Are You Denying Your Inner Chunky Monkey?
01/03/17 Good Juju and Brands that Have It , How to Brand Your Juju , Personal Juju # , , , , ,

Are You Denying Your Inner Chunky Monkey?

Yesterday I had a wonderful question from a participant in Unforgettable U, my online branding program. In effect, she asked, “Juju, what if I tailor my branding and my message to a specific audience, and in doing so, I push away everyone else?”

 

In essence, she asked, what if I limit my possibilities with my brand?

 

I love this question, because it gets straight to the heart of truly powerful branding.

 

Developing an effective brand is an act of bravery.

 

It involves looking deeply inside yourself – and your business – to identify what you believe, what you stand for, and what you can bring to the world.

It also involves looking deeply into the specific hopes, dreams, fears and frustrations of potential clients or customers.

And most importantly, it involves making a promise that what you deliver will be designed to address those very hopes, dreams, fears and frustrations.

 

When you do that, you’ll be a serious turn-on for a very specific group. Others will feel lukewarm about your promise or offers. While still others will be turned off, or entirely repelled.

 

But there’s an important lesson in this:

 

You will go further, faster, with a smaller group of raving, loyal fans who are committed to you and your message, than with an enormous group who could take it or leave it.

 

Great branding is kind of like ice cream…

 

Nearly everyone likes vanilla and chocolate ice cream. If you bring either of these to a birthday party, just about everyone will eat the cake – with the ice cream – and be fine. They may even be satisfied. But they’re not going to talk about the ice cream. They’re not going to say, “Oh, my God!! Who brought the vanilla?!! I love vanilla! I haven’t had vanilla in ages!”

 

You feel me here, right? No one ever created a “moment” with vanilla ice cream.

 

On the other hand, if you bring Chunky Monkey (Ben and Jerry’s banana ice cream with fudge chunks and walnuts), there will be folks in the crowd who RAVE over the ice cream. They will come back for second helpings. They will BOND with you over your ice cream choice. They will tell you stories about the first time they ever had Chunky Monkey and how they sneak away to eat it. They will make the most guttural sounds of delight and satisfaction as they lick their spoons and wink at you.

 

Other people will look at you as though you are insane. They will say things like, “Banana ice cream with cake? Seriously??!! Whose idea was that? Why not just a simple vanilla or chocolate?”

 

Now, here’s what you need to understand:

 

You ARE Chunky Monkey. You were BORN Chunky Monkey. We’re ALL Chunky Monkey. Each of us, and each of our businesses, is chock full of DIFFERENCES. Quirks. Specialties. Back stories. Personality characteristics. Beliefs and values. Crazy combinations of FLAVORS!

 

And If you search deeply enough, and show yourself completely enough, you will likely become polarizing. Some are gonna love ya. Others are gonna leave ya.

 

You can pretend that you are not Chunky Monkey. You can pretend to be vanilla. Or chocolate. You can water down all the interesting flavors in the hope (which will undoubtedly go unfulfilled) that you will please everyone and offend no one.

 

But you know what? No one will talk about you after the party.

And the next time you meet the guests who thoughtlessly gobbled your vanilla… they won’t even remember you.

 

So I invite you – I IMPLORE you – to get your Chunky Monkey on. To work toward ATTRACTING those who love your particular flavor. And to cater JUST to them. You’ll be narrowing your crowd for sure… but they’ll be telling everyone about your exquisite taste long after you’ve left the room.

 

And if you want to learn more about attraction – more about how to BRING your Chunky Monkey to the party – meet me at a live webinar tomorrow morning (Thursday, 9:00 a.m. Pacific.) We’re going to talk about how to make your target audience LOVE and CRAVE you. Click here to register.

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Do You Suffer from Low Brand-Esteem?
09/02/16 Good Juju and Brands that Have It , How to Brand Your Juju # , , , , , ,

Do You Suffer from Low Brand-Esteem?

Recently I hosted two live webinars where I talked with hundreds of business owners about the 7 common mistakes I see in branding, and a “Flub-Proof” formula for building a great brand. (You can watch a replay here.)

 

In the chat box during the webinars, I saw these comments (or iterations of these comment) again and again:

 

“I don’t have the confidence I need to ask for the business. “

 

“I need to be more courageous in promoting my brand.”

 

“I’m afraid to put myself out there.”

 

Confidence. It’s a loaded word, isn’t it?

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11/06/15 Badass Juju -- Brands We Love , Good Juju and Brands that Have It

Richard Branson’s Paternity Leave Juju: Better for Some than None

Richard Branson has been in the press this week for offering an unheard-of package that includes a year off with full pay for paternity leave. At first blush it makes you wonder how a company with as many employees as Virgin can afford such a benefit. If you’re a business owner you might just be saying to yourself, “That’s amazing. But he’s making the rest of us look bad.” Continue reading

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Smells Like Brand Spirit
02/06/15 Good Juju and Brands that Have It , How to Brand Your Juju , Uncategorized

Smells Like Brand Spirit

Weekend mornings at the coffee shop are a ritual in our marriage. I never had a cup of coffee until my mid-forties, but I’ve learned to savor a latte. I look forward to one the moment I open my eyes on Saturday.

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How Waving at Your Customers Will Get You More Referrals
28/05/15 Good Juju and Brands that Have It , How to Brand Your Juju

How Waving at Your Customers Will Get You More Referrals

A couple of years ago, we moved from a small town in Arizona to a big city in Southern California, and we had some concerns about our son – who was just turning 13 and had never lived in a city – being thrust into a big school environment. So we found a small, alternative school; a school we thought suited his temperament and talents.

 

The founder of the school, Dr. Stuart Grauer, told us the Grauer School was committed to instilling values like compassion, individuality, and personal responsibility into kids.

 

He was absolutely passionate about what the school stood for, and through those values, he connected with my husband and me.

 

Grauer branded the school as a humanitarian school. “The world doesn’t need more CEOs,” Stuart told us. “It needs people who will give back and create change.”

 

We happened to agree, and so we took a leap.

 

When I delivered my son to school on the first day of seventh grade, the Dean stood on the corner waving and smiling to each car that pulled into the drive. At the other end of the car line stood a high school student who also smiled genuinely and waved.

 

How nice, I thought. How delightful that they’ve got teachers and students outside saying hello on the first day. How comforting. 

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27/05/15 Good Juju and Brands that Have It

Patagonia Worn Wear Tour: Some of the World’s Best Brand Juju

Why would you tell your customers to “buy less and buy used” if you owned a retail company? Because you truly care about the environment. Patagonia’s Worn Wear Tour is as good an example of Brand Juju as any I’ve seen. Continue reading

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