Walk A Mile
It is essential to understand what is important to your customers, but first it’s even more important to walk a mile in your own shoes. To arrive at great branding in today’s socially connected world, leaders can benefit from developing a strongly articulated self-reference point of view. This is important not just for marketing, but also for creating a vibrant culture and developing business strategy. A well-defined self-portrait gives a collective a cohesive, deep and powerful public identity.
Organizations and communities that base their plans, messages and actions on their deeper, more powerful selves can create a better inner life and public persona. They can become more self-directed and attractive to others. Once a collective understands its own identity and finds its own voice, it can also find more common points of authentic connection with its audiences.
This “inside-out” beginning builds organizational and community pride and capacity, while increasing performance through time. Some of the outcomes include:
- Invigorating culture
- Powerful branding platform
- More authentic relationship with audiences
- Relevant product and organizational descriptions
- More purpose and more profits
- Informed decision-making process
- Sustainable strategic roadmap
- Identification of new products and services
- Evidence-based track record
- Continuous feedback loop
- Innovative problem-solving
- Institutional knowledge archive
Communities and organizations have many valuable, untapped assets at their core that are essential for success. By shifting the perspective inward, collectives can see who they are from the inside. They can stop comparing themselves to others, focus on what they have to contribute and increase their relevance.
