Welcome: Day 1 of 21 Days to Build a Better Brand

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Welcome to day 1 of the series 21 Days to Build a Better Brand! I’m simply thrilled that you have made this commitment to improving your brand and your business. Over the course of the next three weeks, you’ll learn everything you need to build a brand that both you and your customers will love.

Purpose

The purpose of this series is to help you build a more remarkable brand. Throughout this series, I’ll guide you through the brand-building process, one small step at a time. Yes, you’ll have a little work to do each day, but by the end of the series you should have a well-defined brand and be well on your way to building a more competitive, more profitable, more sustainable business that both you and your customers will love.

Why Am I Doing This?

For years I owned a design agency where I helped small business owners with their logo and website designs. I was really good at what I did but something kept bugging me. I realized that there was a huge disconnect between what people thought their brand was and what their brand actually was. So I decided to devote all of my expertise to teaching people how to create a more meaningful, more remarkable brand.

What is a Brand?

Let’s get this cleared up right away: Your logo is not your brand. This is not to say that having a well-designed logo is not important because it is. It means that just having a logo does not mean you’ve got your branding sorted.

Seth Godin has a great definition of what your brand is:

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

This means your brand is communicated to your customers in everything that you do as a business – from their experience using your website, to what your shop smells like, to the attitudes of your employees. Each time a customer interacts with your business in some way, they are experiencing your brand. (Note: these interactions are called brand touchpoints and you’ll be learning more about them in a later post)

The Importance of Building Your Brand

If every interaction with your business is an experience with your brand, wouldn’t you want to be sure that every one of those experiences was amazing? Of course you would! The problem is that a lot of business don’t agree. They don’t see brand-building as important as, say, hiring the best chef. That amazing restaurant experience can turn sour if the server has a bad attitude toward her customer. No world-class chef or gourmet meal can fix a bad experience like that.

This is why intentionally defining and building your brand is the single most effective way to create a competitive, profitable, and sustainable business.

Intentionally defining and building your brand is the single most effective way to create a competitive, profitable, and sustainable business. Click To Tweet

Don’t Settle for Mediocre

There are way too many mediocre businesses out there today, but you don’t have to be one of them. You can (and should!) stand out in a sea of average. You should be so remarkable in everything you do and in every interaction with your customers, that they keep coming back to you again and again and again. Don’t settle for mediocre, be remarkable! I’ll show you how to do this over the next 21 days.

How it Works

Each day for next three weeks I will share a short teaching on one topic related to building your brand. Each day you will have one or more action items to complete. These action items shouldn’t take much of your time, but the more time you put into it, the more value you’ll get out of it.

I believe in the power of writing things down on paper – by hand. Something very visceral and meaningful happens when you take the time to write down your thoughts and ideas by hand. Also, you won’t be distracted by any technology so your ideas can flow more freely. So when it comes time to take action, use your 21 Days to Build a Better Brand Workbook or grab a notepad and pencil or pen, go somewhere where you can focus, and get to work.

What Do You Get Out of This?

Here’s what you can expect by the end of this 21-day series:

• Define clear goals and an inspiring vision for your brand
• Know what your brand stands for
• Have a deep understanding of your ideal client
• Define a niche for your brand
• Learn how to differentiate your brand from your competition
• Define your brand’s personality and voice
• Know how to craft a compelling brand story
• Clearly communicate your brand’s message
• Create a great tagline for your brand
• Know what words and images to use on your website
• Learn how to get a great logo for your brand
• Create an effective marketing plan for your brand

Day 1 Action Items—Get Plugged In

Let’s get started! Day 1 is all about getting you prepared for the next 3 weeks of learning. Here’s how to get the most out of this series:

Subscribe to The Brand Sketch Blog and start receiving daily emails for this series as well as future tips and teachings around building your remarkable brand.

Subscribe to The Brand Sketch Podcast where I expand on the daily teachings and share more brand-building examples and helpful insights.

Join The Brand Sketch community on Facebook where you can ask questions and get help and support from me and your community of fellow brand builders.

Download the 21 Days to Build a Better Brand Workbook. This ebook is a valuable resource that contains all of the teachings and printable worksheets for this series. Download your workbook today and save all your work in one place!

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Coming up: In tomorrow’s lesson, you’ll learn the importance of creating a vision for your brand and get some great tips on how to do this.