Your struggle with branding yourself or your business comes from two conflicting fears:
- You don’t know who you are;
- You don’t want to ruin what you already did/created/have
This places you at the crossroads between ignorance and fear. A lousy place to be (and we’ve all been there). As a result, you are hesitant to put a foot forward, in any direction, because of where you’ve been and where you fear to tread.
By the way, this is true for everyone I’ve ever worked with who had a brand to create, build, or promote.
You can feel attached to an old idea of who you are, an idea you think others have of you, and limiting ideas about what you CAN do. And my very favorite thing in the world is to kick those ideas over like tables in a kung fu movie.
Here are the clear markers of a brand in distress:
You’re getting a lot of business you don’t want. This is what happens when you try to serve “more” people at the expense of a more focused approach. The fear of course is that if you limit or focus, you will exclude some people and “lose” business. Don’t think about it as losing biz, but as qualifying the business you get.
You’re doing what feels safe, instead of what’s compelling. Once you develop a comfort zone with your brand or business, it’s easy to stay there. This is big trouble in little China. Because you will convince yourself that you’re “fine the way it is.” Is it, though? I’m not saying you have to go out on a limb and do crazy, off-brand stuff. But where are you pushing the envelope?
You’re striving to be competitive rather than different. Sally Hogshead (one of my faves) says in her book, How the World Sees You, that someone will always be better at this or that. If you try to be “better” than everyone, you will lose. How do you know? You’re mimicking what other brands are doing, and then trying to be the same but cheaper. And you’re more concerned with if you’re as good as, rather than leveraging what makes you memorable.
The drive to be competitive is the drive to keep up. The drive to be different is the drive to stand out—which, let’s face it, goes against everything you’re encultured to think. It’s human nature to worry whether you’re good enough, whether you fit in, whether you can be taken seriously. But if you continue to make efforts to make your brand like the others, you will be like the others, an also-ran. That ain’t no place to be.