Episode #9: Is Your Business In Trouble? (5 Warning Signs That You May Fail)

If you don’t know who you are, why you exist, what you believe in, or what you’re trying to achieve, your business is destined to struggle in today’s highly competitive brand focused and community driven market.

After completing weeks of research and audits into your company, your customers, and your competitors, it’s your brand strategy that will become the guide that you will use to design your identity, articulate your business, and develop your targeted marketing campaigns.

A well developed brand strategy will define who you are, your values, your beliefs, and will act as a blueprint to properly communicate it to your audience. It will emphasize the vision of your business, and highlight your mission.

It will also differentiate your business from the competition so you can focus on your unique competitive advantage.

A well-written and implemented brand strategy will connect with the emotional needs of the consumer and dictate all your brand communications.

It will include your purpose, personality, positioning, vision, values, mission, message, voice, name, proposition, and visual identity.

With all that said, over time many businesses forget about the importance of their brand and fail to consistently audit and monitor the health of their brand.

Or even worse, they jump into product development and marketing too soon, without a solid brand strategy in place to properly guide their future actions and decisions.

And then they wonder why they are unable to connect with their audience, beat the competition, and build a community of loyal brand advocates.

If your organization is not exceeding the goals that you are setting for it, or achieving the vision that you once had. I am here to help.

Let’s begin by looking at 5 key warning signs that your business may be in trouble and in desperate need of a well developed and designed brand strategy.

Warning Sign Number 1:

You have not defined your purpose, vision, mission, or values.

The success of your organization depends heavily on defining and consistently following the heart of your brand.

Your brand heart is your brand purpose, which is the reason why you exist.

Your brand vision, which are your goals and the future you want to help create.

Your brand mission, which is what you are here to do, and how you will create your future,

And your brand values, which are the principles that guide your behavior.

If these are not well defined, then you don’t have the foundation to build a successful business.

Therefore all your supporting messaging, positioning, and visual identity will not be consistent or resonate with your target audience.

Warning Sign Number 2:

You develop marketing campaigns and advertisements and just hope they will work.

Once again, if you have failed to define your brand purpose, vision, mission, and values, you are missing the foundation required to promote and grow your business.

Without a proper plan, strategy, and guidelines in place, your marketing efforts will be a waste of your time and your money.

Warning Sign Number 3:

Your employees are disengaged, unmotivated, and failing at their roles.

A well developed brand strategy not only communicates and connects with your customers, but it also unifies and engages your employees.

The first, and most influential brand advocates are your internal team members. These are the people who live and breathe the brand every single day.

Plus they are the individuals who speak and interact with your customers.

So it is crucial that you have a proper brand strategy in place to guide them and help them to support and grow the organization.

Warning Sign Number 4:

You don’t have cohesive brand messaging or visual identity.

Your messaging is how you speak to your target audience.

It is your language, your inflection, your tone, the words you use, and the words you don’t use.

A well crafted message will attract and resonate with your audience because it reflects their own personality and values.

And your visual identity is how you connect and engage visually with your audience.

Your logo, colors, typography, and imagery must invoke the correct emotions that reflect your brand.

If your messaging and visual identity is not well defined, then your content will be inconsistent and contradictory, which will lead to consumer confusion.

Warning Sign Number 5:

You are unable to clearly articulate your brand.

The unique positioning of your brand in the marketplace will make the difference between your brand rising up above the competition, or just fading away in the background.

Without a well positioned and differentiated brand, you will be unable to stand out in the crowded marketplace.

So there you have it. I sincerely hope that your business is not currently experiencing any of these warning signs.

But if you are, the good news is that you now know what to look for, so you have time to correct them by developing a proper brand strategy to guide your organization towards success.