How People Think of You
When you talk about branding and this idea of what is a brand, I’m always reminded of this story.
My wife AJ is also my business partner.
AJ is a chronic overachiever!
She’s a taskmaster.
A do-gooder.
A list-checker!
She runs the house, runs the business, just goes, goes, goes.
I’m super happily married.
When we went and got married at the county clerk’s office, they gave us a form to fill out for the marriage license.
And AJ’s filling out her information. The top half is all about her. And she writes in her name, her birth date, her social security number…
Brand Identity
She gets down to the bottom half of the page, which is all about the husband.
Rather than having me fill it out, she decides she’s going to fill it in for me. So, she writes in my name, my birthday, my social security number.
She gets to the last question…which asks about ethnicity.
She writes in for me Caucasian.
And I looked at her, and I said, “Honey, what are you doing?”
And she said, “What?”
I said, “You just wrote down Caucasian.
She says, “Yeah.”
So I said, “Honey, I’m Mexican!”
And I think it was the first moment it dawned on her – she was actually about to marry a Mexican man!
We had been dating for several years. She knew that my grandmother was born in Mexico. She knew my mother’s maiden name was Realivasquez.
She knew that!
But it’s not how she thought of me.
What People Think of You
This is interesting because, when you think about what is a brand, a brand is what people think of when they think of you. It’s that’s simple.
A brand is what people think of when they think of you.
And that’s a question you have to ask yourself.
That’s all we’re trying to do when we build a brand to influence what people think of when they think about us.
The best part about that story with AJ is when we were at the rehearsal dinner.
We live in Nashville, where we got married. AJ grew up in Georgia and I’m from Colorado, so our families were meeting each other for the first time.
Influence How People Think of You
AJ wanted me to tell the marriage license certificate story. “I think that’s funny. It’ll break the ice,” she said.
So, I stand up at our rehearsal dinner in front of both of our families and I tell that story exactly as it happened.
As soon as I tell the story, my whole side of the family starts cracking up! They think it’s hilarious! They’re doubled over with laughter.
Her whole side of the family, at the exact same time, looking at each other bewildered, “He’s Mexican?!”
So, needless to say, our marriage has survived, and we are doing well.
What do people think of when they think of you?
What do you want people to think of when they think of you? Leave me a comment below.
