branding

Why Company Brands Evolve Into Personal Brands

Whichever forces you think are driving business psychology today,  “transparency”  must be near the top of the list.  The steady digitalization of nearly all forms of value during the last twenty -years, combined with the (more or less) eager acceptance of new forms of transaction, record-keeping, customer service, automation, self-service, etc.  have steadily raised performance  expectations for virtually all goods and services.

But that’s superficial. 

We’re not talking about straightforward increases in the specs — more horsepower,  lemon-scented, icemaker-equipped, pH-balanced, whole-grain — transparency isn’t driving that;  human nature is.  We’re talking about THE OTHER WAY expectations are increasing  and that’s “across time.”  Expectations are increasing in a way that is enabled purely by how much transparency the  product/service exhibits.  

If brand-as-image is the flower; brand-as-performance-over-lifecycle is the taproot. 

Transparency permits a relationship with a company  or a service to begin before any expression of curiosity or interest has been made.  Long before indicating their interest, people are increasingly assembling  an understanding of the service specs. They may even be able to research issues undreamt-of  even ten years ago – lurking at a forum of product users, learning the issues and responsiveness of the company,  calling friends by stalking you on LinkedIn, consulting  analyses of performance, even checking  the health of the company. 

Worse, all of this is happening without any of your involvement  and all without any sort of company filtering (except for the info on their own website).  Your buyers already have “a thousand points of transparency” (sorry) lighting their way to their first encounter with a human being on the subject of their interest in the company.

None of this is brand, either, except superficially, in making sure the company’s visual representation of itself is fairly consistent.

The “new” dimension of brand begins when buyer first interacts with the seller. Because after the formalities, and the small talk, and the confirmation of what the prospect already know and has already learned, the questions will center around how the service “LIVES” if the prospect buys it. 

Unfortunately, your buyer doesn’t just need some widget that can chunk-a chunk-a in some dark closet turning out the same part all day long – he needs a solution that interacts with several aspects of his current operation, not least the people, he already has.  From implementation, configuration, testing, and startup all the way to obsolescence, how will this product or service function as part of a solution to the problem that the prospect thinks it could improve? 

That’s the central question, now. 

He’s got the basics, he doesn’t need a product intro.  “Show-up-and-throw-up” in front of one of these prospects and you’re thrown out.

This new dimension of brand centers around how the prospect is going to use your product to get something essential done — how the current operation can feed it what it needs, how human beings can harvest the value it adds.

In this environment, the point of contact between company and prospect is not just a human form of product packaging, but more creative problem solver, or solution architect.  Knowing that there will be heterogeneous parts in the solution and that the effectiveness of it will be determined long after the transaction is completed, is key to getting on a wavelength with the prospect.

Because transparency’s ultimate contribution to business as it is now practiced is to push essential resources and ultimate result much closer together;  and to train everyone who buys anything that companies you want to do business with understand that you’re looking for a result, not a set of specs.

That’s why any brand’s most authentic voice is now spoken by human beings in their encounters with prospects.  Transparency won’t permit mechanistic “sales techniques,” it forces organic dialog.  It won’t permit  decision-by-analytics; it forces use of imagination to apply the product to the complexities of need.  It won’t let the dialog rest on the Brand Image of the company as portrayed in the media; it forces the point-of-contact’s Personal Brand to emerge and to engage.  And if you’re spouting some party line about the product without the ability to back it up with evidence of the value it delivers, transparency will burn you up.

Because in a “Can-you-help-me-get-it-done?” world, brand is not an image or a personality…it’s a methodology.

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