Why your brand is as important as a company's brand

First, apologies to all my loyal readers for being quiet for the last few months. If you've been on our website, you'll see that we launched our new brand about two weeks ago. While very time consuming, it was incredibly rewarding to invest the time to analyse what we stand for how we want to position ourselves in the market. Have a look at www.trevor-roberts.com.au.

This process, of course, made me think about our own brand. It has been ten years since we have made conscious decisions about Trevor-Roberts' brand or made any changes. In fact in our 18 year history we have never undergone a formal branding process!

Every company, and every person needs a periodic reassessment of their brand and position in the market. When is the last time you've done this?

Here are a few questions to guide your thinking:

1. Where do you want to be in 5 years?
2. How do you want people to describe you in 5 years?
3. What visual cues do you need to change to achieve this? For example, online profiles such as LinkedIn, resume, associations you belong to
4. How do you need to behave differently?

I read an article last week that one of the top three ways to waste a company's marketing budget is to spend it on pure branding. The argument is that a brand is built by every small interaction with your product or service.

The same applies to us. Your personal brand is the sum total of every interaction you have with people. Make sure they are good!