What does building a brand mean?

Brand: a name, sign, symbol, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service, or business.

Everyone says they can build a brand, but what does that actually mean?  A brand could be positive or negative, however most brands would love a positive perception of their products or services.  Especially in today’s social economy, your clients could be yelping you to the bottom of the food chain if your brand does not have a positive influence.  In the past you could just push it and they will come, but now the people communicate with each other and are building your brand for you.  It is your duty to provide them with the right tools to do so.

Why building a brand is important?

Building a brand is important because now your brand is intangible.  Customer service, loyalty, trust, and identity are just some of the branches that make up a brand.  The social interwebs have connected everyone, thus creating a transparent network that people talk about.

This means that you can’t make a really cool looking product that was made of plastic in a sweatshop because people simply are not going to buy it.  In today’s economy you need to take everything into consideration, especially your brand.

How do we build brands?

We live by our GSD philosophy.  20+ years ago, the idea of building brands was a much more complicated feat than it is today.  The Internet has paved way for entrepreneur driven economy.  Now the internet has created a bottom-up concept that has allowed feasible growth on all-levels.  We simply break down the process as follows:

• Qualify the market
• Secure deliverables
• Analyze the business name or product
• Understand packaging
• Patent & Trademark
• Develop Messaging strategy
• Communication

If you are ready to grow your brand then you should get going!

OUR HISTORY

FollowThePrince is a natural outgrowth of Christopher Prince Boucher’s experiences doing lifestyle consulting at Prince Consulting & Services (PC&S).  Boucher learned firsthand about the combined power of communities, networks, brands, and social media in guaranteeing entrepreneurial success.  He used social networks to market PC&S’s services and to build the relationships that would augment his brand’s presence.

Individuals and businesses used social media to request PC&S’s services for various projects and to recommend PC&S’s services to others in their networks.  Social media led to many diverse and non-traditional connections that further enhanced the PC&S brand and its bottom-line.  Now FollowThePrince will take that effective model and apply it to brands to ensure that they surpass their potential.

OUR BRAND

FollowThePrince (FTP) is a cutting-edge digital creative group.   FTP combines creative marketing tactics, social media smarts, and entrepreneurial principles to provide businesses with the tools, ideas, and support required to develop and spread their unique brands.  We can help entrepreneurs, established businesses, and individuals become highly visible for less money and more efficiently than with standard marketing and PR firms.

OUR MISSION

We will form viable communities who are excited by and engaged with your brand.  Every entrepreneur needs a strong community that will share and support a brand.  Entrepreneurs need tools to create this community and launch effective brand campaigns in social networks.  We will provide the key information and essential applications to facilitate sustained engagement between your brand and its community across social networks.

OUR LOGO

The Conversation Crown is a key part of FTP’s ideology on entrepreneurship, brands, and social networks.  The Crown grew from a conversation about a sentence in Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous treatise, The Prince.

He wrote, “I deem it best to stick to the practical truth of things rather than to fancies.”

That got us talking about practical truths and our enterprise.  We are not a fancy.  A client is not a fancy.  We believe we can do amazing things for our clients through smart use of creative content and social networks.  Clients come to us for something genuine, something viable, and something practical, not for flash and impossible promises.

The practical truth is that no enterprise can survive without a community.  Enterprises need believers, fans, followers, evangelists, etc.  They keep a brand alive.  As the community grows, so does your business.

Our Conversation Crown represents that community — the community that is essential to the survival of any contemporary enterprise.  Each point on the Crown is a human form, representing the five tenets of our community-building philosophy: Listen, Optimize, Create, Network, and Manage.  Instead of a human head, we use a talk bubble head, representing constant conversation.

Wear the Crown and become the leader.
Wear the Crown and blaze a trail.
Wear the Crown and spread your message.

We want to Crown you.  Follow the Prince.

As you can see, we Love David Allen & Getting Things Done.  We thought to create our own little version called Getting Sh*t done!  It provides a guideline for how we get things done at FollowThePrince.com

Listen

Listening is the foundation of any relationship.  Unless you completely understand what is being expressed, there is no possible way to proceed to the next step of processing.  Write it down, type it up, or EverNote it!

Process

After listening, this is where you really think about what you just heard or observed.  This allows you to form a strategy or system based on the content, form, or idea.  Mind Maps would be an optimal choice for geting that idea sparked.

Engage

This is where you set up the foundation of the preparation, but actually creating actions around getting sh*t done.  These are specific things that actually create the system, so when you are doing it, there is not much more cause everything is being collected that you missed.  Use that elbow grease.

Do

This is where you are actually solving the issues at hand.  While you are actually doing things and getting them done, new things will happen.  Make sure to keep collecting these, so that you can refer back to step 1.

Review

Finally you must make this a ritual weekly, monthly, and yearly event.  We suggest weekly, but do what you feel comfortable with.

You can use these steps to accomplish the following:

• Create a proposal
• Create a marketing strategy
• Organize your business
• Anything!

Here is clear vision of our Getting Things Done method that @MarcStreet developed.

cul·ti·vate (kŭl’tə-vāt’)
tr.v. cul·ti·vat·ed, cul·ti·vat·ing, cul·ti·vates

• To improve and prepare (land), as by plowing or fertilizing, for raising crops; till.
• To loosen or dig soil around (growing plants).
• To grow or tend (a plant or crop).
• To promote the growth of (a biological culture).
• To nurture; foster. See Synonyms at nurture.
• To form and refine, as by education.
• To seek the acquaintance or goodwill of; make friends with

Anyone can grow a garden or build a house, while at the same time build a sustainable community in the digital world to enhance the garden or aesthetics of the home.  The 21st Century is a much different world than the last, but has the same ideals.  The only difference is that the value you have will now be transparent.  In a supply driven economy, there is no perception of abundance so much value is lost and never fully recognized.

Today, over 1.5B people are connected around the world and suddenly there is a conscious that abundance is feasible.  So in turn, this age of ‘demand’ envelopes an opportunity to create & curate to build and grow your networks.  Cause we all have more than 1 network…

Develop a mutually beneficial relationships with every person you meet.

Whether you are one on one or in a social circle, delivering quality filtered information is true value.  Now you ask, what value do I have?  How do I know what value my network is looking for?  Well simple, if you follow our 5 Rules for GSD then you know that the first step is listening.  Listening only happens though when you ask questions, so make sure to listen by researching if you have the opportunity, but regardless ask questions you are truly interested about.  Here are some questions you can use during your next event.

• How did you begin your journey?
• What is your passion?
• What have been your biggest obstacles?
• What do you most enjoy about your business?
• Make sure to qualify things of mutual interest