Earnestness, Authenticity: On Being More
“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.” — Carl Jung
Assessing your brand story is the world telling you what your business is. Very often, it is pointing you toward the things or places where your business is not well defined, so it is being defined for you. Bad reviews, poorly performing webpages, customer questions, service inquiries, complaints, product confusion are some of the negative ways this can manifest. These are all ways that the market is pointing at a disconnect in what you do and what you say you do. Or, in important cases, it’s also a place where your brand story is failing to reach and qualify the appropriate audience. Knowing the difference is important because the reaction to each should differ.
To know the difference, a business must first know what it is, its motivation for existence beyond making money. Yes, a business should exist for a purpose beyond making money. This is a hell of a thing to gloss over, but we’ll be tackling this in blogs for as long as we’re here. It’s the reason we exist. Here’s just one reason why it’s true:
A real life example of this would be as follows: Company A manufactures and sells a consumer good to wholesalers/retailers (their primary customer), but is ultimately used by individuals who purchase from the retailers. The company has a mission to make their products easy to use, reliable, and is committed to American Manufacturing. Retailers purchase the product to resale because there is significant demand and it makes business sense to do so. The end user who chooses to buy these products holds Company A’s values as core in their buying decisions. However, company A has been proposed a business opportunity to import a product and the ability to sell it under their own branding for an immediate, positive bottom line impact. It’s almost free money. The brand reputation is such that the retailers (company A’s customers) eagerly want the option to sell this item, because the margins on it can help their bottom line. However, the product does not meet the core values nor quality standards. Most problematic, the product will be counter the “American Made” marketing engine the company employs.
What should Company A do?
It’s probably easy in the hypothetical to say they should honor their brand story and refuse the opportunity. But, imagine a scenario where the company is not as aware of their brand story/value proposition, because their company infrastructure is aimed at their primary customer (the retailers in this scenario, not the end user). In this scenario, Company A is keyed into helping their primary customer with their business goals. They do not have a strong awareness or relationship with the end user, who never the less respects and values their American Made Products. With the only variable company A has being business to business demand, and no guard rails in place to protect their brand story, it’s much harder in this scenario to imagine a company saying no to the opportunity. Theoretically, their customer (retailers) wins; Company A wins by increasing sales. It feels like a no brainer to take the money and serve their customer. But, the long term potential for damage to the brand story is still the same in either scenario. The actual user of the product is not considered by Company A if they’re not actively listening to them. And, they don’t know they should be actively listening to someone outside of their primary customer if they don’t first know the reason they exist beyond bottom line considerations. A product that undermines the company’s stated purpose will devalue the brand.
This scenario is exactly why businesses need a strong core of values and interests (a strong story) to act as a guard rail on business decisions. It’s why you have to know what you are before the world tells you. It’s also why listening and assessing your brand on an ongoing basis is only part of the equation. There has to be something to prove against for it to make a real difference.
