The CAMPAIGN for REAL BUSINESS

(How to Give Your Business a Kick-Ass Brand Identity)

Are you simply a vendor in your market or do you have a brand identity?

How often do you do business with companies that do a perfectly fine job, but you just don’t return? Not the ones that did a horrible job or offended you, but the ocean of businesses you had no complaint about and still didn’t go back to.

The homes bought and sold, the insurance policies, hair cuts, flights and sandwiches: the host of products and services you purchased, from businesses you never returned to. Why? Because these businesses did not identify with you beyond the product or service you purchased. They were simply vendors, part of a big pool of mediocrity that we are simply indifferent to. They don’t inspire because they don’t have brand identity.

Being simply a vendor is dangerous to your future because vendors generate indifference from the market. Building a brand is essential because well-defined brands inspire, generating loyalty and commitment to long-term relationships.

Vendors are not real businesses: brands are.

Even though most businesses are clear about the products and services they sell, many just aren’t clear about their identity in the market – making it that much harder to build sales, make a name for themselves and get a kick-ass response from their marketing efforts.

Never before has it been so vital to build brand identity. On-line and in social media it’s the vendors we delete and treat as junk. People and businesses with well-defined brand identity are the ones we choose and recommend.

In my work as a Brand Identity specialist when ever I ask experts in social media, graphic design, PR, web development & on-line sales and marketing “what’s your biggest frustration about your clients” they tell me: “They don’t know who they are”.

Facebook is beyond the phone-book, beyond the yellow pages and beyond any networking group you ever belonged to. Social media and social networks are where the emerging brands of tomorrow are being formed. Viral success is right at your fingertips as long as you don’t act like a vendor pushing your products and services at us and ultimately being ignored.

If you want to be a real business on line you must know who you are by focusing on brand identity. Your networks will thank you for it.

Social media is now embedded into our culture. It’s how we form opinions and make decisions about what we purchase and who we purchase it from. it’s also how brands find us via the recommendations of others.

Your Brand Identity is not a luxury; it’s a business necessity designed to inspire your market to choose you and enjoy recommending you. It becomes your blue print, like a checklist of key facts that are easy to communicate to anyone you do business with.

“What does Brand Identity give me?”

• YOU define who you are with a unique personality for your business.
• YOU stand out as the obvious choice.
• YOUR customers find you and spend money.
• YOU become easy to share and recommend.
• YOU are a REAL business not just a vendor.

Our purpose in this world is to grow REAL BUSINESS.
Join our campaign today and grow yours.

On Wednesday April 15th, 2009…

It was late afternoon and as I quickly finished tidying the house before we headed off on my birthday getaway there was a knock on the door. It was the UPS man and he had a box for me. A heavy, brown cardboard box, about 2 feet long by 18 inches across and 10 inches deep. I assumed it was a gift from my partners Mom as she normally sends something by mail order, and as it wasn’t really my birthday until the following Monday I put it on the kitchen counter and continued to pick the place up.

I was excited, my partner Theo, myself and our great friend Clare were heading off to Kauai for 5-days to celebrate my birthday. We were packed and wanted to come home to a clean house because we were returning on my actual birthday and would no doubt be continuing the celebration then too. Some say if you live in Hawaii you are already on vacation! But there’s no place like Kauai and no matter where you live, getting away to a place where we could really chill out was way past due. Plus, I knew we were going zip lining and on a fantasy snorkeling trip to the Forbidden Island so I was ecstatic that finally today was the day.

As I vacuumed the dining area I kept wondering what could possibly be in that box, I mean – it was really heavy. Every so often I would go and fiddle with it and wonder. Should I pull the packing slip out of the plastic pouch? No, don’t spoil the surprise I thought, and on with cleaning I would go. But each time I passed the box I would touch it. Lift it a little. Wonder about it. Sooo heavy – what could it be?

And then it hit me – suddenly – almost as if it only just appeared – I noticed written by hand on the top left corner the words “25 copies” Oh my golly gosh – I realized that this box could be MY BOOKS. I don’t mean my book order, or books that had been sent as a gift or anything like that, I mean, MY BOOKS – the 25 books my publisher was due to send when “WORLD FAMOUS” my very first book ever was published.

I let out a yelp, grabbed the phone and speed dialed Theo “QUICK GET HOME – I THINK MY BOOK IS HERE!!!”

In the fridge was a special bottle of Moet Chandon champagne, a gift from my parents given specifically for the important day that my book finally arrived. The thing is, that bottle of champagne had been chilling in our fridge for over two and a half years! I’d almost gotten to the point where I thought this day would never come. Delays, problems, issues, more problems and then a whole years delay because my publisher decided to push my book into a different fiscal period. I had eye balled that champagne for a long time and then suddenly out of nowhere it seemed it was right here, right now.

Was it really my book or was this box a false alarm?

Theo came in. I opened the box, not even noticing that plastered on the side of it was another label that read “WORLD FAMOUS – 25 copies” that I had somehow missed earlier.

Box open and there it was. “WORLD FAMOUS” my book – 25 copies of it staring right at me. It was a beautiful sight, a beautiful beautiful vision. Those bright red covers, the bold type face proclaiming the title “WORLD FAMOUS” and there right below it my name, me, David Tyreman, a real bona fide author. I burst into tears, appreciation, pride, relief, joy, satisfaction, disbelief and excitement all overwhelmed me. Then I busted open the champagne, we celebrated, I wrote out the first few dedications, to Theo, my parents and Clare and knew that this really was to be the mother of all BIRTHDAY WEEKENDS!

And boy did we celebrate.

NEXT UP… the story of my birthday dinner at the Restaurant Barracuda in Hanalei Bay, Kauai