreciate you tuning in and be sure to stay tune to SBTV.com where small business is our only business.
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