Tuesday, October 5, 2010

What Santana & Olympic Medalist, Jonny Moseley Can Teach Us About Branding

Banding your business in an authentic and sincere manner, is the perfect way to make your potential audience fall in love with you. When you make them fall in love with you, they will want to purchase more of your work and rave to their friends & family about you.

When I was a young whipper snapper, I made my way to sunny California from the Midwest. With in the first week of my arrival, my younger cousin Melissa invited me to come work at the local golf and tennis store, where she had been working for the past year. I was thrilled! I was young, going back to college, having fun in a new and magical place(near the OCEAN) and now working part time at a job that put me in touch with many celebrities on a regular basis, such as Hewey Lewis, Santana and beyond.

Within my first month working there, I got the great privilege of ordering Santana's signature trademark red kangol hats for him personally...and even cooler, I got to string his tennis racket, which had a sweet spot about the size of a dime! (He was a very good tennis player!)

Another blazin' celebrity my cousin and I were proud to serve... Olympic Ski Champion, Jonny Moseley.

What does all of this have to do with business you ask???
We're gonna get to that...

My cousin is somewhat of a ravin' beauty, who resembles an Italian Movie Star. She received a lot of attention from the "male" customers, especially from Mr. Moseley, who didn't just come into our store to talk golf. He was interested in learning more about the Italian Goddess in the short tennis skirt, standing behind the "stringing machine".

Since there were several handsome young men coming in to ogle over Melissa, I had a tough time remembering who was who. However, I always remembered Jonny, because he wore a funny cap with a propeller on the top. You know, the kind that Urkel on Family Matters would wear.

While you would think that all of us would recognize Jonny from his Olympic fame, he was really not that easily recognizable in regular street clothes and lack of ski gear. But, that ridiculous hat, always gave him away! You would never expect a young Olympic Champion, who was glamorized as such a "stud" by the media, to be walking around wearing such a dorky hat. (Maybe that was part of his plan to throw people off his trail or maybe he just liked wearing the hat.)

Whatever the case, I always knew he was the one with the propeller on top of his head! I could never mistake him. Are you still wondering what all this has to do with business?

Here's the link, and If you have studied much about "branding", you might have already began to make the connection;

Johny had a trademark that set him apart from the rest, just like Santana and his red kangol hat. Both celebrities made themselves distinctive (although Jonny's may or may not have been intentional), by branding themselves with something as simple as a hat. Adding and accessory that says, "yes, it's me" and continuing to wear it excessively, is one small way of "branding". There are infinite ways to creatively deploy "branding" your business and yourself, and this is only one example, but it is an excellent one.

The more outrageous and out there your method, the more egregious you become and the more likely people are to remember you. These two examples may not fit your personality, and you may prefer a different more toned down approach, but the point is that setting yourself apart from others in your field, is a powerful way to connect with your idea customers.

The more of the amazing "you" and the more of "your incredible unique personality" you share with your audience, the more they will be inclined to connect with you and support your business by purchasing your work, staying loyal through the years and telling their friends and family about you.

The more you show your unique self, your quirkiness and even your weird habits(Well, not TOO weird), the more you will draw in the people "meant" to experience you and purchase your work.

Branding is not limited of course to one antic such as wearing a unique hat... and a hat does not need to be your antidote for branding yourself, but finding your own unique way to imprint "you" in the minds of others, is an effective and proven way to reach your target audience.

Think of what says "you" and what can really make you stand out and make you a memorable character in the minds of your target audience. And as always, it should be authentic, not contrived.

In the next post you will find an extensive awesome exercise, designed to help you come up with many ways to create your own "personal brand" in business. Then we will leave this topic and move on to "FEAR"...(overcoming it through liberation and empowering your mind to let go of those pesty, petty voices that try to tell you, you suck, you can't do it, you aren't worth it, your work's not worth it, you're going to shrivel up and die working at a crappy non-art related job, or whatever other crap your mind tries to feed you! Stayed tuned... Can't wait to see you soon!

Freea L. Sarti
Art Advocate & supporter of the "hand-made" movement!
Lovin' all the talent out there connecting with me on twitter and facebook! Will see some of you at the holidays guys and gals!

www.launchingcreativity.com

CURRENT RAD OFFER;
Next 50 artists/crafters to sign up for my FREE business plan on my home page will receive a bonus PDF entitled Pricing Your Art Work with Integrity! Allow a day or two for it to be delivered to your in box! Just put your name and email in the form at
www.launchingcreativity.com

No comments:

Post a Comment