With everything going on politically, socially, and economically, it has never been a better time to create a powerful brand message and identity for your team. Do you often feel like you are the best kept secret in your industry? Do you know you are the best and that if a client didn’t work with you, they wouldn’t be getting the same level of service? We recently spoke with Chris Smith, founder of the Campfire Effect, on becoming the preeminent brand of choice in your market. Below is a summary of our conversation, make sure to watch the full conversation here.
What does it mean to be preeminent
Preeminent comes from the Latin words pre and eminere. ‘Pre’ meaning before and ‘eminere’ meaning to stand out. When you’re preeminent, you stand out amongst your competition. Many entrepreneurs feel they are better than their competitors but find frustration because they are perceived that way. They know that if their client works with someone else, they aren’t getting the best, and that matters. Entrepreneurs owe it their customers to show them they are the preeminent business in their industry. Creating a cohesive message can achieve this by filling the gap from how your perceived and how you good you really are.
Who are we, why are we unique
When you can answer these two questions, you can create a cohesive message that shows customers why you are preeminent. It takes time to dig deeper and find the answers but it’s an important investment of time. Creating a cohesive message across your organization creates intentionality. This allows you to operate by design instead of default, and by alignment instead of opportunity. An organization with a cohesive message, that acts intentionally, unlocks a culture of leadership within itself and how its perceived.
A company can’t grow bigger than its identity, and if the identity is only the owner, then the company is limited on big it can grow. If you create a culture of leadership through intentionality, you’re creating an identity that is bigger than you. You’re able to offload growth and scaling to the team so the business can grow beyond you. Not only does this create more personal freedom for yourself but makes the business more appealing during sales and valuations as it is now transition ready.
How to determine if your brand message is powerful
‘What do you want to be known for?’
Every industry has buzzwords that every company uses to describe itself. When you can answer that question without using those buzzwords that make you sound like everyone else, you have an identity that can’t be commoditized and is bigger than just yourself. Too often business owners devalue their identity and the value of their work. When you dig deeper and create an identity of what the true value of your work is, what truly matters, along with what you want to be known for, then you’ve created a brand message that is a differentiator from your competition.
A powerful brand message is just as impact internally as it is externally. Being able to verbalize the true outcome of your work will inspire your team by showing them, what they do is more than just what they do. This message unlocks a level of growth and scale in the company because it’s a message that goes across the organization. Driving this message internally requires three aspects of leadership:
- Your ability to enroll your people into a bigger vision of what’s possible
- Challenge your people more than they’ve ever been challenged while supporting them more than they’ve ever been
- Your commitment to being the demonstration of what you’re teaching
It’s important to note that just creating this message isn’t enough. The difference between inspiration and transformation of a company is through implementation. To see a true return on having a powerful brand message, it needs to be fully implemented. From the website, through marketing materials and even internal meetings, this message needs to be at the heart of what you do. Know what it looks like to become obsessed with living this identity and have it repeated by everyone everywhere in the organization. If you commit to ‘there’s nothing you won’t say, nothing you won’t do and no place you won’t go to implement this message’, you’ll truly create momentum within your organization and unlock a level of scale that is greater than just you.
Looking beyond your business
The same philosophy used to create a powerful brand message for your business can be used to create a powerful brand message for your family. Too often we’ve focused on planning for financial success of the family, but we haven’t planned to create generational success for the family. The principles you used to build a successful business are the same used as creating a successful family. By operating as a family with purpose instead of default, you can create an identity for the family that is bigger than just one person. Living and implementing these family values gives you a higher probability of having a successful family by creating a shared values and communication.
Chris Smith and Campfire Effect are separate entities and not affiliated with Integrated Partners and Konvergent Wealth Partners.