How To Build A Big Brand

By now, as a member of this community – you already know that – things grow exponentially when given enough time & effort.

You even have your one thing already-

And you have realized that Brand > Product, and that if you build a solid brand, then EVERYTHING you sell will likely be successful (I will show you why in a bit).

Today, we will talk about ‘’How to Build a Brand’’ because, let’s face it – it is a vague concept.

Everyone talks about it, but few people explain it to the point where you REALLY understand it enough to apply it in real life.

So, I’ll get right to it.

A Brand is what people think about your business.

It is that simple.

So when we say ‘’Build a Big & Long Lasting Brand’’, it simply means –

‘’Get as many people as possible to THINK of your business in such a way that they buy from it over and over again’’

Finish.

Now think about this:

Why do you prefer to buy a Phone from SLOT but not from an unknown random roadside phone store?

Two reasons:

1. You TRUST that SLOT will give you a good phone.
2. You have seen SLOT around enough to recognize it anywhere you go.

These two translate to

1. Trust
2. Distribution

You need to focus on these two elements to have a big business.

Let me break this down.

I recently started buying physical things online for the first time (things that aren’t books or courses).

This made me realize that things are RARELY the way they are advertised, and the feeling I get when this happens is – “never buy from this person again.”

This has made me see that when you build a business online, like most of you will, the product is the marketing.

If you want to build a long-term brand, then the ONLY EMOTION to engineer is TRUST (we will cover how to engineer trust in my coming posts).

The moment the ‘’what I ordered vs what I got’’ emotion goes wrong for your customer, you have lost the customer.

The key to building a long-term brand is ”Certainty”. Nothing beats the satisfaction of realizing you’ll get your money’s worth from a purchase.

Hence, buying from SLOT beats buying by the roadside at Computer Village because the emotion behind the decision is hinged on “I am sure I won’t be disappointed.”

If there’s no Certainty, the next time you need a sale, you will always start from zero or get a new customer.

But a long-term brand should be able to stand on its own without the expense of marketing;

Think of every brand you use OVER & OVER again, you can repeat your purchases because they do NOT give you buyer’s remorse.

You do not have the “what I got vs what I ordered” problem with them, and as such, the products of these brands last long.

Examples – Coca-Cola, St Louis Sugar, and so on.

Amazon warehouses sellers’ products – well, for two reasons.

One: to make sure the product is good quality, hence reducing the ‘’what I got vs what I ordered’’ problem

Then, for the second element of BRANDING – Distribution.

You can recognize Chicken Republic everywhere you go.

Same with Access Bank.

This is distribution in action.

Once you have a solid product, you need to ensure that as many people as possible can access it, which means you need to find a distribution pipeline.

Let me give you an example using MoniePoint.

They are microfinance banks. Before now, people distrusted microfinance banks or simply did not use them until they came on the scene…but when they got into Nigeria, they first went hard on building TRUST because the Product is the marketing. So they made sure to build an INFRASTRUCTURE that had super low downtime.

Then, for distribution, rather than PHYSICAL LOCATIONS, they created POS agents and pushed their POS machines like crazy.

This was their distribution strategy.

Now, everyone in business has a MoniePoint POS.

(Note: while pushing your distribution, make it identical so anyone can recognize it at a glance. You know a MoniePoint POS just by looking at it, same with other banks and popular eateries)

If you do not learn anything else from me, just learn this, and you will have a super big business –

One: Engineer Trust. The Product is the marketing.

Two: Then Make your product recognizable and distribute it as aggressively as you can.

Big brands are big because people trust them, and they DISTRIBUTE the living daylight out of their product/brand. These are the ONLY two strategies to focus on if you want to build a big business.

…and you will have a brand that does not depend on consistent marketing to bring in good numbers.

We will stop here today. Tomorrow we will continue on HOW to engineer trust and distribute your brand