How Do You Identify an Opportunity and Build a Brand Around It?

Executive leadership is all about communication. The effective executive must communicate strategically, clearly, and powerfully in order to lead. So in my coaching sessions with executive clients, we frequently work on the client’s upcoming opportunities to communicate – whether it is a speech to a large audience, a critical team meeting, or a high stakes one on one conversation.

What makes this work so powerful is that the client really starts to see that when it comes to critical communications, winging it is no longer an effective strategy. So we work together at the whiteboard to clarify the key messages and then rehearse it so it flows smoothly.

This week, one of my clients is speaking on a conference panel about a new venture that he created. He was asked to address the question “How do you identify an opportunity and build a brand around it?”

We decided to break down this question into its component parts to see what kind of insight we might bring to the audience. Here are some of our musings, shared with you.

Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich writes about the “sly disguises of opportunity.” Opportunity rarely comes to you presented on a silver platter. If it does, it quite possibly is a scam. No, opportunity is often found in disguise, just under the surface of hardship or failure. Unfortunately, most people fail to see the opportunity right in front of them for this very reason.  This client’s opportunity actually emerged out of the rubble of an apparent disaster. Fortunately, he was open to looking for it. Are you open to seeing the opportunities that are right in front of you?

Brand is fundamentally about a promise that you make to your customer and then keep. Brand represents the entirety of the customer’s experience.  As Jack Trout and Al Ries teach in their classic book on positioning, your brand’s “position” only exists in one place – the mind of the customer. Unfortunately, many so-called branding experts focus solely on logos and identity – the look and feel – while missing the important elements of operational execution. Yes, the image is important – but only to the extent that it evokes a picture in the customer’s mind about a positive experience with your company.  In the case of this client, so much of the success of his venture in creating a brand is based on a relentless commitment to the entirety of the customer experience and insuring that all aspects of the business are organized to deliver it.  Of course he did make significant investments in the look and feel, but invested much more time, money, energy, and attention to delivering on the promise.  Are you focusing too much on the look and feel while neglecting the underlying execution?

Finally, we came up with a few questions that you may want to think about:

• Where might opportunities exist in disguise for you right now? Take a look at everything around you, right in front of you – even if it seems like it is not working – and ask yourself: What is the opportunity here?

• What is the real promise I am making to my customer? What do I really need to have in place to deliver on this promise? How well am I doing that now?

• Consider your personal brand. What is the promise that you make as an individual to your customer?