How to KILL Your Brand

I’ve often explained follow up marketing using the analogy of a bank account.

When you deliver great value, you’re making a deposit.

When you try to aggressively sell, you’re making a withdraw.

Branding is essentially the same…anything that makes a deposit in the relational bank account and aggressive selling is anything that makes a withdraw.

Think about your own life as a consumer rather than a business owner.

We see people pound our inbox with sales messages.

Maybe it’s a mix of hard sell and soft sell…or maybe it’s entirely ‘Sale, Sale, Sale…everything 25% off’ with value ‘deposit’ mixed in.

Do you have a relationship with those businesses?

Sure – you may buy something if it’s cheap enough or if it fills a big enough need…but do you know, like and trust them?

Compare that with the business that gives, gives, gives…and then makes an offer.

Does that business have your trust?

Are you more likely to buy – even if you’re not sure that you have a huge need or if the price isn’t drastically discounted?

If you’re like most people the answer is yes.

If you want to kill your Brand – one of the fastest ways to do it is to screw up the ratio of adding value and extracting value.

If you’re selling via email…are you sending awesome content and connecting with people via email too?

You should be.

I feel that this is one of the most important things I do.

See, I’ve long believed that I share enough content for free to allow someone to build a tremendously successful business – if they just apply it.

That’s my ‘adding value.’ It’s me ‘making deposits.’

And it’s probably why I’ve had a bit of success when it comes to getting fitness entrepreneurs to work with me.

Honestly, I’d love to tell you I just figured this sort of thing out as a means of being different, but the truth is that it was just how I approached recruiting as a baseball coach and it carried over.

You’d identify a prospect and you’d follow up and build a relationship in hopes of them deciding to commit to your program and attend your school.

It was a process…not an immediate transaction.

What I was asking…’come to our school for the next 4 years’…was a big ask, so it merited me putting in the time and effort to build a relationship.

Deposits.

What we do is pretty much the same. We want someone to rearrange their life, trust us to help them reach their goals…and pay us as well.

A big ask.

So we should start by earning a relationship. Making deposits.

If you’re falling into this trap of making too many withdrawals without making enough of those deposits…fix it.

Start giving some of your best stuff…and do it more than you think you should.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but here’s what I’ve found to always be true in my own business:

If the free stuff is really, really good…they’ll have no problem paying for the products, services and programs where they’re a fit because they know that:

1. They can trust that you’ll deliver and they already know and like your approach.

2. If the free stuff is good they (correctly) assume the paid stuff will be awesome.

That approach will build your relationships, build your brand and grow your business.