Branding information is everywhere. Do you want to pick a business name? There’s a website or app for that. Need graphics? There’s a freelancer, website or app for that. These websites and apps can’t tell you how to become a dominant brand, however. That’s where The Dominant Brand: Setting, Getting, Never Regretting, Every Cent You Are Worth comes in. The book was designed to provide an answer for independent workers like writers, entertainers, and coaches who were looking for an answer.
What is The Dominant Brand About?
Becoming a brand in this day and age is relatively easy, compared to the past. All you need is the right advice, right materials, and the right mindset. While this is definitely helpful for business owners, it also paradoxically makes it harder for brands to stand out. When everyone is creating a brand, it becomes very hard to become a dominant brand.
Author Andrew Smith had to become a highly-paid balloon twister before he figured out a way out of that paradox.
Smith decided to transition into the IT industry after being laid off in the financial services industry. While this was happening, he would occasionally work as a magician and balloon twister. At first, he did these gigs as a favor or for a bottle of whiskey. Eventually, though, more and more people that he didn’t know started asking him for a show. Finding the opportunity in this, he delved deeper into marketing his talents, eventually becoming a highly paid balloon twister and entertainer.
The Dominant Brand summarizes the insight Smith gained along the way. He noticed that other entertainers were able to command higher fees doing the same things he was doing. That’s when a light bulb went off. Smith realized that he wasn’t competing on value. He was competing on price. As a result, he was in a losing game. When he raised his fees, he re-targeted his marketing efforts to reach the clients who could afford him and needed his services. As a result, he slowly started to becoming a more dominant entertainer in his industry.
Those that Smith learned on his journey became the advice and suggestions in “The Dominant Brand”.
Smith, an author, speaker and entertainer who left the continual layoffs of the corporate world to turn his hobby into a high-paying career now travels the world performing. In between events, writing books, and raising his family, he has also earned a private pilot’s license.
What Was Best About The Dominant Brand?
The best part of The Dominant Brand is the focus Smith provides for self-employed workers. Raising fees and making a case for those higher fees can be one of the scariest things that a self-employed worker can do. Using his own life as a case study, Smith breaks down his own marketing strategy while also sharing his mindset while creating that strategy.
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
While becoming a dominant brand is an issue for every business owner, Smith’s book is focused primarily on self-employed individuals. In particular, it focuses on those self-employed workers who provide a service, like coaches, entertainers and writers. For self-employed individuals, The Dominant Brand isn’t a comprehensive book on the subject of branding. Rather it is an outline of how to market to a higher-paying client. The book is not concerned with other aspects of branding like what color your logo should be or how many Tweets to send per day. (In fact, Smith believes social media can be extremely distracting.)
Why Read The Dominant Brand?
If you are a self-employed or small business owner who provides services and wants to increase your profit, The Dominant Brand can help provide the basic marketing tools to help get you started. The Dominant Brand lays out the key components of the strategy self-employed entrepreneurs like writers, entertainers and coaches can use to reach higher-paying clients and establish a powerful brand.
This article, “The Dominant Brand Competes on Value, Not Price” was first published on Small Business Trends