The Guru Archetype: The Truth Will Set You Free!

The Guru Archetype is wise, intellectual, and good with facts and figures. This brand helps its customers make smarter decisions. We all need a Guru in our life. We trust them because they have the knowledge, experience, and education to back up their claims.

Can they be a bit boring? Maybe. Are they the smartest in the room? Probably. Should you trust them? Absolutely!

Gurus seek information through study, due diligence, objectivity, analysis, and self-reflection. People feel smarter by being around you and they feel that you help them make sense of the world.

WARNING:  If you choose the Guru Archetype, you MUST have a strong moral compass so as not to be lured by tactics that might degrade your trustworthiness.

Guru Archetype

More Info on the Guru Archetype

Check out the Guru Archetype page on Brand Archetypes

Podcast Episode 17 – The Guru Archetype

What’s it like to be a Guru?

Guru Words

Ability – You have the ability to decipher the info and deliver the goods

Accomplished – You and your team are smart and educated. You know what you are doing.

Wisdom – Not just smart, but wise.

Capable – Your clients trust that you are capable. You remain steady.

Evaluate – You are able to evaluate complex ideas and data and pull out the relevant information.

Benefit – You weigh the pros and cons and promote the benefits of all the options.

Potential – You see and nurture the potential in others.

Verify – Everything you claim can always be verified by data.

Buy the full Guru Word Bank for $29.95. Pages and pages of great words and phrases to sprinkle into your content. Sound like a guru in everything you do. Email amy@zeediamedia.com to purchase.

More Fun Facts about the Guru

The Guru is also known as the sage, the teacher, the scholar, the expert, and the detective.

Sub-Archetypes

The Teacher – Focuses on imparting knowledge and information.

The Guru – Imbued with wisdom and experience that others may draw upon.

Examples of the Guru Archetype

Popular Guru Brands include:

  • Google
  • Wall Street Journal
  • CNN
  • Oprah
  • Best Buy’s Geek Squad
  • SpaceX
  • GlassDoor
  • Indeed.com

Can you think of others? Drop them in the comments and we’ll add them to our list! Even if it’s your brand!

Is Your Business a Guru?

  • Does your business provide expertise/information to your customers?
  • Does your business encourage customers and clients to think?
  • Is your brand based on a new scientific breakthrough or revolutionary idea?
  • Are your products/services differentiated from competitors whose quality or performance is questionable?
  • Do you instill trust and confidence in your customers based on your experience?
  • Do you have a product or service that depends on data, information, methodical processes?
If you said “yes” to any (or a lot) of the above, you just may be a Guru!

Take the Questionnaire to Find Out

Standing up Against The Competition

It’s ALL About Trust. The Guru always has the opportunity to share their knowledge and help people become smarter and more informed. The more research, stats, information, and explanations you can provide the more trustworthy and reliable you become. You are the “go-to” source for information in your industry. You truly are an industry expert.

Guru brands make their customers feel wise, intelligent, informed, and in the know. They back up their knowledge with facts and figures, and they do the research. They create trust with their employees and clients because they prove what they know. They’ve got the chops to deliver on the goods.

Caution: Gurus might often lack social graces, especially if they are really passionate about their ideas. Gurus really hate being outsmarted, proven wrong, tricked, or lied to. They can come across as a “know it all.”  In marketing especially, oftentimes emotions will trump knowledge and data.  It would be a mistake to discount or ignore this fact altogether.

Embracing Your Archetype

Once you choose an archetype, it is important to look at everything you do through that lens. Zeedia Media has a process and schedule that cuts it up into bite-size pieces tackling only one hurdle at a time in a way that makes sense.

We guide you to look at each aspect of your business, starting with your name and logo. Is it GURU enough? Can it be improved upon? Then we move onto colors, fonts, taglines, etc. until each element of your brand and company culture has been tweaked and improved to be in line with your brand. This is true no matter which archetype you pick.

With any brand initiative, the most important element is consistency. The more consistent your message is the bigger impact you will have over time in your space. People will start to recognize your company and associate it with GURU-like qualities- whether they realize it or not.

We are dying to know!

Are you a GURU brand? Let us know. Show us what you have been doing so far to make your brand trustworthy and wise.

Need help? We are here for you.

517-878-7228

amy@zeediamedia.com

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