Building Your Brand One Interaction at a Time

Sometimes a gift just falls in your lap (or lands in your email box). As I was contemplating a branding blog post I was working on this morning, I received this email from one of our advisory firm clients. What a pleasure when one’s work is truly appreciated, and even better when the client really “gets” it. There are some really great insights here, and I share with his permission:

Hey, Wendy:

I’m reading a book and insight180 came to mind. The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do what They Do and How They Do It So Well, by Camille Sweeney & Josh Gosfield. The book features interviews with respected, high profile professionals about how they do what they do. I heard the authors interviewed on two different radio programs during their book tour.

One of those professionals was Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. He joined the company in its infancy as an investor and now it’s a billion dollar company. One of his 10 principles is: Build your brand one interaction at a time.

“When you think about a brand, you don’t mentally pull up a list of bullet points; you either think ‘I love this company’ or ‘ not’. Ultimately a brand is a short cut to a set of emotions … One of the best branding opportunities is the telephone … We don’t script our reps … If he or she gets the interaction right … the customer is going to remember us for a very long time.”

In the old days, my sales manager called this “belly-to-belly selling.” Face-to-face might be a better term, and today it might be Skype-to-Skype.

As you know, this is the sales model for advisory services — personalized interaction. Yesterday, I had a lunch meeting and I wanted to share how insight180 helped.

Scott Adelman, from Next Level Technology (and part of the Sales and Marketing Roundtable at Howard Tech Council, where all three of us are members) recommended me to a cybersecurity practitioner contact of his in the Baltimore-Washington area. Scott’s contact also has many additional contacts in the cybersecurity space, so for me, this expert represents both a market channel and an additional capability for my prospects. We were able to connect and have a conversation.

Near the start of our conversation, he mentioned our website. He talked about Coordinated Response with familiarity. He liked the idea behind the company and immediately made the connections that you helped us discern with brand messaging. Wow! All that from the web site! He even bought lunch. I sent him a postcard (yes THE postcard you designed as a followup) thanking him and summing up the next steps. I sent a postcard thanking Scott, too.

It made me think of Hsieh’s practice, building a brand one step at a time:

• Introduction by mutual, professional acquaintance.
• Website tells the story in a HIGHLY professional manner (style plus content)
• Face-to-face meeting to establish connection
• Exchange business cards (visual brand reinforced)
• Good dialog on value of potential partnership
• Agree to follow up meeting in a few weeks
• Postcard of appreciation (slow down the conversation, reinforce the visual brand).

This new contact offered to introduce me to the CIO at an educational institution that I have identified as a key prospect. That is trust, pretty much all we can ask for. . . .and insight180 helped. Once again I want to thank you and your team for your creativity, guidance, expertise and execution of the Coordinated Response brand.

Jim Meyer, Managing Director
Coordinated Response 

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