A of WE - START

A of WE - START

Branding: What Is It & Why You Need It As A Holistic Health Practitioner!

Now that you’ve found your passion as a holistic practitioner, you must now figure out how to turn that passion into profit - the first step is BRANDING! Before any business can be successful, you must first identify and develop your brand. Your brand represents your core values; in other words, you are your own best brand!

The dictionary definition of branding is a collection of experiences and associations connected with a service, person or other entity. On paper that probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to a holistic health practitioner, but in the same way big corporations invest in their brand, holistic health practitioners can benefit from the same strategic investment. Creating a business brand is important for several reasons.

1) It lets your clients know who you are and what kind of product/service you provide,

2) Your brand sets the tone for your business environment, and

3) Your brand (if done correctly) will ultimately attract more clients – and isn’t that really the goal?!

Identifying your brand starts with you and knowing your personal values. The first part has already been done – you’ve found something your passionate about and want to pursue it full-time. Next decide what message you want to convey to your target market. A brand creates an emotional connection with your audience. Just as your values are an extension of you, so is your brand.
Once you’ve identified your brand, you must now develop it. There are four things to keep in mind when developing your brand:

1. First and foremost, decide who is going to be your ideal customer? Really pinpoint in detail what that client looks like; i.e., gender, income bracket, marital status, age, etc. Without knowing exactly who that is, your brand message will be lost. It’s great to want to be able to coach everyone, but until you’ve specified a niche, you can’t effectively coach anyone.

2. Next, focus in on what makes your services unique. Being a naturopath is not in and of itself a unique occupation; however, because you’ve already identified your personal values and niche market, you know exactly what aspects of your business make your practice unique.

3. Create a brand strategy incorporating the most effective marketing tools to reach your target audience. For instance, do you have a website? Is it easy to find and easy to navigate? Are you good at on-line social networking, blogging, article marketing, etc? Or maybe you’re more comfortable with off-line marketing such as public speaking or teaching. Whichever way you decide to go, understand that a significant amount of your time will be spent on this step – your brand exposure can never be overdone.

4. And finally, continue to take inventory of your brand. Are you reaching your target audience? Can they say without a doubt that you are providing a unique service, one that they find invaluable? Ask your clients for specific, quantitative feedback and be flexible while staying true to your brand. Above all else, keep your message consistent!

HAPPY BRANDING!

Take Inventory of Your Brand

In my "full-time" position of providing speciality marketing products, my customers understand the importance of maintaining their market share; especially in these tough economic times. They have taken inventory of their brand by analyzing the effectiveness of their marketing tools. By taking inventory they have realized that either 1) the brand image has to be maintained, or 2) it needs to be tweaked. Even the smallest detail of your business can influence your brand. Take a minute to review all of your marketing tools. Here's a few of the things that you should look at:

• Business Cards - Although you can easily order cards on-line for a relatively inexpensive price, how unique are they? These business cards usually use template artwork, standard fonts and have the name of the card's manufacturer on the back of the card. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra money to have your business cards custom made. The investment will pay for itself! In addition to the quality of the cards, make sure that all of the pertinent information is included, without any unneccesary "fluff". Again this may sound elementary, but you'd be surprised at the amount of people who still feel the more the better. That's just not the case!




• Website Address/ URL - Is your URL too long or too hard to remember? Whether you use your name or your company's name as the website address, your URL should be easy to remember, contain key words and be relevant to your product or service. Although there is no hard rule to the number of characters allowed, you want to make sure your URL is google-search friendly. (More about that in a later post)




• Email Address - DO NOT use a free internet service provider for your business email address, those should be reserved for your friends and fanily! jane@companyA.com or kelly.green@proforma.com is so much more professional than a generic email address. Again, this investment will be well worth it.




• Profile Pictures - Another area that you may want to spend money on is to have your pictures taken professionally. The picture that you post on your website or social networking sites, says a lot about your professionalism. Nothing will turn off a potential customer faster than a picture of you at the club holding a drink!

These are just some of the things to check for when taking inventory of your brand. If you are not sure, ask for feedback from an objective source. If your intended message is lost, then it's time to change course. For more ideas on branding tools, go to kelly.green@proforma.com.

Happy Branding!

I Know This Might Sound Crazy!

I know this may sound crazy, but I had a career in marketing for 13 years and it wasn't until I left that I fully understood what branding meant. After I was downsized (fired!), I went through a long period of trying to "find myself". Even though I knew I should stick to what I did best, just doing marketing didn't seem to be enough. Everybody was doing marketing! Somewhere, on some level! What was going to make my marketing services stand out? It wasn't until after attending several networking events that I realized not many people know how to market themselves (even entrepreneurs!). Nor do they realize the importance of marketing. Most people fall into what I call the "chotch-key trap". They believe that the more stuff they have to represent their company, the better marketers they are - that's just not the case. In fact, by doing that, you run the risk of sending multiple marketing messages and never reaching your target market. That's why building a brand is so important. Most entrepreneurs think that branding is only important for big companies, but how do you think they got to be a big company? Building a brand starts with 3 questions you must ask yourself:

1. What is the message I want to convey? Ask this of your self first and then your company. The two answers should relate to one another. For instance, if you want to be perceived as a celebrity stylist who's on the cutting edge of fashion, identify what unique quality you and your company can bring to your client.
2. What message are my clients/ customers getting from me? For this question, you really need to take personal inventory. Ask your clients/ customers for their honest feedback. Ask specific questions and ask them to give you specific examples. Once you get that feedback, compare it against what you do day-to-day in your business to get the message out. This may seem obvious to some, but what you do with that feedback makes all the difference in the success of your brand.
3. And finally, if those two answers are different, then you need to devise a strategic plan to get them on the same page. Whether you provide a product or service, your target audience should be able to spell out exactly the message you are trying to convey.

When venturing out on your own, building a brand is more important than ever. Spend the time and make the necessary investments.

Happy Branding!

Accept Where You Are?

The other day I posted a Facebook entry about "Accepting Where You Are". You would not believe the amount of responses I got from people who did not agree that one should accept where they are, but instead should push for change. I'm not saying (nor are believers who follow this mantra) that you should just roll over and play dead in a situation; but, accept it for what it is, come to terms with what is and devise a plan to move on from it. For instance, if you get laid off, what are you going to do about it? You could go to the HR department, file a complaint, and try taking your employer to court. Or you can send out email blasts to all of your contacts bad-mouthing your boss. Neither option seems very productive (unless of course you have a valid case!) nor will it get your job back. Either way sounds a lot like swimming upstream! Not only will you lose credibility, you'll waste a lot of time and energy. Instead, try this: Accept What Is!


By accepting what is, you:

1. Come to terms with what has happened. Could this be a blessing in disguise? Is this the push you needed to start that business you've been dreaming of? Is this your opportunity to spend more time with your family? By moving past the anger and embarassment, you can begin to see the blessing in this.




2. Devise a plan to move forward. If starting a business is a long time dream of yours, do the research. Reach out to your contact list. Even if your contacts aren't directly related to what you want to do, start getting the word out about your intentions. Not only will this keep you focused on your goals, but you never know who can help you attain them. If staying at home with your family is your desire, devise a financial plan to do that. By writing out your expenses, you'll be able to see exactly where cut backs can be made. You might be surprised at what expenses you'll no longer have when you don't go into an office everyday.




3. And finally, Be confident with your decision! I'm not saying that it will be easy or happen immediatley, but stay focused on your ultimate goal. By accepting where you are, you can move on to the next phase of life.

Brand You!