Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

JASONGAN.COM


Jason + Life + Randomness

You have to set the system right

I mean, at least organize it right.

I was talking to a friend about his new network marketing business, pretty good plan with a fair deal of pros and cons (as usual) and he has some prospects to work on and a list of plans for the future on how to make money.

I was in network marketing before, and that lesson of failure taught me a lot, especially how to leverage the time and effort you can chip in as a person in order to maximize your chances towards success.

I mean chances, and chances only. Let me list down some points from the conversation.

You can't talk to everyone. If you can, you will die bored because talking about the same thing for 10times in a day doesn't make you a prophet. Start from finding the right points, leverage on something else that will help you to explain the basic. You just make sure you stay conscious in every conversation to analyze and observe. It's a conversation fergodsake.

Get help, yes you heard it right. But before that you need to know what you're lacking, list them down and start looking around. You may need a strategist (then you can use my service) or you may need a good copyrighter. There's so many ways to do one thing, and some success stories might not suit you, remember that always.

Lock your target market right - this needs a fair deal of research, Google about them. Don't try to hit the mass market, you ain't superman. Know your budget and plan it right. You don't need to spend big money to do marketing.

And lastly, know why you do it. The reason you do it will determine your drive in long run, get the objective right and stick to it, print it in your head if you can.

Leadership

Will determine the success of your marketing efforts.

If there's no Tony, AirAsia wouldn't have gone so far.

If there's no Morten Lundal, DiGi would be the same old DiGi, yellow won't be so impactful as it is to our life right now.

You need a face to represent the character of the organization. Think about the ancient war stories, if the general was not able to unite the soldiers, no victories will happen.

Your customers follow you, your investors got excited because of you. You not only lead your team, but the trend, the emotion of the consumers, the market itself will be looking at you.

So as the leader of the organization, you are the no.1 servant for the organization.

You're a brand manager

Because you yourself is already a brand.

Was sharing with a uni junior about creating and managing a brand identity, sorry for making the email a bit lengthy. I was too excited to witness a rise of a very exciting symbol.

In fact managing a brand is something we do everyday - it is just a matter of we've done it right or screwed badly.

Get off your stereotype thinking about how complicated managing a brand can be, let's get things to the basic one a little bit. Ask yourself few questions:
  1. Who are you? (Alt: What are you?)
  2. What are your strength and weaknesses?
  3. What is your Unique selling proposition? (Alt: What is your skill set?)
  4. Who is your target audience?
  5. Why they should know you?
  6. How you want them to perceive you? (Alt: How they perceive you?)
  7. How to make them know you and recognize you?
  8. What is the outcome you want to achieve? (Alt: Your dream?)
Take a little moment of yourself to think about that, I should get back to my proposal now.

I'm not a designer

But I do design, especially brand design.

Playing around with the designing tools to create a new identity that represent millions of possibilities behind it is simply an amazing experience.

I never learned design in a formal way, but I think I somehow have the sense to know what is needed to create a new symbol that able to create the desirable impact (and I'm learning from various channel to understand more all the time).

To me it doesn't matter if you're a pro while creating is simply a nature of we human being. When we were kiddo, we play around with LEGO and other toys and there was no rules - as long as you willing to try to make something out of it, you do it.

I'm not saying that designing is something as simple as playing with LEGO, but the imagination and willingness to make things happen is probably the most important element behind every impactful brand symbol. 

Designers go extra miles to understand the vision behind the brand, talking to people and looking for the best way to convey everything... and make it sell - a lot of branding are not totally about your skills to design, but your ability to capture the essense.

The essense of a brand designer, to me, is the ability to feel the brand and paint the feeling out. 

I hereby thank Jenna for her trust and willingness to let me explore and create my first two brands in my life and managed it; and Andrew for letting me design his important new show.

I shall share with you more about this later.

Is it the time to retreat or attack?

Maybe I'm being a little too optimistic, but I seriously think that something can be done at this point of time - recession.

Something effective can be done - while all your competitors are cutting their budget for whatever reason and getting a step back in their business strategies, we attack.

How to attack? How about taking this time to restructure your marketing strategy? Rebranding for a better positioning in the market? Maybe we do some retraining among the team and make them a more effecient and united one?

Since everyone is chicken-ing away - go a little extra miles could just make the difference - and so much can be done at this point of time, maybe starting a new business? Seth says he will do so if he hasn't started one.

Less competition means more opportunity - simple theory, no?

Remind yourself

Who you are, originaly and genuinely.

You have to keep growing, in short. I learned this from a conversation with a friend - or you will just lost your way in life.

And the most important thing of all, you must keep everything under some kind of measurement, and certain level of exposure.

I was commenting on her situation anyway, because to me, no matter how hard you work, your boss must know. If you say you're learning, you must know the progress and how far you've gone. Keep everything measurable, never ever fail as if you're measuring your marketing strategies.

It is as simple as if you're given a task, no one will care how hard you work - you sleep at 4am is none of my business. As long as the task is not completed, you fix it no matter how.

Sad case about building a brand

Is when you do not have any control over it, I means the management of it.

Many business owners wanted to have a brand, but they do not seem to understand what is a brand all about.

They usually think that by creating a logo for it and incorporating it into their business card, letterhead, envelope and stuff, things are done. What is brand management to them is simple - you give me the logo and I just incorporate it into everything I need to, your job is done.

Then the question is, what is the role for brand managers then?

Same goes to a personal brand, you need to manage it, communicate it well, strategize it well and then, only you can making the most out of it - making it your asset - the most valuable one for an organization.

A brand is not build on surface, it is created in minds.

It is sad when you see a brand that you built failing and falling apart because no one is managing it, delivering its promise, it is heart breaking especially you see a company is driving away from the vision of it - which come from the leader behind the organization.

To business owners: a brand is not what you say it is, it is what the customers say it is.

​