Why Brands Bother to Evolve.

Why Brands Bother to Evolve.
Your organization may be at the point where it’s humming along nicely. You’ve got your fair share of customers, your business is making money and your customers are delighted.
Or, if you’re like many businesses large and small, you’re looking at the horizon. You’re thinking about where your business is going, how you’re doing against the competition and how it’s meeting the needs of customers, and you know there’s room for improvement.
If you’re in the “my business is thriving” category, congratulations! However, if you’re like most businesses you’ll find yourself closer to the second category. You may be there today, or it may happen next week, month or year.
So, why bother evolving your brand into one that makes a big impact on the world? After all, isn’t business primarily about making money?
Consider this.
Each of us, whether we’re business leaders or not, has a finite amount of time on this lovely planet. We’re blessed with the precious gift of life. It’s a privilege to be alive. If you’re anything like me, you’ve hit the lottery—to be born in a place and time with so much possibility, so much abundance, so much opportunity, so much information and resources at your fingertips, and it would be shame to squander such gifts. We’re born into a human body with the ability to move worlds. We’re blessed with the gifts of thought, strategy, creativity and imagination.
As a business owner or leader you’ve either earned or have been given some power. That power allows you to make decisions that affect people’s lives, livelihoods, your culture, your customers, your community, and yes, the planet. How you make those decisions, what you base those decisions on and why you make those decisions has exponential effects.
How bold brands will change your world and the world.
You matter. Your business matters. Your people matter. The lives of your customers matter. The world around you matters.
In the best-selling book Abundance: The Future is Far Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, they say that “the true promise of abundance was one of creating a world of possibility: a world where everyone’s days are spent dreaming and doing, not scrapping and scraping.”
For most of us in western culture we now have far more choices in our work, careers and businesses than previous generations. How we spend our precious time, energy and resources will make a world of difference for generations to come. There’s been no better time to get bold, heck even audacious, with the purpose on which we build our businesses.
As I’ve said and written more times and places that I can count, the initial impetus that fuels brands to evolve with more purpose infused within them, typically begins with a financial motivation. Companies can loose market share, revenues and profit can drop, the competition gets aggressive forcing innovation responses, and the wants and needs of customers progress. But that’s just how it sometimes starts.
The other motivation is that the leader or leaders have an awakening of sorts. Some of the best businesses are founded on this awakening.
Distilled to its foundation, your business is really a service to humanity in some way. It offers something significant of value to your customers, your employees and the world around.
Why evolve your brand?
Sure, the financial benchmarks may incite the initial motivation, but there’s a bigger answer. Your precious time and energy—including all the people within organizations—should go towards something meaningful, impactful and worthwhile.
You should evolve because your time and energy deserve to go towards something that makes a big difference, “a dent in the universe,” as Steve Jobs put it. Meeting these demands requires not just more innovation and better marketing, but big leaps of evolution that take your business into a “blue ocean” realm—a stratosphere where there’s little or no competition, a place where your brand stands on a meaningful platform, a place where you make a much bigger difference in the lives of your customers.
If you want to know a few of the statistics that support an evolved brand, read below:

• 91% of customers would switch to a brand that has an aligned set of values with their own. Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study
• 80% of global consumers agree that business must play a role in addressing societal issues. Edelman Trust Barometer
• 84% of Americans believe that businesses have a responsibility to bring social change on important issues, just behind the President (89%) and Congress (92%). 2016 Global Strategy Group’s Business & Politics: Do They Mix?
• 93% of employees surveyed want to work for a company that cares about them as an individual. Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study

Take the quiz.
If you want to know what state your brand is and its readiness to evolve into one that’s built on purpose, core values and brand promises kept to customers, take this 10 question quiz to gauge your brand. No login required. The quiz gives you an immediate score and feedback on your score.

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