Category Archives: Branding

The Word for Trust is Confianza

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Jerry Fletcher Keynote in ColombiaPlunging down the mountain side in a cab from the airport in Medellin, Colombia, Don Pepper and I were comparing notes on our careers in advertising.

He didn’t mention the fact that I had excused myself early from the luncheon attended by the sponsors and their key prospects.

Neither of us commented on the fact that the same translator that was working the lunch was also the translator for my after-lunch keynote.

I found out the hard way.

About half a minute into my opening comments a gentleman about 6 rows back started waving both arms in the air.

I asked him in my best high school Spanish, “Que pasa?”

He said in heavily accented English, “No translator!”

I said without thinking, “I will speak v e r y   s l o w l y.”

The audience, some 600 strong, joined me in laughter. About a half minute later the translator was ready to go.

Tener Confianza

The key thought in that speech was Trust (Confianza) plus time = success. I talked about what it takes to be successful in business today, on and offline:

  • Trust in yourself
  • Trust in your staff
  • Trust in your company
  • Trust in your customer

That trip, I was to learn, was all about Confianza.

Because I was scheduled to speak at a convention in Reno, Nevada the following day, the meeting planner and I had tried every trick we knew to get me back there on time. It came down to having to leave for the Medellin airport as soon as I came off the stage.

The cab was ready, I wasn’t. 

There had not been time to change to traveling clothes before heading for the airport. I figured I could change before boarding.

Nope. I was hustled onto the plane as the doors were closing by airline staff that had been alerted.

Tener Confianza

I had to change planes in Bogota so I figured I could slip into a bathroom, pull my jeans and sweatshirt out of my carry on and be comfortable for the remainder of my 16-hour commute.

The Bogota Airport was being remodeled.

The only bathroom available near my gate was a standard stall. The rest of it was under construction and open to the waiting room.

Contortionists have it much too easy. I’m not that supple. But I managed to change and make my flight.

Now I know why superman wears his costume under his suit.

Tener Confianza

When I changed planes in Houston I called the meeting planner at the conference in Reno and let her know I was back in the USA and my arrival information.

There was a limo driver holding up a sign with my name on it when I arrived.

The meeting planner wanted to make it easy for me. She knew how arduous it can be just getting there. That gift of not having to rush to find a cab, check in and don my suit to make it to the platform on time is one I will never forget.

Tener Confianza

  • En ti mismo
  • En su personal
  • En tu compañía
  • En su cliente

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Jerry at Cafe in VeniceWebsites:
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com
Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Brand: www.BrandBrainTrust.com
(Personal Brand Network beBee Featured this week)

Brand is an Action Plan

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Brand PlanDuring a guest appearance on a radio show for entrepreneurs this week a caller asked, “What can I do to brand myself?”

I asked him if he was talking about his Personal, Professional or Product Brand.  He replied, “Professional, I’m a solopreneur.”

I suggested he visit www.BrandBrainTrust.com and then this is what I told him:

“You are going to have a Brand whether you want to or not. The reason is that brand is not a process you can control. It is the sum total of what all the folks who have knowledge of you think, feel and believe about you.

Brand is the outcome of Trust. Being trustworthy leads to having a good brand. If you can’t be trusted…well, you get the picture.’

But what can you do to become a trusted Brand?

  1. Put lightning in a bottle.
  • Know what you are trying to make of yourself or your business and what you’ll stick with regardless of how things change. (Vision)
  • Know why your business exists (Mission)
  • Be able to explain how you are different. (Position)
  1. Stay consistent but accepting
  • Always tell your story the same way (Value Proposition)
  • Love the customers for their differences as well as their similarities (the Magic of Contact Relationships)
  • Remember that your brand advocates want to belong to your group (Social media)
  1. Be “in it” together
  • Get involved on a personal, bunch and group level (Tribe or Cult)
  • Hide your membership in plain sight visible only to other members (logo, tattoo, sticker)
  • Listen to what the common enemy is and stand against it in word and deed

If you want people to act, you have to do all that plus inspire them.

You inspire with a Vision and a Mission and show them how you’re different.

But inspiration is not enough. To help them break through fear and inertia you have to tell them what to do. Once you’ve told them the tactics that apply give them a symbol plus words of encouragement.

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder and Grand Poobah of www.BrandBrainTrust.com

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Brand development, Positioning and business development on and off-line. He is also a sought-after International Speaker.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Success Stories. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Brand is Not a Get Rich Click

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Brand is not a get rich clickDo you remember your first customer or client?

What did it take to get that business? If you’re like most, it wasn’t a matter of someone just walking up and saying “I’ll take one.” You had to introduce yourself to that customer if you were selling tube steaks or Toyotas. If you were running your own business it was even tougher. You didn’t have a big ad program sending people into the store.

You stuck with it. You introduced yourself to one person after another. You maintained your enthusiasm about the product or service. You connected with a few people. Then one of those prospects hit the Trust tipping point and made a buy.

You built a relationship off line.

You begin the dance anew seeking relationship 2, 3 and 4.

But then you succumb to the get rich click temptation.

You think it will be easier, faster and just as rewarding trying to sell online. You’re convinced by all the commentary and the continuous e-mails that offer guaranteed full-proof ways to make a six-figure income and live anywhere in the world working half days. Your expectations are never met.

Before you put all your efforts into web sites, online stores and content marketing find out who is really doing that well and model what it took to get there.

Don’t try to take on major corporations using their techniques.

Each day we are hammered with ads on Facebook, Google and the rest of the zoo parade of social media. Once they were easy to skip past and ignore but not anymore. There are all kinds of names for it but I guarantee that if you search for a product or service on line you will be bombarded with ads for that product or similar ones for weeks.

You can’t win against the mechanized marketing they use if you try to go head to head.

Build a relationship with another customer (or two or three) offline.

Offline you have the advantage. You can look into your customer’s eyes. You can hear the tenor and the tension of her voice. You can understand why he is hesitant and learn why she is looking for another option.

Build relationships with customers offline before you try it online.

Imagine how much more powerful your copy can be when you are writing to people just like the ones that have come to Trust you already. Think about the ways you can better define targets for your ads online. Consider how much easier it is come up with key words. Can you visualize the other products they want and need?

Go offline to build better relationships with on-line customers.

No, don’t do an e-mail survey. Pick up the phone and talk to some customers. I guarantee you will learn from them and you will establish stronger Trust and Brand. When you travel to where they live, take time to visit with them. It will pay off. (One online marketer reported a 13 to 32% increase in sales from abandoned carts when his company telephoned customers that had abandoned their cart in mid-transaction).

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder and Grand Poobah of www.BrandBrainTrust.com

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Success Stories. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Brand is Your True Colors

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Brand is Your True ColorsThis week, the Brand Story that is front and center at Brand Brain Trust is about Jim Grew.

You can learn three valuable lessons by studying his Brand Success Story:

  1. Listen. Clients and prospects describe your brand in words that others like them understand.
  2. Show. Prospects want to know what you’re like and what it’s like to work with you. A video invitation and video testimonials on your web site puts them at ease.
  3. Tell. When you put your expertise into a book it can close the sale for you.

Full Disclosure: Jim is a client. We’ve been working together since 2012 when he decided to stop turning companies around and start consulting.

We’re getting ready to change his web site again.

Why?

Because we keep those three tips in mind.

We listen.

Jim listens to what his clients are saying and observing as he works with them building staff, approaches and analytics to transform their business. When the same phrase keeps popping up we know we have a description we can use.

I listen when I go in to capture the video testimonials. After a few minutes with my standard questions they relax enough to become quite candid often putting their words to concepts difficult to convey until they give us a way.

We show.

Jim’s web site is upgraded at least once a year, overall. The relevant testimonials and invitations to his services change as we come to understand the reasons most business owners are interested and the information they are looking for in order to make a decision.

I’ve rewritten every page of his sites multiple times in order to make it easier for prospects to begin connecting before they make a call. And we never forget that the objective is to generate positive observations that verify Jim’s qualifications and make it easy to get in touch.

We Tell.

Jim is better at consulting than he is at selling. So part of what we work on continually is 30-Second Marketing, the ability to have a conversation instead of doing a commercial. Not long ago, one of his clients used Jim’s positioning line (Business Defogger and Accelerator) in a presentation at a national convention about how Jim had helped to build his business to its greatest heights ever. The President of the largest company in the audience asked him after, “How do I get hold of this Defogger?”

That told me that the need for his services is not restricted to the Pacific Northwest. Now all I have to do is figure out how to tell all those potential clients!

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder and Grand Poobah of www.BrandBrainTrust.com

His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Success Stories.
Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Brand is the Legendary Made Real

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LegendaryBack when I lived in Minneapolis I had the pleasure of dealing with a media representative for the legendary magazine The New Yorker.  I acquired a taste for it when I was just starting in the ad game in New York.

Once, over lunch, he told me the story of how a little company in Medford, Oregon began selling fruit by mail. It seems a New Yorker Salesman had decided to drive to Portland and Seattle from San Francisco and he was making stops along the way to pitch his magazine. In those days it was beginning to develop the peculiar circulation it has to this day. Most of the print run goes to New York but it is also read by a solid coterie of subscribers in major cities and high income demographic towns across the country.

That little company in Medford was Harry & David. They decided to test a small space ad in the publication. They sold out their apple crop. Then pears. And the cherries. That was the beginning for them. They became a legend by selling fruit via direct ads and mail across the USA.

A few years ago my then wife and I went to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (just north of Medford in southern Oregon). We stayed at a delightful B&B. The first evening over wine, cheese and pears that were to die for we learned our host was also the marketing director of Harry & David. We talked of how that first ad had changed the lives of the partners but more importantly hundreds of people in the Rogue valley. He stressed the fact that the values that were in place for that first ad remained and would continue into the future.

They have.

Now I find myself living as my friends say, “where the sidewalk runs out” south of Portland. I’ve been a Harry & David Customer for more years then I care to count. I know a conglomerate bought them out a while back but the  buyers haven’t messed with what makes the company outstanding.

This year I had to change my order. Mom asked me to. She said she couldn’t handle all that they sent in the Fruit of the Month club since Dad died.

So I made the call. I found myself talking to Margaret who understood completely. She walked me through some options. Then we settled on regular fruit shipments but in smaller quantities. She quietly checked all the pertinent shipping data and then helped me with the rest of my list.

The service was legendary.

This is what it took to get me to say that:

  • People that want to help on the phone. NO pushy sales types. NO hard sells.
  • Catalogs in the mail because I’ve told them I prefer not to get an e-mail every day for a month after Thanksgiving.
  • Pertinent details of addresses and greetings kept on file so I don’t have to dig them out
  • Great Product.
  • No questions asked returns or changes if needed. Dad couldn’t eat grapefruit due to a medication conflict. Mom called them and a substitution was made even though it was requested well before needed.
  • People you come to know, like and trust.

It takes time, vision, values, consistency, honesty and real caring. That builds trust and the outcome is a legendary brand.

Legendary can help a product resonate. See the story of Time in a Bottle this week at www.BrandBrainTrust.com

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder and Grand Poobah of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

How to Quantify Your Brand

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BRand can be QuantifiedYou can’t quantify brand!

Or can you?

We collect brand stories and outcomes at Brand Brain Trust that frequently defy the idea that you can’t hang an analytic on Brand.

The latest addition to the web site tells the story of TSA Pre-Check. You’ll learn how this service offered by a company you never heard of came to Anvil, Portland’s award-winning integrated marketing agency. Anvil rose to the challenge of generating a specific number of sign-ups for the year. They finished Q2 by obliterating the goal for the quarter and surpassing the entire goal for 2016.

What does it take to quantify a brand?

  1. Clear measurable objectives.
  2. Triggers that get actions you can count
  3. Practical and emotional value

Measurable Objectives:

For TSA Pre Check it was a specific sales goal to be delivered within one year. You should definitely have a sales goal. But you might also consider:

  • Having a gateway. Try incorporating a hard to get to way to get in touch with you or enter your establishment that requires social research on the part of the prospect. Keeping count of those that pass through the gate is your key analytic but you could also look at sales per visit or the number of services utilized.
  • Identifying and targeting meetings with ideal clients. Consultants and coaches continually need to develop relationships with prospects. Setting a number to identify and make contact with makes sense. Both numeric goals can prove to be predictors of business growth when your closing ratio and Lifetime value become known.
  • Stop counting intangibles. Take a tip from Montessori schools and use concrete terms. If you count actual items sold or given away you’ll be better off than merely counting customers that entered your store or your website. But, when you combine the two you’ll find yourself figuring out how to add value to everyone that enters.

Triggers that get actions:

TSA Pre Check took advantage of long wait time headlines and the fact that prospects were searching for TSA  Pre Check on Google. Beyond Key Word Research you might look at:

  • Borrow interest from the news. Mars research by NASA spiked requests for Mars Bars in supermarkets when a rover mission was reported. Year over Year data and anecdotal reports quantified he sales increase.
  • Become part of your prospects daily grind. Have you noticed how your local McDonalds is now the McCafe or how KitKat bars are tagging along with coffee?
  • If you offer services, adopt the good, better and best pricing and product presentation. Give ‘em the bare bones that solves their problem for x dollars and call it Basic. Build a Premium package that is priced at 2x, delivers everything in the basic and also provides a real value. Then put together a Platinum program. Price it at least 6x and make sure it includes way more than the prospect might want. (that way, you can let them add individual items from it to your Premium plan and make almost as much for the add-on as for the Premium plan alone.

Build in practical and emotional value:

The practical value of TSA Pre Check is that you don’t have to stand in those long lines at the airport. The emotional value is that you don’t feel like you’re on the Bataan Death March anymore. Other ways you can take advantage of human nature:

  • Make sure that if your product depends on a connection to a story that “everyone knows” that you provide a hang tag for the product that recaps the story. You’ll find the Time in a Bottle story on the Brand Brain Trust web site next week. Without the hang tag your product doesn’t sell as well.
  • YouTube videos that get the most views tend to have the words “How To” in their titles. Those that go viral also “How To” (Google: How to shuck corn) Other possibilities include questions like “Will it Blend?” or “Will it Crush?” from Arnold Shwarzenegger with over 4 Million views.
  • Show your emotions to get a reaction. Another YouTube example is the story of Dave Carroll’s run in with United Airlines. They smashed his $3500 guitar. He spent nine months negotiating with United over compensation and they lawyered up and refused him. He wrote United Breaks Guitars, posted it on You Tube. in 10days it was viewed over 3 million times. It was one of the top ten viral videos of 2009.

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

 

How Does a Name Impact Brand?

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Name impacts brand

You or your company, product or service all have names. You either selected it or were saddled with it depending on your viewpoint.

Look up your name on Google.

When I look up Jerry Fletcher these days I get numerous listings on page one. Used to be I was well behind the movie called Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson who played a character with my name. It took three years to turn that around as the result of multiple websites, blogs and dedicated posting on Linked In and other social networks. Even if there are better known folks with the same name you can set yourself apart.

While you’re there look at the images.

It can be scary. Left to right the ones presented to me had descriptors like:

  • Monsters Among us
  • Predators in the Pulpit
  • Mel in character in Conspiracy Theory

On my desktop I show up on the far right in the row presented. All of which comes down to making sure the images of you which you put on line should be consistently positive.

Look up your name on Linked In or Facebook or beBee.

On Linked in there are 392 listings for my name.  Of these, 301 are in the USA. Only three are in Oregon (and one of them is me again). So you would have to know my location or company name or special capabilities to get the right guy. Try to be sure no one confuses you with one of those others. make sure your profile has searchable specifics.

On Facebook the list goes on forever. You need to know a little more about me than is shown in my profile in order to track me down. Since I only post when the constellations align there is not a great deal of information available. I’d like to keep it that way but I’m being sucked into the vortex because I put BrandBrainTrust on Facebook because I think it may prove helpful to a lot of folks.

Your name can be your best asset if you are a professional, coach or consultant. I didn’t understand how important it was when I hung out my own shingle. I named my company Z-axis Marketing, Inc. Nobody could understand why I named it that way. Nobody could spell it, Nobody could remember it. It definitely did not have the intended impact.

Use your name as the name of your company if you are a professional, coach or consultant. It will give you the advantage of not having to explain the company name or part of the company name when you should be telling people what you can do for them. It is easier for people to remember your name than any made-up company name (no matter how clever).  Sure, people may shorten the multiple partner Law or CPA firm to the first one or two names, but they started out with all of them. And there is not any doubt about what they do.

But what if you have to name a company or a product? The decisions, in order are:

  1. Is this a single product company? If so the company and product name can be the same.

When Digimarc was being named we struggled more with finding a way to describe the result of the technology than anything else. This invention allows the user to digitally mark any graphic holographically. The mark can be seen by the right software even if only a fragment of the marked document is available. (See the Brand Storyand outcome at www.BrandBrainTrust.com)

The name of the company changed three times before it was introduced to second stage investors.

  1. Is this a multi-product company? If so you will need to delineate the products in such a way that clients or customers can easily identify them. That doesn’t mean you need to think of the decision as a set of handcuffs.

For example:

S C Johnson makes all sorts of products. Each carries its own name and some have line  extensions. You’re probably familiar with No More Tears Shampoo®, Glade®, Pledge® and Windex®.

Most technically oriented or engineering firms use numbers to designate their products as they evolve. Intel’s i5 an i7 chips come to mind. But some elect to use other means. Android uses sweet treats as names for their operating system upgrades—Jelly Bean is perhaps the best known. Another way is to use letters of the alphabet. Ford does this using an E to begin the names for the SUVs: Explorer, Escape, Edge, Expedition.

  1. How do come up with names that stay in mind?
  • Make ‘em smile (Cherry Garcia one of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavors)
  • Tell ‘em what it does (Gorilla Glue)
  • Have ‘em picture it (Good Grips OXO kitchen implements)
  • Show ‘em a theme (Mc Café, Mc Nuggets, Mc Ribs)
  • Give ‘em a feeling (Obsession, the perfume)

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Brand is About Being More

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Thanksgiving dinner is not a good metaphor for a Brand-building customer experience.

Sliced hamClients and customers want more. Every interaction gives you the chance to make your band more memorable to them. But there is good memorable and not-so-good memorable.

Thanksgiving dinners with their great expectations are like Brand development. Both are fraught with potential disaster if we don’t know the journey of the participants.

Are your customers coming “over the river and through the woods?”  Are they flying in? How often do they come by? Can you remember their preferences? Do they mind waiting? What could you do to make their time with you memorable? How can you impress them? What would make this Thanksgiving more remarkable for aunt Hepzibah?

Every Brand is built with experiences. You must craft those experiences, just the way granny put together those wondrous Thanksgiving dinners. Yes, the meal is important and a great cook is essential to serving up the bird, stuffing and cranberry relish or the ham, collard greens and home-made biscuits.

But what goes on before the feast and the conversations around the table are what we remember far longer. Brand development is like that. Too often we’re worried about the logo and the corporate colors when we should be concerned about how easy we make it to buy. We hyperventilate about what we say on our web site when we should be concerning ourselves with real conversations with clients and prospects.  (see the video for Shell Tain on www.BrandBrainTrust.com for straight talk that works)

This Thanksgiving when you’re expressing gratitude, make sure you include all the folks that personally interface with the folks your brand impacts— everyone from the janitor to your CEO. The truth is, they are your product or service in the eyes of your customers.

Thank you for being part of our tribe.

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Brand Is Not Talking To Yourself

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161119-blog-talking-to-self

Brand development for coaches, consultants and professionals of all kinds is not easy.

You don’t have big bucks for advertising. You aren’t comfortable “tooting your own horn”.  But you have to convince prospects to trust you, hire you and pay you for your services.

You have to talk about yourself.

You have to have a vision, the “why” of your organization even if there is only one of you. You need to spell out your mission so you can stay on track. You need to find the “only” in your practice. But first you have to understand who your potential customers are.

Seven keys to building profiles of the customers for your brand:

  1. Don’t try to come up with a single profile. It doesn’t work because you know they come to you for different reasons.
  2. Pick the top three reasons they come to you. Build profiles for each noting the percentage of income each generates for your business. Not enough experience to rate them? Put them in order by your preference. Then talk to folks you think will fit the mold.
  3. Do the research. Learn as much about them as you can. Have coffee with a few of the individuals that have hired you. Ask them the same questions. Note the similarities.

Get the Profile Checklist. Sign up to get our updates at www.BrandBrainTrust.com

  1. Determine how many more of them there are within your neighborhood, city, state or region, the geographic area where you are willing to provide your services.
  2. Estimate the time and cost commitments you will have to make in order to reach them. Time must be estimated because you will probably have to spend time that is not billable to bring this off. Cost of items you absolutely must have should be determined as well. That includes well-designed logotype, business cards, letterhead, web site and social media pages at a minimum.
  3. Start connecting by networking on and off-line. Attend local chamber and other association meetings they frequent. Become active in groups where they cluster on Linked In, Facebook and in the real world.
  4. Listen to them first then talk about what you’ve done for others. People want to have a conversation not hear commercials at networking events. Give them the time to tell you what is on their mind. Then if they have a problem you can solve, offer your services. That is the guiding principle of 30-Second Marketing

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year, is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html

Trump Brand Won Because of Trust

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161110-blog-photoThere are at least a hundred definitions of Brand but only one that in my view encompasses all the possibilities:

Brand, any Brand, is the outcome of Trust.

Fail to get to Trust and you lose.

A Brand that has a singular vision, a mission articulated in a few understandable words, promoted consistently with words and pictures that touch the emotions will triumph if it gets to Trust. (See the video) http://www.brandbraintrust.com/resources.html

Sometimes it is a matter of how the Brand is positioned:

  • The Clinton tagline was: Hillary for America
  • The Trump tagline was: Make America Great Again!

In hindsight we know that he won because the people supporting him were the disenfranchised middle class that are opposed to the elites that they perceive to have hamstrung the government for so many years yielding control to the moneyed interests—the banks that took their homes, wall street and the big box companies that wiped out main street and the manufacturers that off-shored jobs.

The Trump brand was, pretty much, self-funded. It was Republican but not beholden. It was outrageous remarks followed by others saying “what he really meant.”

The Trump Brand was not a voice crying in the wilderness. It was heard by all the citizens out there beyond and within the big cities.” It didn’t matter what your party affiliation was. Your “tribe” was more important.

The Trump Brand is, for about half the population in the United States, a way to Make America Great Again.  Their belief is that an outsider and a business man can clean house in DC. and “straighten out” things that have “been done to them” over the  years, They Trust that they can “Make America Great Again.”

The last word of that phrase is the most important. The target audience, the people that voted in droves for him in the fly-over states are not looking forward. They see the USA as diminished. They want to go back to a different time. Their desire is to get “government off our backs.” Their hope is that the America they believe in, proudly serve, and honor can rise up and “do the right thing.”

Look at the difference:

  • Hillary for America (What’s in it for supporters? “I’m with her” was just as flawed)
  • Make America Great Again (It is what they want done and it implies the supporters will be a part of the solution and not part of the problem.)

The Trump line was carefully emblazoned on every item offered including the signature red baseball caps (and once or twice a camouflage cap). Hillary’s campaign offered nearly a hundred different designs, comments and reasons why. Little, if any of it, stuck to the wall.

They trusted Trump because in his bellicose way he said to them, “You’re right, we need to go back and I will keep shouting for you as long as it takes.”

They Trust him.

As I said, Brand is the outcome of Trust. I evaluate Brand development and report on it at www.BrandBrainTrust.com. If you’d like a neutral professional to review your Brand, call me.

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Jerry Fletcher is the founder of www.BrandBrainTrust.com  His consulting practice, now in its 26th year is known for Brand Development, Positioning and business development on and off-line.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com

Get all the Brand Briefs. Sign up at http://www.brandbraintrust.com/home.html