MLM Training- The Biggest Branding MistakeYou Can Make

mlm home business network marketing

MLM Social Media Branding.

Are you building a brand for your home based business?

Are you focused on the brand and building a great reputation?

What are you doing to build your network marketing brand in the marketplace?

There are many ways today to build a brand. There are many “brand gurus” out there that can train you on the brand building path. And all are good as you need to build your brand for your mlm business.

What are YOU doing to make sure that you are building a brand that will WORK and be remembered in the marketplace?

Here is an article that I recently read from Smartbriefs, and it really is a great article on branding.

Enjoy!

“Hey! I think that’s the Toilet Paper guy.”

“Who?”

“You know, that book. That Toilet Paper business book.”

“That guy wrote a book about a toilet paper business?”

“No, no. Well, maybe. I don’t know. But I think he’s the author guy of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.”

“Sounds disgusting.”

“Um, yeah. It kinda does. Let’s go get a beer.”

And with that another potential reader has no idea who I am, has no interest is seeing what else my brand offers and walks away to get a beer or read a book from an author they
recognize or both. I have yet again fallen victim to my own over-branding.

The story first ran in the blog section of the New York Times: “How The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Branded Himself Too Well.” It exposed the critical mistake I made. I created an entire platform around “toilet paper,” from my website to social media to my book title to my consulting work and even my televised business makeovers.

The edgy “toilet paper” name was an attention getter, and it captured the initial eyes I needed to launch my newest endeavor as an author and in building my business growth consultancy. But as my offering expand, that attention getter was hard to break from.

As I finished up my most recent entrepreneur book, The Pumpkin Plan, new prospective readers had no idea who I was and past readers of my first book couldn’t make the connection between pumpkins and toilet paper. It was getting clear I had to take the leap branding
now or forever be The Toilet Paper guy.

Branding Yourself Into a Corner

I am a big fan of Tim Ferris. He is the author of the blockbuster book The 4-Hour Workweek.
With all the tremendous and well-deserved success he has had, I still believe
he branded himself (via his books) into the corner. His “4-Hour” term has grown
bigger than his name.

Don’t get me wrong, Tim’s name is big, too. But his “4-Hour” nomenclature is bigger. His next book was The 4-Hour Body. And from the title, it seemed to imply you had to workout 4 hours a day to get the body you want. Of course, that wasn’t what the book shared, but the success
of the “4-Hour” brand forced the unlikely title (I am assuming here).

His newest book? The 4-Hour Chef. I am sure it doesn’t mean you need to spend four hours a day cooking; it is simply a result of his brand. Over-branding for Tim is not a problem, since he hit the brand out of the park on the first try. For me, it is a different story.

Anything I introduced after The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has been difficult. Prospects would say “What’s this?” and “Who are you?” only recognizing it was something from me
when I told them I was the Toilet Paper guy.

When I saw what Tim was experiencing coupled with the problems I was already having, I knew my TP brand spelled long-term trouble. On the scale of recognizability, The 4 Hour Workweek is about 1 million times more recognizable than The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. And if Tim is stuck with a brand other than his name, there was no way that I would ever be able to break free of mine. There was no way I was going to gain momentum using TP.

The one thing I had going was that no one knew of me. Meaning I still had a chance to re-brand.

Better Branding

When it comes to being an author, or a real estate developer (think Donald Trump), or an expert in any field, there is a distinct advantage of branding around your name: You can use it in association with all your products and no one can steal the brand from you. Trump Towers, Trump Plaza, Trump Ice (that one went belly up), Trump National—it goes on and on.

Recognizing this, two months ago I made the leap to build a brand around my name. I have a particularly large hurdle since my last name, Michalowicz, has about 700 syllables. In case you are wondering, it is pronounced mi-KAL-o-wits.

But there is magic in hard-to-pronounce names. Once you teach it to someone, and they master it, they feel emboldened to correct and teach others. It becomes its own mini-viral campaign.

So there you have it. The jury is still out, now that I am roughly two months
into my brand shift. You can see on my new entrepreneur website ways that I am incorporating my name (from the audio button on themhomepage to the mouseovers on the interior pages). And while I am surely not a household name, no one is calling my The Pumpkin guy.

Mike Michalowicz is the the CEO of Provendus Group, a consultancy that ignites explosive growth in companies that have plateaued. He is the author of The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He also maintains an active blog for entrepreneurs.

This is an article about bad branding that has some great tips on how NOT to brand, and beware of that for your mlm network marketing home business. Pick the RIGHT BRAND for you, and one that will work FOR you, not against you in your home based business.

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blessings…doug firebaugh

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