Why branding reduces the barriers to a deal

Branding validates your marketing. With branding your offers and products will reach your buyers at a greater pace than when you have nothing to offer other than an unknown opportunity. If you have nobody to validate the quality of the opportunity are offering your potential buyers then things become challenging.

What is actually branding?

When you have celebrities and highly respected brands that have been in contact with you then you become branded. You will see in some restaurants that they show photos where a well-known television actor had been at their restaurant. The restaurant owner is using this to validate the pricing and uniqueness of his offers.

If you look at the branding that people like Richard Branson build as they have multiple companies and are regularly in contact with other celebrities it creates a unique magnetism. The branded entrepreneur is able to pull into his zone of influence other bright opportunities. When someone claims to have Richard Branson as coach or investor, then the business idea gains immediate credibility. An investor knows that such a new business will start with a sound framework.

With the help of celebrity branding

When you look at entrepreneurs that started from scratch and with the help of celebrity branding were able to scale their business after having gained a sustainable income. There are not so many events where celebrities are willing to meet up with unknown strangers. Building trust between people who are offered many unreasonable opportunities and keep being stalked by paparazzi it becomes a challenge. When you have a celebrity that vouches for you, then you can work on gaining the next celebrity that can experience the positive aspect of your way of conducting business.

Making your offer so irresistible that they cannot say no is the greatest challenge.  You need to gain a branding built on branding by association. A celebrity will help you reduce the anxiety if a potential buyer. A new buyer does not have any experience with you and your products. He is feeling insecurity whether you will under promise and over deliver. Their inner fear tells them that you might wreck the order and create for the buyer an undesirable embarrassment. The unique offer of a seller that has the branding based on their association with celebrities is a massive competitive advantage.

Enter a market where you are unknown

Imagine you want to enter a market where you are unknown. When you enter with the branding of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Al Pacino then people respect you at once, because if you have been in contact with a celebrity they know well. If you are able to present yourself with multiple celebrities (e.g. Steve Wozniak, Vanilla Ice, Mel Gibson, Mark Wahlberg) then you have such a visual and emotional competitive advantage that the existing local market leaders do not have.

In transparent and non-transparent markets most competitors will not have the branding power of a business that accompanies its offers with testimonials of globally known celebrities. If a company from India enters the German market with the branding of a Bollywood celebrity then it will not have the same power as if it was a celebrity known from Hollywood.

The branding power of Hollywood is massively used by successful business Coaches. They enter markets where people usually claim that branding will not work. The branding is the tailwind that pushes the coaching sales machine into every market. People rush to buy and repeatedly buy. They even buy at a financial level local competitors have problems in getting people to buy in. In every market it is possible to dominate as people are becoming brand advocates for such coaches. They massively rate these speakers a 10 on the scale of 1 to 10. They are brand insisters as they massively demand to only focus on the knowledge and coaching these leading figures are offering. People no longer want to jump about to feel better. People want to build their businesses so that they feel better because their wealth is growing by applying sustainable strategies.

When you are branded you are able to increase prices so that you no longer need to compete on price. In transparent markets, buyers only compare sellers based on pricy because all offers are identical. Being able to enter markets and turn them into non-transparent markets is the power of branding. People no longer focus on the price tag. They focus on the benefits and the results they will truly receive.

At the same time, your ability to negotiate with suppliers and authorities improves. The national press becomes aware of you, as they need interesting news that will help sell their magazines and newspapers.

That is why branding will increase your success rate and reduce the barriers you might face when working towards a very important deal.

Author
Christian Bartsch
Won in 2009 a price by Monash University as the best student in International Marketing