The Brand Introduction Blueprint

If you've ever grappled with how to succinctly and powerfully communicate your brand's essence, this episode is a masterclass you won't want to miss.

In this insightful episode with Mark Drager, delve into the art of effective brand introduction and why clarity is paramount. Drawing from his extensive experience across 29 industries, Mark introduces the "Brand Introduction Blueprint", a structured approach to crystallize your brand's message. Whether you're a solo business owner or juggle multiple offerings, learn how to articulate your brand consistently and compellingly. Mark not only provides a theoretical guide but emphasizes actionable steps, all while sharing candid anecdotes from his own brand journey with SalesLoop.

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Key Takeaways

The Importance of Clarity: In the crowded marketplace, clarity in brand messaging is crucial. Many businesses fail to convey their value proposition succinctly, leading to lost opportunities. Simplifying your message ensures you stand out and don't blend into the sea of mediocrity.

Brand Introduction Blueprint: Mark introduces a structured approach to brand messaging. This blueprint is a series of straightforward prompts that help businesses succinctly articulate who they are, what they offer, their target audience, and their unique value proposition. It's an essential tool for ensuring consistency and compelling communication across all touchpoints.

Action Over Theory: While having a clear framework is essential, its real value is realized when implemented. Businesses need to actively integrate this clarity into all their marketing and communication efforts, from networking sessions to sales calls. The effectiveness of a brand's message is determined not just by its design but its consistent delivery.

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Top 3 Reasons to Listen

Streamlined Messaging: By employing the Brand Introduction Blueprint, businesses can amplify their reach and resonance, ensuring they no longer get lost in the noise but instead create memorable connections with their audience.

Empowered Decision-Making: With a clear brand framework, businesses can make more informed choices, focusing their resources on initiatives that align with their core messaging and ensuring every effort maximizes brand impact.

Elevated Brand Perception: Through consistent and compelling communication, businesses not only enhance their visibility but also position themselves as industry leaders, fostering trust and driving increased engagement from both existing and potential clients.

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Links to This Episode

• Apple Podcast
• Spotify
• YouTube
• Audible

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More About our Host, Mark Drager

AKA the Badass Brand Architect, 5th Generation Entrepreneur, Host of The How To Sell More Podcast

When he's not podcasting, Mark's the Co-Founder & CEO of SalesLoop. He's a dedicated husband to his high school sweetheart, Jacqueline, and a proud father of four.

Mark didn't follow the typical route to becoming a sales & marketing expert. A connected figure in the entrepreneur community, Mark provides listeners with a unique mix of wit, insight, and straightforward advice.

Some of Mark's unconventional adventures include commandeering a Boeing 737-800 for a day, facing harsh criticism from a billionaire, and shedding 70 lbs in his late 30s. Though he never attended college, Mark stands as proof of the might of maintaining a student mindset and being ever-ready to seek assistance.

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A Transcription of The Talk

Welcome to How to Sell More. Today, we're discussing a strategic brand blueprint that you can use for your networking, branding, and everything you do. This will help you avoid confusing your prospects or blending into the sea of mediocrity out there. I'm Mark Drager. Let's dive in.

In my time as an agency owner for sales, marketing, and brand positioning, I've worked with hundreds of different companies and clients across 29 industries. What I've found is that it's challenging for most business owners, marketers, and salespeople to clearly and strategically present their company, brand, value proposition, and the pain points they address. Simplifying this information into a clear framework that everyone understands is tough. It requires trimming away a lot of what you want to say.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who oversees one company with five distinct offerings. They have software, done-for-you sales services, coaching, enablement, and other offerings either developed internally or acquired. However, when I was introduced to them, I had no idea what they did.

When you're networking, you can tailor your message to the specific audience, but when someone encounters your brand without that personal touch, you need hierarchy. Law firms often do this well. There's the law firm brand, practice groups like international law or contract law, and partners within those groups. Similarly, your business and my friend's business need clarity. With five different businesses, which one is the main focus? How do we convey through storytelling how the other business lines support the main one?

This is challenging because my friend doesn't want to favor one child over the others. They're all important and powerful in the right context. But we need simplicity for clarity. A while back, I was journaling about my business and other business owners in my life. If you need a house, you go to my family's residential development company. If your car needs fixing, my brother-in-law's body shop is the place. For tax planning, you go to an accountant, and for legal matters, a lawyer.

Is your business that clear? Does my friend's five-business company make sense to those introduced to it? Do they know where each offering fits?

So, I want to share a straightforward yet challenging guide to winning prospects over: the Brand Introduction Blueprint. It's a simple framework you'll fill in, and I'll share it with you right now. Get your paper, journal, or Word doc ready. If you're busy, no worries. DM us on Instagram @salesloopbrand for the Brand Introduction Blueprint document.

Here's how the framework works. You'll fill in the blanks. I'll give you the categories now. Ready? We are... (dot dot dot). Next, write down... (dot dot dot). For... (dot dot dot). They can... (dot dot dot).

Next, without having to do, we do it because we found here are the results. And here's the proof. So I just rhymed off a whole bunch of things, and hopefully, you're writing them down, but we're gonna go through them piece by piece.

This introduction framework helps create a really simple roadmap for you so that way on your landing pages, on your email marketing, on your inbound sales calls, when you're out there networking or meeting people, it's almost like a blueprint for an elevator pitch or a keynote speech or an elevator pitch.

But, we are a…What are we? An agency? A sales floor? A coaching company? An accounting firm? A service-based business? Like how would you describe it?

For us at SalesLoop, we are a branding agency. Now, sometimes we introduce ourselves as a branding agency. Sometimes we say we're a brand strategy agency, sometimes we say brand strategy firm, you get the idea. It's a very easy thing for people to understand if they know our services.

We are a… so you're gonna fill that in. What type of business are you in? How is it that we can explain this in the easiest way possible? We are a…I would hate to use the word logistics company, but because that's what people in logistics use but a trucking company, we are a manufacturer we are, you know, just simple terms. So we understand and can place where you are.

Second, for this is your specific target. We are a, type of company for…

At SalesLoop. Right. We are a brand strategy agency for B2B service-based owner-managed seven and eight-figure businesses.

I know that we work with B2B businesses, we work with the owners of these businesses, they are at seven or eight-figure yearly revenues. And they need to be service-based. But when I start to explain this to people, it makes it really clear. This is the type of company we are. And this is who we help.

Now, the next one, who needs help? So this is going to be your product or service outcome. We are this type of company for these types of people who need this help. With SalesLoop, I'll just keep using us as an example, with SalesLoop, we work with people who need help selling more, right, because their message is unclear. Their brand is unclear, the strategy is unclear. They're not standing out, they don't understand their customer journeys. They don't understand our customers, they don't know how to compete, right, like they struggle with sales.

And so, as a brand strategy agency who works with B2B service-based owner-managed seven and eight-figure businesses who need help selling more, right, it starts to come together. That is what we do. So how does your business help people? What do your targets need help with? Or what is the outcome of the service or product that you offer?

And then the next is, so they can…

Write what is the main benefit to them. So we work with B2B businesses who need help with sales. So they can, our line is…sell more, faster, and easier. So they can sell with more credibility. So they can shorten the sales process. So they can increase ROI. Right? These are the main benefits of people working with us. What are the main benefits of people working with you?

The next line, without having to…and this is a pain point. Without having to…

In our case, spend 18 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to learn this themselves. Without having to throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. Without having to go out there and hire a really big complicated expensive in-house team. Without having to just trust that some young agency or some freelancer or someone is just gonna come along and do the hard work for them, whatever it might be, but this is the main pain point that they're facing.

So we are…a type of company…for a specific target…who needs help with something…so they can (that’s the main benefit)…without having to (that’s the pain point). 

And now here's where things get a little bit interesting. We do it at SalesLoop because we found…

And this is the epiphany or this is your WHY. With the thousands of projects we've worked on, with 300 Plus clients in 29 industries over 15 years. We've produced something like $13 million in creative content for clients of all sizes. And we found that they have the same challenges and the same issues. I can go into that. But this isn't a sales pitch for me. But you see what I'm saying here, right?

So we definitely want to be clear with the type of company we are, who we're working with, what the help is that they require. So they can, as the main benefit, without having to, we do it because we found, and you can throw in another line. And on top of that, to help make things easier for our clients, we also offer 12345. But we find that those come secondary to this one first need. And we can get into that if you want, but here are the results. And here's the proof, and off you go.

Now, if you're in a networking environment, when you own five different companies like my friend does, the reason I forced them to work through this process is very simple. This very simple brand introduction blueprint is because it forces you to limit what you can say and how you can say it. You can't say we are five different companies who do five different things for 10 Different people with 17 different outcomes, and 32 different pain points. You just, you can't do that, this forces you to think in really simple terms.

And then you can work into the story and the positioning, how the other companies work in. So, in the case of my friend, let's say maybe you're like him, and you have multiple service lines, multiple products, multiple things, right. We are this type of company for these types of people who need help with this way. So they can, without having to, we do it because we found, and you can throw in another line. And on top of that, to help make things easier for our clients, we also offer 12345. But we find that those come secondary to this one first need. And we can get into that if you want, but here are the results. And here's the proof.

Now if you're in a networking session, you can do as much or as little of this as you want. But if you have this thought process memorized, it's really easy to just fall into and go into if you're being interviewed for podcasts, you're putting yourself out there but but even think in terms of your outbound. So how are you marketing yourself? What are your initial calls? Like? What is your introduction like? How are people getting to know you? And what's that initial point of contact?

So, in my experience, very few companies have something this clear. And I think that's a shame. I think that forcing yourself to get this clear, get this specific and stick with it not only helps with clarity amongst what you are doing if you're an entrepreneur like me, that's constantly changing, constantly growing new ideas, throwing things into the mix. It helps us recenter ourselves. It helps give clarity to our team and our vendors in terms of the company we are, but but most importantly, it helps us introduce our brand, our company, our value prop, who we work with, how we know it works, the results we drive, and the reasons why we do all the things that we do in just what is it seven simple lines.

So to wrap up, let's hit the three-point roundup. Number one, if you're unsure, if you are not 100% confident that you can introduce your company the same way each and every single time with consistency and create a really compelling an easy-to-understand way of explaining and introducing who you are, you need to dig deeper and look into a blueprint or framework like I just shared with you.

Number two, the power of the brand introduction blueprint is that it forces you to get really clear, really simple. And it helps give you a structure to work through from top to bottom that you can then take to other parts of your marketing your sales mix.

And number three, none of this stuff matters if you don't implement it. We didn't cover that off. But that really is the third key point here. If you don't have a framework like this, then you not only need one, but you need to spend the hour or two just thinking through it. I like to do this while I'm out cutting the grass. You know, I'm sitting out there on my riding mower. I'm thinking about these things. I'm cutting the grass, I'm rolling these ideas in my mind in my head. I use Otter, which is a transcription app. So I can just talk into my phone as I come up with new ideas. But if you've not worked through something like this, you really need to.