Four Questions to Ask When Aligning Your Brand & Reputation

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When you decide to advise, partner, collaborate, or join forces with another organization, their brand automatically becomes an extension of your own. You make connections all of the time. When deciding to align, sometimes there are important questions that are often overlooked, especially when passion runs high, the potential of the outcome looks promising, and there’s a lot of excitement between parties.
 
However, it can takes years to build a strong brand in the market and a matter of minutes to damage a reputation. The steps you take before you align can prevent the latter. 
 
Recently, Star Mountain Capital, a specialized investment manager, announced that I’ve joined the company as a Senior Advisor. You can check out Star Mountain here to learn more about their focus on the lower middle market. 
 
With my background and expertise in communications, marketing and digital media, I’ll help to further Star Mountain’s development in these areas, as well as provide value to its small and medium-sized portfolio company investment partners. 
 
When you’re making a decision to align your brand (and reputation), here are four simple questions you can ask and answer:
 
  1. Does the brand align with my ethics and values?
  2. Does the culture of the organization match my company culture and what I look for in a group of professionals?
  3. Would I be proud to promote and share on behalf of this brand, because I believe in the vision and mission?
  4. Am I learning and growing as a result of the partnership, initiative, collaboration, joint venture, or the reason that brings our brands together?
These questions may take a little more time and effort to uncover. However, by answering them, you can make all of your brand alignment more meaningful, and the answers will make your selection process easier too.
 
Here’s my video with more details on the topic of brand alignment, and answering these four simple questions.
 
Are there any questions you ask when you’re evaluating your alignment to other brands?