Your brand does not belong to you. At least, not in the way you think it does.

In the beginning your brand started as an idea in your own mind. Your brand was something you perceived based on your personal values, your product, the industry in which you would sell your product, the audience to which you would market your product, the thing that made your product unique, and the story of how your product came to be. It was this moment in time, before you shared your idea with anyone else, when your brand was in its purest form.

The second your idea spread beyond yourself, your brand took on a new life. Other people, based on their interaction with your product, with your industry, with you, and based on their personal story leading up to those interactions, developed their own unique perception of your brand. If you were to hold your customer’s brand perception up beside your perception of your brand, there may be some similarities, but ultimately they would be different. If you were to hold up the brand perceptions of a handful of your customers, they would each be unique. This is the reality that you are facing when you share your beloved idea with the world.

Your brand is the collection of perceptions held by each person who comes into contact with it.

Accepting this reality is a surrender of sorts. You are surrendering the idea that your own perception of your brand would be shared universally. You gain something powerful in this surrender, however. You gain the responsibility to purposefully shape the perceptions of others. Through each interaction you are given the opportunity to provide an experience that guides your customer along a path that will lead them to a perception of your brand that is closer to your original intent. Because of this, each interaction is meaningful. There is not one interaction your customer will have with your brand that will not shape their perception of your brand. It could be seeing your product on a web page. It could be reading about your product from a third party publication. It could be the phone conversation they had with your receptionist. It could be an experience they had with a similar product in your industry.

Below, I’ve outlined six general categories of brand perception. These are the touch points that are most heavily judged when your customer is developing their perception of your brand:

Quality
What is the quality of your product? How does it compare to the quality of other products in your industry? When a customer holds your product in their hand, or views your product on a screen, or hears your product in their earbuds, what do they tell themselves about the amount of care and attention to detail used to manufacture this product?

Function
Does your product perform its function? Does your product meet a real need? Does your product do what it promises? Does it do this consistently? Does your product wear out? How clear is it to the customer how to best use your product so that it can perform its function most efficiently?

Timeliness
How soon after ordering does your product arrive? If it is necessarily delayed, is it worth the wait? Does it come at the time your customer needs it most? Does it come at the time your customer expects? Does it come at the frequency promised?

Positioning
Among what other things does your product sit? Is it surrounded by advertisements? Is it surrounded by similar products? Is it priced competitively? Is it priced as a luxury? What kind of language is used to describe your product?

Marketing
How are customers hearing about your product? Are you using traditional advertising channels? Are you using social media? How are your product’s ambassadors sharing your message? Does your potential customer have the information they need to make a purchase?

Personal Interaction
How does your customer’s interaction with any person on your team (from the CEO to the janator) speak of your brand?

It’s not my job to tell you what the answer to these questions should be, but if you want your answers to these questions to be the same as your customer’s answers, you’ve got to be purposeful about each interaction your customer has with your brand. This isn’t to say that you’ll be able to chase down every single touch point, but start with the big ones and work your way down. The closer your customer is to seeing your brand the way you do, the easier it will be to bring them into the story you’re telling with your brand, which will lead to deeper trust, higher profits, and greater loyalty.