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One of my buddies is an insurance salesman for a local small town insurance company.  He was telling me about a recent seminar that he went to that was put on by some sales guru.  One of the things he talked about was how the guy said that “you are your brand.”  I’ve heard that before in the sales cds and books that my mom used to make me listen to when I was just starting out.  “101 ways to promote yourself”, “Gorilla Marketing,” etc.  In my previous life I sold payroll services and I attended a networking group called BNI.  It was a really good group and I learned a lot, made some good friends and received some good referrals.  Every week we met at 8am and had our breakfast, passed referrals and networked with each other.  One thing that we did was get a 10 second introduction.  The idea was to come up with something that was catchy and then we would go around the room, stand up and say our 10 second “commercial”.  The goal was to give the other people in the room something to remember during the week and then they would refer all the people they interacted with back to you.  You were basically branding yourself.  I was “the payroll guy”.  Now I’m the “internet marketing guy!”After about 3 years I realized a problem.  The problem was that I only received referrals when the topic happened to come up in conversation, not because the other member of BNI asked about that business owners need for payroll services.  I had bankers, bookkeepers and CPA’s in my group, people that should be giving me 5 referrals each week but weren’t giving me any.  My branding was working because when I did get a referral, I often heard the client that was referred to me reference what I said in my pitch “I’m the aspirin for your payroll headache”.  What wasn’t working was a greater problem, one that no brand could overcome.  I think we’ve become a “needs” driven society.  Only when there is a pain point do we actually do something about it.  All of my shopping is done nowadays on a “needs” basis, not a want basis.  If you’re a business owner and you know your website sucks but in your mind you’re not at a point where it has gone from a want to a need just yet.  I may tell you that your website sucks and that you are losing business because of it but you still won’t do anything about it. Only until your pocket book is affected will you see it as a need.  So how does this tie into branding?  Since I’m the “internet marketing guy”, I’ll tell you.

My recommendation is to brand yourself so that you’re able to take someone from a want to a need.   So how does one do that?  It’s first important to understand the mentality of buyers in 2011.  In my experience, consumers are pretty lazy and don’t want to do a lot of work.  Google has become such a crutch for society that all they have to do is go there, type in what they are looking for and boom, there are the best results right in front of you. If you’re selling to a consumer, you have to make darn sure that you’re on that first page of Google and that you make it very easy for that person to buy from you.  This is echoed by the fact that 90% of people don’t go past page 1 (I just did a search on Google for that string and used the number from the first page I pulled up)!  You accomplish that with a great website and search engine marketing from Invoke Interactive. From there the brand you create must somehow be one that is authoritative and taps into the emotional state of the consumer.  Make it a no-brainer for that consumer to buy from you.  Take out a piece of paper and think about the last 10 sales you made.  Why did they buy from you?  If you don’t know, ask them.  Your newest clients are your best resources.  How many was it because of the cost?  How many because of the quality?  They liked your website?  They were referred to you?  Find out the why’s and then make that the focal point of your brand.  Make your website your brand.  Make it represent who you are and what you represent.  I personally think everyone should invest in a website.  We are a digital society so why not embrace it.  I know, it’s too public.  It’s not like you have to put your address on there or whatever.  My wife won’t even put pictures of our children on the internet for fear that someone can figure out the longitude/latitude and come snatch them up.  Our website is who we are and we’re doing whatever we can to become a brand.  You’ll start to see that if you live and breath your brand and become “that guy” that you’ll start to get easy referrals from the internet.  If you ever need help with coming up with a brand, please let us know.  We’d love to help.  www.invokeinteractive.com.