Vision & Values, the Heart of your Brand

Our last posting talked about IQ, EQ and SQ, the difference between them and the need for each of these to be reflected in your marketing. It’s vital that your audience of potential and actual customers don’t just know you’re your products and services, the IQ, but are motivated to respond in the way that you want them to, the EQ, because they know that you stand for what they stand for, and they like it, the SQ.

All of which brings us back to an earlier post, about vision and belief. It may seem obvious, but you can’t instigate a successful marketing plan without knowing your brand, and your brand is little more than a logo and a look until you have clearly established vision and values, vision and belief.

One sometimes hears about companies losing their way, forgetting who their clients are, not getting it right, and more often than not the finger of blame gets pointed at the door of those making the decisions about what that organisation is selling. It’s not entirely fair, because what’s really happening in most of these cases is a lack of shared vision and values, and it usually comes about because those heading the organisation now are not those who originally set the vision.

It’s not hard to see how this happens. Owners sell, MDs move on, staff turns over and those responsible at the outset for creating the vision and determining the values are no longer there; and so the new management inherits a vision and set of values belonging to their predecessors, which they may, or may not, share…

Where is this taking us? Here: The absolute basis and foundation for your branding is rooted in the vision and values you have for your company. Everything else grows out of this. If you haven’t revisited your vision and reassessed your values and beliefs as a company recently, now might be a good time.