Do You Know Your Brand?
A brand is much more than just a visual element. Ideally, it also symbolizes the characteristics or qualities of who or what is represented by the brand.
To say Reigning Grace Ranch has a lot going on these days, would be an understatement! The month of October and November have been a whirlwind of activities with the Harvest Festival, Mentorship sessions in full swing, Sunday morning Cowboy Church, SBC Cowboy Days, weddings, Farm Fridays, corporate team buildings and not to mention the care of the Ranch, landscaping, horses and critters! We are incredibly blessed to open the Ranch to our community and show a different way of life. We have estimated an additional 1100 people that have come through the Jurassic gates of Reigning Grace Ranch in the last 45 days to experience all that the Ranch offers. Each time, folks are greeted by a smiling face of a volunteer or staff member and are welcomed to join in the sanctuary the Ranch provides.
Recently, I was asked by a parent and student on Farm Friday, “why do some of the horses have labels?” The question stumped me for a second, while I tried to figure out what they were seeing as “labels”. It quickly came to me that some of the horses were branded. I began teaching a lesson about why some horses were branded and what it meant. Each ranch has a very distinctive mark, a brand, that sets them apart from another. With this brand, it will tell someone, who understands brands, where a horse came from, what their breeding is, what their purpose is, as well as what the ranch stands for, possibly their integrity, history and their location. If livestock is lost or stolen, the brand can help someone to know where they belong.
This led into another conversation; I asked the children and parents, “What is your brand?” What is it that you want people to know about you when they see you?
It seems like in the days we live, it is so hard to see someone’s brand because there is so much confusion around who we are and about what we really stand for. Maybe you’re afraid to hurt someone’s feelings that may not share your viewpoint, maybe you’re not sure you will fit in, maybe you’re afraid to not step up because your brand is not of popular opinion or well understood. I don’t know about you, but I want to be distinctly set apart from others and branded in a way that anyone who meets me will know where I come from, my integrity, my location, and where I go when I am lost.
The sensei, in The Karate Kid, said it perfectly; “You must walk on the right side of the road, or the left side, but when you walk down the middle, you get squashed like grape.”
I know my brand well. Do you?
