Branding & Re-Branding
Last month I wrote about taking advantage of changes and economic turbulence as an opportunity to further entrench with your client base. I promised to share with you specifics including ways that my business is currently changing.
Here’s the low down on what I’m doing right now. Over the past several years I’ve really enjoyed sharing what I’ve done in my production company. We’ve experienced incredible success writing, producing, and delivering school assembly programs and motivational reading programs to schools and public libraries all over Texas.
I’ve hired several qualified presenters who now work for me and we stay very busy serving our little part of Texas.
I’ve also taught our system to several performers who are replicating similar success in their parts of the country and it is really satisfying to see that growth.
So, while I continue to manage the production company I have also grown the side of my business that relates to speaking and providing information to business owners. From the annual workshops I held each January for the past several years, to the various events around the country where I have been invited to speak. I really enjoy seeing the powerful effect that these sorts of events can have on people. I know that I’ve been to many events that have changed my life and it is exciting to be able to be a part of these events from the other side of the stage.
So, two things I want to share in this entry and then I’ll wrap up:
1) Branding yourself can be a very powerful tool. It is important and powerful part of marketing. It is also a very interesting process to have to re-define your brand. But I can tell you that it is easier to re-define your brand than to create one from scratch.
It was much easier for VanHalen to become “Van Hagar” (for better or worse) than it was for them to establish the initial name recognition. As “Julian Franklin Productions” becomes “Library Rat” it has been a surprisingly smooth transition.
2) If you’ve never seen or heard me speak before, here’s a short (3 minute) video clip of a part of a keynote I gave in early March, 2009.
Great video clip Julian. Loved the story and message!
There are 15 web sites with each performer claiming to be the originator of your Polar Express show. And their wording on their sites is identical.
You might should teach them to at least change the copy!
Bon Moll, there are a few things to remember as you scour the web viewing and comparing various web sites of successful magicians, particularly those who work with me.
I work with very competent and qualified people, many of whom have skills in various areas that surpass anything I ever even hope to acquire. As an example, I work with Dr. Bob Goodin, a Ph.D., and Tommy Johns, MA, who has both a bachelors and masters degree in Education. I have a team member (Jim Vagias) who is a director on Broadway. I have team members who have won awards for their ability to perform and others who have won awards for their ability to write. And I am not too modest to mention that I am very well known as someone with a thorough understanding of marketing, motivation, and how to impact human behavior.
This teamwork approach offers some very interesting opportunities for us that most of our competitors cannot replicate. Namely, we are able to pool our collective talent and end up with a strategic marketing plan designed by one of the leading marketers in the United States. We get quality educational programming collaboratively developed with a team that has more than 120 years of combined teaching experience and almost 150 years of combined performing experience. Our shows are polished by one of the best directors in New York. Our ad copy is written by one of the top in the business and then simultaneously tested in fifteen different markets around the world. This allows us to test and fine tune at a rate 1,500% faster than our competitors.
But we don’t each sit on our insights. We share them among each other which allows us to assimilate the world-wide “Best Practices” and each of us benefits from our collective and collaborative approach to this.
Is it any wonder that the people who work with me end up successful? Probably not. But surely you can see how I would wonder about the value of suggesting that I tell them to take PROVEN sales copy that has been designed, tested, and refined to sell a brilliantly developed show and to discard it for…what reason exactly?
Yes, there are a team of people across the United States and in four other countries all using this dynamic, proven sales copy. But each of them is selling only in their OWN market. Barring some astronomical coincidence no client would ever see two of these performer’s web sites. The only people who see all my team’s sites are competitors who are willing to take the time it takes to search them out. But what you should notice when you do that is that these sites are built for customers and clients, NOT for other magicians, puppeteers, performers, or speakers. These sites are built to sell to the people who write large checks.
While I appreciate the time it took you to research this information and to offer your suggestion, I politely disagree with your suggestion and in fact think that I would be negligent if I suggested that they change the copy that has been so successful for those licensed performers who use it.