Strategic Brand Messaging Coaching and Training

What is your brand? It is your promise. It is the overall impression your customers and potential customers have of your organization. It incorporates all the ways you “touch” your customers through marketing, sales, public relations, customer relations, product/service delivery and more. It is who and what you are in the eyes of your customer. It’s essential to craft your brand consciously and purposefully and integrate it into everything you do. Andrea Beaulieu helps you identify and communicate your brand by focusing on these critical elements:

Identify and Leverage Your Brand Archetype
What is your brand soul? Your brand substance? Your brand differentiation? One of the most powerful means we have to communicate our brand and create that important relationship of meaning and value with our clients and customers is through a brand archetype. An archetype is a collection of forms and images that evokes strong emotions and connections. Archetypes are universal symbols that speak to us on every level. The hero, the jester, the explorer. When we select a brand, we are, in some way, communicating who we are. This process elevates your brand in the minds and hearts of your community. We work together to identify your brand archetype and bring it to life through your language and images, in your sales and marketing efforts. During this three-phase program we will:

1. Create a written snapshot of your ideal client’s experience and perception through a personal coaching process with you, phone interviews with five key clients, and interviews with five key employees, vendors and/or community supporters. We are looking for brand soul, brand substance, and brand differentiation – how your brand shows up. This will help us in creating a marketing branding statement and your brand story.
2. Determine your brand archetype and develop your brand story. We will identify your “beyond cliché” brand descriptors that target ideal clients, identify your brand archetype that will guide your marketing decisions, and develop an initial brand story that incorporates creation, personal and client success stories. This brand story will reflect your purpose, your values, your mission, the story of how you got started and why, your highest perceived value and promise. This brand story will incorporate a client success story and may be used in business, sales and marketing vehicles. It will represent you to your market and provide an important anchor for your team.
3. Prepare you and your team with the tools to network and conduct a business pitch/sales conversation. We will develop an enhanced introductory pitch, and a business pitch and/or sales conversation incorporating success stories, and refine and rehearse the conversation. These tools go beyond communicating what you do – they differentiate you with the “why,” which is essential in creating your brand. You can use this pitch as part of your networking meetings, your sales conversations, your marketing vehicles and other opportunities. It focuses on the essence of what you provide, to whom, and is congruent with your brand story.

Beyond Cliché Brand Descriptors
Brand descriptors are those words we use to describe what we do. The problem is, we can get in the habit of using the same old words – clichés that don’t really describe what we do. We don’t dig deep enough to uncover what really makes us different and compelling. Through a structured process, you identify what language most describes the value and results you bring to your clients – the key to creating powerful, effective marketing and sales materials and presentations.

Enhanced Introductory Pitches
Elevator Speech: The typical “elevator speech” tells a client what you do, but that is not enough to create a relationship. To create real interest, an introductory pitch needs to share the “why.” The “why” reflects your values and begins that process of creating a relationship with your prospects. Through a structured process, you dig deeper into the “why” so you can open the door to “tell me more.”

Business Development Pitch: As the beginning to a sales presentation, or as a stand-alone, this pitch is a structured introduction that relates why your product or service deserves additional attention. It includes information on your initiative or product, relevant company background, supportive data, growth potential, supporters/backers, a story/anecdote/testimonial, and your ask. You accomplish this through a structured process of answering a series of questions and coaching to develop the smooth delivery of this pitch.

Leadership Message Identification, Content Development and Presentations Skills
To lead well, leaders need to communicate a message that combines a clear, strategic idea with dynamic delivery. Through individual coaching, you will understand and develop your core message and deliver it with clarity, enthusiasm and impact; identify and determine the strategic placement of stories and information for speaking dates, presentations and meetings; and be able to showcase messages in formats including keynote speeches, presentations, elevator speeches, pitches, and written and online editorial and marketing content.

Storytelling that Inspires Action On the Page and On the Stage
We learn through stories. Well-done stories contain novelty, relevance and emotion to get and keep attention of our listeners and help them retain the information. They are concrete examples of how and why we do what we do, and the impact we have. At their basic form, they are a connection of cause and effect, and that is how we learn. Through a structured process, you develop a story that supports your marketing and sales efforts that will engage your prospects and inspire action. This story can be adapted and leveraged for multiple marketing communications uses including written, visual and spoken word avenues.

Engaging Networking Practices
Networking is really the practice of enrollment. It is a process of letting go of your personal agenda and standing ready to participate in a real conversation where it’s not about you, it’s about them. The primary skill for networking is listening – a much talked about and little understood process of deeply engaging someone else. Through coaching and training, you can learn the attitude and skills required for authentic networking that sends a positive message of real interest to your prospects and, as a result, if the connection is viable, encourages continued conversation.

Customized Sales Presentations
Whether it’s your automated sales format, or the requirements of a potential customer, it is important to make that presentation your own – to bring life into it so your prospects don’t feel they’ve “been there, done that.” Unless your dealing with a blind RFP, people buy from people they know and like, so it’s essential to infuse your authentic personality into your sales presentation, whether written, visual or verbal. This is a process of review, development and coaching. Once developed, it is critical to rehearse through the presentation to enhance your delivery so your prospect clearly and confidently understands who you are, the value you bring, and your offer.

Structured Sales Conversations
How you engage a prospect in a sales conversation is not something left to chance. The most effective sales conversations are nonthreatening and without manipulation or fear. They are focused on creating a connection with your prospect and taking the lead in walking them through a structured process that elicits the information you need and helps them make a decision. Whatever the decision, the relationship is maintained and enhanced.

Your Investment
Let’s have a conversation to determine your needs and goals. This is complimentary.