Reilly Newman | Due to the many famous examples of business success, we are all familiar with the fact that brand is a key component for true business growth because it is a common denominator of all the stories.
It’s not a matter of the brand being developed after the success of the business, but rather the brand being an interwoven aspect of the business as it grew. To attempt to grow a business without investing in the brand will result in stagnation. For a business to reach its full potential and not stagnate, brand and business must work in unison.
This is rooted in the fact that by investing in brand, the business expands the value it delivers to the audience. Expands the value? Yes! This is done by increasing the perceived value of the business and its offering. Just as value creation creates the basic offering you sell, brand furthers the growth of your business by capturing more margin beyond just the transaction. The business may be able to create value that it sells, but if this is not working with brand, it will never fully capture the potential of the value.
This potential is heavily rooted in perceived value which is essentially limitless. This is because the brand can elevate an experience as well as create more relevance with the buyer to be seen as more valuable in their eyes. Recently, you can see how – by selling a simple water bottle – the company Stanley has achieved this with their brand. Just as we may gravitate toward a brand that seems to “get us” more than another option, we are more willing to pay a premium for this. This additional value is captured via the premium the brand has made available to the business.
Just as a crew team must row in unison for optimized progress, brand and business must work in tandem to grow and benefit the system as a whole. Much like the rowers, if one rower in the boat is out of sync with their team, they are not only not helping the progress towards the goal, but actively working against the collective effort. If we focus too much on business over brand (or vice versa), we may make some progress, but will ultimately have to take steps backward to make up for the neglecting of the other side. The remedy to this would be to work both brand and business in-sync. Like the crew team, working in unison toward the goal is the best way to make progress and succeed. This is how Stanley increased their revenue 10x and went from $73 million to $750 million in just 4 years.
Further using Stanley as an example, their premium price on a standard water bottle is not rationally justified. Why pay a premium for a water bottle that performs the same as another less expensive one? However, the perceived value of the Stanley brand (as a cultural status symbol) and their products has catapulted the value to premium levels…and beyond. This has allowed the business to capture massive margins, brand partnerships, and headlines.
The brand expanded the value of the water bottles increasing the perception which the business was then able to successfully capture financially with profits. Stanley continues to do so in the market financially and aftermarket as buyers resell at multiples of the retail price which only builds the reputation of the business; the brand.
Brand works as a wonderful tool to help a business scaffold higher in revenue and, more importantly, profit. Even on Wall Street, investors have noted and conducted studies that top-performing public companies are those that have a solid brand. The brand is a precursor to their success and a common denominator among those that succeed.
A strong brand is something that takes time and nurturing, however it is never to early to make your brand a priority as it can lead to further business success. Some may not take the jump of investing in brand because of the “chicken or the egg” conundrum they project as they try to deem which should come first. Business success or brand? Brand or business success? Putting off a proper brand until your business has success is much like putting off going to the gym, getting married, or even having kids until “you’re ready” – anyone with experience will tell you that you’ll never be truly ready. However the act of doing so leads to further readiness that not only benefits you, but grows you in ways you never thought possible.
On the other hand, the other path is an easy, safe bet of continual waiting. Chicken or the egg is a binary mindset when true success is grown from a long-term, growth mindset…a brand mindset.
