Slides from a talk on Minimum Lovable Brands and the importance of a strong personal brand in forming successful business brands.

1. Minimum Lovable
Brands
David Yarde
Sevenality
www.sevenality.com

2. @dsmy
Branding
Verb
To do, execute on a
foundation, to leave a
mark or legacy.

3. It isn’t your logo, or your website.

4. It isn’t something you create in a brainstorm.

5. It’s a reflection of an existing set of facts about your
company, your audience, your values and about…

6. You and your ability to execute on
what you said you would do.
@dsmy

7. When it comes to branding, there is no room for complaining
about being self-funded or not having resources.

8. Why isn’t everyone doing it?

9. It takes time, equity, experience and the
determination to see things through.

11. Customers don’t care.

12. They expect you to be ready to meet their needs.

13. It isn’t their fault. They’ve been taught to make comparisons
based on who can do that best and then make a choice.

16. Within that moment your branding fails to
execute, your competitor will win.

17. we build a Minimum Lovable

18. What’s your story? Why do you exist? Why
should I care?

19. What’s in it for me?

20. Building a minimum lovable brand requires
an understanding of both sides of the coin.

21. Heads: The Personal Brand

22. @dsmy
Old Thinking
Personal branding is the
practice of people
marketing themselves and
their careers as brands.

23. Your personal brand is who you are as an individual
and how that is reflected within your demeanor.

24. @dsmy
Core Purpose
Test
If someone were to offer to buy you at a generous
price, guarantee that you would have all your
needs met, but that the buying individual would
destroy who you are as a person, causing you to
no longer exist as who you are, would you accept
the offer? Why, or why not?

25. Developing your personal brand is essential for the
advancement of your career and development as a leader.

26. Managing your personal brand requires you to be a great role
model, mentor, and / or a voice that others can depend upon.

27. If you have a social media presence to think carefully about
their intentions and objectives before opening an account.

28. View your personal brand as an asset that you must protect while it continuously evolves. Your
personal brand is an asset that must be managed with the intention of helping others benefit from
having a relationship with you and / or by being associated with your work and the industry you serve.

29. The biggest mistake people make when developing their personal brand is not
creating a narrative.
Often, people will assume others understand why they're making a transition,
or they think others will immediately grasp how their skills are transferable.

30. It's our responsibility to create a clear, coherent narrative that explains why
we're moving from Point A to Point B, and how our past experience adds
value to the what we’re venturing to do now.

31. Without that, people will come up with their own assumptions, and they may
be random, inaccurate or unflattering. Dooming your new venture before it
even begins.

32. Lifestyle Branding

33. Pinpoint which lifestyle aspirations your brand
would fulfill, and market accordingly.

34. It’s all about telling a customer what they want to be, and
how your product/or service will help them get there.

35. Benefits of a strong Personal Brand

36. @dsmy
A strong
personal brand can..
Allow you to control the
perception.
Personal branding is about cultivating the pieces of
who you are that tell your story. You build your
personal brand with your willingness to share your
knowledge and expertise.

37. @dsmy
A strong
personal brand can..
Show your uniqueness
Investing time and effort in your personal brand is
crucial to your success in any field. Consider your
personal brand as your digital reputation, resume,
platform and an extension of your business card.

38. @dsmy
A strong
personal brand can..
Build a ecosystem
Each outlet or interaction your brand has offers you
the opportunity to build a following by generously
sharing your time. Before putting in your time, make
sure you take time to think of the goals.

39. @dsmy
A strong
personal brand can..
Leverage your personal Brand
When you invest time in building your personal
brand, you can leverage it in various ways. It
can be a gateway for other entrepreneurial
pursuits, books, services and revenue streams.
Look at leveraging your brand as an
opportunity builder.

40. @dsmy
A strong
personal brand can..
Learn from your ecosystem
Personal branding helps your current and
potential audience understand who you are and
what your value proposition is so they can make
an informed conversion decision. As you build a
following, you will be creating your ideal
audience -- individuals interested in what you
have to say and interested in buying from you.

41. You in turn can learn about them, about what
they like and need.

42. It's easier to screw up a personal brand than
a business brand--and harder to make
amends.

43. Hypothesis & Experimentation

44. Launching to an audience that already knows
your personal brand, that follows you, that
interacts with you, and that’s ROOTING for
you is one of the most powerful forces in
gaining early traction.

45. @dsmy
Leveraging Social
Media
Leveraging Facebook
There is the chance that one of my connections
lies within the target audience of my application,
or even more likely, that they know someone
else who does.
The key here is to not talk too much about your
business within your Facebook timeline, but
don’t ignore that it exists either.

46. @dsmy
Leveraging Social
Media
Leveraging Twitter
Twitter is a great way to interact with
people that you normally wouldn’t get the
chance to interact with.
Twitter lists are the most undervalued
portion of twitter that can provide an
immense amount of value.

48. @dsmy
Leveraging Social
Media
Leveraging LinkedIn
When people browse LinkedIn, typically they are
in “professional mode”. They are researching
updates with their contacts, how they know
someone, who they can invite to connect with or
reading a business-related article in Pulse.
LinkedIn also allows you to post articles within
their network.

49. @dsmy
Leveraging Social
Media
Leveraging Quora
Quora is a great site for establishing
yourself as a trusted authority. This, in
turn, leads to people checking out
who you are and what you may offer.
Show off your thought leadership.

50. @dsmy
Leveraging Social
Media
Leveraging Instagram
We are a visual society. Everything is digested
with the eyes before it moves on to the other
emotional receptors.
Instagram allows us to tap into this emotional
gateway by providing things of value while not
shoving products down peoples throats.

53. @dsmy
Personal Vision
Statement
• Cover - Time Magazine
• Headline - News headline About who you are
• Sidebar - Interesting facts about you
• Quotes - What people are saying about you
• Images - That depict the future state.
E.g Time Magazine calls David Yarde a modern-day
renaissance man with a gift for helping others
succeed.

54. What are your skills?
What are you known for?
Where can you provide the most value?

55. Once you feel it on the inside,you’ll show it on
the outside.

56. Tails: The Business Brand

57. It’s more than just making money. Having a business is
about building something that has value.
@dsmy

58. Brands that have value are considered assets.

59. Assets are built over time by ignoring short term
distractions in favor of a much bigger long
term vision and strategy.
@dsmy

60. Culture Building

61. When you feel confident in your brand, the more you’ll attract your
target audience. When you, or your team is passionate about what
they are doing, and they feel confident in the culture and company,
they provide their best work.

62. When your customers see this, they want to know more, they become drawn
into the positive environment that you’ve created, because you’ve shown them
that your brand, whether business or personal can take care of them and they
don’t have to worry.

63. We believe [this set of people/the business] will [care / be passionate
about us(the prospect/consumer)] for / because [this reason].
EMOTIONAL–VALUE HYPOTHESIS

64. Brand Positioning

65. The action of exploring opportunities without
diluting the primary brand.

66. Show the issues that you are addressing for your customers,
show them how you are uniquely solving these problems. Make
sure at every step everything aligns.

67. Give them a chance to get to know who you are, because the
more a person gets emotionally invested is the better the
chance of you having them as a customer.

70. Forward

71. To measure growth, look at the emotional
value metrics.
• Participation (Brand Ambassadors)
• Engagement (Are they talking back?)
• Interaction (Are they paying attention?)
• Conversion

72. Product/Market/Brand Fit

73. • Can we win ONE passionate advocate?
• and turn it into at least TEN passionate advocates?
• or a Market of passionate customers?

74. @dsmy
Business Mission
Statement
Example Company serves (constituent groups),
by (definition of the business). Example
Company is different from (competitor) because
of (point of differentiation).

75. The more value you build, the more people will
be willing to pay for what you offer.

76. Having both a personal and corporate brand can be the best of both
worlds. This allows you to let people know who's behind the company
while also building product awareness.

77. But be careful not to dilute your message,
visibility and personal brand-building efforts.

78. • Be sure you have a reason and strategy prepared when using both.
• Be sure to have unique content and resources to share on each.
• Don’t try to establish personal and business brands at the same time.
• Let business brand be business and your personal brand be personal.
• Never post personal brand content on the business brand.

79. Mission statement (this is a reminder)
Trademarks (these are legal properties)
Logo/Identity (these are signatures)
Products/Services (these are tangible)
Advertising/Marketing (this is the vehicle/medium)

80. Don’t be afraid to fail.

81. Onward!
Twitter: @dsmy or @sevenality
www.sevenality.com