It’s tough for some companies to invest resources in building a great brand when they can instead spend money on making the next sale. And yet, if you ignore why you stand apart, you can be easily replaced. The question is not whether to brand, but rather how much, where and how? So let's talk about the two stages of branding, so we can learn how to focus our efforts.

Note: As we learn what it means to deal with COVID-19, and as we watch to see what the economy will do, this is a great opportunity to talk about tightening things up. That doesn’t mean we stop operating. In fact, it can mean quite the opposite, but with more discipline. And to exercise discipline first means developing an understanding of what you’re dealing with. At no time are organization and optimistic sobriety more important than times like these. So this conversation lays a foundation to help us understand where branding leads. It's the first step in understanding how to allocate your resources, spending precisely what you need on branding and marketing.

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Branding and the Tough-Minded Business
Resound serves some of the toughest-minded, growth-oriented, business-to-business companies in the greater Phoenix area. They don’t suffer fools or indulge themselves in foolish spending. The difference is that these businesses also know what they’re about as people — that flows into their business, causing them to grow in sophistication. Because sophistication comes in the trenches, where you have to make real decisions about whether you’ll do what’s right or what’s expedient.

Businesses that don’t choose to do what’s right never develop the sophistication that comes from that experience. When you fail to avail yourself of each opportunity to do what’s right, you forfeit depth and strength of character. And it’s the same for companies as it is for individual people.
What We’ve Learned
Here’s what we’ve learned from our experience. I hope it helps you make sense of your situation. Branding comes under fire for being something that only the big companies can afford to do. Yet we can say from experience that our success has not made our clients undisciplined. They make bigger deals and work with better companies because they're worth working with.

They care about money, and they care about operations. But they also care about doing it the right way. And they know how to talk about it in a way that makes them desirable to do business with. Because aside from the ethical problems, companies that don’t care about anything bigger than money or efficiency create for themselves a glass ceiling. They don’t know why they can’t get bigger deals or keep relationships.

It’s the companies with bigger values that see unlimited growth. They’re the ones who seem so generous and joyful, even in tough times. They’re the ones who come out of hard times stronger and usually with a larger market share.

So how do you measure it? If you’re still with me, you agree that branding becomes an outflow of your values and gives you something much bigger to offer the market. The next question is, how do you measure the effectiveness of your brand? After all, it’s one thing to define your values, and it’s another thing to see them inform, coordinate and align your entire culture to the point that everyone, even outside the company, feels the energy of the brand.
Two Primary Stages of Brand Effectiveness
Marty Neumeier talks about it as a ladder that starts with satisfaction, goes to delight, moves to engagement, and then leads to empowerment. Most B2B companies will be interested in the first two: satisfaction and delight.
Stage 1: Satisfaction
Satisfaction begins with fairness and trust. They've purchased from you and want to do it again.

They get a sense of closure.
You are able to inspire confidence.
They enjoy a solid experience with you that feels complete.

Stage 2: Delight

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