When people understand who you are and what you stand for, it’s easy for them to see that your product or service aligns with their values. They can immediately distinguish you from your competitors. Whether you’re a small business fighting for market share or a professional contender navigating the corporate job interview process, the benefits of strong branding are endless. That’s why today we’re talking about how to create a brand people love.

The Origin of Branding

After the Civil War, millions of cattle wandered the same trails across the US. If you’ve never owned a cattle ranch, now’s a good time to explain that identifying hundreds or even thousands of these animals isn’t quite like picking your own dog out of a busy dog park. Knowing whose cattle were whose was anyone’s guess – until they began taking a hot branding iron to the cattle’s haunches. The unique symbols marked unmistakeable ownership.

And thus, we learn the origin of “branding,” a physical and possibly painful act that marks one’s territory. When your work is well branded, others can clearly see its origins. There’s no doubt about who made it and where it came from. The origins of your brand may include influences from your value structure, community, education, worldview, artistic vision and more. In other words, your brand reflects the core of who you are, where you’re from, and what you believe. If you want to know how to create a brand people love, it actually starts with being true to yourself. When you find a way to be authentic to your roots, you create a strong and trustworthy brand.

The Importance of a Strong Brand

When you have a strong brand, you reap valuable benefits, including:

1. A strong brand establishes market ownership. Others quickly understand who you are and see that you’re a powerful force in the market.
2. A strong brand establishes an identity. With a clear identity, it’s easy to distinguish you from your competitors.
3. A strong brand establishes and drives your culture. Culture informs everything you do and the way you do it. When you get culture right, your work excels consistently.

3 Steps to Create a Brand People Love

Creating a brand people love isn’t easy, but it is simple. You’ll be well on your way in just three steps!

Step 1: Knowing how to create a brand people love starts with asking yourself, “Why?” Why have you chosen the work that you do? What drives you? Why get up every morning to work hard?

Step 2: Establish who you are. This means digging deep – really deep – and even admitting who you are not. If you’re trying to be all things to all people, you’re not creating a brand, you’re simply reacting to the world around you. What special gifts do you bring to the table? How do you create a unique experience for others? What things would you like to avoid that do not align with who you are?

Step 3: Find a way to express steps 1 and 2 in tangible ways. Maybe you draft a mission statement and share it on your website and sales materials. Perhaps you take a good hard look at your logo, fonts, or color palette and consider whether they reflect who you are and what drives you. You can integrate your brand elements into your voicemail greeting, email signature, or business card design. You might even sort through your professional wardrobe to make sure it’s consistent your brand. However you do it, bring your brand to life!

Creating or auditing a brand takes significant time and energy. However, the hard work pays off when others discover a deep emotional connection to you and your business. When this happens, you know you’ve created a brand people love!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: How to Create a Brand People Love

Below is a transcript of the video, “How to Create a Brand People Love,” published on YouTube on April 21, 2020.

Speaker Don Mamone:

Hey there. Thanks for being here today. I’m Don Mamone. I’m a hospitality veteran. I’m an artist. I’m also an entrepreneur. Today we’re going to talk about branding. No, we’re not going to be branding any cattle, but we are going to talk about the origin of branding from the 19th century. We’re going to define branding as both a noun and a verb. We’re going to identify why it’s so critically important when starting and running your business. And lastly, at the end of this video, I’m going to share with you three ways to ensure you create a brand people love.

Just after the civil war, millions of cattle from different ranches moved about the country on the same trails. Ranchers used branding irons to establish ownership and identify their cattle. So they used a brand (a noun) to complete the process of branding (a verb). Now that sounds pretty familiar to what we do today in business branding. Admittedly, it’s not as easy as heating up a branding iron and marking our cattle, but it’s well worth the effort.

Now let’s talk about why branding is so important. First, just like with the ranchers, it establishes ownership. You want to own your market. Next, it establishes an identity so people can recognize you amongst your competition. Lastly, it establishes and drives your culture and shapes how you’re going to operate your business.

So we’ve talked about what branding is and why it’s so critically important. Now let’s talk about how you can create a brand people love. First, you need to find your why. You’ve chosen to start and run a business which is no easy task. So there must be a really powerful reason why…FIND IT. Now, you need to establish who you are. Now I know that seems pretty obvious, but in actuality, most people don’t dig deep enough to do this really well. You want to consider things like your education and your experience, core beliefs and values. This will help you establish a unique brand, something that’s critically important in today’s saturated marketplaces. Now, once you have all of this information collected and I mean you really dug deep, you’re going to use that information to create your brand the noun that includes things like your mark or logo, your color palette and your fonts. Take all of that information about the why and the who and apply it to the actual branding (the verb) of your business. It’s going to allow you to establish your true identity and culture. Creating or auditing a brand and the brand process can take a considerable amount of time and energy. It’s totally worth it though. This is how you ensure that people have an emotional connection to and your business. You’ll have just created a brand people love.

Okay, that’s all we have for you today, but I’m pretty sure that’s going to keep you busy for quite some time. We’re regularly creating content, so be certain to subscribe to our channel. Next. If you like this video and I’m pretty sure you did, feel free to share it with your fans, your friends, and your followers. Lastly, if you want to ask any questions or share some stories about your brand journey, use the comments field below. Thanks again for being here today and here’s to building brands people love!