The Truth Will Set You Free: Solopreneur Insights, Vol. 22

Here’s a refresher from my previous article:

Your brand is not what you say it is. Your brand is what they say it is.

If your brand is what they say it is, then the next logical question is this:

How do I get them to say what I want them to say?

This is a great question. But, it’s not the PERFECT question.

I’ll get to that in a minute.

First, I'll share the initial process I use when helping organizations build powerful brands. Some of you have heard me say that I begin my Brand Strategy process by describing that I’m an Archaeologist, not an Architect. That statement will make a lot more sense after this article.

Alright, let’s break down the great question into it’s two parts:

1. What do you want people to say?

2. How do you get them to say it?

We’re going to focus on the first question: What do you want people to say? Its answer leads us to a fundamental quality that’s critical to our brand’s success, which I will describe below. There are two components to what you want them to say:

1. What they say about you

2. What they say about your product/service

What do you want people to say about you? Most people will answer something like this: Trustworthy, great to work with, reliable, insightful, professional, honest, inspiring.

What do you want them to say about your product or service? It solved their problem, it was a good value, it was high-quality, that they would buy it again.

We could list out dozens of characteristics for each of these categories. For now, let’s just pick one desired statement from each:

You want them to say you are professional and your product/service is high-quality.

We’ll start with “professional.”

What factors contribute to them telling others you’re professional? Again, we’ll make a list with a sampling of professional characteristics:

1. Reliable

2. Accurate

3. Organized

4. Competent

5. Emotional Intelligence

This time, I’m going to break down each one. Listen: these aren’t just concepts. They are actionable tactics. Think of them as your “Code of Conduct” that you’re not willing to violate. I’ll give you one tactical example for each, though you could list out as many as you want.

Reliable

Reliability means I do what I say I’m going to do. I can set up and use technologies that assure I’m always on time.

Accurate

Accuracy means I’m careful and deliberate with my words and actions. I can make sure that I proofread and double-check everything before I send it out.

Organized

Being organized means there’s coherent order to what I do and say. I can build a step-by-step process for every customer touchpoint and apply that to a calendar.

Competent

Competence is about knowing your craft and how to communicate its value. I can spend 30 minutes per day solely focused on improving my core skill sets.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the skill of understanding other humans from their perspective. I can practice actively listening to others and making sure I fully understand them before I reply.

Remember that you started with a desire for people to say that you are professional. It benefits you when people say that. Which means it benefits you to ACTUALLY DO what a professional does. Breaking down each attribute to tactical steps is your key to making this happen. You’re going to find that you’re already doing many of the things on this list. That’s awesome. It means they’re already true. But, we don’t have to stop there. We can leverage these tactics to make sure we’re constantly improving, thus strengthening our overall brand.

Keep working the system

Think back to the original list: trustworthy, great to work with, reliable, insightful, professional, honest, inspiring. You now know the process for breaking down each of these to the tactical level.

This process is exactly the same when examining what you want them to say about your product/service. When you want them to say your product is high-quality, you can break down everything that goes into making your product high-quality. Then, make sure that you’re executing on each of these tactics.

Once you work through your list of characteristics, you end up with a nice org chart that shows you what’s already true and what you can do right now to improve your brand.

Why this makes you different

What happens when you build your brand from the ground up like this? You fundamentally shift your mindset from the “great” question to the “perfect” question. Why is the first question not perfect? Because, it leaves room for the charlatan. The charlatan believes he can trade influence for manipulation. He believes he can “spin” a message to fit his reality without fundamentally changing anything about the reality itself.

He’s the reason why trust is the single-most important factor in all of Branding. We know that people lie. They will say they are something they are not. We are instinctively on-guard against this kind of liar and fiercely loyal to those who do what they say. In fact, we’ll tolerate lots of imperfection before we tolerate dishonesty.

The strongest brands understand this. They’re obsessed with truth. Which brings me to the perfect question:

How do I inspire others to speak the truth?

I have much more to say about how you can inspire others. In particular, why the emotional mechanism of “inspiration” is superior to the logical mechanisms of “get” or “make” or “coerce” that make up the original question.

For now, your task is this: List out the characteristics you want people to say about you and your product/service. Break them down like I describe above until you get to actionable tactics for each. Determine which ones you’re already doing—the truth—and ones you need to work on so you can make them true. Not only will this immediately begin to set you apart from your competition, it lays the foundation for building a powerful brand that eventually means you have no competition.

As they say: The truth will set you free.

– Torrey