Author Archives: Braden Kelley

About Braden Kelley

Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, and creator of the FutureHacking™ and Human-Centered Change™ methodologies. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change (Second Edition) from Palgrave Macmillan. Braden is a US Navy veteran and earned his MBA from top-rated London Business School. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Next Generation Loyalty – Part One

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Next Generation Loyalty - Part One

Loyalty Archaeology™

Excavating Sources of Next Generation Loyalty

Marketers have an overly optimistic perspective on customer loyalty and their implementations of customer loyalty programs.

The reality is that very few customers are loyal and much of what we speak of as customer loyalty is no more than repeat transaction behavior.

Customer Loyalty Programs Are Really Just Discount Programs

If we are honest as marketers, today’s typical customer loyalty program is no more than an a way of automatically gathering purchase data and distributing discounts. Today’s traditional points-based customer loyalty program is actually just a fancy and often costly discounting program because smart marketers only use discounting to capture sales that would not otherwise have occurred. As soon as you begin distributing discounts to people that would have purchased anyways, then you are cannibalizing your own profit margins.

If you want to dispute that a points-based loyalty program is nothing more than a discounting program, you have to look no further than web sites that quantify the value of points given for airline miles, hotel stays, etc.

So what is customer loyalty?

According to the Oxford Dictionaries, loyalty is a strong feeling of support or allegiance.

In a business sense, most people look at customer loyalty as a measure of how likely a customer is to do repeat business with a company or brand.

But this way of looking at customer loyalty is too easy to “achieve” and is more related to repeat purchase behavior than true loyalty. The definition of loyalty in Oxford Dictionaries is too weak as well.

True loyalty (customer or otherwise) is when someone engages in a behavior that is not in their most obvious best interest because of a higher commitment.

A United States Marine putting himself or herself in harm’s way to recover a wounded comrade from the battlefield is a demonstration of true loyalty.

A customer paying a higher price for an identical product could be a demonstration of loyalty, but could also be an example of brand value or linked to other intangible, often emotional sources of value not directly linked to the product itself (desire to support a company’s social purpose, affinity for cartoon characters used to promote the product, etc.)

A customer paying a lower price for an identical product because you’re giving them a “loyalty program” discount is not a sign of loyalty.

Focusing on the interfaces and experiences related to your products, services and solutions and their surrounding emotional components are more likely to engender loyalty than building a points-based program.

I’m not saying points-based programs are bad, but let’s be clear – they’re not loyalty programs, they’re great for gathering customer purchase data and helping to drive repeat purchase behavior. But, if your competitor offers a better points program you’re likely to lose your supposedly loyal customers.

What does a Next Generation Loyalty program look like?

A Next Generation (aka NextGen) Loyalty program has very little to do with points and promotions, but instead focuses on identifying and leveraging the variables that represent opportunities to create actual loyalty for your brands and their associated products, services and solutions.

Next Generation Loyalty programs can only be created if you understand where the value comes from for each of your products, services and solutions.

Innovation Resonance Venn Diagram

In my popular article “Innovation is All About Value” I highlighted the fact that there are three key value considerations in the pursuit of innovation:

Value Creation is pretty self-explanatory. Your innovation investment must create incremental or completely new value large enough to overcome the switching costs of moving to your new solution from the old solution (including the ‘Do Nothing Solution’). New value can be created by making something more efficient, more effective, possible that wasn’t possible before, or create new psychological or emotional benefits.

Value Access could also be thought of as friction reduction. How easy do you make it for customers and consumers to access the value you’ve created. How well has the product or service been designed to allow people to access the value easily? How easy is it for the solution to be created? How easy is it for people to do business with you?

Value Translation is all about helping people understand the value you’ve created and how it fits into their lives. Value translation is also about understanding where on a continuum between the need for explanation and education that your solution falls. Incremental innovations can usually just be explained to people because they anchor to something they already understand, but radical or disruptive innovations inevitably require some level of education (often far in advance of the launch).

All three are defined in the article on the link above and were created in an innovation context, but there is no reason they couldn’t also be used in a marketing context to identify potential sources of customer loyalty to be leveraged or enhanced.

Another great way to work backwards to identify potential sources of customer loyalty is to leverage A Practical Model for Jobs to be Done (JTBD) from Jim Kalbach. The six components laid out in his graphic below being:

Situation
Motivation
Desired Outcome
Functional Jobs
Emotional Jobs
Social Jobs

Practical Model for Understanding Jobs to be Done from Jim Kalbach

Using Loyalty Archaeology™ to Uncover Sources of NextGen Loyalty

These two simple frameworks give you a great place to start your quest for Next Generation Loyalty. Using Loyalty Archaeology™ to understand potential sources of loyalty will provide the foundation for building a potential program of loyalty enhancements.

You might be sensing that there is no one size fits all when it comes to NextGen Loyalty, and you’d be right.

What insights about the sources of your customers’ loyalty do you think these frameworks can provide?

What other tools do you think would be useful in excavating sources of potential customer loyalty?

In the next article in this series we’ll look at how to take the insights on customer loyalty sources and build a program of initiatives to enhance and accelerate your sources of unique customer loyalty. We’ll also look at how to go beyond points and redemption to leverage different parameters in your program of initiatives to build Next Generation Loyalty!

Image credits: Pixabay, Braden Kelley and Jim Kalbach

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Free Human-Centered Innovation Tools

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Free Human-Centered Innovation Tools

Innovation is all about change, and change only succeeds when people are put at the center. Therefore, people are also the heart of innovation.

It is because of this fact that I continue to build out my Human-Centered Innovation methodology and toolkit.

Keeping with the spirit of placing people at the center of innovation and change I have not only resurrected Blogging Innovation as Human-Centered Change & Innovation (follow us on LinkedIn) – complete with a weekly newsletter – but am also creating this curated collection of human-centered innovation tools.

I will give this page a start with some of my free tools from my Human-Centered Innovation Toolkit along with other well-know people-centric innovation tools.

BUT, this page will always be under construction, so please contact me with your suggestions of free tools to add.

Free Human-Centered Innovation Tools

Assessments

1. Innovation Maturity Assessment

To help people evaluate their level of innovation maturity against the above graphic, I am sharing the 50 question innovation maturity assessment I use with clients. The assessment is most powerful when answers are gathered at multiple levels of the organization across several groups and several sites, but you can also fill it out yourself and get instant feedback – for FREE.

Click here to visit the Free Innovation Maturity Assessment page

Strategy Tools

1. Play-to-Win Strategy Canvas

Matthew E. May designed and developed a wall canvas to be used when facilitating strategic choice-making with small teams. Over time, the canvas has evolved as he learned more and more about the art and discipline of strategy facilitation… what people struggle with most, where the resource of time is best spent, etc.

He introduced v3.0 of the canvas a few years ago in a short post, but here’s a little content to both explain what’s different (and why) and a few tips.

The first thing you’ll notice is that strategy-making is in three big steps:

1. Choose (strategic choices using the Play-to-Win framework)
2. Reverse Engineer (what must true for the choices to be good ones)
3. Test (validating what must be true is in fact true, or true enough)

Click here to download the free Play-to-Win wall size canvas

Click here to download the free Play-to-Win 11×17 canvas (aka A3)

Planning Tools

1. Visual Project Charter™

The Visual Project Charter™ helps organizations:

Move beyond the Microsoft Word document
Make the creation of Project Charters more fun!
Kickoff projects in a more collaborative, more visual way
Structure dialogue to capture the project overview, project scope, project conditions and project approach

This download includes a premium 35″ x 56″ scalable PDF that I am making available to project managers for use in planning their projects in a more visual and collaborative way for greater alignment, accountability, and more successful outcomes.

The download will also include a JPEG version for use with online whiteboarding tools like Miro, Mural, Lucidspark and Microsoft Whiteboard for when your sticky notes need to be virtual.

Click here to get the Visual Project Charter™ for free

2. Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a popular tool from Strategyzer than can be used collaboratively to sketch out and iterate on potential business models for a new business or innovation opportunity. Why use the Business Model Canvas?

Map Existing Business Models – Visualize and communicate a simple story of your business model.
Design New Business Models – Use the canvas to explore new business models whether you are a start-up or an existing business.
Manage a Portfolio of Business Models – Use the canvas to easily juggle between “Explore” and “Exploit” business models.

Click to visit Strategyzer’s Business Model Canvas download page

People & Culture

1. Nine Innovation Roles Card Deck

I’m of the opinion that all people are creative, in their own way. That is not to say that all people are creative in the sense that every single person is good at creating lots of really great ideas, nor do they have to be. I believe instead that everyone has a dominant innovation role at which they excel, and that when properly identified and channeled, the organization stands to maximize its innovation capacity. I believe that all people excel at one of nine innovation roles, and that when organizations put the right people in the right innovation roles, that your innovation speed and capacity will increase.

Click here to visit the Nine Innovation Roles free gifts page
(multiple languages available)

Frameworks

1. Eight I’s of Infinite Innovation

The Eight I’s of Infinite Innovation framework is designed to be a continuous learning process, one without end as the outputs of one round become inputs for the next round. It’s also a relatively new guiding framework for organizations to use, so if you have thoughts on how to make it even better, please let me know in the comments. The framework is also ideally suited to power a wave of new organizational transformations that are coming as an increasing number of organizations (including Hallmark) begin to move from a product-centered organizational structure to a customer needs-centered organizational structure. The power of this new approach is that it focuses the organization on delivering the solutions that customers need as their needs continue to change, instead of focusing only on how to make a particular product (or set of products) better.

Click here to download the Eight I’s of Infinite Innovation PDF from LinkedIn
(go into fullscreen mode to download)

2. Building a Global Sensing Network

Building a Global Sensing Network The purpose of a global sensing network is to allow an organization to collect and connect the partial insights and ideas that will form the basis of the organization’s next generation of customer solutions. This involves collecting and connecting:

Customer Insights
Core Technology Trends
Adjacent Technology Trends
Distant technology trends
Local social mutations
Expert Communities

Click to access this framework as a scalable 11″x17″ PDF download

Prototyping & Testing Tools

1. The Experiment Canvas™

The Experiment Canvas™ is designed to help people instrument for learning fast in iterative new product development (NPD) or service development activities. The canvas will help you create new innovation possibilities in a more visual and collaborative way for greater alignment, accountability, and more successful outcomes.

Click to download the Experiment Canvas™ as a 35″ x 56″ scalable FREE PDF poster

Add to this list of Free Human-Centered Innovation Tools

This page will always be under construction, so please contact me with your suggestions of free tools to add.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Don’t Forget to Innovate the Customer Experience

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Don't Forget to Innovate the Customer Experience

Too often we speak about Innovation, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, Employee Experience and Organizational Change as very distinct and separate things.

But is this the right approach?

Those of you who have read both my first book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and my second book Charting Change know that the main reason that the second book even exists is because innovation is all about change.

Apple couldn’t bring the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes store to market without inflicting incredible amounts of change upon the organization and building many different new organizational capabilities and hiring many new types of people with many types of expertise new to the organization.

I’ve also written about BIG C and little c change, with BIG C change including transformations of many types (including digital) and little C change including projects and other small initiatives. And yes, every project changes something, so every project is a change initiative. And so yes, project management is in fact a subset of change management, not the typical wrong way ’round that change management is usually made subservient to project management.

Stop it!

Architecting the Organization for Change

For an invention to have any chance of becoming an innovation, the organization must transform, and to do this well we must design corresponding changes in both employee experience and customer experience to accelerate and integrate:

Value Creation
Value Access
Value Translation

See my important article Innovation is All About Value for more background on these three phrases.

Because of the interconnectedness between innovation, change, transformation, customer experience and employee experience we must look at these different specialties holistically and in a coordinated way if we are to maximize our chances of successfully completing the journey from invention to innovation.

Service Design and Journey Mapping have a role to play, as does Human-Centered Design because people are at the heart of innovation and transformation. These tools can help uncover the customer needs and help visualize what the NEW experiences must look like for both employees and customers to maximize the holistic value created and the ability of customers to access that value as effortlessly as possible.

As we work to design the potential innovation as a product or a service or a combination of the two, we must also consciously design the customer experience and employee experience to enhance to possibilities of this invention becoming an innovation. This includes potentially designing OUT touchpoints in current journeys that people may taken as a given, but maybe no longer need to exist if we are truly keeping the customer and their wants/needs at the center of our focus.

As part of your innovation activities, consider creating customer and employee journey maps, printing them poster size and placing them front and center on your innovation wonder wall so that you can ask your innovation team the following questions:

What is different about this customer or employee touchpoint when considering our potential innovation?
How could we design out the need for this customer or employee touchpoint?
With our potential innovation, what customer or employee touchpoints may no longer be necessary?
With our potential innovation, what new customer or employee touchpoints may we need to create?
What organizational and employee knowledge and capabilities are we missing, that we must have, to deliver the necessary and expected customer and employee experiences?

As we explore these questions, they allow us to look beyond the product or service that forms the basis of the potential innovation that we are creating and create more value around it, to make our customers’ and employees’ experiences of our potential innovation better, and to increase our chances of more successfully translating the holistic value for its potential customers.

Customer and employee experiences are not detached and separate from the new products and services forming the basis of your innovation activities.

The change and transformation that accompany innovation are not separate either.

We must look at all of these specialties together and not see them as isolated things, otherwise we will fail.

So keep innovating, but be sure and consider the change and transformation necessary to help you be successful and how you are going to innovate your customer and employee experiences at the same time!

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AI Has Already Taken Over the World

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by Braden Kelley

I don’t know about you, but it’s starting to feel as if machines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have already taken over the world.

Remember in primary school when everyone tried really hard to impress, or even just to be recognized by, a handful of cool kids?

It’s feeling more and more each day as if the cool kids on the block that we’re most desperate to impress are algorithms and artificial intelligence.

We’re all desperate to get our web pages preferred over others by the algorithms of Google and Bing and are willing to spend real money on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to increase our chances of ranking higher.

Everyone seems super keen to get their social media posts surfaced by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, and even LinkedIn.

In today’s “everything is eCommerce” world, how your business ranks on Google and Bing increasingly can determine whether you’re in business or out of business.

Algorithms Have Become the New Cool Kids on the Block

According to the “Agencies SEO Services Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030” report from The Business Research Company:

“The global agencies seo services market is expected to grow from $37.84 billion in 2020 to $40.92 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.1%. The market is expected to reach $83.7 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 19.6%.”

Think about that for a bit…

Companies and individuals are forecast to spend $40 Billion trying to impress the alogrithms and artificial intelligence applications of companies like Google and Microsoft in order to get their web sites and web pages featured higher in the search engine rankings.

The same can be true for companies and individuals trying to make a living selling on Amazon, Walmart.com and eBay. The algorithms of these companies determine which sellers get preferred placement and as a result can determine which individuals and companies profit and which will march down a path toward bankruptcy.

And then there is another whole industry and gamesmanship surrounding the world of social media marketing.

According to BEROE the size of the social media marketing market is in excess of $102 Billion.

These are huge numbers that, at least for me, demonstrate that the day that machines and AI take over the world is no longer out there in the future, but is already here.

Machines have become the gatekeepers between you and your customers.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

(insert maniacal laugh here)

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Join Me for Innovation Day 2021 – October 15, 2021

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Join me for the American Society for Quality’s (ASQ) Innovation Day 2021 on October 15,2021.

The theme for this year’s event is intersectional global value.

There will be an exciting line-up of innovation-oriented keynotes, in-depth topic speakers, practitioner and student lightning-talk sessions, panel discussions, workshops, round-tables, meet the author sessions, and a diversity-oriented networking experience.

I will be delivering the closing keynote to the event in my role as innovation speaker.

I hope you will join me for this live virtual event.

More details coming soon!
(including more details on the speakers and sessions)

Please register here: https://events.eply.com/ASQTCInnovationDay2021

All proceeds go to funding our inaugural ASQ Innovation Scholarship.

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Digital Transformation Virtual Office Hours – Session One

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84% of digital transformations fail, according to research by Michael Gale of PulsePoint Group.

A digital transformation is the journey between a company’s current business operations to a reimagined version of itself from the perspective of how a digital native would build the same business operations leveraging the latest technology and scientific understandings of management science, leadership, decision science, business and process architecture, design, customer experience, etc.

Here is a quick review list of ten things to keep in mind for a successful digital transformation:

Reimagine your business from a digital native perspective
A Human-Centered Data Model (customers & employees)
Put your customers and employees at the center
Identify intersection of what’s needed & what’s possible
Simplify processes
Reduce complexity
Design elegant experiences
Technology comes at the END – not the beginning
Start by making strategic choices
Build capabilities needed to achieve your transformation

LinkedIn Virtual Office Hours – Digital Transformation – Session One

On Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 11am EDT I opened up a Virtual Office Hours session on LinkedIn about Digital Transformation.

To participate in this first in a series of virtual office hours, you only need do two things:

Follow me on LinkedIn
Visit this LinkedIn post, add a comment with your question and I will answer it!

Here is an example of how these Digital Transformation Virtual Office Hours will go:

QUESTION ONE from Howard Tiersky:

How can you determine if your data model is human centered?

Can you talk more about that idea?

ANSWER from Braden Kelley:

Great question Howard! The best way to evaluate whether your data model is human-centered is to look at the most frequent actions driven by your data.

The first mistake people make in building their data model is to not start with the end in mind.

The second mistake people make in building their data model is to not be brutal in insisting that nearly 100% of the data gathered is actionable and not just nice to have. BUT, it is far more difficult to make the decision not to gather a piece of data than it is to just make your forms one field longer.

To try and create a human-centered data model you want to focus on making sure you’re only gathering actionable data and that it is being used to drive outcomes for humans (customers, employees, partners, etc.).

Finally, one side effect that people don’t consider when building their data model and gathering non-actionable data is that they end up inflating the number of reports that get built and that people have to sort through to find the ones that are human-centered and do contain actionable data.

So, design your data models from value derived for humans and the actions necessary to execute, evolve and deliver – backwards!

QUESTION TWO from Mark Schaefer:

In my experience across many verticals, it seems like digital transformation usually occurs only when the pain in business necessitates it. In other words, the cost of avoiding change becomes greater than the cost of implementing solutions.

Do think this is still the case or are companies outside of tech beginning to think more long-term and strategically about these transformations?

ANSWER from Braden Kelley:

While it is definitely true that most companies only engage in the perceived pain of transformation when it is less than the perceived pain of avoiding change, an increasing number of organizations are recognizing that doing nothing is no longer a viable option.

A true digital transformation not only has the potential of equipping the organization to better fight off entrance by digital natives, but also to deliver improved customer and employee experiences and to improve employee retention and recruitment in this tight labor market.

And yes, companies outside of tech are beginning to think more strategically about these transformations as I am about to begin working with a company in the natural resources industry.

Companies in every industry can no longer put off this important work, and in fact a true digital transformation has the side benefits of increasing innovation capabilities and capacity when done well.

Click to Add Your Question on LinkedIn

p.s. If you’re interested in Digital Transformation, you’ll also enjoy some of the articles I’ve written for a number of publications including CEO World, the HCL Technologies Blog, and of course Human-Centered Change and Innovation:

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Digital Transformation – Ask Me Anything on LinkedIn

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Ask Me Anything on LinkedIn about Digital Transformation

On Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 11am EDT I will we be hosting an Ask Me Anything session on LinkedIn about Digital Transformation.

To participate in this first in a series of virtual office hours, you only need do two things:

Follow me on LinkedIn
Visit my LinkedIn profile at 11am EDT this Tuesday, August 31, 2001 and post a comment on the 11am EDT post with your question and I will answer it!

I’ve written extensively about Digital Transformation for a number of publications including CEO World, the HCL Technologies Blog, and of course Human-Centered Change and Innovation. Please feel free to check out some of my writings to inspire your questions August 31st at 11am EDT!

Join me with your questions Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 11am EDT on LinkedIn!
(watch for the post and add your question as a comment)

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Thank You for Your Thinkers50 Nominations

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Thinkers 50 - Nominations and Votes Needed

Just wanted to write a quick post to thank you all for your support over the years as I’ve done my best to make innovation insights accessible for the greater good.

Whether you started following along when I launched Blogging Innovation back in 2006 or became part of the world’s most popular global innovation community when we launched Innovation Excellence, your support has been greatly appreciated.

Many of you have been kind enough to nominate me again this year for the Thinkers50 ranking.

There is still time to nominate me or any of your other favorite innovation authors for the 2021 edition of the Thinkers50 rankings.

Nominations close September 1, 2021 at 9am GMT.

Blogging Innovation, and then Innovation Excellence, became home to more than 8,000 innovation-related articles from 400+ contributing authors.

I’m super excited about The Rebirth of Blogging Innovation as Human-Centered Change and Innovation as a place to share with you a multitude of different voices and perspectives from super-talented authors from around the globe on a range of innovation and transformation-related topics.

ESPECIALLY those coming at change and innovation from a human-centered perspective.

If you’ve contributed articles to Blogging Innovation or Innovation Excellence in the past or know someone who has, or know someone who should, please point your browser or their browser to my contact page and we’ll turn the initial trickle of innovation content back into a true Human-Centered Change and Innovation river.

Here are the first GUEST POSTS from Arlen Meyers, Janet Sernack, Paul Sloane, and Nicolas Bry:

Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate — by Janet Sernack
Why so much medical technoskepticism? — by Arlen Meyers
Avoid the Addition Bias — by Paul Sloane
Catalysing Change Through Innovation Teams — by Janet Sernack
Innovation organization only thrives along with innovation culture — by Nicolas Bry
How to Conduct Virtual Office Hours — by Arlen Meyers

Keep innovating!

Follow me on LinkedIn

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The Rebirth of Blogging Innovation

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The Rebirth of Blogging Innovation

Join Us Here at Human-Centered Change and Innovation

Fifteen years ago I started writing Blogging Innovation on a cumbersome platform called Blogger.

It started as a place to share my observations and insights about business and innovation. Leveraging what I learned operating and optimizing the marketing engine powering what is now VRBO.com from Expedia, Blogging Innovation grew.

Blogging Innovation drew an increasingly large audience and its mission grew into:

“Making innovation insights accessible for the greater good.”

This led me to invite other leading innovation voices onto this growing platform to broaden the chorus of voices across a range of innovation-related specialties and topics.

I had the opportunity to go out and do video interviews with luminaries like Dean Kamen, Seth Godin, Dan Pink, John Hagel, and many others, sharing them with you on the blog and via my YouTube channel.

A global innovation community was born with Blogging Innovation transforming into Innovation Excellence and then into Disruptor League before I stepped away.

Recently I posted a slideshow on LinkedIn of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 and in communicating with the authors recognized for their contributions on the list it surfaced that people would be interested in contributing guest posts here.

Please follow the link, give it a like or leave a comment on LinkedIn supporting your favorite author on the list or add a name of someone I should watch for this year’s list.

Because people expressed interest in contributing articles to Human-Centered Change and Innovation, I’ve decided to allow some guest posts from select authors.

Here are the first three:

1. How to Conduct Virtual Office Hours
by Arlen Meyers

2. Innovation organization only thrives along with innovation culture
by Nicolas Bry

3. Catalysing Change Through Innovation Teams
by Janet Sernack

If you’ve contributed articles to Blogging Innovation in the past and are interested in contributing to Human-Centered Change and Innovation, please contact me and I’ll set you up with a user account.

Topics of particular interest include:

Innovation Culture
Innovation Methods
Change and Transformation
Human-Centered Design
Behavioral Science and Economics
Customer Experience and Insights
Employee Experience and Engagement
Organizational Psychology

Keep innovating!

Accelerate your change and transformation success

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Don’t Forget Branding as You Look for Business Growth

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Don't Forget Branding as You Look for Business Growth

People underestimate the importance of brand as they look to grow their business beyond their initial set of successful products and services. But, if you grow your business beyond your brand you’re doomed to fail.

Few of us have the luxury of being branding experts. Many of us can’t afford to engage an expensive branding agency to conduct a brand study.

Most small business owners are busy with the day-to-day operations of their business. The money they do have to spend on sales and marketing, they tend to invest in demand generation. This is a very logical choice as every business must maximize its revenue and minimize expenses to keep the lights on. But, if your business has been successful and has grown, you may find yourself in a slightly different situation.

Many companies that succeed and grow reach a point where that growth begins to taper off. It is often at this point where entrepreneurs begin to think about adding new products or services in new areas beyond their initial focus. If you choose to ignore the role of your brand at this point, you do so at your own peril.

A brand is more than the name of your business, your products, or your logo. If you have done a good job running your business, delivering your products and services, and the experiences around them, then your brand will stand for something – and might be worth something (brand equity). But what your brand stands for, your brand identity, is something that ultimately you do not control.

Yes, you can invest in brand positioning to shape your brand identity, but ultimately your customers (and non-customers) determine what your brand stands for. This fact is important as you look to expand your business into new areas you’re not currently in, to sell new products and services you don’t currently sell. The brand you have built up to this point will either be an asset or a liability as you look to grow into these new areas.

Your business exists because customers give it permission to exist. It can only grow into areas that prospective customers give it permission to grow into. If Taco Bell decides to enter the healthcare business, would you find them credible? Would you trust them to diagnose and treat you?

There must be an overlap between the directions you want to grow your business and the directions that prospective customers trust you to grow your business. If your new products and services don’t lie within the mental circle of trust that exists in the collective minds of your prospective customers, you will struggle.

Notice the focus on ‘prospective customers’ as I speak about your growth areas. This is because as you grow into new areas, your circle of trust may intersect with new people who are aware of your brand that are not currently your customers. Yes, your brand means something, even to those people who are NOT your customers.

You must mind your brand positioning and brand permissions not just with customers for your current products and services, but also with the most likely customers of the new products and services you’re hoping will provide the future growth of your business.

So, how do you find out what your brand stands for and what areas you can credibly extend into?

Unfortunately, there is no way to find this out without making an investment into interviewing people. Here are some options:

Pay a branding or market research agency to do this for you
Pay someone who works at one of these agencies to conduct these interviews for you as a side hustle through a gig worker exchange like fiverr
Create a short & sharp list of 2-3 questions to ask a handful of customers that quickly get to the heart of what your brand stands for and whether they view you as credible in the new area you’re considering
Use this same list of questions to quickly ask customers of businesses you view as potential competitors in the growth areas you’re looking to enter
Pay some of your customers, that you have a good relationship with and will give you the time and honest feedback, to spend more time understanding why they do business with you now and what other kinds of products & services they would trust you to provide

Whether you lack money or courage, there are options above to overcome either limitation. If you lack both, then see my previous article on what I’ve learned from becoming an accidental entrepreneur.

For the rest of you, I hope that you will heed the warnings of this article, find the suggestions useful, incorporate them as you consider potential areas to grow your business into, and select those products and services to invest in where you have both credibility and ability to execute with excellence.

Keep innovating!

This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: Pixabay

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