Everything a business does, how it does it, and how people feel about it is driven by brand. What people think before and after they leave, your reputation, perception, staff motivation and culture is all part of branding. Branding is how you look, how you feel and act. It is what you represent and what you stand for. Brand so much more than a logo or a marketing plan. Make no mistake branding works, it is the key factor in ensuring your clients do not look elsewhere for services you provide.

If you do not have a strategic brand, chances you are saying all the wrong things. Businesses often compete by offering a better product, or making it at a lower cost than their rivals - and that’s the strategy most of the time. Get it right, and you have a good, solid business – in the short term. Competitiveness isn’t about product or cost, because over the long term, anyone can market a competing product, or beat you on cost. Winning this kind of competition depends on a deeper resource than your price or service: it’s not about what you do, but about who you are.

Business don’t take this seriously enough. They manage what they do, not who they are. Most business have budgets for stationary or advertising, but none for culture or branding projects. If you think that branding is a logo or a way to communicate externally, then you are looking at short term. Branding is key to long-term success. Simply put, brand is the most powerful communications tool in the world, yet few organizations consciously create, manage and use a brand identity (brand name, positioning, culture, etc.) to market their products or services.