Up Market |
- The Difference Between a Logo and Your Brand (and why it matters to your business)
- Sales Psychology: The Secret of Instant Rapport
- The Fallacy of Failure
| The Difference Between a Logo and Your Brand (and why it matters to your business) Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT
Your brand is the essence of your business, or a particular facet of your business. Your marketing is the vehicle you use to communicate your brand to your customers, by speaking the language of the values, intentions, and passion that are at the core of the work you're doing. Your logo is the visualization of your brand, and is a significant, integral part of your marketing. For nearly every business, the logo will be used in as many of the marketing platforms as possible: in business cards, stationery, invoices, email marketing, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter backgrounds, t-shirts, branded sticky notes, billboards, direct mail, and so on. In order to have a really great logo, you have to start with a really great brand. A logo without a brand to back it up is just a pretty picture, and a fairly unmemorable one at that. Try these exercises to dig deeper into your brand and what it represents to your customers. The What/Who/Why/Why exercise:
The feedback exercise:
These two exercises give you an idea, from your own perspective and from the perspective of your actual customers, of what the true message of your brand is. If you don't like what you're hearing, or if you can't quite get clear enough to have a big-picture way of describing your brand, it may be time to take a step back and refocus your business on what really matters. Building a business from your core values is one of the most exhausting, frustrating, and deeply rewarding thing you ever do – and it's worth it to give this work your all. Let me hear from you: how does your logo speak about your brand? What does your business look like from your customer's point of view? Image Credit: Brett Jordan |
| Sales Psychology: The Secret of Instant Rapport Posted: 05 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT
I'm going to break down the ingredients that create rapid and effective rapport. The best part? It doesn't matter what industry you're in or how you pitch your product – these techniques guarantee Jedi sales skill. What is Rapport? Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: Rapport is one of the most important features or characteristics of subconscious communication. It is commonality of perspective: being "in sync" with, or being "on the same wavelength" as the person with whom you are talking. From a sales point of view, rapport is the state where your prospect just gets you. More importantly, the feeling is mutual – they sense that you get them too. This state of mutual "liking" is crucial to closing a sale. People buy from people who they like In addition to the logic and rational sales techniques I've written about, the emotional and psychological impact of powerful rapport is a vital ingredient for selling. From the prospect's point of view, a pitch lacking rapport is so uncomfortable that they may not buy, even if their rational criteria are fulfilled AND they really want the product. On the other end, if a prospect has huge rapport with a salesperson, but doesn't really want or need the product, there's still a good chance he'll buy anyway. Rapport can make or break a deal. Take control of your communication Most amateur salespeople leave rapport up to fate. If they can connect with a prospect, fantastic! If they can't… Oh well. It wasn't meant to be (or so they say). In reality, any salesperson is only "rapport-compatible" with one or two personality types similar to their own. When they meet prospects with different psychological makeup, they mysteriously can't seem to create that rapport connection easily. The most common example is when highly extroverted salespeople struggle to connect with highly introverted prospects. They're unlike one another as personality types, so rapport isn't present. So how do you take control of the rapport process and deliberately create a state of connection in your prospect's mind? People like people who are like them The secret to Canned Charisma (my nickname for instant rapport) is to be more "like" your prospect. It means having the behavioral flexibility to act similarly to diverse personality types – even ones that are polar opposites from your own. The secret to rapport is visible, everyday, all around us: It's as simple as appearing to be similar to your prospect. An infatuated couple, sitting in a restaurant is the very best example to demonstrate the rapport phenomena. Although you might not want to recreate this level of connection with your prospects, studying the psychology of this couple can give you insight into how rapport is created. The couple stares into each other's eyes. They're eating dinner, and as he tells his funny story, she pauses eating. They're facing each other, both leaning forward with their elbows on the table. As she giggles, he chuckles. When she lifts her glass to drink, he does the same. They're matching and mirroring each other's body language every step of the way. After reading this and becoming aware of it, you'll see this mirroring of body language and behavior occurring everywhere. It's the physical manifestation of a deeper state of rapport connection. But here's the true secret: By deliberately recreating the symptoms of rapport, you can recreate the state of rapport. When matching and mirroring body language, you can send your prospect an unconscious signal that you are "just like them", and this subconscious, nonverbal communication is the very essence of building rapport. We all do this unconsciously. Next time you're in a meeting, watch people taking sips of their water. Pay attention to friends and family as you hang out. When are these people mirroring you? Better question, when are they NOT mirroring you? Rapport is totally unconscious for most people. By bringing it into our conscious awareness, we can become more skillful at it. We can learn to mirror people even when they're vastly different to us. Doing so increases our ability to connect naturally (and sell to) the variety of psychological types we might encounter. The power of mirroring doesn't stop at body language, though. In fact, it grows as we apply the principal to other elements of communication. Imagine matching someone's beliefs, or better yet, their values! I'm going to break down the intricacies of rapport further in future posts. For now, let me know what you think. Where and with whom do you already have a lot of rapport? Where would having some more be useful? What else could you mirror, besides body language? |
| Posted: 05 Jun 2012 02:00 AM PDT
~ Robert H. Schuller I love the above quote because it inspires me to think big. I often make lists of all the things I have dreamed of creating or being a part of. I encourage my clients to do it too. But when I begin to contemplate actually doing the things on those lists, the concept of failure often creeps in and makes its presence known with a long, dark shadow. It’s easy to shoot for the moon when the prospect of crashing down to the ground doesn't come into the picture. We can dream and scheme all we want, but making our dreams real requires us to act. And doing so brings us nose to nose with what is likely our most formidable opponent: fear of failure. Failure means different things to different people. But I think the most fear-provoking thing about the idea of failure that it leads to pain – pain of rejection, embarrassment, loss, financial ruin – not to mention its actual physical variations. The interesting thing about pain is that – thankfully – it is usually finite. It comes and it goes. And though we may not always have any control over whether we experience it, we do seem to have some say in how long it lasts and how uncomfortable it gets. When I used get immunizations as a kid, I remember getting all worked up before the needle even came close to my skin. And I've watched my kids do the same thing – even screaming or howling before contact was actually made. But seconds later, the injections have been finished before the kids even realized it. They left the exam table and went onto other things without delay – except maybe when one of them needed a little more sympathy and dwelled on the puncture or the blood on the bandage – prolonging the unpleasant experience and making it into something far more painful than it really needed to be. I think we do the same thing when we contemplate the pain that comes with what we think would be "failure". Our minds have a way of making it far more ominous than it ever is in reality. And if we happen to find ourselves experiencing it, we can also fall into the trap of unwittingly making it more uncomfortable than it needs to be. But we can also use resilience and determination to bounce back and focus on something that will help us move forward in spite of an otherwise unpleasant experience. I prefer a slight variation of that opening quote that goes like this: "What great thing would you attempt if you knew there was no such thing as failure?" Because it really comes down to what your experience – regardless of the way it turns out – has given you, rather than cost you. People who have accomplished extraordinary things in their lives are the first to tell you that they have had more than their share of what many refer to as "failure". And many will tell you those experiences were, in fact, prerequisites for their success. What differentiates them from those who allowed "failure" to defeat them is that they got back up, figured out what they could learn, and moved forward equipped with a new awareness, a new understanding, and renewed commitment to their greatest dreams and visions. I think we all need a shot from time to time. A shot of humility, compassion – and humor. A shot that will only serve to make us stronger, more determined, and far more resilient than we were before. What great thing can YOU achieve today, knowing that you simply cannot fail? Photo Credit: jacco de boer |
It can be easy to confuse a brand with a logo when starting out as an online entrepreneur – or, more accurately, it can be easy to assume that your logo IS your brand, when this is far from the truth.
I want to discuss a subject near and dear to my heart. I'm going to talk about rapport – the state of magical connection where communication simply flows between individuals. It's the perfect state for selling.
“What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” | You are subscribed to email updates from Upmarket To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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