This post is by Michael Pollock, the original owner of Small Business Branding. Yaro Starak now owns and produces the latest content for this blog.
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I’m making my way through The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier. Actually, it’s my second time through because it’s a lightning-quick read. Although his central idea is a bit difficult to grasp, there are some worthwhile concepts to be culled. I’m going to use some of Marty’s words to help provide some clarity about the importance of branding your small business.
As any good branding book should do, Marty provides his definition for the term "brand."
"A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It’s a GUT FEELING because we’re all emotional, intuitive beings, despite our best efforts to be rational. It’s a PERSON’S gut feeling, because in the end the brand is defined by individuals, not companies, markets, or the so-called general public . . . When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand . . . a brand is not what you say it is. It’s what THEY say it is."
I love bruschetta (it’s the Italian in me I guess). And when I have a craving for bruschetta, it’s the bruschetta served up by New York Pizza, a little pizza place here in rural Northeastern Connecticut. No other restaurant can fulfill that craving.
It may be a stretch to say that "breathtaking bruschetta" is the NY Pizza brand. But the fact is I don’t even have to think about the answer when someone asks me where they should go for pizza around here (I love their pizza too). I know in my gut.
When people talk about intuition, they’re talking about the "gut feeling" Marty mentions above. It’s not thinking. It’s not feeling. It’s knowing. It’s the integration of rationality and emotion.
"Oh, you need to go to New York Pizza, and be sure to try their bruschetta."
The restaraunt owners don’t have to shell out the dough to buy ads. They don’t have to call me on the phone, and invite me to come in. They don’t have to offer me a discount on their prices. They don’t need a website. They had me at hello (cruel Jerry Maguire reference – sorry).
They don’t have to do anything except do what they do best. Pizza and bruschetta. They have one happy customer (me), as well as the person I just referred to them. Call it referral marketing or word of mouth if you like, but the only WORD that matters when it comes to word of mouth is BRAND. GUT FEELING.
Some questions to ponder from this idea . . .
1. What’s the gut feeling I want people to have about me, my company or my service?
2. Who are the people I want to have that gut feeling?
3. What am I doing to contribute to the creation/maintenance of that gut feeling?
4. What am I doing that detracts from the creation/maintenance of that gut feeling?
Happy branding.