March, 2015
EVOLVING YOUR BRAND: USE SAFE SHIFTING!
#1 in a series on brand “safety”
Is your brand story using all its powerful “gears” to assist your change and growth? You can look at your brand as if it was a ten speed bike equipped with brakes, gears, wheels, handle bar steering, drivers seat (…or saddle)…all the basics in one package to get you from point “A” to point “B”. Lets take a look at just the gears for one moment. Brands all evolve, they need to shift using some new gears in order to change along with where your business needs to “go” in order to grow. Your brand story (your “style” and culture) already has many powerful “gears” built into your business framework, all available to help you make a shift forward.
As Charles Shultz (One of my favorite folks…thanks for Snoopy and Charlie Brown!) quotes: “Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.” Brands stand for and reflect the life of our business…a brand has the same “gears” as those who birth it! Yes, we all have much more power than we use, we know it, and there still is something that keeps most of us using the same old same old gears we always use. Why is it frightening to find or use our full potential? What is that?
It is called “habit”, feeling comfortable, feeling safe. And, sometimes that “feeling comfortable” can be a sure killer for a healthy brand and business!
Keep on pedaling in the familiar gears…what can happen?
Ever stayed in the same gear going uphill and downhill, when you have more gears that can help you to find an easier ride? Habit, the path of least resistance, makes it tough to change gears. Makes all the sense in the world to change gears…but “what if” (ah, fear now enters!) the chain slips, gears get stuck, wires break as you attempt to shift. Habit is there to protect us…it’s downright scary and could be unsafe to make a needed shift…to change (or even to look at and use all your culture’s “gears”) your brand, even if your brand’s message no longer matches what you are offering. Stalled out growth, stagnant product lines, low customer enthusiasm, and internally…unhappy (and even fearful) worker bees, all indicate not being able to shift into needed change. You maintain your “safety” pedaling along not able to explore new “gears”, slowly going up the steep hill of change while competitors zip past you.
Can you feel safe enough to shift into different brand gears?
Most of all, we need to feel safe as we change, evolve our story. Can that feeling of safety actually be present during change? Feeling safe during “shift” can happen if we use some strong “knowns” to pedal forward.
To feel safe…we may want to put some training wheels (our known gears) on for a while as we shift into change. Here are a few thoughts on gaining comfort by using your brand “knowns”:
1. Brainstorming session: Gather your managers together (in person!!!!), your c-suite, and your trusted sources. Put your core values out on the table and see if you are still vibing to that good stuff that makes you so successful. Get sign off and excitement happening again. Being TOGETHER, all connected gives comfort and strength. You are drafting each other, helping each other, like teams in the Tour de France.
2. Brand basics: Your business is evolving, becoming new again. This re-birth can bring with it the best of what is already walking and talking out in the world. What is reflecting the above brand values, your knowns: the color, style, message, the font personality, the shape? Some parts can feel good from the original…take a look at the change UPS made when they could not wrap the postal packages with string anymore. They kept the wrapping paper colors, the shapes…the best of the known as they shifted their brand to a higher gear and creating safety for their customers and themselves.
3. Your “people”: Let’s face it, your own tribe (your culture) will either embrace change or reject it. Keep them happy by keeping them up to date as you shift “up”. They are the ones who will have to use some powerful lower gears, along with your (in the trenches) enthusiastic leadership to push ahead, up that hill of change. Keep them informed with meetings, reports, and for goodness sake, some fun and celebration too. Get your most powerful known “gears”: your internal team, in shape, informed, in sync, and in support of your new vision during that uphill ride using your known core brand values to assist in moving into the oh so new and unknown.
How can you keep things feeling safe as you shift and change gears?
It’s simple and fun to create a safe feeling journey from “A” to “B”: draw your brand into change by drawing the change…literally! An organic and personal way to map out upcoming changes, communicating changes, sharing a running dialogue, is to use visual reports to keep all on the same page. Encourage participation by providing safe “shifting” using the simple language of quick sketch visuals…showing just WHAT is changing and why.
Quick sketch visuals, sketch quests, visual mapping, visual journaling of process and success, can create a feeling of belonging and clarity as change happens. The brainstorming feel of sketches, doodles, helps folks raise their comfort zones as they are shifting into new gears while co-creating your new brand and culture.
Give me a call and connect up for some fun and smooth shifting by using sketch storytelling in your next exploration of change…try out a new way of communicating with quick sketch messaging.
Go ahead, use some new gears from your unique core value set, realize your full potential to change and grow your brand and culture with some safe and happy shifting!
Thanks for giving me your valuable time, love to share with you and receive your “Shares”!
I’m Paula Brown; Visual Scribe / Feng Shui practitioner / Author / Animal Communicator. I am a visual storyteller showing you how to IGNITE YOUR STORY, YOUR ENERGY, YOUR WELL-BEING for both business and home. My site is: www.chilightful.com Connect on: LinkedIn Twitter and you can “like” my facebook page at: www.facebook.com/ChiLightful
