Following from what I have written previously about creating a loyal fan base, I decided to expand on the idea of knowing your brand and staying true to this no matter what.
In order to build trust with your (local) fan base, it is imperative that you know who you are and that you know who your ‘ideal’ customer is. Imagine your friends admire you because you have this seemingly great life―a happily married, loyal, healthy and vibrant mum. You have attracted those friends (customers) because of who you are (brand).
Now imagine you met a new friend who led you down a different path. You suddenly started partying, giving up your healthy routine, cheating on the partner and being a bad mum. Your loyal following of friends start to lose faith in you. They don’t trust you anymore as you are no longer who they thought you were (brand). This is the perfect way to lose your customers. It applies to almost any area of life; we just don’t think about it.
When we took some time to think it over, something interesting happened. We realised that the words we choose to describe our brand were actually the words that described us as business owners. Now we use these exact words to choose our products and our staff with the goal of keeping our brand message consistent and our loyal followers happy. As long as they know they can rely on us, they will continue to love our brand.
Go to the beach one morning and ask yourself, which three to five words would describe my business/brand/shop? Does it sound like I am describing my own personality?
Is your business consistently representing the personality words that you chose? If not, how can you do this on a daily basis? Remember, if people trust you, they will buy from you and the only way they can trust you is if you trust yourself. The only way you can trust yourself is if you stay true to who you are.
By Tui Cordemans, founder of Koh Living
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