Education ProgramS. r Verbal Branding: Using Simplicity to Differentiate, Sell and Manage

Transcription

1 Education ProgramS r Verbal Branding: Using Simplicity to Differentiate, Sell and Manage

2 [ CHEAT SHEET ] If it isn t SIMPLE, it won t work! Verbal Branding combines remarkable simplicity, plain language differentiation and a fully defined conversational application to create a multi-impact, unifying, and mission-critical business platform. Philosophies For Verbal Branding Use no more than 2 concepts in 5 seconds to convey differentiation, which are to be found at the tip of the pyramid. The memory of your audience is the target. This should be your single most important concern. Core messages must convey why someone would be crazy to not use or buy from you. Everything else supports and/or validates those concepts. Business Simplicity is found at the tip of the pyramid (here, at the center of this graphic), driving performance improvement in nearly all critical areas of business. If this is not the result of brand development, the strategy is flawed. Fundamentally, when branding does not convey an explicit and differentiated offer, there s no way to operationalize it. Therefore, it s guaranteed to underperform as a business driver. Developing the platform Platform criteria: Conveys Different and Better Ask yourself: The only ones who Ultra simple Better than anyone at Conversational in nature Most passionate about Inherently executable / operational Willing to commit to Simultaneously improves multi-functions Single biggest difference is

3 Verbal Branding and the New Business Simplicity: Differentiation, Business Simplicity, and how to improve sales and total business performance This branding platform combines marketplace differentiation with a conversational application to become an impact-multiplier, business simplicity platform. It s designed to simultaneously improve sales, collaboration, and strategic modeling for any firm. Most important, Verbal Branding represents a fundamentally different and simpler set of branding applications for day-to-day sales and operational execution. The branding marketplace is desperate for new ideas. Underperformance is surprisingly common, causing lost revenue and efficiency every day. To improve, branding must be simplified greatly while aiming to accomplish significantly more. Verbal Branding does both. It applies a spoken, conversational application that transforms how branding is understood and applied, while also providing a single platform based on natural language content that can be said in five seconds to simultaneously improve multiple business functions, not limiting impact to sales or marketing initiatives alone. The basics of a new business platform: 1) Is this something different? Verbal Branding reorients traditional branding. It s a new strategy for marketplace differentiation and selling, and a simpler basis for the application of a brand by everyone inside an organization. In essence, Verbal Branding will operationalize your brand. All evidence suggests it s both unique worldwide and a superior method for sales and operational efficiency.

4 2) Who needs Verbal Branding? Verbal Branding immediately benefits both the executive level, especially those who manage large numbers of customer-facing personnel, and anyone who interacts with the public or a target audience (directly or via technology). However, it s also used as a foundational business platform to improve cultural unity, operations, management decision-making, and speed of execution. In the end, a Verbal Branding platform becomes an impact multiplier for everything of importance that goes into business success. 3) Why is Verbal Branding needed? Traditional branding initiatives are notorious for underperformance, and too often have almost no positive impact. The next (and a better) set of practical ideas are needed to solve this performance issue. Among the implications for Verbal Branding is immediately improved selling and an ultra-simple way to unify sales, marketing, and even operational functions. Branding must be real-world enough so every individual can understand and apply it moment-bymoment, every day. Only an ultra-simple differentiation platform, based on natural language dynamics, will truly accomplish this. Verbal Branding simultaneously improves multiple levels of operations, especially for revenue generation activity. Elements impacted are: Sales Because Verbal Branding combines marketplace differentiation with a true conversational application, it s the only fully defined method of selling to use the strategy of brand positioning as its foundation rather than sales tactics. Over twelve years of evidence show it to be an easier, yet vastly superior method for direct sales activity. Internal Culture Using natural language and a business simplicity orientation, a firm s culture can now become a mission-critical driver for nearly everything that provides growth and collaborative efficiency. Through a Verbal Branding platform, every person will know how to think and speak about your brand, which causes a uniform understanding for how to apply it every day, individually and collectively.

5 Brand Density (i.e. 100% unification of external and internal understanding) One of the true dilemmas in business is how to best manage communications for consistency and effectiveness. Since Verbal Branding is based on no more than two core positioning concepts, which transcend not only traditional sales and marketing orientations but lay the foundation for internal understanding as well, every conceivable communications channel can be based on commonly understood concepts. The value and power of this feature is hard to overestimate. Strategic Modeling Verbal Branding clarifies the best approach for decision-making and management modeling. Because Verbal Branding is a direct reflection of differentiated positioning i.e. what a firm represents and offers to the market relative to the competition, providing a different and better messaging structure the filter to make decisions and manage becomes readily apparent. Designed as one comprehensive platform, Verbal Branding can be used as soon as it s developed. And while social media and Big Data might be the most current hot topics in business, this platform actually transcends them and offers core strategy for how to approach such channels, e.g. how to develop an online brand or deciding what to do with data. Note: The phrase verbal branding is sometimes used by various firms to mean content development, e.g. corporate naming, tag lines, and written copy. It never means a spoken application or a redefined development platform such as its described here. A platform to Think and Speak Art imitates life, and often in a particularly powerful way. The following is from, of all places, Scott Adams and a Dilbert cartoon: We realized our project can t work even if we execute it perfectly. Unfortunately, this is the beginning circumstance for far too many branding initiatives, because the work isn t oriented toward internal understanding and day-to-day practicality. An augmentation to both traditional branding and sales tactics, Verbal Branding is a major marketing innovation, and a set of unique, irreplaceable business simplicity applications. They are proven effective for individuals and small through Fortune 200 firms, as well as for major client projects and many dozens of speaking and workshop engagements.

6 In effect, Verbal Branding creates a simplified platform for thinking and speaking, which is then used to simultaneously improve sales, cultural unity, brand density (finally bridging the gap between Sales and Marketing), strategic speed, management modeling, and more. Once in place, it becomes a remarkably simple strategy for individuals or entire businesses. The most immediate impact, however, is to increase the productivity of direct interactions between an internal and external audience. Consequently, the platform also acts as a stand-alone sales strategy, different and more effective than traditional tactics. And since spoken interactions are the most common method for relationship building, networking, and selling, those interested in faster growth will see improvement literally within days, if not hours. The applications also create competitive advantage from their distinct nature. These are unique methods in the market. Other sales and branding philosophies continue to largely resemble each other and, instead of assuring high impact, are often invisible causes of lost opportunity. For business impact, Verbal Branding could be seen as a cross between the ideas in Good to Great by Jim Collins, which covers the business dynamics of simplicity, focus, and market identity, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, the most important of which is reflected by this excerpt: If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time. Verbal Branding offers an astonishingly direct method for getting everyone within an organization rowing in the same direction. It starts with one or two differentiation concepts that can be said in five seconds or less. Note: To clear up a common misperception, Verbal Branding is not a better version of an elevator pitch, the ubiquitous spoken method for introducing what a person or company does. Instead, it eliminates that mindset entirely, and replaces it with a differentiation and spoken strategy, impacting layer upon layer of internal and external business productivity. Continued

7 Additional Verbal Branding features A Theory of Simplicity that becomes a new, flexible business tool The 4-Dimensional impact of Verbal Branding within larger organizations Resolving previously invisible growth and efficiency opportunities Create a culture of confidence, easily getting everyone on the same page Setting the correct association between brand identity and positioning Have management settle on a strategic foundation for daily decision-making Overcome the consumer's view that you are a commodity The easiest way to marginalize or eliminate the competition Reversing marketplace dynamics, i.e. more competition is welcomed And more