In its classic definition, branding is the marketing practice where a company chooses a name, symbol or design that is identifiable as being to the company. That company’s brand then helps identify a product/service making it distinct from other similar products and services. Having a good brand is  meant to make a memorable impression of customers and help let them know what they can expect from company.

It’s a profile of sorts.

A brand is built to hopefully be a true representation of who (sic) a company is as a business and of how they wish to be perceived.

Sounds great, right?

Coaches, healers and other creative entrepreneurs want this. They want to look memorable, distinct from those in their field. They want a way to make their services different from others in their field. They want a way to convey who they are as a practitioner so their ideal clients can find them.

But this is where the similarities stop.

Looking Outside

At an extremely high level, companies branding (or rebranding) usually start with a fair amount of current market research. Meeting are held. Discussions are had to determine the right mix of differentiating opportunities.

Questions are posed: What does the marketplace think of this company? What are the perceived differentiators? How can those be leveraged, gathered up and made into a story about the company?

And then work goes into producing a suite of supporting materials (brand guidelines) will work to convey that ideal perception back out to the marketplace.

This is a simplified overview, but it captures the essence.

What's Inside Instead

As coaches, healers and creatives, though, the starting point shouldn’t be an externally facing market-based research project.

There’s nothing to be debated or manufactured. The “brand” starts and ends with the practitioner herself, in other words, with you. If there is discovery, it’s around you being able to see yourself as others see you, around you realizing what makes you unique, around you claiming what makes you you.

The questions to be asked are: What is your essence? What makes you you? Once you recognize and embrace that, the differentiators are then obvious.  You don’t have to strive the way Columbia might have to try to be distinct from The North Face. 

You are singular, different from any other of the nearly eight billion people on the planet.

"Branding" is Really an Uncovering

"Branding" here is really an  exercise in how to infuse you into everything you do with your business, and especially in your marketing. From your About page, your key programs or offers, or your website to your platform, marketing materials and methods, you, the real you, needs to be present.

And, for this to work, your business must be aligned to the real you, the authentic you. Not the you you wish you were. Not to the coach in your niche making all the money, or to the latest New York Times’ bestselling author with swearwords in her book title. The authentic you.

There’s no deciding on how you wish to be perceived in the world, there’s just you. You and your beautiful, light, love-filled self. You, with a wondrous lifetime full of passion, joy and unique experiences that have all come together in this particular moment to bring you to do this work you’re longing to do in the world.

The task isn't branding. It’s aligning your business’ face in the world with your soul.

Embracing All of You

Your business’ face needs to be aligned to you, to your soul-self. To that part of you that’s yearning to do this work, to heal the world. To that part of you that thirsts to play and live fully in your divine gifts.

You need to embrace it all. Wrap your marketing around  all of you, even if it seems weird, or if it’s not been done this way before.

You get to define how your business looks and feels when it's in alignment to your deeper self, and that’s one of the things I’m here to help with.

I get the gift of helping you pull it all together – all those aspects of your soul-self, all the things you do, or would love to do, and I help you breathe life into them, creating a unique program, project or service or course or retreat for you to offer to the world.  And we base it all on what you love, what you’re best at, from how you deliver it to where and how you talk about it, giving you the support you need all along the way.

Companies routinely pay big money to world-class brand marketers to help them create something that’s meant to represent the “soul” of a company, to manufacture an image designed to appeal to customers.

The work I do for coaches, healers and creatives stands in stark contrast to that. This work is about revealing your own soul-self and suffusing your work with it in the fullest way possible.

It’s about you becoming *you* as you show up and share your business with the world.

It’s about powerfully drawing your ideal clients to you - the ones that need your particular mix of magic. The ones that need you.

And that’s about as far from branding as I could imagine.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash