Let's start by understanding where the term 'branding' originates.

Branding today is about making your mark and that’s actually something that hasn’t really changed since it was first introduced back in the 1500s — although there’s evidence that branding probably started even earlier — cattle ranchers used to use brands to mark their cattle. It was a way of denoting ownership, with each ranch having its own unique brand. People could then quickly and easily tell who owned a particular cow, reducing the chances of them wandering off and getting lost, or being stolen

The brands used by cattle ranchers were simple, distinctive, intuitive and instantly recognisable — all the marks of a solid modern-day brand.

Branding cows was a rancher’s way of owning their space. Staking their claim. And saying “this is mine, this is my space”.

So why am I telling you about the history of branding and brands? Simply because I want you to appreciate the connection between branding and owning your space. When you think of branding in this way, it’s easy to relate it to what we see today and will help you rise above all the noise and show everyone that this is your space.

Own your space

Now, most businesses don’t start out with the intention of owning a particular space. Did yours?

But consider how powerful a statement it is to claim a space and make it your own. It’s what we refer to as ‘strategic positioning’ and it really helps to shorten the journey to cracking your marketing and your position in a marketplace.  

By doing your market research, by profiling your customers, by understanding your strengths, your mission, vision, purpose, you make a claim for your brand and you say, “This is me, this is mine, this is who I want to help”. This is brand. 

Once you’ve established this, then you can wrap it all up visually, in a way that portrays your brand effectively and use it everywhere your business has a presence/is seen: every marketing asset, every communication, every social media channel, every piece of packaging and more.

So if you’ve never decided on a space you want to own, now is the time!

How to decide on the space you want to own.

Now, I’d like to invite you to perform a simple two-part exercise that will really help you understand the difference between what you perceive as your space and what your customers perceive. 

The first part of the exercise is to think about your business, think about the work that you love doing, think about the people you solve problems for with these products and services, think about your marketplace and then consider the space that you have the potential to own.

Once you’ve had a think, try to sum up the space you want to own in just two or three words; two or three words that describe it best. Write those words down, review them later and refine them if necessary. The objective of this exercise isn’t to nail it the first time around, but rather start the process of sifting through all the obvious until you come to the heart of your business. That space that is uniquely yours to hold. 

(FYI – SEO comes later – remember we’re just starting here).

How about a few examples?

In my case; and spoiler alert it's evolved over the years. My words are joy, growth, strategy and action.

The strategy and action words come from the struggle that I saw CEO's and Business Owners grapple with - marrying strategy with action.

How do you take the long term vision and attach practical actions towards making it real? How do you make sure that every single Instagram post, product launch and newsletter is bringing you closer to achieving your purpose?

I built a whole process around this and framed it into my signature course called Get Strategic. Get Results which is still used by so many clients today.

The second two words are Joy and Growth. This is a reaction of mine against hustle culture and a deeply held belief that when we do the work that brings us our greatest joy then we will invariably be doing our best work. If we are smart, we'll leverage that space and convert it into growth and commercial success. With over 25 years in business, this continues to hold true.

I even wrote a book about it - What If? Joy was how you measured success and the money proved you right!

Each of these words brought me to that spot of Growth Strategist with a Joyful Heart. It truly is my space. 

An Example from Kajabi

Another example I’d like to share with you is Kajabi who repositioned themselves a few years ago as “the world’s only Knowledge Commerce Platform” and have now embraced these three words “All In One”. Their platform contains everything you need to run your business “all in one” place. 

An example from Carlsberg

One more story for you in this space is Carlsberg’s attempted rebrand away from using the words “Probably the Best Lager in the World”. When they tried to drop the “probably” in 2011 it just wouldn’t go away.  In the end, they reverted to what we now know as “probably the best tagline in the world”  Check out the whole story here. 

By consciously deciding where you want to be and owning that space, you will automatically raise yourself up above the noise in your marketplace, instead of just drifting along with everybody else.

Time to check the search engines

For the second part, I want you to head over to Google (or the search engine of your choice) and see which brands come up when you search for those two keywords. 

• Do your competitors come up?
• Do brands you’ve never heard of come up?
• What stories come up? Do they fit with your own narrative?

This will enable you to see who is occupying that space at the moment and help you figure out how you can differentiate yourself to own it, or at least a segment of it, going forward. 

Doing this part may even help you realise that the space you thought you wanted to own isn’t actually right for you and your business. That’s when you can make some adjustments and repeat this step until you get it perfect.

Your brand is not what you say it is...

With the space you want to own defined, it’s time to ask your audience for their opinion. This will help underline, or undermine, your current strategic positioning.

So ask your customers, ask the people who follow you online, ask anyone who matters to your business, including your employees, to sum you (the business) up in two or three words and see if they correlate with the words you chose. Now you can do this via social media, an email newsletter, a Live video, whatever medium you think is best.

This is especially powerful as it will provide you with fantastic insights into how your customers view your business. So while you might think that a certain area is your core strength and focus, they might highlight another you haven’t really considered.

You can then see what you believed you were communicating, the space you were intending to own, vs. the space you actually do own. Work can then begin on bringing those two into alignment. In fact, you can spend the next 30 days repositioning your messaging and communications to see if you can change what your audience thinks about you.

This allows you to not only become better at owning your space, but also understanding it more intricately. In my experience, there’s a great depth of learning that comes from this and although we can be very surprised and even disappointed, that’s okay because it’s all learning. Sometimes, it shows us an opportunity we never even thought of, and that’s really powerful!

This absolutely brilliant one-liner is a quote from brand guru Marty Neumeier that I've followed for years and subsequently interviewed for my podcast. The bottom line is your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what they (your customers) say it is. 

In this journey to ensure we have strong brands, we first need to know who we are and then find a way to communicate that very clearly.

In this way, your customers and the wider market not only hears it, but understands it - clearly.

And if we’re lucky they embrace it and share it on our behalf. That’s the goal remember – “Great Marketing is Your Truth Shared”. 

Here’s my closing question for you: What did you discover after carrying out the exercise in today’s blog? What Space Does Your Brand Own? Do your customers say it’s yours too? Do you need to do some tweaking?

Let me know if you’ve any questions or insights you’d like to share on this topic in the comments below.