I while ago I was assisting a member of management at a Community Radio Station in another country with some brand building. They wanted to lift their station profile and he also wanted some tools to use then and into the future.
I dug up from my collection of business books one by John Cinquina – an Australian Brand Communicator – I can honestly say I LOVED his book and attended one of his workshops in 2015 which is where I brought the second edition version that we used.
Anyway the questions that this Community Radio Station were asking reminded me of this book so having fished it out I started to work through the different chapters and started to prepare a game plan with them.
The subtitle of the book “Unlocking Your Business Growth Potential” was not a lie – stepping through Johns tool kit I was able to put together a very comprehensive plan for them. Something that has resulted in exponential growth for them, and they have continued to grow since 2018.
First we started with an audit of what they did, good and bad examples of both.
Next who they were in the community and how people saw them – this took perhaps the longest to put together, but was well worth the time.
After that – their target audience, and not only who they were, but why they engaged with the station – from clients who advertised and supported the station, to listeners – everyone who was in their target sights.
We then did a one on one discussion of everything, and drew our conclusions of who they were, what they wanted to achieve, and how they were going to achieve it.
It was a comprehensive marketing brand management plan that ticked every one of the steps within John’s book – and I can tell you that John nailed it perfectly for us – answering almost 100% of our questions, and if we couldn’t find an answer in the book – it wasn’t far away at his website (which I have noted has changed A LOT since we did this in 2018).
So to round this review up – I can recommend BUILD GREAT BRANDS for anyone looking at trying to uncover and unlock some business growth potential – you have to stick to Johns plan to get results, to make your goals evident and share those within your station with everyone so you know where you are going – and when you hit a bump – look closely at it and figure out why it happened. Rework your plan again and follow through – and perhaps the biggest tip I can give without giving anything away is that a plan is only a plan for a short period of time – its how tings are going now. Within a year you will need to re-do it, and every year after that. Don’t just think you can set and forget your plan once it is in place.
The book is still available in an updated print at AMAZON – and John now lives in America – putting out more material, and training.
Should you buy the book – YES!
Should you read it? YES!
Should you use the toolkits within and start planning your goals – HECK YES!
What are you waiting for? DO IT!!!!
