Your Beliefs

You are not stuck. You are patterned. And patterns can change.

In my book there is a line I want you to sit with. A sole proprietor who moves from working for someone else to working for himself will normally spend very little on marketing, live on referrals, and stay small, for one reason and one reason only: he does not understand the concepts that make a business grow. The problem is a belief. He believes marketing is for big companies, that good work sells itself, that people like him do not build brands. And so he does not.

Beliefs are the invisible part of the internal brand

Vision is where you are going. Mission is how you behave. Values are the lines you will not cross. Beliefs sit underneath all three, and they are the assumptions you rarely say out loud because you have never had to. What you believe about customers. What you believe about money. What you believe about your trade, and about people who do what you do.

These beliefs show up in the brand whether you want them to or not. The contractor who believes customers are always trying to nickel-and-dime him writes estimates that read like legal defenses. The restaurant owner who believes his town will not pay for good food builds a menu that proves him right. The consultant who believes she is not “a sales person” never asks for the business and then wonders why the brand feels invisible.

Here is the distinction. A belief is whatever someone holds to be real or true for them, whether or not it is a fact, and the book uses the same definition for perception. Which means your beliefs about your market are a perception, exactly as your customers’ beliefs about you are. Both can be examined. Both can change.

The beliefs that shape a brand

There are a few beliefs I check for with every business owner I work with, because they show up in the marketing every time.

What do you believe about what people will pay? If you believe your area is cheap, you will price cheap, attract the price shopper, and confirm the belief. The image you portray decides which customers you get; the book is blunt about that. A belief about price becomes a brand about price.

What do you believe about why people buy? Most owners believe customers buy the work. In my experience they buy the feeling around the work: security, freedom, being taken care of, looking good to their spouse. If you believe it is only about the work, your brand will only talk about the work, and the feeling will go unclaimed.

What do you believe about yourself in the market? The book tells the story of computer technicians who open a store and speak in a language the public cannot follow, and sell very little. Underneath the jargon is a belief: I am a technician, not a communicator. The brand inherits the belief.

And what do you believe about growth? If you believe the business cannot run without you, you will build one that cannot, and the brand will be you personally rather than the company. That is fine if that is the vision. It is a trap if it is not.

Bringing them into the light

You cannot rewrite a belief you have not named. So the work here is simply to name them. Finish these sentences quickly and honestly, without editing: Customers in my area are… People who do what I do are usually… The reason someone chooses me over a competitor is… Marketing is… The most I could ever charge for this is… The kind of person who buys from me is…

Now read your answers and ask a harder question about each one: is this true, or is it just familiar? Where did I get it? Would the version of me who has already reached the vision agree with it? Some beliefs will hold up. Others will turn out to be something your first boss said in 2009 that you have been carrying around like it was carved in stone.

Then pick the one belief that, if it turned out to be wrong, would change your business the most. Write the opposite as a hypothesis you are willing to test with one small action this month. A higher price on one quote. One ad that talks about the feeling instead of the specs. One conversation where you explain something without the jargon.

Beliefs change like a piano gets tuned, gradually, with the strings adjusting to new tension over time. You do not have to believe the new thing today. You only have to stop treating the old thing as unquestionable.

Write down your five strongest beliefs about your customers, your prices and your trade, and next to each one write where it came from. Circle the one most likely holding your brand where it is, and design one small test of it for this month.

It takes an hour or two and it is free. The real cost is the discomfort of noticing that some of the ceilings in your business were built by you. That is also the good news, because a ceiling you built is one you can raise.