What would happen if your company ceased to exist?
Would journalists write headlines heralding your past achievements, or would their stories simply add you to a list of bygones? Would your employees be surprised or would they have known that the end was inevitable? Would customers mourn your passing, or would your demise go unnoticed?
Thousands of companies come and go every year, most of them barely leaving a trace. Even many large corporations are easily forgotten—like those in the airline industry. Remember TWA?
So how do you build the kind of brand that would be missed?
You drill down to identify the essential value of your brand—and then you design your business to relentlessly execute on that core value. When what you stand for is clearly expressed in everything you do, you’ll be able to make an indelible impression on people’s hearts and minds.
There are several ways for an organization to achieve this clarity of vision. One is an exercise I often use with my clients: writing a “brand obituary.”
In this exercise, it helps to think of your brand as a person. I ask my clients to think of their brand in its totality, as all that the brand entails—and on its best days, when it’s executing with excellence.
Pretend that you’re a reporter for a local newspaper who has to write the obituary for this person, your brand. Here are some of the questions you should ask:
n What was the brand’s biggest accomplishment in life?
n What did the brand leave behind? What did the brand leave unaccomplished? Who will miss it and why?
n What lessons can be learned from the brand’s life?
n Now that the brand is gone, what will take its place?
Once you’ve completed the column, write a headline to capture the essence of the obituary—that headline, in turn, will often capture the essence of your brand.
Positive thinking is powerful and envisioning success is a popular exercise among athletes and executives alike. But sometimes taking the opposite approach can be just as important. By imagining a future without your brand, you can create one in which it thrives and makes a profound, long-lasting impression on customers. Denise Lee Yohn
Denise Lee Yohn has been teaching world-class brands how to grow their businesses for 25 years.