What are the most common misconceptions about becoming a brand?

To become a brand is a long game, a relentless journey, rather than a quick fix or a shortcut.

You first need to be firmly grounded in your WHYs: why do you do what you do? What is your innate passion and drive? What makes you get up when you are knocked down? How do you want to be remembered when you exit this Planet?  This is true for a company brand too, since the leadership of any company sets the tone.

Then you need to keep revising and updating your business model, your GTM strategies, your technology, and all the WHATs, and HOWs.

The most common misconceptions about becoming a brand include some of the following (but are not limited to those, of course):

• Equating a successful business with a distinctive brand
• Expecting instant gains without strategic long term plan
• Confusing “putting lipstick on a pig” with becoming a brand
• Prioritizing short term profits over long term value
• Using manipulative sales techniques rather than genuine customer satisfaction
• Over promising, under delivering
• Failing to uphold trust and relationship as the paramount brand assets, at all times
• Neglecting to improve brand experience as an ongoing brand design process
• Believing in reactive fixing instead of proactive brand experience design
• Being transactional trader, not a builder, farmer, visionary leader
• etc.