How Customer Perception Shapes Brand Strategy: Insights from a Sales Manager's Journey

Yeah, no, it's a really good question. It's really tough. What's that? It's a really good tough question, so.

The most interesting I've learned about my customers probably with informal. Because informer, I was with the brand licensing industry. So you're talking about billions of dollars. In revenue based on intellectual property. And that would suggest that you're using a logo on a product. And in return, there's an exchange of royalties and this multi-billion dollar industry was first of all for me, something I had to learn. And I was just blown away to understand how significant the power of branding and logo is. So, with my clients, what I learned the most, especially with Informer. Is the. How brands and customers perceive themselves and their brand. Ultimately to me was, was an eye opener. Because you can have a brand owner. On the level of a Disney. Who knows their brand is strong, but still lacks vision on many opportunities. And also you can have a smaller brand owner. Who doesn't know much about their brand and the strength of their brand, but is willing to commit to try all types of different methods. So to be an example for you, to, to give you a prime example is A big company has kind of this reputation of their brand. They've built it great, you know, they've been in the marketplace for a long time, excellent. They're already pretty visible. And that being said, they don't, they don't see, I know you would say, well, of course they do. I mean, they wanna make money, but they don't see opportunity the same way as a smaller brand would. And a smaller brands, because they're hungry, because they're anxious, because they've kind of, they don't have that earned established brand recognition, they're willing to try and go for other opportunities. And things as crazy as Getting your brand name on on nail polish. As a branded collaboration for nail polish. As for example, getting your, your, your brand or your logo into uh into shampoos which you have nothing to do with. So I guess what I'm trying to say is what was interesting is my customers They have either, they, they either have an understanding of their brand and how strong their brand is and they're willing to put it out in many ways. Or they're not. And it's just interesting because for me, I thought the bigger the brand, they have bigger money, they have bigger reach, they're willing to do whatever, you know, however they can get to that end goal. But it's quite the opposite. I feel like they're more traditional, they're not willing to open up their eyes to creativity. They're not willing to uh You know, take risks as much as a smaller brand would, and I've actually seen those risks happen with smaller brands that not on a similar scale, you can't compare, but from a success factor and growth percentage, those smaller brands killing it because they were, they're open to those ideas. So it's a little bit tricky for me to understand that in the beginning, but once I, I, I understood it, it made a lot of sense and it really helped kind of how I approached things. Where you can't necessarily win those bigger deals with creativity, you have to follow more traditional methods and vice versa.

So if I'm in a role as a BD, right, I'm assuming I'm in that stage and you're saying how would I invest my time better to get the bigger brands. I think the bigger brands are gonna be more relationship management. I think relationships, and you probably know this as well, relationships are everything in business, but I, I feel like for me, uh, I'm more, you know, pitched and, you know, pitch and go, pitch and go and just playing it like that where I don't necessarily take as much time to establish relationships, to ask about their kids, their family. I mean, yeah, you build rapport. But I feel like I noticed some of my more successful colleagues lately with Informer, I mean they can get on the phone, talk about things that have nothing to do for business for 15 minutes. And it literally take 2 minutes to talk about business and get the deal done. And that impresses me and I always wanted to understand how that works, how does that, you know, uh, contribute to the whole thing and I kept seeing it with these relationships. So for me, I think to get these bigger deals, I'd have to invest more time in relationship management, building more relationships instead of hitting them with the, you know, traditional build rapport, pitch, this, that. I just need to sit there and just turn off the business. Get to know these people, what, what it takes for them to tick, uh, what are some of their motivating factors outside of work, what are, you know, what are the things that are, they're humans. I just need to humanize it more. That's, that's what I think I could do better. That's a skill I need to work on better. What?