The Four Ingredients

I always tell the travel agents I coach that their brand is the “sum total” of who they are and how they connect to their target market. Whether their brand is successful depends a lot on how closely it resembles that “sum total.”

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In this column, I would like to discuss some very specific areas you can work on to develop your brand and ensure it is a reflection of you and your business. When I speak of your “sum total,” I am referring to four main ingredients that combine to make up your brand. These components are as follows: 1) your logo, 2) your marketing tools and strategies, 3) the products and services you offer, and 4) your personality.

Your logo is important because it is the visual representation that people associate with you and the products you sell. Sometimes it’s a picture, a letter or a word and, sometimes, it’s a combination of those things. A strong personal brand logo depends on your business model. A personal photo used in combination with a strong host agency or consortium brand would be perfect for an independent contractor because he or she can co-brand with a powerful brand.

For independent contractors partnering with a low-profile host agency, or no agency at all, the emphasis should be on an image that best represents their personal passion, niche or travel specialty. When examining your existing logo or choosing a new one, take into consideration the colors used and the emotions they evoke, as well as the actual image, the font and the spacing.

Make sure it all appeals to you and reflects who you are. In addition, check out the logos of some of the power brands in the marketplace. Starbucks’ logo, a perfect example of an internationally recognized brand, is consistent online and off and evokes an emotional sensation of a “time-out treat” in our busy lives.

The second ingredient is marketing. This includes your advertising and promotions, such as direct mail, website and Facebook page to name a few. Your use of marketing strategies and tools is important because it is how you educate people about who you are and what you offer. Make sure that the words and images you use to describe yourself are congruent in your marketing so that they reflect your target market, which, hopefully, will recognize that you provide that special something they need and want.

Your slogan is also an important part of your marketing. For example, when I sing, “da da da dada, I’m lovin’ it,” you know exactly what brand I’m referring to, right? McDonald’s marketing is very synchronized with just about every customer touch point and is a great example of what I mean when I talk about congruency.

Another example of an effective travel slogan comes from my work with a senior travel entrepreneur. She had 29 years in the business, including extensive travel and cruise experience. Together we created her slogan “Full Service Travel Experience That Takes You Places.” This one simple statement is featured on her logo, business card, Facebook page, website, letterheads, stationery, email signature, administrative documents, promotional fliers and baggage tag holders.

The third ingredient, products and services, is what we sell that satisfies the wants and needs of our clients. These include our product knowledge, our supplier relations, specialization, customization, innovation and operational systems. These are the things that you must build or will have built over a period of time.

Before people buy cruise and travel from you, however, they need to buy you first. You are the first product for sale and this brings me to the fourth ingredient: your personality. Personality is the human connection, the common bond between you and your target market. It is not only your appearance, body language and tone of voice, which are extremely important on their own, but also your passion, interests and value that make people like you and want to buy from you.

Dale Carnegie said it best 80 years ago: “People buy from people they know, like and trust.” Indeed, the best travel agents know their self-worth and are not afraid to charge others for it.

So, to conclude, I would like to leave you with a challenge. Investigate well-known brands in the marketplace and analyze what it is about them that works and then check your brand using the same criteria. I hope this will stir you to action to re-brand or at least freshen up that Microsoft logo (palm tree and airplane) from 1995!