Supplier Summit


BMJ


BUILDERS MERCHANTS JOURNAL


Bigger Brands, Bolder Brands, Better Brands


can really get their customers – and their staff – to love their brand.”


By establishing clarity,


coherence and brand leadership within the business, Rita argued that independent merchants could leverage their unique knowledge of their customers and locality to build bigger, better, bolder brands within their businesses. Clifton outlined three ways that merchants should aim to build their brand:


• Clarity: what does the brand stand for? • Coherence: how does this clarity show up in everything the business does? This includes how it treats its own people, since they are such a vital part of the customer experience.


• Leadership: how does each principal epitomise the best


of the brand. This means that the leaders must demonstrate innovation and restlessness, constantly reviewing the brand. “They must keep on bringing something to the table, and upping the brand game with customer service, and emotional engagement with the brand,” she said. Finally, Clifton used the example of Irish food distribution company Musgrave Group, Musgrave which gave its convenience store chain, Centra, a complete brand overhaul, introducing coffee shops and new layouts, all with the central aim of enhancing the customer experience. The case study served to highlight how independent businesses and major brands can successfully work in partnership, a key theme of the Conference.


Better relationships T


he title of this year’s NBG Conference was “Bigger ,Bolder Better” but the theme was decidedly much more brand focused. How can local independent builders merchants leverage their brands? And how can they use the brand collateral of the building industry’s biggest brands to supplement their own?


As part of that theme, branding ‘guru’ Rita Clifton - recognised in the Debrett’s 2015 list as one of Britain’s 500 most influential people - addressed a packed NBG conference in Liverpool as part of the Supplier Summit, a joint NBG Partner / Supplier seminar to keep everyone abreast of the latest NBG developments. Her keynote address urged merchants and suppliers to place their brand at the very heart of their business. Clifton, who has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands during her time and top branding consultancies in the 80s and 90s and who now advises the boards of some of Britain’s largest companies, was extremely well received by NBG Partners and Suppliers alike. She outlined the ways


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that merchants could learn from successful brands in other sectors to maximise their local presence.


As the daughter of a shopkeeper, Clifton knows very well how important a strong local brand presence is. “It is a struggle for independents to find a voice against the big guys and online, so I know it is tempting to feel squeezed, and beaten up,” she said. “But one of the best ways to compete is by building a better brand – and that comes from understanding your customers better.”


At the heart of her


philosophy for independent merchants is the need for merchants not only to build their own brand but to work with suppliers – many of whom have strong brand presence – to create a better customer experience. This, she argued, is by making every part of the customer’s experience count – from phone calls to deliveries, from shop floor to board room. “It is easy for local businesses to be intimidated by big brands and big budgets, but the reality is that, by knowing their customers, smaller businesses have a huge advantage. They


mean better business • We need to wrap ourselves around our customers more, and actually link up with other brands who complement ours, and make the effect on the customer last longer.


• Make the most of your relationship with customers. • Customers want to go to physical stores more than online.


• You need to do branding well, it goes beyond the name and the logo, it’s what lies beneath as well.


• People leave, buildings and offices become dilapidated, products become redundant, the thing that looks after you is the brand, and that applies if you’re a small or large business.


• Everything you do should be adding value to your customers, and adding to how you generate long term returns.


• Be totally clear about what you stand for and make sure it shows in everything you do.


• Use the customer connection and give your people a purpose.


• Grow good business with partners and retailers and suppliers and share the common purpose.


• Final thought – how clear are you as a business what your purpose is, how does that show in everything you do and what are you doing to make sure you are building an all round sustainable business?


Three characteristics that make a difference in branding:


• Clarity – clarity on what you stand for and how you are different and better comapred with your competitors.


• Coherence – how does that clarity show up through everything you do across your customer experience and internally through your own staff.


• Leadership – you who runs the organization, the people who manage your organization, how do they epitomize what’s best about your business.


Bigger, Bolder, Better January 2018 BMJ


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