Learn a New Language: Branding

Hi,

When my family and I lived in Italy we knew from the beginning we would have to learn Italian which was a new language for all of us. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the culture and in our new country and for us to do that learning the language was key. It wasn’t so much that we were interested in Italian for the pure joy of speaking it; what we really wanted were the benefits of speaking the language: The ability to make friends, have richer life experiences, perform better at work, and just live a normal life.

In the same way, branding can be thought of as a kind of language. It has structure, and logic, and vocabulary. For most people, learning the language of branding isn’t about the joy of learning; it too is about the benefits it brings. The ability to communicate with target clients, imagine richer client experiences, profitable growth, and just running a better salon.

Once we learned enough Italian to be dangerous we learned a very unexpected lesson. We were so proud that we could say simple phrases and ask a variety of questions. It didn’t take long to realize, however, that after we successfully communicated something like, “Good morning. How are you?” things would get very complicated. Why? Because the person we spoke to would respond! Once they started talking we realized we not only needed to learn the questions, we needed to be able to understand the answers—and then have something else to say, unless we wanted every conversation to last less than a minute.

That’s when we got serious about understanding the fundamentals of Italian. We knew that we couldn’t acquire a lifetime of knowledge in six months but we also knew that if we understood the fundamentals of Italian we could figure out how to keep a conversation going. Getting a stronger command of verbs, nouns, and syntax turned out to be far more helpful than just learning random words and speaking them without purpose.

Branding has its own vocabulary and you can learn and use the basics to help you have purposeful conversations with your clients and target audience. Without having to master the entire subject in six months you can still understand and practice the fundamentals that will allow your salon to thrive. We can teach you the fundamentals of branding and we can show you how to sustain your conversations.

If this kind of thinking appeals to you and you would like to learn more, please contact me. We’d love to hear your story and share more of ours.

Jim Lucas
Séva Education
(925) 980-7871
gojimlucas@sevastyle.com

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